The staff at the Polish Room in Orlando, Fla., keeps backgrounds handy for post-mani photos.

The staff at the Polish Room in Orlando, Fla., keeps backgrounds handy for post-mani photos.

“Update your salon interior to have a cute place to take pictures — even a small corner will do,” says Stephanie Mitchell, the owner of beauty business specialist Sunnystorm Marketing (www.sunnystorm.marketing). “Investing in a beautiful salon interior helps you stand out on social media, and it’s great for taking pictures and videos of clients.”
However, if major changes to your decor are not in the budget, Mitchell suggests some small changes that can have a big impact and help with your visual branding:

1. Represent your brand colors on a wall, either through paint or an accent wall
with colorful wallpaper. Your brand should have a color palette of three to five colors and you should be using them consistently across everything you do.

2. Find a background theme for your online photos and make the theme stand out — it might be flowers, sunsets, geometric patterns, or a step-and-repeat with your logo or Instagram handle. Your photos should follow a similar visual style to create a branded look.

A step-and-repeat creates a consistent, branded background for nail photos. (Nails by NhuLan Evans.)

A step-and-repeat creates a consistent, branded background for nail photos. (Nails by NhuLan Evans.)

3. Improve the lighting in your salon. This not only creates a better mood within the space, but your photos will turn out better too. Another option is to buy or build a lightbox for photos with a fresh, professional look. It’s easy to change the background to match your nail colors, but posing hands inside a lightbox can be difficult, so take the time to get it right.

4. Carve out a small dedicated area where you can take pictures. Check sites like Etsy for beautiful but inexpensive wall decorations.

Before leaving the salon, clients can snap a pic of their finished nails in a lightbox.

Before leaving the salon, clients can snap a pic of their finished nails in a lightbox.

For reprint and licensing requests for this article, Click here.