As a pet groomer, marketing and getting brand exposure is vital to finding and maintaining success. One of the best ways to market your pet grooming business is through social media.
Your social media pages are the place to reach out and interact with customers, and most importantly, show your work. An Instagram page, for example, is essentially a free gallery for you to show your current and future clients what they can expect from you.
Maintaining an active and effective social media presence is essential to building your business and forming your brand. Here are a few tips to help you on your way:
1. Make Sure Your Customers Tag You and Use Your Business Name In the Location of Their Posts
Social media business searches can be just as important as search engines for businesses like pet groomers, where potential clients want to see your work before giving you their business. Let’s say a dog owner googles “dog groomer near me,” and your business listing pops up among the other dog groomers in town. There’s a high chance that the first thing this dog owner will do is search your business on Instagram.
If your clients post images of their pets online after you’ve worked with them, ask them to:
- Tag you
- Use your business in the location portion of their post
By doing this, you ensure that anybody who searches for your name on social media will see a barrage of your success.
2. Document Your Process Using Instagram and Facebook Stories
Here are a few facts:
- There are an estimated 800 million active users on Instagram.
- Over 1 million advertisers use Instagram
- About 95 million photos and videos are shared every day on Instagram
All this is to say, it’s very easy for your posts to get lost in the deluge. Between the endless posts and advertisements, coupled with the mysterious workings of social media algorithms, there’s an unfortunate chance that the images, videos, and ads you make will never see the light of day (or screen) for many of your current and potential followers.
One way to work around this is to take advantage of Instagram and Facebook story features. This puts your name and logo right at the top of the screen of your followers, and they’ll have a much greater chance of actually seeing what you produce.
Putting ads in your story can also be useful, as your advertisements will slide in alongside the regular roll of stories.
3. Run a Giveaway
Giveaways can be especially useful in gaining new followers, increasing brand exposure, and drumming up new business. Consider doing something like this:
- Post an image in your feed and on your story teasing a giveaway announcement coming in the next few days.
- On your selected date, post new images on your feed and story announcing the giveaway. Chose a bright and noticeable image for this.
- Announce the prize. This could be a free cleaning, half off a grooming—whatever you feel will entice people the most.
- Lay out the rules in order to be eligible to win. Here are some good ones:
- Like the photo.
- Follow your page (if they aren’t already).
- Tag a friend in the comments. Each friend you tag constitutes an entry.
This will get new eyes on your page, hopefully win you some new followers and clients, and can help you gain new advocates for your brand.
4. Partner Up Within Your Community
Odds are, you aren’t the only pet grooming business in your area. One good way to stand out from the competition is to make connections within your niche.
For example, a potential client may not know which pet groomer in town is the best, but they may already have hired a dog walker. This dog walker can become a good referral source for you.
Seek out partnerships with people in your niche like this to promote your product. Reach out to dog walkers, pet store owners, or other local businesses and influencers to see what opportunities there are for partnerships.
Joint giveaways, promotions, and tagging each other in posts are some options to consider. This integrates you into the local community surrounding your industry and gives you access to the followers of other local successes.
5. Don’t Be Afraid of the Hashtag
One of the best ways to make yourself easily discoverable is to fill up on hashtags before you publish a post. They’re a good way for people to find you based on their interests. Here are a few guidelines:
- Don’t repeat hashtags every post
- Integrate your location into your hashtags—i.e. #LosAngelesDogGroomer, or #PhoenixPetGroomer
- Scout out your competition and select a few of the hashtags they use to mix into your selection
- Try out a hashtag generator—this one is good—but always give any list you pull a good check before putting it on a post
- Do some research—look at similar companies that you like and see what they’re doing
Hashtags are one of the easiest ways to reach a broad audience. Don’t depend on your hashtags to build a following, but don’t discount their utility either.
As you build your social media following, let us know—what’s working for you? What isn’t? Of course, don’t forget to follow PCI on Instagram and like and follow us on Facebook.
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