Q1 2022 Salon Suite INdustry Influence Report
If you are a salon suite franchisee, and you’re serious about the stability and growth of your franchise(s) this report will give you the knowledge and perspective to drive your business forward.
This Salon Suite Industry Influence Report, and our supporting analytics, are not just another generalized study of overall franchise growth in 2022- we’ll leave that to Forbes and Frianchise.com. This report is designed specifically with salon suite franchisees in mind, giving you a near-real-time view of which territories and social media accounts are thriving, and which have the most influence in their market so that you can make more informed decisions about your strategies moving forward this year and beyond.
So if you’d like to know how influential your particular franchise is compared to your peers, you’re in the right place…
Why Social Media Influence Matters
The salon suite industry is booming. If you’re a franchise owner you know this — and barring another global emergency health crisis, the salon suite industry is likely to see continuous double-digit growth for the next 5 years which means competition in this space will only get more fierce.
This is why effective digital marketing, including social media marketing, is only growing more important.
As a salon suite franchise owner, you likely know how a sales funnel works but do you know how you’re performing as compared to the rest of the salon suite industry?
Knowing where you sit is the first step in understanding how far you need to go (and how much you need to invest) to reach your business goals.
Do you want to be seen as the top salon suite franchise in your territory? Your state? The country? Position yourself in the top 2 in your local area? Our report is here to show you where you sit within the landscape, and how far you are from your goals.
How are we determining influence?
While we aren’t in the business of crowning winners in the salon suite industry, we are all about the digital marketing efforts within it, so we wanted to take a look at those performing best on Instagram. Why Instagram? Because Instagram is still the widest used platform by the group this industry serves: Beauty professionals.
So in order to find who in the salon suite industry is garnering the most influence on Instagram we cataloged follower totals from over 300 salon suite Instagram handles to come up with a snapshot of salon suite corporate and territory accounts in order of social influence. (link to skip to the full list)
Here is What We Found
Surprisingly, Size Isn’t Everything
Looking at the top 20, we see a lot of Sola Salons, which you might expect. Sola is the largest player in the space with many of their franchise locations having been rooted in their respective communities for years now. They also have more accounts than the other players, which gives them a mathematical advantage.
But what’s surprising are the territories in which the highest follower counts are seen…
The top Instagram accounts with the most influence are not solely comprised of tier 1 cities, but predominantly tier 2 or 3 territories.
For example, San Diego, Lynnwood Washington, and Long Island land in the top 3 of all territory accounts, and their larger market contemporaries — LA, Seattle, and New York respectively — come in further down the list.
This tells us that while the size of the market does have an impact, it's not everything. What seems to matter more is how these territories run their social media accounts.
Capturing the pattern
We found that these top players have a few commonalities that contribute to their success:
Consistent and customized social presence with a high degree of interaction
A variety of content types including user-generated content (UGC)
Professional photography featuring local clients, studio spaces, and more
High-quality and on-brand, graphical text, video, and animations
Higher involvement of local Salon professionals
The bottom line is that you can feel the sense of community in these top accounts, and it results in them having more followers, and as we covered earlier: Audience Growth = Greater Market Influence = More Leads = Full Suites
We at Bow Tie Social are currently managing multiple salon suite Instagram accounts in the top twenty and can attest that these pillars of social media management — while labor-intensive and time-consuming — do yield results well above the industry average.
And as this market continues to get more and more crowded, the effectiveness of social media marketing will be pivotal in the success of current and future salon suite locations, especially when it comes to lead generation and building a robust brand reputation.
Leveraging the pattern
Where does your franchise fall?
Click the button below to see the entire list of territories we reviewed, their rank, and corresponding follower count.
Not Happy With Your Ranking?
We have specialized service tiers that can fit almost any need if you want to show up higher on this list next quarter. For questions about our services and a free consultation, reach out to us here — we’d love to chat!
Check back soon as we will be publishing follow-up deep-dive analysis on how the brands stack up against one another, state and territory-specific rankings, and more.