A REVITALIZED PRESENCE
CHOP Barbershop is a southeastern hair chain focused on providing customers with cool hair and a healthy environment for their barbers.
The founders of the company were interested in reestablishing their online presence in an effort to increase their reach. With this in mind, I created a strategy that injected new life into their feeds and expanded their community on Instagram and Facebook.
CONTRIBUTIONS:
Strategy, Management, Content/Reel Design, Paid Advertising
TAKING EVERY OPPORTUNITY
In order to meet the desired goal of higher reach, I devised a new strategy that focused on quality over quantity. This required repeat visits to their locations to capture shots of barbers, clients and the environment. Along with this, I incorporated posts centered on news that was important to clients. My copywriting kept a welcoming tone that encouraged followers to comment.
Capturing content dealt with acting on a moment’s notice. For example, a client of one of our barbers surprised him by dressing up as him. I quickly grabbed photos and produced and published a post by the end of the day, adding an extra 247 interactions and 879 non-followers views that week. Another example was when a business neighbor of CHOP visited with surprise samples. Here I quickly spoke with all parties to grab photos, leading to the business neighbor sharing the post and adding 34 engagement clicks.
“The level of creativity and organization Colin brings to the job is unbelievable. He truly understands the importance of clear and consistent branding and his enthusiasm for marketing shines through everything he creates.”
Katie Rainey Co-Owner
BRINGING THE BRAND TO LIFE
The restructured strategy heavily emphasized reels, especially as Meta announced their push for them. CHOP created a handful before, but I increased the creation of them in hopes for a higher reach. I viewed each reel as an opportunity to bring the brand to life, capturing barbers in action, the details of their eccentric decoration, interactions within their community and more. A personal favorite of mine was an ASMR hair session with the owner.
The reels proved to be effective, collecting a total of 55k+ organic plays and reaching a total of 59.5k accounts. Along with this, I created the two highest viewed videos ever featured on their platforms.
ADAPTING TO EACH AUDIENCE
A challenge was creating content that was relevant to the audience of each location. I created the ‘CHOP Update’ series to tackle this, which was published once a month and inspired by the vintage publications used for their interior decorating. It served as a redesign of the brand’s quote posting, which was a popular campaign that dwindled down in engagement.
The new look regularly included general updates that were relevant to all clients but also included highlights on specific stories within the community. General updates ranged from hiring updates to new company changes while specific highlights ranged from barber news to the opening of a new shop.
It was difficult to determine the impact found in each city, but each post showed reach in each state the company was open in. If redone, I would combat this situation by posing a location-specific question within the caption and measure effectiveness through the number of responses for each post. The series was perfect for engagement farming, where I tagged employees, clients and community members. This once led to a local radio host shouting us on his socials and spreading the word to his peers.
ENGAGING WITH THE BRAND
While increasing reach, I wanted to provide opportunities for new followers to engage with the brand. I achieved this through exclusive online contests that offered discounts that incentivized repeat returns and clothing and merchandise that created easy local outreach.
The first contest kicked off marketing for their upcoming location in North Carolina, featuring a list of cities to guess where the brand was moving to next. With a paid boost, I collected responses close to the new area and secured 4 confirmed clients for their grand opening with the reward. 19 entries and 194 likes were collected.
The next contest focused on tagging others, which resulted in being the most commented post for the brand in 2022. While active, a total of 375 entries, 294 likes and 150+ new followers were gained.
A MAXIMIZED REACH AND MORE
CHOP’s social media reached their past highs and gone even further. This spilled into their shops, in which I saw an increase of barbers becoming interested in building their own following or requesting to be featured online. The following also occurred during my time with the brand:
An 11% increase in digital followers.
The average like rate of 10-20 clicks increased to 40-60 clicks.
An all-time high of 22k accounts reached in a monthly rate.
Maintained an average monthly reach of 12k - 14k accounts compared to their standard reach of around 4k - 6k.
