– Episode 338Hayley Mears

Episode 338: Transcript

GMSB 338

[00:00:00] ​

[00:00:05] Antony Whitaker: Hello, and welcome to today’s episode of the Grow My Salon Business podcast. I’m your host Antony Whitaker, and as always, it is great to have you join us here today. Every week, I either bring a guest onto the show or I’ll dive into a new idea or revisit the foundations of what it takes to succeed in the salon industry today.

[00:00:23] And with every episode, I will aim to bring you practical and actionable opportunities that you can run with in your business today. Now, today I am joined once again by Hayley Mears, whose area of expertise is Instagram and Canva. Hayley has also been a contributor to our marketing course, which is open for enrolment on Monday the 16th of March.

[00:00:47] In the fast moving world of digital marketing and the constant platform and algorithm updates, it’s important to be on top of the changes and the opportunities that change presents for you and your business. So in today’s podcast, we’re going to discuss the three steps structure needed for a successful Instagram carousel.

[00:01:07] We’re going to talk about why the Instagram algorithm now rewards, saves and shares over likes, and what are the top three takeaways that you should be doing? To ensure that your Instagram marketing is working effectively for you in 2026 and lots more. So without further ado, welcome back to the show. Haley Mears

[00:01:28] Hayley Mears: Thanks for having me.

[00:01:30] Antony Whitaker: Hayley, it’s great to have you back again. It’s, um, really important part of the, the marketing course that we’ve been working on together. for me to have you dip in and out of our weekly podcast, give people, you know, insights on different things that are happening in the world of, particularly Instagram and Canva,

[00:01:46] Antony Whitaker: So look, let’s, let’s jump straight in today, and I want to begin with this question. By asking you about the, three step structure that every good carousel needs to adhere to. We’re going to talk a little bit about carousels, and this whole call is really going to be essentially about Instagram.

[00:02:04] Antony Whitaker: so what are the, you know, the three step structure, so to speak, that’s needed today for a successful Instagram carousel?

[00:02:12] Hayley Mears: Well, I think a carousel just to, you know, kind of explain on a foundation level to everyone can be up to 10 different slides and that will probably extend to even more in the future. So you have the ability to take someone on a bit of a journey and tell a story and from a marketing perspective.

[00:02:30] Hayley Mears: The first slide of that carousel, is basically telling, or in many cases, teasing what the content is going to be. So creating a really great hook on that first piece is important because you need to give someone a reason to slide and swipe across and have a look at the rest of the story and go on that journey with you.

[00:02:54] Hayley Mears: Everything that sits in the middle needs to be the value. Um, and that value is something that they can take away, a learning, a piece of education, or anything that is a high reward piece of content for them. And that could be told in a number of different ways, over a number of different slides, depending on what the topic is.

[00:03:18] Hayley Mears: But you should always end the carousel with your call to action and we can talk a little bit more about, you know, what I suggest in terms of that call to action. But those would be the three pieces that kind of make up, the structure of something that’s going to perform really well. Yes.

[00:03:34] Antony Whitaker: Okay, so it’s a hook at the beginning. So something to get them engaged straight away, and then content bit in the middle, and then call to action at the end. They’re the three things that. Every carousels got to have. Um, I know that we’ve been talking a bit about how, important carousels have become all of a sudden.

[00:03:54] Antony Whitaker: Have they superseded videos or is it just that carousels are having their moment in the sun again?

[00:04:02] Hayley Mears: I would say they’re not superseding videos. However, they are growing faster than what videos are. So therefore they’re kind of having a moment. They had, they had a quite a significant moment, but more so in an album sense because, you know, you could have a Facebook album previously, and Instagram didn’t have that function.

[00:04:21] Hayley Mears: So carousels was used to, you know, facilitate a collection. However, now I see it being used as a collection or something that’s very specific in, um, the story and the narrative of one topic, not multiple topics.

[00:04:37] Antony Whitaker: Right. Okay. what would be an example of a good hook that you’ve seen, or maybe it’s on your own Instagram or someone else’s that you’ve seen where you thought, wow, that is such a great hook.

[00:04:49] Hayley Mears: Well, I find hooks very difficult to write and to create. I think they are really hard because it’s, you don’t want to tell the person the information you’re about to give them. You want to tease it so that they’re so intrigued that they keep swiping. And one of the simple, uh. Processes that I’ve created to write my hooks is to break it down and give them, you know, tips and I tell them how many tips I’m going to give them.

[00:05:17] Hayley Mears: So an example of that was, uh, or, well, for mine I’ll be like five things that you were doing on your Instagram that is killing your reach. So in order to find out what those five things are, you need to swipe across the landing page carousel and go onto pages two to six with page seven being the call to action.

[00:05:38] Hayley Mears: And on of those individual slides of the carousel, I give a new piece of information.

[00:05:44] Antony Whitaker: right. Got it. Okay. So a number is important. Not always. It

[00:05:51] Hayley Mears: Not always.

[00:05:52] Antony Whitaker: you know, but a number can be a good thing about a hook. Yeah. Because it it, what does a number do? Does that make it feel easy, manageable, bite-sized bits of

[00:06:01] Antony Whitaker: information here

[00:06:02] Antony Whitaker: if you Yeah, I think so too.

[00:06:03] Hayley Mears: I think I think so too. I think there’s a real psychology behind, I’m gonna learn three things. I can do that, that, that makes it tangible and easy. Um, not like, here’s 25 things because really overwhelming.

[00:06:16] Hayley Mears: Something and I, I would love everyone at home to just try this and, and see what kind of uptake you get. And that could be the most requested haircut in January, 2026. And then I guess the hook underneath that is the results will surprise you.

[00:06:32] Antony Whitaker: Okay. Yeah. Good. Good.

[00:06:34] Hayley Mears: Saying, you know, look, we’re getting, there’s a new look happening and this is what we’re, what’s being requested, but it’s not necessarily what you think it’s going to be.

[00:06:41] Hayley Mears: Take a look, come with us on the journey and we’ll talk you through why this particular look is popular requested, and you know, the foundations of what that looks like.

[00:06:51] Antony Whitaker: Yeah. on the, you know, the hook, so the first slide in the carousel, is there a certain amount of words that you should have [00:07:00]

[00:07:00] Hayley Mears: Minimal as possible.

[00:07:02] Antony Whitaker: as minimal as possible?

[00:07:04] Hayley Mears: Yes I think no more than one sentence.

[00:07:07] Antony Whitaker: Okay. So it’s all about arousing curiosity, people wanna know.

[00:07:12] Hayley Mears: it is.

[00:07:13] Antony Whitaker: Yeah. Okay. Alright Um

[00:07:15] Hayley Mears: I reverse engineer that, so depending on what I, I’m like, I’ve got this great hair look that I really want to showcase, but what’s the teaser that I can create that will make people want to swipe to see what it is without putting it on that landing page.

[00:07:30] Antony Whitaker: yeah. Okay. Alright. Um. Let’s go to the call to action component of it. What would be a good call to action for a salon to be having as the last thing on their carousel? What sort of, you know, thing might you see in there?

[00:07:46] Hayley Mears: I mean, the call to action to book is the really obvious one. However, I think at times that can fall on deaf ears because clients are so used to seeing that call to action. Book now, book now. However, if you make something that is a little bit more exclusive, and this will tie into your larger marketing, uh, output, it could be we have five availabilities over this period of time.

[00:08:10] Hayley Mears: If you were interested in taking one of those appointments. Make it exclusive. I mean, the other one, depending on what the information is and what the value add in the carousel is, and the one that I find the most useful at the moment is save this post to refer to later, especially when it’s a hair tip or something that they’re going to be using at home and they go, actually, I will click that save button and I will come back and see this again because I’ve, I’ve received value in the content. I know from my own I, I look at my saved profile all the time, and the best ideas are the ones that come from there, and then I layer on top of that.

[00:08:54] Antony Whitaker: Mm. Okay. So. Urgency, exclusivity, that, that sort of thing at the end as a, uh, call to action. Alright. Um, I missed out the bit in the middle. Uh, and obviously, you know, the bit in the middle is, well, that’s the content and that can be about all sorts of different things. Um, what can we because it’s about all sorts of things, it’s difficult to make a generalization about what it should be.

[00:09:20] Antony Whitaker: Uh, what would you say, what bits of advice would you give around. The content that’s in the middle, so we’re talking slide 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, that sort of thing. Yeah. What, what sort of things should you or shouldn’t you do with that?

[00:09:34] Hayley Mears: Well, I’ve got two answers and one thing that I refer to that I was taught in year four about writing a narrative is who, what, when, where, and why. And whenever you are telling a narrative and building a story, I often refer to of those things what it is it that I can teach. The who, the what, the when, the where, the why, sometimes the how, so.

[00:09:58] Hayley Mears: Depending on the topic, I would review that and see where I can implement that. The other would be, um, you know, one of the hooks might be these are the three non-negotiable hair products that you need to have in your haircare wardrobe. I would break that down into, you know, from a, a basic salon point of view, your shampoo line and your wet care, your leave in treatments, your styling products, and your finishing products.

[00:10:24] Hayley Mears: So again, very much, you know, creating a beginning, a middle, and end, and wrapping it up very cohesively.

[00:10:32] Antony Whitaker: Right. Okay. Is it, I mean, when I do them, they’re nearly always not pictures, it’s just text on a very plain background. Um, is there any advantages or disadvantages about whether you should be using text or plain backgrounds or combining images with plain backgrounds? What would you say about that? What would you.

[00:10:53] Hayley Mears: I would say in your case, you are doing it right. However, if this, this, the business has a different offering and you’re a salon and it’s a little bit more visual, I would test and measure and I would do some carousels that have, you know, the images. Some are a combination of text and images and some that’s just text, and you’d probably have to do three or four of each of those varieties to be able to see which one really resonates with the audience.

[00:11:20] Hayley Mears: However, I do think that that first page, the hook, it doesn’t need to be, you know, visually stimulating. Actually you need to cut through with the words first, and that really needs to hit you in the face.

[00:11:33] Antony Whitaker: Yeah. Okay. Now one of the things sort of going off in a little bit of a different direction for a minute is, uh, the role of. GPT or AI in general. And um, you know, when it first came onto the market, so what, three and a bit years ago, everyone was a bit like, oh my gosh, what am I going to do with that?

[00:11:53] Antony Whitaker: And I mean, now. Everyone is all over it, and the obvious thing that they’re using it for salons, I think in particular, is [00:12:00] creating carousels and, even more so, you know, creating, the texts that accompanies the, the carousel. Now, what I’m going to suggest to you is that.

[00:12:12] Antony Whitaker: A lot of times people have become over reliant on it. And so now when you look at stuff that’s produced by chat, GPT, it all starts to sound the same. So yes, it might be grammatically, you know, perfect or better than the way we talk, but there’s a lot to be said for just the way we talk, you know?

[00:12:28] Antony Whitaker: Um, so what, what’s your advice to people about not becoming overly reliant on AI when they’re trying to produce. A carousel. How do you find that balance between, you know, the help that AI can give you, which is fantastic in terms of speeding up the process, but still letting you come through, still letting your personality, your creativity come through in the process.

[00:12:55] Hayley Mears: When I use ai, which is all day, every day, and [00:13:00] for example, if I’m, I’m looking for captions for a carousel, and it will, you know, I’ll prompt it, not it will generate its suggestion a lot of the time I never feel it’s conversational and that’s the edit that I make. I actually want to adapt the framework it’s given me that make it sound like I’m actually speaking almost like a script.

[00:13:20] Hayley Mears: I want to be able to narrate over the top of it. It sounds like me, rather than just read out some text. So it’s that human element. And you know, for me, being an Australian, if I can throw in some slang that’s very relevant, you know, the market knows that that’s actually me and it’s authentic. Uh, so. I do actually edit a lot of the content that I get from AI to humanize it in that way.

[00:13:47] Hayley Mears: Um, because I’ve tuned out to all of the captions that feel like AI and I can tell by the structure of the sentence and how, how it sounds that it’s ai. We all can. So I, I definitely think that the people that I follow that do really well, they authentically write their captions still.

[00:14:08] Antony Whitaker: Yeah.

[00:14:08] Hayley Mears: Or they edit. They edit what they’ve got to make it their own.

[00:14:11] Hayley Mears: And AI is great at replicating your voice and your style. However, it doesn’t sound like a conversation. It sounds like something you read as a script Okay

[00:14:21] Antony Whitaker: Yeah.

[00:14:21] Antony Whitaker: I agree. Okay. Alright. Um, now one of the things that we were talking about before we started, uh, recording was how the Instagram algorithm in 2026 is changing. Like it always changes. It’s constantly evolved the day it, it first started. Um, but one of the changes about 2026 is that it’s now rewarding, saves and shares more than likes.

[00:14:47] Antony Whitaker: Talk to us about that. What does that mean for people?

[00:14:52] Hayley Mears: Where that has come from. Um, is major corporations and media that use socials as a measuring tool for, you know, how well their content is doing and their return on their investment. And they came up with something that they referred to as EMV, which is earned media value. And so they might have a specific quota on if it received this many likes, then the value turns into a monetized.

[00:15:22] Hayley Mears: Piece of value on ROI. However, the likes. The likes are worth something, a token, but the saves and the shares are worth more the saves because people are coming back to it and the shares because it has virality. You know, liking something or even commenting doesn’t necessarily guarantee that it’s being pushed to another user, whereas a shared does.

[00:15:47] Hayley Mears: So it rewards that a lot more.

[00:15:49] Antony Whitaker: Okay. That’s interesting. Um, I save a lot of stuff. But I never get back to it. I’m sure not the only one. So, yeah. Is that, does that impact on stuff if you don’t revisit it? Because I do save stuff. I look at things, I go, well, that’s interesting. I must get back to that, so I’ll save it. But to be really honest with you, I’ve never gone back to any of my saved folders and gone, oh, I must, you know, I’ve got nothing to do today.

[00:16:16] Antony Whitaker: I’ll, I’ll look at the saved content that I’ve made and, you know, uh, dig into it. What are your thoughts about that?

[00:16:23] Hayley Mears: I would say the reason that saved still has value, even if you don’t revisit it, is because it’s building so much of your metadata profile. It is telling meta so much more about you than everything else because it’s highly prioritizing this as very important content.

[00:16:43] Antony Whitaker: Yeah. Okay

[00:16:44] Hayley Mears: it’s being able to, to read and measure all of the things that you’ve saved.

[00:16:48] Hayley Mears: Let’s pattern match what they all say, and now we’re going to build Anthony’s algorithm to just feed more of that. To him,

[00:16:56] Antony Whitaker: That’s very interesting. Right. That makes a lot of sense. Okay, so if [00:17:00] I’m, if I’m a salon owner listening to this, how does now knowing this impact on what I should be doing in terms of the content that I produce?

[00:17:13] Hayley Mears: My advice to any salon who’s like, okay, now I know all of this. How do I actually go out and execute content that’s going to deliver and be optimized? Firstly, look at your high performing content that you’ve had previously. Assess what it is. Is there a common thread between all of it? Whether it’s the topic, the time that you post, uh, who you’ve tagged, or, or what the messaging is?

[00:17:38] Hayley Mears: And I would dare say things that are more personal and more vulnerable tend to be your higher performing content. You’ll start to notice that pattern and then it gives you a foundation of this is what we have to repeat. You’ll also find that same pattern in the content that bombs that no one likes and no one responds to.

[00:17:58] Hayley Mears: And I think it’s just everything is a test. A test and measure of some sort in any form of marketing, and it’s just making sure you are observant enough, but also you’re checking the backend of your data so that it can speak to that as well.

[00:18:11] Antony Whitaker: Yeah. Okay. Is there a difference, like, ’cause we’re all, everything we’ve spoken about so far is pretty much about the content, meaning the words, the messaging, um, let’s just ask the same sort of question from a design perspective. You know, like, like you are big on design, but obviously you are big on the messaging side of it as well.

[00:18:34] Antony Whitaker: Um. What’s most important? the design or the messaging that you are, you know, the words that you are coming up with and, and how do you sort of address that balance?

[00:18:46] Hayley Mears: they’re equally important. However, in many, many cases, I build the same content and purely create a visual strategy. Then I mirror that content with just a text strategy, going back to what I say about the test and learn, and I’ll put them out at a fairly similar time, perhaps days apart. And generally I’ll see a big difference in the uptake.

[00:19:11] Hayley Mears: Over time, I’ve been able to observe that what content with images serves really well. And generally that is like hair, fashion, hair trends. And when I share something that’s business and strategy related, that’s very much text. So in a salon, uh, situation, I would say when you’re forecasting looks and you’re showcasing the beautiful work that you do.

[00:19:37] Hayley Mears: That would be one strategy. However, when you are sharing, you know, opportunities around, we have gift cards available or anything that’s more of a marketing piece, I, I don’t feel that you need to necessarily have amazing creative for that to be valuable. As long as the client says, I’m gonna spend, you know, a hundred pounds and get an extra on, on a gift voucher and get a 25 pound bonus. the value. So the value will come in different ways depending on the message.

[00:20:09] Antony Whitaker: Yeah. Okay. So yeah, so that’s interesting. So, and that is I suppose how I think about it, that our carousels are very much more about text driven, messaging. Um. I think back to some of the things that have not had the traction that we thought that they would. Um, were very image heavy, you know, uh, not hair so much, but like salon design.

[00:20:35] Antony Whitaker: Like we might have good messaging over a great looking salon and you think that’s going to do really well, but it actually doesn’t, you know, no matter what the salon is. So, yeah. I, I often wonder about, does one sort of like. Conflict with the other, if there’s just words. That are good font, good messaging, the right size, not too many words on the screen at a time.

[00:21:01] Antony Whitaker: Um, you’ve got nothing else to distract you. It really makes you focus on that message or not. But I suppose for me, I always, think of myself as like, well at heart I’m a hairdresser, and hairdressers are very visually orientated. So, you know, what, what is the visual that’s going to capture this? And I suppose for us, that’s why we put so much,

[00:21:21] Antony Whitaker: Effort into the simplicity of the design. You know, the font, the colours, you know, the spacing, all of that sort of stuff is really important, isn’t it? You know? It’s incredibly important. Yeah. Okay. Alright, well listen, Um, one of the things that you told me about was that Instagram is increasingly showing more content.

[00:21:42] Antony Whitaker: To non followers, um, based on AI feeds. So what does that mean to sell on owners? Because it, to me, it sounds like, well, that’s a good thing, surely because more people are gonna see your content. Um, so talk to us about how that works and, what the sort of implications are.

[00:22:01] Hayley Mears: It, it’s a great thing because when anyone thinks back to when they first started their Instagram page, their likes would grow, you know, fairly consistently, and it would, it would grow and grow and then you kind of hit a wall and everything just stops. And then you’re kind of, you know, really pushing to get that little bit of growth.

[00:22:20] Hayley Mears: I think we’ve got an, an opportunity for that algorithm to open back up again because AI is, you know, finding the people that save content that is very similar to what you are posting and it’s going to naturally push and, you know, populate your. Your feed with that content, knowing that it’s probably something that’s going to be of interest to you, and so there is real value in that.

[00:22:44] Hayley Mears: I think what we need to now recognize is we have moved into a brand new era of Instagram, so a hashtag isn’t a searchable tool. It’s not something that links your content to being searchable and findable because AI can do that already based on the pattern recognition of its followers and your content.

[00:23:07] Antony Whitaker: So hashtags have become redundant? Is that what you’re saying?

[00:23:10] Hayley Mears: That’s what I’m saying.

[00:23:11] Antony Whitaker: Right. Okay. That’s interesting. Alright. Um, from a salon owner’s point of view, well two things. First of all, I’ll just go back to that. So, should you still be using hashtags or is it just not relevant anymore?

[00:23:25] Hayley Mears: I don’t feel that it’s relevant. However, I, I would say this. Anything that you can do that makes your location searchable in Instagram is a great thing because you only wanna speak to a market that is gonna be a bum on a seat, and that’s within your local community. So if using a community hashtag in your particular market, and there’s people that still just search that hashtag.

[00:23:51] Hayley Mears: Great. There are still going to be people of a generation that are gonna go down that really manual route, and that’s, that’s fantastic. So there’s still gonna be value there. However, you don’t have to do the heavy lifting as a growth strategy because it’s going to happen for you already.

[00:24:07] Antony Whitaker: Right. That’s, that’s really interesting. Yeah. That’s really interesting. ’cause a lot of generations, older generation, obviously they’ve been, they’ve learned Instagram, they’ve learn the importance of hashtags, and now you’re saying it’s no longer relevant. it’s not that they don’t work anymore.

[00:24:19] Antony Whitaker: They still work. But arguably with AI now embedded in everything more and more, you simply don’t need it. Okay. So. If I’m a salon owner and I’m listening to everything that we’ve spoken about today, how can I capitalize specifically on this thing that we’re talking about, that AI is now going to be showing your content to non followers, and we can all see that.

[00:24:44] Antony Whitaker: Yeah, I think that’s a good idea. What can we do to capitalize on that? Can we do anything or is it just like in the lap of the AI gods.

[00:24:51] Hayley Mears: Yeah, no, I think you can do something. And for me it would be, and this is probably a little bit unorthodox, it’s just the way my marketing mind thinks. I think you should be using your content at this moment in time to articulate what your point of difference is. Amongst, you know, all of the other salons in your area.

[00:25:11] Hayley Mears: You know, be really clear about the point of difference and also be really clear about the salon experience because as we see more and more tech and AI come in, human connection and human service is increasing in its value. So capitalize on that. So perhaps that content is the walkthrough from the second like point of view camera, open the door and give someone an experience of what your business is like, and the little things really matter.

[00:25:41] Hayley Mears: So if you do something with an essential oil at the beginning of a service where you can say. You seem like you have had a really hectic morning. I’m just going to get you to breathe this oil in for three breaths, and I’m just going to completely reset you into relax mode. Those kind of things. Like I want to go to a salon that does that.

[00:26:02] Hayley Mears: If you do those sorts of things, let everyone know about it. Sure, your clients already know, but there’s new growth and new followers and clients out there that don’t know that you do it. So now’s the opportunity to really share that.

[00:26:15] Antony Whitaker: Okay. So it’s really sort of amplifying the human element.

[00:26:20] Hayley Mears: yes.

[00:26:21] Antony Whitaker: Not the, not the ai. The AI bit has got it all down pat quicker and faster than what you can, so to speak. Um, so it’s look for things that the AI can’t do, the, the human element, how you make people feel the emotional connections. Yeah. Okay.

[00:26:36] Antony Whitaker: That’s very good. Okay, so look, um, last thing before we start to wrap up is I did ask you before we got on this call, I said at the end I’m going to ask you for your top three actionable takeaways. Listeners should be doing today to ensure that the Instagram marketing is working effectively in 2026. Um, what, what are your top three things?

[00:26:59] Hayley Mears: what we’ve discussed about carousels and telling a story. Is a really important marketing touch point and telling a story is emotional engagement and you’ve, if you’ve got a team around you or you’ve perhaps got a history of a career that you can share. So one of the strategies, I’ve written all my carousels for the next few months and I thought, you know what, a carousel is, a timeline.

[00:27:25] Hayley Mears: Because you know you’ve got a beginning and a middle and the end. I’m actually going to take people through my career timeline and do that in the form of a carousel. because I’ve got different errors of the career. I think be clever with things like that. It could be different eras of your salon, it could be different eras of ways that we’ve done blonde, and explore what you did in the early two thousands, mid two thousands.

[00:27:48] Hayley Mears: I mean, really use it to. Create emotional stories that people find interesting.

[00:27:57] Antony Whitaker: I was so busy listening. I weren’t counting. Were there three things in there?

[00:28:00] Hayley Mears: No, That was just

[00:28:02] Antony Whitaker: Oh, that’s just number one. Right? Okay. So that’s first one. Alright. I like that.

[00:28:07] Hayley Mears: is to save the content that you think brings you value so that you can use that as a foundation to build your own content from. Especially if you see that someone’s done it and it’s worked really, really well for them. And could be a salon on the other side of the world.

[00:28:24] Hayley Mears: You can take the concept and make it your own and you know that, it’s delivered some fantastic results. So you are saved button. Also, the Instagram algorithm’s gonna start sending you more of that as we know that you saved it.

[00:28:38] Antony Whitaker:  Okay. So that, that, that’s some good points there.

[00:28:41] Hayley Mears: Um, the last thing is that the human engagement sets you apart from all the bots, right? And my tip on that is when you are actually commenting and responding underneath, don’t make it sound botty, actually only comment if you’re going to say something that. Is a meaningful conversation piece.

[00:29:01] Hayley Mears: Um, because you’ll see lots of people just go, we call it footprinting, right? So we’re going to leave a, a digital footprint in that comment and over here so that everyone can see that we’re on there and we’re engaged. But if, if it’s just, um, superficial, it actually doesn’t serve a purpose. So make sure that every comment and piece of engagement that you roll out from yourself and your brand has meaning.

[00:29:26] Antony Whitaker: That’s interesting. Do you, have, like, when you post something, do you find that, you know, like you might get 20, 30, 40, 50, whatever comments if you’re lucky? Um, it’s hard to sort of treat every one of them individually. With, with authenticity, rather than go, Hey, thanks for your comment. Really appreciate it.

[00:29:47] Antony Whitaker: Do you know what I mean? You do two or three variations on that, and it’s like, okay, what now? So, so what are your tips around that? Do you not have that you treat everyone as a genuine individual

[00:29:57] Hayley Mears: try to, I try to, however, a lot of the comments that you do get are very botty like great post. So I mean, there’s only so much that you can be responsive, um, and a lot of the time, and it’s very genuine. My response will be, I just went and, and had a look at your page, um, you know, great holiday you had last week, or something like that.

[00:30:19] Hayley Mears: And I find the second they like, they feel pretty special. Like, oh thanks, thanks for having at that. I really build great relationships with people in that way and I, it feels good, like, it feels really nice to have that connection. And then they might start to DM me because they feel comfortable and they want to ask a question.

[00:30:37] Antony Whitaker: Yeah.

[00:30:37] Antony Whitaker: Yeah. Okay. Interesting. Alright. Um, so listen, I, I consciously wanted to keep this to around the 30 minute mark because there’s a lot of information. That you impart on these, podcast episodes. And so rather than, keep going I find that’s overwhelming for people.

[00:30:54] Antony Whitaker: So that’s why I’ve asked if you’ll come back, you know, two or three times during the year, we can touch on. Different topics around, social media and Canva. because I know that’s another one of your, your pets.

[00:31:06] Antony Whitaker: And I’m also aware of the fact that the, you know, it changes so quickly. You think of Instagram today versus Instagram a year ago. Five years ago, it’s totally different and it’ll be different in another year as well. So I think it’s good to, you know, be able to dip in and outta these.

[00:31:21] Antony Whitaker: So, with that said, we need to start wrapping up this week’s episode. By the time this goes out live, people would be aware of our salon marketing course, and I’ve already mentioned that you are, a co-presenter in that, doing stuff on, uh, social media, Instagram, and, Canva in particular.

[00:31:41] Antony Whitaker: Uh, so I’ll be putting a link in the show notes of today’s episode, inviting listeners to attend a free introductory webinar. On all things to do with salon marketing. Um, in the meantime though, Hayley, whereabouts can people connect with you on Instagram or other social media channels? Mm-hmm.

[00:32:01] Hayley Mears: Uh, my agency is Six Underground Media, so I’ve kept that handle really succinct across all of our platforms. So at Six Underground Media, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, um, and you can. Message in DM anytime. I actually, I really love getting questions. I find that so valuable. It tells me what the market is doing and what I need to be educating.

[00:32:22] Hayley Mears: So yeah, questions always welcome.

[00:32:24] Antony Whitaker: Good. Good. Okay. Well look, I’ll put those links, in the show notes for today’s podcast. So if you’re listening to this podcast episode with Haley Mears, then you’ve enjoyed it. Do me a favour and share it with people you know who would also enjoy it. And don’t forget to, uh, subscribe and leave us a rating and review on the Apple Podcast app.

[00:32:41] Antony Whitaker: Have a great week, and don’t forget to tune in next Tuesday for another great episode of the Grow My Salon Business podcast. So bye for now.