In today’s digital world, people are looking for a way to connect with brands on a deeper level, far beyond a traditional website. As an independent salon owner, social media can be utilized to create a secondary face of your salon. Instagram especially is a platform on which you have the opportunity to create a visual story of your brand and provide valuable messaging to your clients and followers. Let’s talk about that for a moment. How well have you been keeping up with posting content, tagging, hashtagging, and everything in between? “Social media, especially Instagram, has been a huge tool in building my business,” shares Morgan Cameron, owner of Enlightened Beauty in Sacramento, California (@enlightenedbeauty). “If you’re trying to build your business using this tool, ask yourself, ‘What do you think of when you look at your Instagram feed?’ Look at the colors, the pictures, the messages you want to convey and portray about your business. Even when you’re posting before and after photos, you want everything to convey a specific and whole message about who you are and what your business is. Something else to keep at the top of your priorities is to make sure you’re using the same color palette throughout and always, ALWAYS, remember to hashtag EVERYTHING!” Get more advice from Morgan Cameron in this 2018 Faces of Sola (FOS) Career Advice blog post, HERE. Morgan just mentioned something quite imperative when it comes to a beauty professionals Instagram account—before and after photos. Posting these transformation gives potential clients and existing clients a peek at what you’re able to produce and create for each person who walks into your studio. You hear it all the time—take off the cape, find a neutral wall and set up a ring light. (talk to your Sola manager about setting up the perfect Instagram wall in your Sola location!) For another FOS Ashley Lewis, owner of Nest Hair Studio in Richmond, VA (@the_blondologist) she wanted to step up her paint game with the wall color inside her studio. It wasn’t just about keeping it neutral; it was more about being strategic and how it was going to benefit her clients and her presence on social media. We’ll let her explain: “The walls in Nest have been painted a color called Bridal Rose. It is the softest blush color. We did some research on what the perfect hue would be to complement any hair and skin color, and this is the color we found. It is the most beautiful, softest blush color we’ve ever seen! We also have one of our walls painted a high-reflective white that we use for all our before and after photos. We do not have any windows in our studio so this wall gives us some nice reflection and it is a nice, clean slate for photography.” You can check out some of Ashley’s before and after work HERE in this Recreate This Look: That Blonde Life how-to. If you have big social media dreams of having thousands upon thousands of followers, remember that social media is not about collecting followers. Engagement and the quality of your followers is much more important than the number of people following your account. Remember to create conversation and provide value to those who choose to follow your brand. More importantly, please do NOT purchase followers! “My build has been completely organic,” shares another one of our 2018 FOS, LaShonda Banks, from Tress Elite Salon in Atlanta (@tresselitesalon2). “All of my followers have chosen to follow me. Back in June/July of 2016, I had 200 or so followers and was able to grow it to 70K. Back when I had 200, I was complaining to my older sister how slow business was