Author, educator, and marketing consultant Season Bennett has been working with beauty professionals and business owners since 2016. She is the founder of the online school The Social Barber Academy and author of The Social Barber: The Ultimate How-To Social Media Marketing Guide for Barbers and Stylists.
Bennett, who quit a lucrative executive position at a Fortune 50 company to start her education business, espouses the same principles in marketing for a solopreneur or small business as she would for a multinational corporation.
Recently, Bennett sat down with American Salon to discuss some of the biggest digital do’s and don’ts she emphasizes again and again in her work with beauty and grooming professionals.
Top 10 Digital Do's and Don'ts for Salons & Barbershops
1. DON’T equate engagement with sales.
A lot of people get distracted by engagement, and think more likes or more followers equals more money. I have worked with many very large creators, both in and out of the industry, and it’s clear that is not the case.
Beauty professionals selling services need to get people in their local area to come to their brick-and-mortar.
Now, you might be able to hack the algorithm and get millions of views on your video. But it doesn’t help you if those people are in Europe. They are not going to come get services at your salon or barbershop.
2. DO curate an email list.
People do not realize that social media is just the beginning of the sales process. People following you on social media is not enough; you need to capture them asap. I want my clients getting people’s contact info and building an email list.
Yes, email email email! Email is literally still the GOAT in marketing. People are shocked to know that.
Besides, even if you get a lot of followers, what sometimes happens is the algorithm might stop showing your content. I’ve seen so many accounts taken away or blocked at 50K followers. If you’ve made your whole business dependent on social media, that can be devastating.
3. DO remember that consistency > frequency.
One thing that has not changed in social media in 10 years is that consistency is the most important element. You don’t have to post frequently, but you do have to post consistently.
I see so many people get motivated and excited and they start posting every single day, and then it very quickly dies out, and that gets them nowhere.
You can start at once a week and build from there, but that is the first nugget, that is the baseline. We can keep getting better and adding more posts, but we have to start somewhere.
4. DON’T make your business social media all about you.
If you can talk about your customers’ pain points you’ll always be okay. In posting content, you should always be thinking about what the customer needs and wants.
Combine that with the thing that makes you shine. What do clients love about you? Promote that.
If you want to advertise a type of promotion or anything like that, awesome. But be thinking about the client all the time. People who put themselves first and not their client base tend to not do well on social media.
5. DON’T use industry terms in client-facing communications.
As someone who is not a beauty professional, one thing I see too much of is people using terms that customers might not be familiar with, on their booking page or service menus.
A lot of customers don’t know the difference between a full foil or a single process or a balayage, for instance. I spend so much time with the biggest beauty professionals in the world, and even I sometimes go on these booking menus and don’t know which one I would want.
That can eventually lead to an upset customer because they didn’t book what they needed and then they didn’t get what they wanted.
You don’t want someone to find you on social media and go to book you and stop because they don’t know what to pick. And they don’t come back.
6. DO make sure your digital presence reflects your physical business.
Anybody can cut or color hair; it’s about how you make them feel once they get there. And that needs to come across online.
I think a big mistake people make is JUST posting their work. Having a story behind the work, showing them the heart and the personality behind the work, is going to take it to the next level every time.
Also please, please, please remember your music choices need to reflect your brand. So many people use music on their social posts they would never ever play in their salon because the lyrics can easily offend people.
This is not your personal account, this is your business account. You’re not going to see Neiman Marcus posting vulgar lyrics. If you want to use that song, find the edited version.
The way you show up online is how people expect your physical business to be.
7. DO ask your clients what they want and need.
The best thing that beauty professionals can do offline to support their social media is to remember they want to address customers’ pain points — so that means really talking to clients when they’re in front of you.
Find out what’s going on with them. Ask them what they may need, what they want, what they’re interested in.
These things change, and having a running dialogue with your client base is the best way to keep your social media geared toward them.
8. DON’T mistake cheap social management for good social management.
A lot of people think they can get the youngest person at the shop to manage their social accounts for free, or hire somebody for three dollars an hour from Bangladesh, and get quality social management.
While that could be possible, it can only ever happen if you know how to lead them. You need to know enough about your social media and your business to know what to ask for and what to expect.
That’s true all the time, even if you’re paying a ton of money for professional social management. You have to know how to hire somebody, what questions to ask, how to communicate with them, and how to train them. We go through that a lot in my classes.
You can’t make the mistake of thinking someone will just take over your social media without your involvement and have it work out how you want it.
9. DO: Create passive income online.
People in the beauty industry are so knowledgeable and have valuable information to share. Just like I started my own online school, I’ve helped thousands of beauty professionals start their online school.
Ebooks, courses, checklists, templates — these are things you can sell online to people all over the world. While you have your brick-and-mortar business, you can also sell your knowledge online.
I also encourage people to make money from the actual social media platform. I’m very passionate about monetizing your social media through your own brand.
10. DO set up automations to do the work for you.
I talk about passive income, but I still see those who don’t make it passive, because they are so occupied responding to people in person. That’s just creating another job for themselves. We have to set up automations so it’s effortless.
When people are asking the same questions over and over, salon owners can set it up so they’re answered automatically.
People resist because they don’t want to pay for the processors. The fee is something like 2.9 percent. It’s more than worth it to have everything done for you.
That rule applies to every type of communication that can be automated — texts, emails, websites. You can’t be online 24/7, but automatic responses can. Let them close the deal for you.
Season Bennett will be teaching "Hack The Algorithm: Social Media Success Strategies for Beauty Entrepreneurs," "Secrets to Generating Passive Income With Digital Products," and "Booked Solid: The Ultimate Social Media Playbook to Build a Thriving Beauty Business" at the International Beauty Show-New York from March 23-25, 2025. Register here.