Social Media Marketing for Barbers: A 5-Step Beginner’s Guide

With 82% of the US population on social media, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok can be potential goldmines for barbers.

But how do you attract new clients on social media as a barber and get them to book with you?

The answer: Social media marketing.

Digital marketing is crucial for just about any small business these days — and it’s especially true for barbers.

In addition to:

Social media marketing is a surefire way to grow your client list and ramp up business.

To sharpen those social media barbershop chops, we put together a quick beginner’s guide on using social media as a barber.

With these five tips, you’ll be a true social media marketing pro in no time!

Know Your Target Audience

If you run your own barbershop, you know who your clients are and more importantly — how to connect with them.

That’s why social media is such a game-changer for barbers: It takes your natural charm and knack for building relationships and multiplies them.

So, before you consider your social media marketing strategy, you need to understand your clients (i.e. your target audience).

Ask yourself a few straightforward questions:

Who are my clients?
What are they interested in?
How does my business help them?

Once you know your clients and what they like, you can build posts (and hashtags, captions, and bios) that will get their attention, hook them, and ultimately keep them engaged with your brand.

Choose Your Platforms

Not all social media platforms are made for every type of business.

Folks that are on Facebook may not always be the same folks on TikTok.

So, it’s smart to consider which platforms will work best for your barbershop.

While it can vary depending on who your clients are, the most popular social media platforms for barbers tend to be Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook.

Consider where your clients are and why, and how your barbershop will keep them engaged on the social media platforms you choose.

Pro Tip: If you don’t already have an online scheduling system as a barber, Vagaro has all the tools for barbers to manage their business. With an on-the-go calendar, marketing tools, and built-in payment processing, you’re sure to crush the barber game!

Stay Engaged

Growing your business and finding new clients on social media takes a lot of time, attention, and consistency.

It ultimately comes down to one thing: Engagement.

Once you know your audience and the platforms to use, consistently engaging on social media is the biggest way to let potential clients get to know you and your business.

Here are five simple tips to help you stay engaged with clients on social media:

1. Show up every freakin’ day.

No matter the platform(s) you choose, be sure to log on every day to share content or reply to comments.

2. Share photos or videos of you at work.

Let clients see you at work, smiling and connecting with other clients.

3. Post before-and-after photos.

Show clients some of your most transformative work!

4. Educate your clients.

Share hair or beard maintenance tips and tricks clients can use between appointments.

5. Interact with your audience.

If someone writes a comment on one of your posts — good or bad — always take the time to respond.

Pro Tip: Don’t miss our guide to CTA (call-to-action) buttons to make booking even easier on your clients!

Automate, Automate, Automate

As we mentioned before, staying engaged with clients on social media can take up a lot of time.

While you can’t eliminate all the leg work of managing your accounts, there are ways to automate some of the tasks.

Plenty of third-party apps out there, like Sprout Social or Hootsuite, help small businesses automate their social media marketing efforts.

(Here are our favorite social media marketing tools.)

After you found one that works for you, here’s what you want to do:

Make time at the beginning of each week or each month to create the content you want to post.

Schedule your content.

Let the automation app do the rest!

Pro Tip: Speaking of automation… With Vagaro, you can automate your email marketing efforts as well! Set up automatic birthday, thank you, and client follow-up emails to keep clients engaged.

Choose the Best Hashtags

Hashtags are an easy way to group conversations or posts together into similar topics.

This makes it easier for clients to come across content they’re interested in.

There are a ton of hashtags out there for barbers, barbershops, and barber culture in general.

Knowing the right tags to use gives you the best chance of ramping up your traffic.

While some research may be involved to get the most out of specific hashtags for your business and what you offer, here are the most popular ones for #barber right now:

#barbering
#barberworld
#barbersince
#barberconnect
#masterbarber
#barbering
#barberstyle
#fade
#barberlife
#igbarber
#barbersofinstagram
#barberphotography