Social media has changed a lot about how we do business and live our lives. Staying connected to people who are far away and meeting new people long distance are all things that were incredibly difficult before the ease of social media communication. It is also easier to stay up to date on what is happening in your community, while simultaneously making it easier for businesses and people alike to communicate with each other. As with every new development in any industry, there are ups and there are downs. This certainly applies to social media within the beauty industry.
Social media has tremendously changed the way businesses, cosmetologists, makeup artists and beauticians of every type communicate and engage. It has created a new atmosphere and approach to both the business and social sides of all cosmetic professions. Let’s take a look at some of the many ways social media is changing the beauty industry.
Social Media and Increased Competition in the Beauty Industry
There is a certain level of competition in any career field. While there was always a certain degree of competition in the beauty industry, social media has increased and accelerated that competition in a couple of different areas of the beauty industry.
Business Competition
There are visibility advantages to using social media as a part of cosmetology platform, but they are the same advantages that every other business has. The extreme availability and accessibility to services and information that social media has facilitated has made the beauty industry a crowded one. In the age of such digitally heightened financial competition, it is important that you find a way to set yourself apart. This means knowing how to engage and attract your target audience through various social media platforms, as well as how to convince them to try your makeup product or use your cosmetology services. Creating a personal side to business with social media is important, but it can be difficult to strike a balance between coming on too strong and being disengaged when the competition is so fierce.
Personal Competition
Not all cosmetologists are entrepreneurs or participate in traditional cosmetology business avenues like beauty production. Many are enthusiastic artists, technique innovators and product creators. These are the kinds of people with the ideas that keep the industry progressing and evolving. For these types of cosmetologists, social media is often used as a portfolio or process journal to engage with the public about what they are working on. However, in all social media platforms, as with the internet itself, ideas move quickly. There is a lot of difficulty when it comes to increasing the visibility of your personal work . It can be easy for multiple people’s ideas to accidentally overlap and to be drowned-out by everyone else trying to be heard and seen. If you are hoping to garner attention for your personal work, it is going to take originality and dedication in the highly competitive field of social media personality.
Social Media and Opportunity in the Beauty Industry
The involvement of social media in the beauty industry has increased the competition but it has also birthed new opportunities for success. Whether you are hoping to make more people aware of your traditional beauty services or looking to make a digital impact on the beauty industry, social media is going to be a key advantage in succeeding in either direction.
Social Media Visibility
The number of people that businesses and independent cosmetologists are able to reach and communicate with is incredible thanks to social media. It has created the opportunity for people to become familiar with and consider your services in a no pressure environment that doesn’t require you to constantly engage. Having a presence in several aspects of social media makes it incredibly easy for the people on any of those platforms to search for and find your products, services, or content in an instant. It also allows the customer to stumble on your cosmetology or makeup business in serendipitous ways they otherwise could not have.
New Career Paths
Social media has created opportunities for cosmetologists to become online personalities and product endorsers. The arrival of social media brought cosmetologists who were once forced to be in the background right into the spotlight, if they wanted to be. It has created a highly accessible way to offer a unique and personal perspective of whatever specialized area of cosmetology they happen to be certified in. Careers that would have been impossible have been created thanks to the wide audiences, social media has provided at our fingertips.
Social Media and Promotion in the Beauty Industry
Drumming up business is no easy task in any economic climate. Even if you already have a steady stream of clients it can be difficult to build reliable loyalty in that relationship. Thanks to social media, getting clients and turning them into repeat clients is now easier than it ever has been.
Social Media Advertisement
Getting the word out about a new product, service or business is no longer a labor-intensive process. You don’t have to wait to place an ad or plan an elaborate coupon mailing campaign. Now that social media is available to anyone in the beauty industry, who wants to utilize it, you can go from conceptualizing promotional content to posting it within a matter of hours. Having a digital platform for advertisement like social media also lets you be more creative and expressive with your advertising content options.
Client Interaction and Relations on Social Media
Comment sections and online community groups are a great way to keep your customers engaged with and talking about your work through social media. Whether it is with you directly or with each other, communication about your work in the beauty industry creates a level of relevance that can really take off and push you to the next level. That kind of infectious client enthusiasm can translate into an increase in profits via customer-to-customer promotion. Discount and prize competitions along relatable and engaging social content can help you create brand loyalty and enhance customer relations in the beauty industry.
Using Social Media for Innovation and Information in the Beauty Industry
Staying up to date with the latest styles and skills of the beauty industry can be difficult. It takes time and commitment to keep your skills sharp and your information current. Social media is a great way to stay engaged in the culture of the industry along with the various disciplines of it.
Using Social Media to Stay on the Cutting Edge of Trends
Trends are a tricky part of the beauty industry. They come, go, resurface and get reworked into new versions of their old selves. Social media gives you a place to look at things that innovators are currently working on, see what clients are talking about, explore what is popular among certain groups and see a variety of variations and interpretations of whatever the current trends happen to be. It also gives you an opportunity to peek into what clients and influencers are looking forward to or hoping for next.
Tutorials and References
Techniques and tools change frequently in the beauty industry. Just when it seems that you have become acquainted and familiar with every aspect of your field, something new appears out of thin air. Luckily social media is an easy way to watch cosmetology and makeup tutorials, get experienced advice and get tips from the people making these changes. It also gives you the advantage of watching and re-watching explanations, research instructions, trying and failing in the privacy of your own home. Social media has been instrumental in maintaining education within the beauty industry.
Social Media and Community Support in the Beauty Industry
Being involved in the business side of beauty can feel lonely no matter what area of the industry you happen to be involved in. When you are trying to make a name for yourself it can be difficult to make friends or get advice from those close to you. It often puts you in the position of asking for help from your direct competition. It also could be that there aren’t a lot of people in your area doing what you’re doing. Social media has helped to make this kind of isolation in the beauty industry a thing of the past.
Professional Networking
Not every relationship within the beauty industry must be a competitive one. While it is impossible to avoid competition in any industry, there are also instances when two people or businesses can benefit from cooperating and working together. Things like coordinating sales with other businesses and cross promotion among compatible services are a couple of examples of how social media can help you form financially beneficial relationships. You can also get advice from people in the beauty industry without having to go to those that you are directly in competition with.
Strictly Social
The beauty industry has also benefited from the support and encouragement that social media can provided through online socialization. Whether it is a bit of positivity from fellow cosmetology students while you complete your training or a place for you to be a creative beauty professional, social media can be personally beneficial to people across the spectrum of cosmetology. It enhances the exchange of ideas and is a place that can cultivate expansive excitement about all aspects of beauty. The shared enthusiasm from customers and other cosmetologist can create effects that reach further than they ever would have without social media. Those are the kinds of things that keep professionals and patrons alike fascinated by the beauty industry. Now it’s easier to access than ever before.
Combining beauty and business has created an exciting field of boundless creativity and unapologetic self-expression through cosmetology. Including social media into that mixture has certainly changed some aspects of it, but it has also helped elevated it, making it more accessible to those who want to utilize and participate in it.
Ready to start changing the beauty industry with the help of social media? Interested in earning your diploma in Cosmetology? Meridian College offers a Cosmetology training program in Florida that prepares you to deliver high–quality beauty and hair services to both men and women. Their hands–on Cosmetology training program gives you the skills you need to start an exciting career and become a leader in the beauty industry.
Contact Meridian College today to learn more about becoming a cosmetologist.