The I Dos and I Don’ts: Social Media for the Wedding Industry
By Jon Goldman, Brand Launcher, Baltimore, Md.
Most people are familiar with social media’s frivolous, time-wasting side. But do you know social media’s serious side? The side that can help you generate new leads and nurture existing relationships with clients? To be effective, you’ll need to strategize your efforts.
All marketing efforts follow three key steps: market (your audience), message (what to say, how to say it, when to say it), and medium (the avenues you are using). With social media, you know the market and medium. Here are some tips to follow with regards to the message:
Remember that social media is about the three E’s: engage, entertain and educate.
1.Content is King
Make the effort to stand out in this very crowded marketplace. Whether it’s the cover photo on your Facebook page, the YouTube videos of your happy clients giving testimonials, or the photos you pin on Pinterest, you need to frame your message creatively. If you are a florist, don’t just post a photo of a flower display at a wedding—create a YouTube video showing how you created a unique or specialized bridal bouquet to meet a client’s eccentric demands. If you are a wedding planner competing with DIY sites, provide testimonials from brides who tried to do things themselves but ended up “learning the hard way” and incurring greater costs and more stress, before finally hiring you to get it done properly at the last minute. And don’t just announce your catering company’s new color scheme for tablecloths and napkins — have one of your staff show the newest trend in napkin folding, so your potential client can do it at home for his or her own dinner party. Here are some other ideas:
•Key for conveying your messages are blogs and e-letters. So in addition to the popular social media sites, use your own blog and send out your own e-letter to create and strengthen your relationship with potential clients.
•Make sure your website (where your blog lives) features graphically appealing landing pages—pages that actually convert visitors into leads and leads into clients. One company to check out for this is www.Formstack.com.
•Your e-letter should be beautiful and effective, too. What do your emails look like? Services like www.ConstantContact.com and www.AWeber.com offer attractive templates that make your message arrive with form and function. Can visitors to your Facebook page easily sign up to your email list without going to your website, a tool www.MailChimp.com offers? And don’t just focus on sending your e-letter, but on building your list, too; use your Facebook and LinkedIn pages to bring in more readers.
2. Don’t get sucked into the dark hole
Social media can be like a dark hole—once you fall in, it’s hard to climb out. Like any other marketing effort, social media needs a strategy so you can determine if you are getting a return on your investment. Social media is NOT free, despite whatever you’ve heard to the contrary. Although you may not be paying fees to LinkedIn, Facebook, or YouTube, to properly use these tools, you’ll need to invest significant time. And, as we all know, time = money. Use these tips for effectiveness:
•Tailor your content to the specific site. What you post on Facebook will be different than Pinterest or YouTube. And don’t overlook Linked In—although it is generally considered a B2B site for professionals, its success in B2C efforts is growing, and at times, this site is proving more effective in converting leads into sales than other social media sites.
•Don’t blatantly sell. Instead, alternate postings about promotions, special savings, and good deals with business news (new products or services or letting customers know your office changed locations) and “personal” business news, like congratulating one of your staffers on a promotion.
•Just as you help clients plan ahead, plan ahead for your social media efforts. Many companies focus on having a beautiful website, updated blog, and other important online tools. But frequency is just as important; your social media accounts can reflect poorly on your company if you over-post one week and then don’t post for weeks at a time.
•It’s important to maintain a “social media calendar.” Set up a plan so you’ll be posting regularly. Make it easy for yourself with a tool like www.HootSuite.com, which enables you to streamline posting and manage multiple accounts at once.
4. Monitor and measure your social media efforts and success
Are your efforts going to waste or are they effective? Facebook offers measuring tools so you can see how far your posts are reaching and how much you are engaging your audience. Another important tool is Google Analytics. As you increase your social media efforts, monitor the analytics of your company’s website, so you know which social media sites are actually driving traffic, what pages are being visited, and other behavior patterns of your audience. You may need to alter your social media strategy (the content you post and the sites you are prioritizing) to increase the quantity and quality of the audience you are attracting.
Remember that social media is about the three E’s: engage, entertain and educate. Use the tips in this article to connect with your target audience, and start making your social media efforts pay off.
