Filming is no longer a required step
A video ad used to mean a camera operator, lighting, a model and a day of filming, which for a small salon in Tbilisi, Batumi or Dubai often cost more than the ad campaign itself. Now a 15-second ad video can be made without a single minute of filming: script, generation, voiceover and captions are all done with AI tools. That doesn't mean lower quality, for short vertical videos on TikTok and Instagram, most viewers can't tell whether a video was filmed or generated.
This matters most for niches where filming is hard or awkward: clinics that can't show patients' faces without consent, barbershops and salons where masters aren't comfortable in front of a camera, or businesses where the service itself looks unremarkable on video but describes well in words and numbers.
What can be shown without a camera
An AI video works well for a "before and after" told in words rather than a real face, explaining what's included in a service, showing prices and an offer in bold moving text, or gathering a few common client questions into a quick-answer format. What doesn't work without real footage is the actual faces of the masters and the salon's real interior, that still needs real photos or a short phone video, though even that can be surrounded with AI-generated clips.
How many videos a month
One video a month barely works, social algorithms lose interest in the same creative fast, and a viewer sees it too rarely to remember it. A reasonable minimum for a salon that wants a steady presence is four videos a month, roughly one a week. Salons and clinics running active ads on several platforms at once usually go for eight or twelve videos a month, to rotate creatives before the audience gets tired of the same one.
Ads with AI videos, where eight videos a month are already included in running campaigns on TikTok, Meta and Google, start at $800 a month. If videos are needed separately from ads, for social media or a website, one 15-second video with script, generation, voiceover and captions costs $120. A content plan with videos and a post for each, when ads aren't needed yet but social media needs regular activity, is priced by volume: 4 videos with posts is $360 a month, 8 videos $640, 12 videos $840, 20 videos $1,200.
How to pick a number
The right number of videos a month depends less on budget and more on where the salon already shows up. If an Instagram account is posted to irregularly, four videos a month is enough to build consistency. If a salon already runs paid ads, eight videos bundled with campaign management covers both organic posting and ads at once, with no separate charge for creatives.
Where to start
There's no need to jump straight to eight videos a month. It's reasonable to start with four, see which topics and formats get more views and clicks, and decide from there whether to scale up or move to paid ads with videos built in.
Browse video examples and creatives in the library or talk through a content plan for your salon.