Marissa Brennan shows bridal stylists how to use Instagram to attract clients. Brides shop with their eyes, so poor lighting and inactive profiles scare them off. Focus on strong photography, highlights, pinned posts, and a mix of photos and reels that showcase your bridal work.
Listen, I'm about to say something really controversial here. Esthetics still matter on Instagram. Guilty as charged. I said it. Okay, esthetics matter. Let's talk about why they matter and things that you can have on your feed that can start grabbing your bride's attention. What I need you to understand is we are in the beauty industry and in the beauty industry, we are shopping with our eyes. So humor me for a second. Close your eyes. Go ahead. If you're driving, don't close your eyes, but close your eyes for a second. Imagine you're walking into Sephora. Imagine you walk over to Charlotte Tilbury and instead of her normal gold, beautiful, shiny luxe packaging, you see a bright, low mustard color with cheetah print all over it as her new packaging that she has. Immediately you probably want to gag, throw up. And you're like, what's happening here? I don't understand. But you want to gag even more. When you see the price tag at 59, you're like, no, thank you, I will not want to carry carry that around in my purse, probably put it back on the shelf. Versus when you see her luxe gold, shiny packaging and you see the 59 price tag, you probably perceive it as a little bit more high value. Just based off of the Package 59 price tag, it doesn't really scare you as much. Versus the mustard yellow cheetah print. Your brides are shopping with their eyes for our services, for bridal makeup services, for bridal hair services, they are shopping with their eyes. So, so here's what's actually scaring them off. When you have super duper dark photos that have shadows all over of your makeup work, of your hair work, that is scaring them off because it's not doing your work justice. And they're like, oh my God, am I going to look like that? But if you are somebody who wants to uplevel your photography, I go way more in depth and I have photography editing courses that you can get inside of bridal hair society. And I highly recommend going through that because I go way more in depth on hair photography. But you want to make sure that you have top notch photos of your work. So that way she's not getting scared off. These types of aesthetics do matter. If you only have like 10 posts. She's probably saying in her mind, does she still do hair? Does she still do makeup? Is she in business? If you're showing super editorial looks of like bright colored eyeshadows, rainbow colors on the face, it's not giving bridal and it might scare her off because it's the math isn't mathing. She's looking for bridal makeup, she's looking for a bridal hair stylist. So if you're giving very editorial it might seem scare her off. If your feed is consumed by the zoomed out photographer photos of like a couple and their dog, she's probably like, is this a photographer? I'm unsure. True story. A client actually told me that she fired her bridal hair stylist because she went over to her Instagram and she didn't see any recent posts and everything that she did see didn't feel in alignment with what she was actually looking for. Now why she hired her in the first place beats me. But she actually reached out to that bridal hairstylist and canceled her contract because she wasn't active on Instagram. She had no highlights, she had no recent post, she had no stories and it scared her off. Like is she going to show up to my wedding day? Kind of scare. Now let's dial it back to the Instagram esthetic. Here is the actual Instagram esthetic and feed real estate that I want you to start prioritizing to grab your bride's attention when she's visually shopping with her little eyeball. I want you to take advantage of this asap. The first thing that is so underutilized utilize is your highlights. This is the easiest way to get visuals that are sitting literally at the top of your profile and sometimes are one of the first things that your clients are tapping into to see your work visually. It's low hanging fruit that your client is tapping into. So I would definitely advantage of your highlights and start posting more of your work on. Another low hanging fruit is your pin post that sit up at the top of your profile. You can immediately grab your bride's attention and show her your signature styles right at the top of your profile. That way you're showcasing your best work immediately when she pops onto your page and she doesn't really have to go searching for it. It is low hanging fruit and is hot real estate on your Instagram feed. Your feed post. You don't want your feed to be a hundred percent reals. Yes, you want to have videos to showcase and sell your work that way and give more visuals within movement that you have within a video. But there is so much power in an actual photo for your clients. So this is selling your work within a so she can shop visually with her eyes and see in the photo as well as she can do it in videos, but there's a different feeling, a different vibe when it comes to a photo. Now, if you want templates as well as exactly how I would plan out your highlights, your pin posts, your feed content to get your esthetic to grab your bride's attention, not only obsessing with you, but ready to work with you. Bridal printer socials is a can't miss situation for you, my friend. I cannot wait for you to get in it. It is so dang. See you in the next one, guys. Bye.
7 Lessons I Wish I Knew In My First Wedding Season (I’ve Now Grossed $728,000)
