Turning a Mugshot Into a Business Opportunity

A hairdresser in North Carolina knew opportunity when she saw it
By Josh Rosenblatt,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 8, 2018 6:20 PM CST
Hairdresser Uses Mugshot to Promote Her Business
Shia Yearwood   (Mecklenburg County Sheriff's Office)

Shia Yearwood knows how to spin bad news into good business. On Jan. 3, the Charlotte, NC, native was taken into police custody on a misdemeanor charge, after which her mugshot was posted to the website Charlotte Mugshots and its Twitter page. That's when Yearwood, a professional hairdresser, decided to make the best of a bad situation, WAFB reports. Encouraged by the number of Twitter users posting positive comments about her hairstyle, she retweeted Charlotte Mugshot's post along with the hashtag "#BraidsByShia" to promote her business, Hair By Shia. That's when things took off.

As of Monday evening, Yearwood's post had nearly 9000 "likes," 4500 retweets, and 118 comments, many of them questions and comments from potential customers curious about pricing and appointment times, the Charlotte Observer reports. Yearwood even answered questions about her arrest, telling readers she had violated a protective order related to a visitation dispute with her son's father. “Lol turn negatives into positives all 2018,” Yearwood tweeted Saturday in response to her turn of good fortune. (More hairdresser stories.)

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