Spa Clique Offers a Niche Social Network for the Spa Industry (Pierce Mattie Public Relations New York)

While many may feel that social media is becoming more fragmented and expanding vastly at such a fast pace, I also think that as social media continues to evolve, there are certain aspects that have become very niche. All you have to do is look at the blogosphere, or Ning for that matter, to see that more and more people prefer to become a part of community that shares their talents, career interests and similarities. Where TheSpaProject.com may be a social network for spa goers, Spa Clique is geared towards spa and salon professionals to connect them and keep them up to date on the inner workings of their industry.

Spa Clique offers professionals the ability to create a profile, write a blog that is shared with all members on the site, upload press releases, join a “clique” (ie. estheticians, vendors, etc), as well as connect and network with other members.

Their most popular feature is the Spa iExpo, which is a virtual trade show exhibit. Here a private label brand, such as Preston, can showcase their company with downloadable brochures, an image gallery, tabbed information about their brand as well as purchasing product samples.

Some great benefits of a virtual trade show versus brick & mortar in a down economy are:
• Information is available 24/7 on demand.
• You pay a small base fee and then only per click on your exhibit as compared to the costs involved for travel, set up, product samples and large trade show fees.
• Offer the ability to provide samples as they are ordered versus creating a batch that may not all be distributed at the trade show costing you money.
• The exhibit itself is SEO optimized so that outside of the Spa Clique community itself, your exhibit will come up in search.
• It’s customizable; if services or products change, you can update them keeping prospects interested in coming back to your exhibit for new and interesting information.

I had the opportunity to also take a look inside Spa Clique’s Spa iUniversity. Here spa and salon professionals can attend webinars or spa educators can offer ongoing educational seminars. The set up is very much like GoToMeeting where the person conducting the seminar can be seen via webcam, conduct a multi-media presentation and have the audience interact via text chat or microphone.

Spa Clique may be a new and growing network of almost 500 spa professionals, but I think as each industry begins to seek out their niche, communities like Spa Clique’s will flourish.