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Do you feel like you were meant to have a kick ass career as a hairstylist? Like you got into this industry to make big things happen? Maybe you're struggling to build a solid base and want some stability. Maybe, you know, social media is important, but it feels like a waste of time because you aren't seeing any results. Maybe you've already had some amazing success but are craving more.

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Maybe you're ready to truly enjoy the.

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Freedom and flexibility this industry has to offer. Cutting and coloring skills will only get you so far, but to build a lifelong career as a wealthy stylist, it takes business skills and a serious marketing strategy. When you're ready to quit just working in your business and start working on it, join us here where we share real success stories from real stylists. I'm Brit Siva, social media and marketing strategist just for hairstylists and this is the Thriving Stylist Podcast.

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What is up? And welcome back to the Thriving Stylist Podcast. I'm your host, Britt Siva, and today we're talking about online review myths, lies and old advice that doesn't work anymore. So this is a bit of an inspired episode. I had a former Thriver Society member reach out to me recently and she was like, hey, I was trying to do this, you know, specific thing and it didn't work like it used to. What do you think about that? And I was like, oh, that's because that's a strategy from the past. It doesn't work anymore. And what it made me realize when.

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I got that message was that often.

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We think that once we've learned something, it's going to work forever. And I think for all of us, it's that exciting feeling of when you finally have everything all figured out in your business. You're like, yes, I got it. I can just do this and I'm going to be good to go. If only business were that easy. Business, not just the salon business, all business in general, is constantly evolving and the way to stay successful in business is to evolve forward. And one of the things that has changed a lot in the last probably four years, I'm going to say, since, since 2020, is online reviews. So I really hopped on. I've been coaching to online reviews since 2015. However, I really started pushing hard for people to focus more on online reviews and less on Instagram in 2019. So we're talking like six years ago now. It's been a really long time and it has been a slow evolution to get people here. However, those who heeded my advice years ago. Man, are they set up for success right now? Because we are now living in the age online reviews are queen. I know most people say king. I like to say queen. Online reviews are, I believe, the most critical form of social media today. Instagram usership has been on a decline for several years. We see less time spent on the app, we see less consumers engaging in the app. I know we as stylists still absolutely love it. It's where we network with each other. It's where we show off our work. The data does show though, that clients aren't searching hashtags anymore, that clients aren't using geotags like they used to. They're just not even opening platform the way that they used to do it. Actually, Facebook is having a bit of a renaissance, but even that's not being used at the scale it was. And when you talk to people about where they are turning to make their service based business decisions, it's online reviews. And the people who jumped on the train in 2019, 2020, 2021, when I started really pushing hard for it, are set up for a major success today. So I want to talk about some of the myths and lies and previous advice that people I think are still following that doesn't work anymore or things mis about online reviews. So that hopefully as you step into 2025, you can really prioritize this super powerful tool and get the most out of them that you possibly can. So first, let's call it a myth. 20 online reviews or so is pretty good. And yes, there was a time where that was pretty good. You didn't have to have a gajillion reviews. Just having a handful was fine enough. That is no longer the case. It's like when you first I'm gonna speak Instagram. Cause I think it's a language everybody understands. It's like saying 20 Instagram followers is good enough. How did you feel when you had 20 Instagram followers? You're like, where's the rest of my followers? And why did you want more followers? Because it gave you more credibility. And it's now the same with online reviews. 20 online reviews is like, oh my gosh, they're getting started. And then the more reviews you have, the more credibility you have. And when online reviews weren't as robust as they are now. Yeah, 20 was pretty good. And the standard has just so radically changed. The other thing is, when we talk about volume of reviews, the big shift is that volume of reviews now has a huge impact on search engine Optimization. So people are often like, you know, what are the words I could put on my website to rank higher? That's not really how Google ranking works so much anymore. There are things that you can certainly do to your website to improve ranking. But when you look at the fact that Google has Google Business, formerly Google My business. So Google Business and Google Business primarily functions on reviews, right? You have your Google Business Index listing, and it has a little map and your website's link there, and it has information about your business, and then all your reviews live there. Okay, so that's Google. And Google is the number one search engine in the world. Did you know that Google owns Yelp? So you can continue to be a Yelp hater as long as you'd like, but Google owns Yelp. Yelp stock is on the rise. Yelp usership is also on the rise. And those who have a high volume of both Yelp and Google reviews are being pushed in natural, organic search. So when you say, how do I get more people just to find me organically online reviews? So my standard is I want you aiming to have five new online reviews every single month. So 60 a year. The top stylists I know, like, individual stylists I know, have at least 75 reviews. Lots of them have lots more, but at minimum, 75. The top salons I know, even the smaller salons have 250 or more online reviews. A lot of them have more like 500 plus. So scale of reviews really counts right now. And yeah, those people did have an advantage. They jumped on the review bandwagon in 2019, 2020. At the early inception. It's still not too late, but you have to start now. Myth number two, you should ask as many guests as possible for online reviews. Those days are gone. There was a time where that was true, but that was also part of the early inception of these platforms. Right when we were just starting to adopt Google Reviews. Google, my business was not what it is today at all. It didn't you remember how, like, you know, how now when you. When you search best salons in Chicago or whatever, the first thing that comes up is Google listings. You have three or four suggested listings. And then on the right, you'll see Google Business profile listing, or let's say I search the name of my favorite salon, it's going to be my favorite salon. Often their Yelp reviews will come up next, usually their Facebook or their Instagram, sometimes their website, depending on how that ranks. And then on the right, you'll see that Google Business listing five Years ago. That's not how Google looked. This is a newer way of formatting. So in the early days, yeah, ask everybody for a review. Not everybody even knew how to do reviews. Not everybody was using Google reviews. A lot of people didn't have Yelp. And so it was like, whatever, Just ask everybody. Cast a wide net, fine. That doesn't work anymore. Here's the trouble with asking every single guest for a review or having one of those leave me a review QR codes at your station or at the front desk or whatever, and you're just, like, hoping something amazing happens, Right? Or how many of you do the thing where after a client has a visit on their appointment. Thank you. They get a prompt that says, if you loved your service, leave us a review. Like that spammy kind of review capturing. How is that working for you? That's so funny. I was on a coaching call. This was months ago, earlier, in 2024. And somebody was like, oh, you know what? I do that. And it works great. And I was like, oh, my gosh, it works great. Awesome. What's the name of your business? And the person gave me the name of their business. They had seven reviews. And I was like, how long have you been sending that thing out for? And they were like, over a year. I was like, so you're telling me it works great. You've gotten seven reviews in a year. And they're like, okay, I think I need to rethink the strategy. So a lot of times we're like, oh, it works. Does it work at scale, though? And here's the thing. You should know, if you're asking guests too early or too often for online reviews, it just becomes white noise. They're not gonna be. Let's say you ask me for a review, it's my first visit in with you, or something like that. And you're like, or maybe it's my third visit, whatever. And you're like, oh, my gosh, Britt's been so great working for you. If you've loved your visits with us, I'd love it if you leave me an online review. Okay, great. Let's say I don't do it. And then the next time you come in, you ask me again, I'm like, oh, my gosh. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll do that thing. And then I don't do it. By the third time you ask me now, it's almost starting to sound irritating. And I'm either feeling bad that you've had to ask me three times and I haven't done it. And maybe you're trying to shame me into it, I don't know. But now it's starting to feel weird. And that's the thing. And by the way, you as a stylist, are not trying to make it weird. You're just trying to get your freaking reviews. But this is what happens when we don't have a strategy around capturing reviews and so we're just casting the wide net, hoping something amazing happens, is you create white noise and then sometimes you create, like, weirdness. Like, it starts to feel a little bit funky. I always say that reviews live on the extremes. So I want you to think of when you've ever left a review. For me, I've left reviews when things were absolutely tragic and when things were beyond exceptional. I don't leave mediocre reviews. And so just nailing your client's haircut is good. It's not exceptional. It wasn't tragic, it was good. Reviews are going to live on the extremes. So our loyal guests are always going to be the most likely to leave reviews and feel the most open to reviewing when you ask. Old advice that doesn't work anymore. Tip number one is that review contests are a good idea. Review contests are not a good idea. So this is something that I coached to in years past, but in the updated, thriving stylist method 2025 version, which is the biggest update we've ever had, and it's an expansion, the marketing funnel changed, the retention funnel changed, everything changed. In that version, there is no review contest. That's not a part of the strategy at all for a couple of reasons. One, the efficiency stopped working. Two, the algorithms of the review platforms have gotten better over the years. And now when you get a random onslaught of online reviews when you hadn't been getting very many for months, the algorithms know that you're running a promotion. And there are strict rules in place on Google and on Yelp that say you cannot be asking for reviews. Technically, you can't ask at all. But what they're trying to prevent is actually like these kind of spammy, scammy ways of getting reviews. And so when you do contests, that's when you're going to be filtered. And they're simply not as effective as they once were. So that wouldn't be something I would coach to. If you're thinking about that, I would go ahead and skip it. Number four, another myth. All reviews are good reviews. All reviews are not good reviews. Even bad reviews can be good reviews. Do you know that? Actually, let's Have a little sidebar so a bad review doesn't have to reflect badly on you. There was this review once that a client had left. When we were in the salon, the client was calling me all these really vulgar names. I was shocked that this review stayed up and I made up this entire story about how I had treated them. And by the way, I had fired that client. They were no longer welcome back in the salon and that's why they were so upset. But I had done it really professionally and they went on ahead to slander me on this review platform. And I responded and just very calmly explained my perception of what had happened. I wasn't defensive. I didn't say I didn't do this and I didn't do that. And I didn't even try to defend my own character. But what was funny is when you went back and looked at that review, the angry one star review that the client had written had like two thumbs up or something like that. My response was something that clients commented on over and over and over and over and over and over again and said, we saw that. And people would say it was like hilarious because it was an uncomfortable review to read. And so everybody's reading it and they were like, it's so funny. Because our experience working with you is so different than what that client said. And they love the way you handled it. And that's why not all bad reviews are bad reviews. Bad reviews are an opportunity for you to show the world how you navigate challenges. Relationships are imperfect and clients know that sometimes they're not gonna be happy with their hair. And they wanna know how you're gonna show up when things go sideways. Like, everybody can show up at their best when things are. How do you show up when things are not so great? And online reviews can give you a chance to demonstrate that. Okay, so beyond that, the reason why I say not all reviews are good reviews is we want all of the reviews left for you to be living on the interest level of your marketing funnel. So if you are in thrivers or you know what I'm talking about when I say marketing funnel, we have the awareness level. And below awareness is the interest level. Now, in the new marketing funnel, there's other things going on. I won't reveal it here on this podcast, but awareness and interest are two totally different things. Another level that's a different thing is desire and opportunity. The desire level is your website. Having reviews on your website is fine. It is not nearly as effective as having reviews on the interest level. And the interest level is going to be Google and it's going to be Yelp. And for those of you who have been collecting online reviews through your online booking platform, that is way too low in the marketing funnel. By the time somebody gets to your online booking platform, they've already decided to work with you or they already are working with you. And so having more online reviews is like, I guess, like a little bit of psychological safety. But those reviews are not working for you nearly as hard as they would be if they were living on the interest level. So having reviews show up on Google or Yelp or, hey, incorporating reviews into your Instagram or into your Facebook is the winning strategy. That's where we want them to be showing up. Now, what about TikTok? TikTok is a tricky little social media platform. It's actually an awareness level platform. It's the only social media platform that I would call more awareness. And I've adapted to that over the years because what I found from even stylists and saloners is they would say, oh, clients or people. People would find me on TikTok because they'd have a TikTok that went viral or whatever, and then they would start following me on Instagram or they'd engage with my website. It was how people find you. But TikTok's a really tricky app. If you use TikTok, if you're listening to this and use TikTok, you know, those of us who use it follow certain accounts. It's so funny. I rarely see the content hit my feed of the accounts I follow, like every once in a while. But mostly when I go on TikTok, it's random new content. And that's the tricky thing about TikTok is it's not the same as like an Instagram where when you show up, it's a lot of content of people you follow. TikTok is not quite the same, and that's why it lands on awareness instead of interest. Just a little TikTok sidebar. But we want our reviews to primarily be on the interest level when clients are leaving them whenever possible. Here's another myth. Yelp is the worst because it filters reviews. Absolutely. Yelp filters reviews. I will not deny that. Of course it does. Yelp uses the same algorithm criteria as Instagram or Facebook. And this has always been my challenge when people complain about Yelp is that people will spend hours and hundreds or thousands of dollars learning how to use Instagram. And they're so determined they have to master it. And they show up every day and they scroll on it for two hours. And they're so dedicated to Instagram, whether it works for them or not. They feel allegiant to it and they' got to use it as a stylist and they've got to make it work. But Yelp is the worst because it filters reviews. How many of your followers see your posts? I can tell you how many. At best, 5%. At best, best, Best. The average Instagram account has a reach of between 1 and 3%. The best are around 5. So on the best day, 95% of your followers do not see your post. If you post something that's a huge smash, yeah, more will see it for sure. So we're okay with the censorship from like an Instagram or a Facebook, but when Yelp censors us, we're not okay. And that's the thing I want everybody to understand. How often do you show up and nurture Google business? How often are you logging into Yelp to see what's going on, to respond to reviews, to upload some fresh photos, to update your hours, to change, to see what's even new, what features have changed, what has gone out, what has gone in? Is my stuff up to date? If you're not showing up on the platform, why would it do you any favors? It won't. That doesn't even make sense. It's like if you hadn't open Instagram in six months and then you're really frustrated that your reach is low. Of course it's low. You haven't been there. Social media is meant to be social. And it's the same with these online review sites. You have to be showing up consistently in order for the platform to work for you. Reviews that are filtered, generally speaking, fall into a few categories. One, when you first open your Google or your Yelp account, the first several reviews will be filtered, period. They just will. Because your account is so new, they basically know that you are asking for your first handful of reviews. So know that the first couple are going to get filtered. Let it go. It's normal for everybody. It's not a big deal. Your reviews will also be filtered if a large amount come in out of nowhere. So again, if you do like a review contest or something like that, filtering will happen. Reviews will also be filtered if it's a brand new reviewer. So if it's somebody with no review history, they have a high probability of being filtered. Just like if it's a brand new Instagram account, their post is going to have very low reach. It's the exact Same algorithm, Everything is the same. So what you want is consistent reviews. You want to be consistently showing up on the platform yourself, and you want those who are reviewing you to have left a few reviews. So if you are talking to a client and they're saying they're going to send you a review, say, hey, listen, do me a favor. If you could review a few other businesses first and then review mine, that would mean a lot to me. That's something you can try to do, too. That might be a big, huge ask, but you just should know that a user's behavior on the platform dictates in a large way whether their review will be filtered or not. So let's go into our next myth. You have to pay to have reviews stay public. No. And I learned that firsthand because I paid for Yelp. This was years ago when I was in the salon. I paid for Yelp and I asked for some of the filtered reviews to be published, and they said no. They said, it's an algorithm. It's not a human thing. They were like, we can look into it, but highly unlikely. It's not how the system works. We don't want to be pay for play. And none of the filtered reviews came back when I paid. And even as a paying user, we did use Yelp ads, and they worked really well for us. I don't think everybody should be using them, so don't get caught up in what I'm about to say. But even when we started paying for Yelp, we still had reviews that were filtered from new reviewers. So in my personal experience, just because you pay, it doesn't mean things all of a sudden change over. When you pay for advertising on Google or on Yelp, all it does is drive more eyeballs to what you've already built. So if you have an online review account with 15 reviews and the last review was from three months ago, and you're not really showing up there, why would you ever put money into that? Never. Never, never, ever. And for those of you who are like, well, you know, they keep calling me and calling me and calling me, and it's irritating. There is a strategy in thrivers of how to get those calls to stop, and it works. So I think that this is one of those things where we blame the platform instead of learning to understand the strategy. And like I said, you can look this up like, Yelp stock is on the rise. Yelp usership is on the rise. We know Google rules everything, so we can fight and we can resist these platforms. But you should know that clients are turning to them. And some of you will say things like, well, Yelp is not big in my area. Maybe not yet, but did you know that a client can set up a Yelp profile for you even if you don't have one for yourself? So take the reins on that and at least get something set up, something started. And kind of like all the people who told me in 2019, well, nobody's really using online reviews in my area. Those stylists and salons are getting the last laugh because now they have hundreds of online reviews and it's helping them in SEO and it's helping them to get found naturally and just bolstering the confidence that clients have when looking to book appointments with them. So I hope this has overcome some of the maybe confusion around online reviews. If you have any questions or concerns, as always, let's keep the conversation going. Leave me a rating or review on itunes with any questions that you have. So much love. Happy business building and I'll see you on the next one.