Create a Social Network Strategy for Your Wedding Business



I constantly get emails from wedding professionals asking me for help with Facebook, Twitter and BridalTweet. For the most part, wedding professionals want to know how to maximize their time and effectiveness while on these sites. Because let’s face it, you have a limited amount of time and plenty of other important business to take care of.
My first question back to these inquisitive wedding professionals is:

What are Your Goals? What do You Want Social Networks to Help You Achieve?

One must answer that question first. While each wedding professional has different goals, I’ve decided to choose the four that I believe are the most popular.

Common Goal #1: I want to network with other wedding professionals to gain business insights from my peers and to develop mutually beneficial partnerships.

Common Goal #2: I want to promote a wedding service or product that is on my website.

Common Goal #3: I want to position myself as a thought-leader in my industry or specialized area.

Common Goal #4: I want to increase my website’s search engine ranking on Google, so I need to increase the number of relevant links that point to my website.

Write down one to two main goals that you would like to achieve for your business through social networks. Once you have done that, you will be ready to come up with very specific ways (or tactics) that social networks can help you achieve those goals. Implement those tactics and be sure to monitor your success over time. Regularly ask yourself if you are achieving the goals that you originally outlined. If not, tweak your tactics to ensure that you are achieving your goals.

Before you know it, you’ll have developed your very own social network strategy. This strategy or plan is something that you can refer to on a regular basis to make sure that you are achieving your goals and being as productive as possible while on social networks.

Again, there isn’t a one size fits all approach to this. However, here are some examples of effective social network strategies for wedding professionals…

Strategy #1
Common Goal #1: I want to network with other wedding professionals to gain business insights from my peers and to develop mutually beneficial partnerships.
• Tactic: I will use BridalTweet’s Member Directory to search for professionals in my area. I’ll request vendor friendships, and then I’ll start to engage in online conversations with those professionals.
• Tactic: I will attract the attention of wedding professionals at BridalTweet by asking a thought-provoking question.
Tactic: I will create a Facebook Fan page and will engage in conversations with wedding professionals who become my fans.
• Tactic: I will conduct a search on Twitter for users who are talking about weddings. I will ‘follow them.’ If they ‘follow me’ back, I’ll start to engage in conversations with them.
Ways to Monitor Success: Each week, I will keep a record of the meaningful online conversations that I have had with wedding professionals. I will keep track of online conversations that have either led to ‘meet ups’ or have improved my business.

Strategy #2
Common Goal #2: I want to promote a wedding service or product that is on my website.
• Tactic: I will create blog posts at BridalTweet, Facebook, and other wedding websites to talk about my product or service. Within the blog posts, I will include links to my website.
• Tactic: I will post thought-provoking comments on other wedding blogs or on Twitter. This will grab the attention of brides and professionals, enticing them to visit my website and to view my products or services.
• Tactic: I will join BridalTweet’s Twitter This Please Group to encourage other BridalTweet members to tweet about my product or services.
Ways to Monitor Success: Each week, I will keep track of the sites that are driving the most traffic to my website. Google Analytics is a great tool to use to help keep track of this. I can also use Bit.ly to shorten my urls and to track the number of clicks that my links receive.

Strategy #3
Common Goal #3: I want to position myself as a thought-leader in my industry or specialized area.
• Tactic: I will write blog posts on BridalTweet, Facebook, and other wedding websites. Within my blog posts, I will enhance my reputation by consistently sharing my expertise and insights about my specialty.
Ways to Monitor Success: Once a week, I will monitor the comments that people leave on my blogs. I will also search for my business name on Twitter to monitor what people are saying about me.

Strategy #4
Common Goal #4: I want to increase my website’s search engine ranking on Google, so I need to increase the number of relevant links that point to my website.
• Tactic: I will write blog posts on BridalTweet, Facebook, and other wedding websites. Within my blog posts, I will include links with relevant keywords that will point to my website.
• Tactic: I will join BridalTweet’s Vendor Link Exchange Group and will swap links with other professionals.
Ways to Monitor Success: Once a week, I will monitor my ranking on Google.

What helpful hints can you share about your social network strategy? Please comment below.


About This Blog: Christine Dyer has an MBA in marketing and shares over ten years of marketing expertise with the wedding community. In this weekly blog called Supercharge Your Wedding Business, you'll find advice on an array of wedding business topics such as how to market to brides, social networking, wedding PR, wedding sales, vendor networking, branding, pricing and much more. .Please pass this news along to your own professional wedding network. To receive this advice in your email inbox each week, Sign Up for a Free BridalTweet Membership.

Views: 216

Comment by Forever Friends on November 30, 2009 at 2:05am
BridalTweet has helped me grow my business by meeting brides and grooms, and through that, doing business with them. BridalTweet has also helped me meet many vendors, and because of these connections, I am now networking with Favors by Dorinda, BravoBrides, MissNowMrs.com, Adorn Brides, All Occasions by J & B, Green Mountain PhotoShows, Custom Wedding Garters & More, Perfect Postage, just to name a few. One of my most cherishing things is becoming friends with Christine Dyer, BridalTweet creator. One last thing, open up the door and let people in, together you are going to grow your business as well as gain friends.
http://www.foreverfriends.cceasy.com/

Beth-Forever Friends
Comment by The Wedding Salon on November 30, 2009 at 10:07am
Christine, I think it is easy to lose track of what exactly you are doing sometimes on social networking. I love all of the tracking and goal making tips. Thank you for a great blog posting!
Comment by August J. Photography on November 30, 2009 at 1:07pm
Thank you.

Such a great post. I will be printing this for safe keeping. :)
Comment by Karen Kanefsky on November 30, 2009 at 2:16pm
This was full of valuable information. I will be implementing many of these ideas. Thanks for making these steps so clear and organized.
Comment by Tiffany Powell on November 30, 2009 at 5:50pm
Thank you for the tips and ideas. They are very valuable to those of us who are just starting to promote ourselves via the internet. I have been in the event industry for a long time, but had a "ready made" client list as I was planning for a corporation. Now that I am independant, and trying to get my site http://www.diamondeventsbytiffany.com and services noticed, these tips are very helpful. Thank you.

Tiffany Powell
Diamond Events by Tiffany
http://www.diamondeventsbytiffany.com
Comment by Rick Mason on December 1, 2009 at 1:24am
Excellent summary of the potential of social media to help your business - thanks Christine. Social media is just the technology, relationships are about people, I think this is often forgotten...

Connect to me via my facebook page - become a fan! http://tinyurl.com/yg93ow7
Comment by Emma Muir on December 3, 2009 at 4:40pm
Some fabulous & really helpful info! Thanks Christine!
Comment by On Paper on December 8, 2009 at 7:45pm
Some great information here to help a vendor develop a strategy. Personally, I would like some assistance with social networking skills... as imcompetent as this sounds: how to tweet, how to find potential clients, what to blog about. basic concerns, I know, but I was thinking of trying to find other business people who want to learn or develop these skills
Comment by Party Planners Plus on December 13, 2009 at 3:26pm
Great info thanks so much!
Comment by Next Level on December 15, 2009 at 2:26pm
Thank you, was of great help.

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