In this episode of Tag Me Podcast, we’ll be learning social media tips from celebrity hairstylist, Kathleen Riley. She’ll be sharing how she uses social media to get celebrity clients and brand deals. If you are interested in learning how to create a great hair tutorial, her favorite editing apps, or how she landed her own brand deals and celebrity clients like Sofia Richie - stay tuned.
Kathleen's Social Media:
Instagram @Kathleen_Hair
CONNECT WITH US ON INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/tagmepodcast/
In this episode of Tag Me Podcast, we’ll be learning social media tips from celebrity hairstylist, Kathleen Riley. She’ll be sharing how she uses social media to get celebrity clients and brand deals. If you are interested in learning how to create a great hair tutorial, her favorite editing apps, or how she landed her own brand deals and celebrity clients like Sofia Richie - stay tuned.
Kathleen's Social Media:
Instagram @Kathleen_Hair
CONNECT WITH US ON INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/tagmepodcast/
Audrie: 0:11
Welcome to Tag Me a social Media Podcasts we will be connecting with your favorite people and brands on social media to share their tips and best practices with you. My name is Audrie, and in this episode we'll be learning social media tips from celebrity hairstylist Kathleen Riley. She'll be sharing how she uses social media to get celebrity clients and brand deals. If you're interested in learning how to create a great tutorial or her favorite editing apps or how she landed her own brand deals and celebrity clients like Sofia Richie, stay tuned. Kathleen's Social Media handles are linked for you in the episode notes. Thank you for tuning in. Now let's learn a thing or two about social media from Kathleen. You might know her from her Fashion Week hair posts or Sofia Richie Selfies. She is a hairstylist for Mane Addicts and her content is most likely saved in everyone's hair inspo folder. Let's welcome Kathleen Riley to the Tag me podcast.
Kathleen: 1:19
Hello, everybody.
Audrie: 1:19
I'm so happy to have you here.
Kathleen: 1:19
I'm very excited to be here.
Audrie: 1:19
So I know you from day one of your career, and I know how much you deserve to be where you are right now. But for people listening who may not know you, in a nutshell, What do you do and how did you get started?
Kathleen: 1:20
Um, I am a hairstylist here in Los Angeles, and I got started about four years ago. I picked up and moved to L. A, which was really scary. But I just figured, you know, I wanna work with celebrity clients, work with brands, and so that's what I do now.
Audrie: 1:35
Amazing. Okay, well, let's dive into clients. Have you always worked with celebrities and influencers or how did that happen?
Kathleen: 1:42
Absolutely not. When I first started, I was kind of doing anyone's hair that would let me do it. Um, it was a little bit hard because I was doing stuff for free and like random test shoots and random people, literally anybody. I would also reach out to, like any hair stylist who I looked up to and hope they would answer me to assist them. And then once you build a relationship with them. They trust you and refer you to another client. And that's like, the biggest, nicest thing ever to me, that they trust you with their clients.
Audrie: 2:18
Did you just reach out to them in the DM? Or how did you get their contact info?
Kathleen: 2:23
It depended, like some of them. I slid into their DM, and then one of our really good friends kind of connected us. Mariana Hewitt love her. And then once I started working with one, it's like, weird. It kind of It's like a domino effect. And once one really established hairstylists trust you that's really important. You need to have like set etiquette. That's one of the biggest things and, like, kind of read a room and like know when to just stand there and kind of be quiet and know when to be more involved, which most of the time, if you're an assistant, you just kinda keep to yourself. And don't really say anything and just do whatever the hairstylist wants you to do. Very focused. And some people are like, you look really like not that happy and like I'm just looking at the snatched ponytail, and I'm making sure there's no bumps in it.
Audrie: 3:12
The ponytails you create are very snatched.
Kathleen: 3:14
Thank you.
Audrie: 3:21
Is Sofia Richie's long ponytail on Instagram your most liked photo?It might be, actually.
Audrie: 3:24
Kathleen: 3:31
I think that was her birthday hair. That was pretty iconic. It was almost to the floor. And then we did one similar for a New York fashion week. But it wasn't, um, braided. It was just more of like, a normal ponytail.
Audrie: 3:44
So a lot of your clients, including Sofia, tag you in post. How does that happen? Does that happen organically? Do you ask them to do that for you? What's that like?
Kathleen: 3:55
I think if a client really loves your work. They'll tag you anyways. It's not something I ever ask somebody. It's kind of weird, especially when they're paying. Um, but usually with a client, especially someone you work with continuously, they want to tag you. It's something that they want their followers to see. And they know that tagging you is going to kind of help you. Anyways, um, when it's someone that you have never worked with, Um, it's kind of like a 50/50. You hope that they tag you. And, if they don't it's totally fine.
Audrie: 4:26
Okay, let's talk about the people who at the beginning didn't pay you. What was that dynamic like? How did you set that up? That was also through the DM? And it was kind of like a trade, I'll do your hair if you tag me in a post?
Kathleen: 4:40
So that was something that was like, DMing influencers. Um, it was tough. Like I said, in the beginning, I was doing a lot of work for free, and and then in exchange, they would tag me. It's a lot because you're driving anywhere in L. A. and you know that takes like, 87 hours. So by the time you drive there, get to them, do their hair, it's like five hours in, and you're not getting paid for it. So, it was really tough in the beginning. But over time it just happens organically, like they tag you and they refer you. And that's what you hope to happen out of all of this is that they refer you to other people who are gonna be paying clients.
Audrie: 5:14
Okay, cool. Let's dive into content. How do you capture content while also styling someone's hair? That seems like a magic trick to me, because I've also had you do my hair and you're trying to take the content or I'm holding the phone, and even when I'm holding it, it's still hard. So how do you do it?
Kathleen: 5:32
It is very hard and not the best content. But you just do the best you can. Sometimes I have a tripod set up, or sometimes I'm like having whoever's hair I'm doing there kind of taking my BTS, which is very helpful. But if I have like a paid sponsored content post, I usually have an assistant come and help me because you need to put out the best content that you can for someone that's actually paying you
Audrie: 5:56
So, speaking of assistance, do you mean a hairstylist assistant or an actual assistant?
Kathleen: 6:02
I would say a hairstylist assistant, because they really understand what you're trying to capture. Not that, like a regular assistant wouldn't be able to learn. But I think if you're telling a hair assistant like I really need to see this angle when I'm cutting this random section, they're not gonna be like, Well, what do you mean? Where stylists, they already know exactly what to do.
Audrie: 6:21
So, speaking of creating content, can you shoot it all on your phone or do you use savvy equipment? What do you need to create really good quality content as a stylist?
Kathleen: 7:04
So for a really long time, pretty much four years up until, like a month ago, I was using just my phone and the phone really is great. I've done amazing content with it. The phone content does really well, but I just bought a camera. The content you can get with this camera is fantastic. So I'm trying to use it because it really gives you better content. And I want to make sure like I said, I'm giving the best sponsored content ever to the brands.
Audrie: 7:04
I mean, I think you'r content is amazing. What camera do you use?
Kathleen: 7:08
I think it's a cannon G7x or something like that
Audrie: 7:12
Do you use any apps to help you edit your content.?
Kathleen: 7:16
The one that I use the most for videos is called InShot. It helps you, like, cut trim and you can add music, stuff like that. I think I've used Darkroom and Lightroom. There was a time when I was, like, really psychotic on my page and like everything had to look absolutely perfect. And I was messing with the colors and like the colors of the shirts of the girls had to match and everything.
Audrie: 7:55
So speaking of content, I wanna ask you about tutorials. What makes a great tutorial? Is there a specific recipe or something?
Kathleen: 8:11
I think a great tutorial is one with amazing lighting and sound, because if someone's looking at it, they want to hear what you're saying. If you're like babbling or you can't really hear, it's really low or whatever, they're like, Okay, what the heck, and same with lighting. It needs to look good and professional, and you can have the best tutorial in the world, but if it looks dark or not bright, people are not going to like it. Um, I also like being pretty specific on what I'm showing so that they know what they're getting when they watch it. And if I'm doing like a flat iron tutorial, I just stick to that one look instead of trying to do multiple looks. We all have short attention spans these days.
Audrie: 8:58
True! Yeah, I'm trying to make these episodes about 30 minutes because my attention span is short.
Kathleen: 9:07
Well, it's like I'll be on instagram and before I know it I get off and I'm on Twitter. And then I'm looking at my pictures and I'm like, wait, was I on an email?
Audrie: 9:15
I want to talk about sponsored content. At what point in your career did brands start reaching out to you. And how did you decide which brands to work with?
Kathleen: 9:24
I would say, probably like two years ago, and that's when my page looked really great and professional. And then when a brand went to my page, they knew exactly what they were getting out of me. So I think that was something that they appreciated. And I only work with brands that make sense to me and the stylist that I am, what a lot of people don't realize is when they see sponsored content is that it's something the stylist or the influencer really loves. Influencers and hair stylists or anyone who gets paid to post turn down a lot of sponsorships because it's unauthentic for who they are. So, when you see a sponsored post don't automatically think someone is only posting it because they're getting paid. Um, but I would love to work more closely with GHD, I love them and their tools.
Audrie: 10:12
I love GHD. GHD, Kathleen Riley wants to work with you. She's in alignment with the brand. I love when you said that when you see a sponsored post, don't automatically think someone is only posting it just because they're getting paid,
Kathleen: 10:34
And that's something that I would always do before I got paid for anything, I would tag the brands like even if I used a comb or a brush or something. Super small, automatically seeing the tag, and they looked and were like, Oh wow, this girl's content is really pretty or it's awesome or she's showing off the tools the right way or she's doing really cool tutorials. And we kinda have to just make content that the brands like already love and that they would see and be like, Wow, I would love to pay her to do this one.
Audrie: 11:04
All right, Let's jump into managers. I know at the beginning of your career you were managing your own deals with brands. At what point did you decide or feel that you needed to get a manager?
Kathleen: 11:15
I wasn't signed with management until this past April, when I got signed with Mane Addicts, which was really great shout out to, Jet Atkin. Mane Addicts is Jen's company, and she created it for about six of us as a creator collective. I've always looked up to Jen. I've always told her like if there was someone I would want to work with on the management side, it would be her and whoever whatever team that she brought in, and she's given me so many opportunities, we've traveled pretty much the world and we worked with almost every influencer you could think of and it was always like a cross marketing situation. Like on trips we have gone to Australia, Paris Fashion Week, and New York Fashion Week. We're all just kind of tagging each other and hope that you know more people see the influencer or the hair stylist or the makeup artists like and think it's really amazing. Prior to being signed, I negotiated all my deals and all my rates, which was kind of tough because you really just don't know. So you kind of rely on your peers to help you a little bit to figure that out. It's a little bit scary because you're like am I way over asking.
Kathleen: 12:28
But yeah, you just have no idea what the going rate for is for stuff. And you just hope that you give rate and they're not like is this girl okay? She just quoted us a lot of money.
Audrie: 12:48
Now, knowing everything you know now about working with clients, how to get celebrity and influencer clients and how to lock in brand deals, where would you tell someone to start if they wanted to do what you're doing?
Kathleen: 13:00
I think kind of the same thing, just like tagging brands and tagging people. But a lot of times, too if someone has, like a a manager and their profile, it's important to kind of go the professional way as well. Um, so sometimes people will DM me and be like I would love to collab and I'm like, Okay, what does that even mean? It's like a random person. I don't know. Does that mean like, let me come do your hair for free and then you tag me or like, what? Does that mean? It means different things. So everyone, um, but that's something that I also I want to say about the industry that's tough. Is people wanting to quote on quote collab or you say your rate to someone and they're like, Well, can you do it if I say my rate is this is just a random number, $100. They're like, well, Can you do it for $30? And in my mind, I'm like if $100 is too much or you don't like that rate, just be like Okay, well, that's not my budget. I hope we can work together in the future.
Audrie: 13:58
So I've known you since day one, and you know how hard you've hustled and how much you deserve to be where you are now traveling nonstop, going from one fashion week to the next, lugging luggage and hair kits that way more than you all around the world through and early call times and working long hours. What goes on behind the scenes that is required of you to be successful in your industry that most people wouldn't expect?
Kathleen: 14:19
All the things you just said, like it's difficult when you travel especially say, you know you're in Paris for Fashion Week and the time zone is all messed up. You're like, if this was in L. A. Right now, it would be 3AM I am like, Oh my gosh, I don't know. I'm tired, you know? And you're lugging your luggage that weighs 70 pounds and it's cold. But yeah, that behind the scenes is tough sometimes, um, New York Fashion Week Behind the scenes, it's insane and you have no idea. And it's three hours trying to get 50 models ready and everybody's shuffling around and it's hair, it's makeup, it's nails, all on the same girl. And on the show, I'm not even kidding you is like one minute long, But the feeling you get after watching a show that you were a part of is like winning a Grammy. And honestly, it's tough, too, because a lot of the girls are coming from other shows. So sometimes they're coming from a show where they have like a sleek bun. And then all of a sudden, the show we're doing is really fluffy pretty hair, and I'm like, All right, how the heck can I pull this off?
Kathleen: 15:26
I don't know. Somehow we always do it. That's amazing. Yeah, I also want to touch on you mentioned this before in a conversation. How moving to Los Angeles Really helped your career because you mention that it's really hard to do what you're doing if you live in a smaller city, because a lot of times options have presented to you and it's helpful that you're in Los Angeles, So what would you recommend to someone that doesn't live here?
Kathleen: 15:50
I would say the best thing if you don't have the means to move to LA or you don't want to move to LA Is probably just take the content route and do tutorials and then anyone that you can possibly reach out to, even if it's like a news station. Or there's brands that work in every single city, and there's models in every single city, even if they're not really established. Just reach out to anybody that you think would be able to help you and your brand and building yourself up.
Kathleen: 16:17
Be the go to person there. Yeah, that's great advice. Then you also mentioned to me once how much you love people commenting because you like engaging with your followers.
Kathleen: 16:27
I love it because if nobody's commenting on my stuff, does anybody even like my post at all? Or I'd like to see the feedback like That's the best like Oh my God, I love seeing this. I want to see you do more tutorials with you doing flat iron waves are showing this tool or whatever they want to see.
Audrie: 16:44
You know, what's funny about that is that I don't always think, likes and comments equate how many people actually enjoyed your content because I'm so add. I'll scroll through instagram. I'll see your post. Yeah, I'll see one of our other friends post, and I love it. I'm also in the middle of a conversation, or I'm doing something else, and I don't like her comment it, but in my head, I did. Yeah. So how did we take that into account? I don't know. I feel like I mean, that there should be a 10% increase on every like, and comment for the ghost one. The ones that happened in people's heads.
Kathleen: 17:17
Yeah, the ones that they're like, I love this, but I'm also writing an email, drinking coffee, talking on the phone,
Audrie: 17:23
Kathleen: 17:29
Audrie: 17:31
All right, So we're going to jump into some rapid fire questions. You ready? Someone you connected with because of social media That gave you a chance that helped your career?
Kathleen: 18:00
I think Jen Atkin, obviously. Marianna Hewitt, one of my really good friends. Justine Marjan, Laura Polko. Laura is the one that actually posted that she needed an assistant and Mariana connected us. That was right when I moved here and she trusted me enough to assist her, which was really great becauase I hadn't even posted that I've ever like worked with anyone yet.
Audrie: 18:24
Shout out to all those amazing humans who gave you a chance. I'm so happy you're doing so well. Thank you. A brand or person you would love to work with?
Kathleen: 18:35
I would love to work with Margot Robbie, because wow!
Audrie: 18:39
When you work with her, let me know I would love to come to set.
Kathleen: 18:42
Yes, I have a huge crush on her. Prettiest.
Kathleen: 19:03
Outside of hair, maybe brands like, fitness or clean eating or clean snacks. Because I love snacks. Type of brand. I love fitness. I always have um, people always ask me like What is your workout? What do you eat? Like you can even ask my friends, like, 90% the time. The other 10% like margaritas.
Audrie: 19:25
So if you're a fitness brand or snacks reach out to Kathleen. Or you have clean eating that delivers slide in her DM. What app do you use for social media that you couldn't live without?
Kathleen: 19:50
Um, I think I mentioned it before, but InShot, for sure. I use PREQUEL now, too, Which was They have some really cool filters and automatically sets it for stories or a grid post. Um, it just makes it more fun. And people, like some people, get sick of just seeing like the super plain, plain wall type things they want to see. I don't know, like your video like crackle or something.
Audrie: 20:12
Who is a hairstylist that inspires you?
Kathleen: 20:22
I would say Bryce Scarlett, because I can tell his work from eight trillion miles away. He's just super effortless and cool, and it probably takes him a while to do the hair. But if you look at it, you would never think that, you know? I mean, it just looks, I don't know. It looks classy, beautiful, well done polishd. And then when he does a messier vibe, it's like messy in the most perfect way. I'm like, Wow.
Audrie: 20:47
What's his instagram?
Kathleen: 20:50
I think it's just Bryce Scarlett.
Audrie: 20:58
How can we support you on Social?
Kathleen: 21:02
You can support me by commenting and liking my posts. Um, Instagram is @Kathleen_Hair , and you can follow me. That'd be very nice. Just engaged with me because I love that love talking to you guys.
Audrie: 21:17
Sounds good. Is there anything else related to social you want to share with us?
Kathleen: 21:22
Just try to be consistent. Um, work your butt off. Do content when you don't feel like it. Like after this lovely podcast. I'm doing a test shoot. You have to stay consistent and like, you know, I kind of hate the industry, saying, like, if you don't do it, someone else will, but it's kind of true.
Kathleen: 21:53
So something I also wanted to touch on is, um, the industry being like a constant hustle. And some days I love that and some days, it's tough to always feel replaceable. Um, the constant feeling you know, if you don't do it, someone else will is a weird feeling. It's hard to explain. Um, because sometimes some days you'll never feel like you're enough and it'll drive you insane, and it makes you feel like you have to say yes to everything. And you can't really have a have a life outside of working. But I'm trying to let that go a little bit.
Audrie: 22:23
I love that you just touched on that because ultimately no one can be you. So if you focus on being authentic and find the thing that separates you from everyone else and stick to that you're going to succeed.
Kathleen: 22:34
Yeah, for sure. Some days you are like, Oh my God, my career is over. This is it. You drive yourself crazy and during the weeks that you're insanely busy, you don't have time to go to the bathroom. You're like, OK, I'm fine. Or like, this is what I did all that work for on my days off to get me to this point.
Audrie: 23:00
Yeah, I can relate! Thank you so much for being a guest on the tag me podcast. Yes. I'm so excited to continue to watch your career unfold. If you want to follow or connect with Kathleen on Social, you can find her on Instagram at @Kathleen_Hair
Kathleen: 23:15
Yes. And you can slide into my DM
Audrie: 23:17
Slide in her DM And she's on other social channels as well. But her main one is instagram.
Kathleen: 23:22
Yeah, I like just go check Twitter and check Facebook. But I'm not really I'm not really active on it. So Instagram is definitely where you can find me.
Audrie: 23:30
Sounds good. Thanks, Kathleen.
Kathleen: 23:32
Of course. Thank you for having me.
Audrie: 23:36
Thank you for listening to this episode of Tag Me. If you enjoyed it give us a shoutout on on instagram @TagMePodcast Let us know what you learned from the episode. Make sure to subscribe, so you are always up to date on Tag Me episodes. If you have feedback on the podcast, guest suggestions including topics, or you want to be a guest, visit us on IG @TagMePodcast and click the email button or slide in our DM. This podcast is for you, so please let us know how we can improve. We look forward to hearing from you and connecting with you on social. Don’t forget to to Tag Me!