Professional development of a master colorist: personal experience of Alexey Baluev

The other day, on our Instagram page there was a live broadcast on the topic “What does “professional growth” mean for a modern master colorist?”, whose guest was Alexey Baluev , an international-level master, co-founder of Long&Short beauty salon, absolute champion of Ukraine - 2020.

During the broadcast, our guest shared his own experience of running social networks, told what promotion methods he used, and also with the help of what professional “feature” he stood out from others.

How can a master colorist who is just starting his professional career present himself on Instagram?

Of course, there is no universal recipe. Personally, I haven’t learned anywhere how to manage social networks. But I know that to successfully manage social networks you need regularity, but I don’t adhere to this rule. I lead him purely according to my mood. If I have it, I can publish three posts with my works. If not, then I may not post anything.

Where to start? Register, enter a minimum amount of information about yourself so that users understand what you will write about and talk about. And start filling your profile with quality content.

The main task of social networks in this case is to show what you will sell, if we are talking about master colorists. Demonstrate your work, your professional level, the quality of your work - and you will 100% find your client and reader.

Is it necessary to create a work page for work matters?

I know that it would be correct to create a separate page. When we “sell” ourselves as a professional, we are selling a certain brand. And there is no need to mix personal life, leisure, some kind of hobby and work into one. Because the client must clearly understand and see the product that we are promoting. But it's "right."

I have had the experience of maintaining several pages at the same time, and I can say that this does not end well. You don’t have enough energy and time to properly manage and engage with both pages. Therefore, I decided that I would run my own professional blog, and this is enough for me.

The stories format is great for sharing your life, events, and friends, but the feed is a representation of purely professional activities.

When and how did you start getting serious about the page?

My Instagram page is an indicator of my personal growth professionally, because if you scroll down the page, you can see different, far from ideal works. Although even now, looking at my current works, I don’t consider them ideal and see a huge number of shortcomings. I always try to do better and better.

I started working seriously on my page when I moved to Kyiv. At first I worked in salons, but even 30 working days was not enough for me. I didn’t get what I wanted, both morally and materially. I decided to change something, and, having received my first salary, I bought my first iPhone, a lamp, rented a chair, and then started looking for clients myself, began creating content and trying to promote it.

And how did you promote yourself on Instagram then?

At that time, advertising on Instagram was a big mystery to me. Therefore, at that time I simply published my work, and it turned out to be such a portfolio. But I tried to regularly post my before-after works to all possible groups (not only on Instagram, but also on Facebook).

Such “before-after” formats engage the client as much as possible. Just a beautiful “after” job, especially on a beautiful, sweet girl, looked standard. My task at that time was to attract real people who were interested in services, so I created content based on real living people, clients.

When did you decide to start a Facebook group for colorists yourself called “ Colorist Mafia ”?

The idea of creating professional groups has been around for a long time, and I was not its creator. I watched the development of one Russian group, which in just two years gained several hundred thousand subscribers. But I had the feeling that any group becomes obsolete at some point. And everything may end, you may lose contact with colleagues, their morale, and support. And I thought, why not create such a group in Ukraine? And at the end of December 2020, she was already 3 years old.

Have you been promoting this group?

I promoted it for exactly a week. After creation, I minimally filled the group with content from various foreign professional publications and magazines. I shared this in the group, invited my friends there, literally 15-20 people. And to the maximum, he asked them to add all their hairdresser friends. Simply, humanly. And the guys started doing this, after which the organic development of the group began.

What do you think are the main components of a great colorist profile on Instagram?

Personally, I don’t think my profile is cool. This is what gives me the opportunity to constantly create and search for something new. Perhaps this is the recipe that attracts attention and helps retain the audience.

But I can list what I personally pay attention to. There are a lot of monotonous profiles. They are terribly monotonous. Identical photographs of the backs of heads that do not attract attention because the market is full of them. I myself am guilty of doing the same things. Why? Because this is the easiest option, to do it quickly.

But if you want to stand out and make your blog successful, then look for a feature, direction, style, don't be like others. Thanks to this, people will recognize you and come to you.

What feature once helped you?

When I was just starting my career in Kyiv, I thought for a long time about what could attract clients and what would be interesting. At that time, stretching techniques were actively gaining momentum, they were different, but, as we know, most often there is a request for high-quality, pure, transparent blonde, for shades, for healthy hair, and therefore, in order to attract clients, I I tried my best to emphasize this.

I took large overgrown roots, a canvas with spots, and tried to squeeze the maximum out of it, to attract attention with it. It helped me at that time. And now I’m in a creative search, I’m still thinking about how to improve.

See the continuation of the interview on our Instagram page .