Way back in 1998, blogging was born and in many ways is responsible for the kick off of the whole Social Media shift. Estimates vary from 77 million up to 112.8 million blogs out there. In the Technorati “State of the Blogosphere 2008”, citing the McCann Report it is estimated that 346 million or 77% of internet users read blogs regularly and that worldwide 184 million people have started a blog.(March 2008).

What caused this exponential growth? For one thing, the tools became available to make every man, woman and child, no matter how technically challenged, a citizen journalist. From free to cheap, anyone could now pop their own page up on the web and let their thoughts out into the wild. That single thing began to change our world.

Before blogs, the information available to the average citizen was controlled by big media or entities with deep enough pockets to buy and maintain a website. Today, that is no longer the case. Blogger (Blog Spot in the early days) wasn’t the first blog platform, but is certainly the one that sparked the revolution for the average man. For absolutely no money and in as little as an hour, anyone with an internet connection could have a web presence.

My how that little seed has grown. The technology behind social media has been growing as fast as the number of blogs. Led by the technorati among us, newer, better and faster tools are being launched on an almost daily basis. The brightest constellation in the blogospere today is Twitter, the micro-blogging platform. In posts of 140 characters or less, anyone with a bit of wit or wisdom and a touch of dedication can become a rockstar in their field.

Let’s look specifically at the wedding industry. Today blogs platforms have become sophisticated enough to replace websites. This site is built on a blog platform. For years small wedding vendors have struggled with their web presence, often held hostage by their web designer over any changes. Web sites were an expensive proposition that once launched, rarely were updated. By using a blogging platform, the ability to update a website at the click of a button is with in the reach of anyone willing to devote the initial time to learning the platform. Unlike the old days, that learning curve has been shorted to a few hours. On a simple to use platform like WordPress, anyone can be confidently in control of their own web presence in a few short lessons.

Why do you need any of this? Well we know that our brides are on the web, we also know that the single best way to get them to find us is through search. The best way to get good search rankings is by having lots of great, search friendly content. The more often that content is updated or added to, the better. That spells one thing, blog.

If you read yesterdays post than you already know that blogging is about sharing. My advice is to use these new tools and this new media to share your passions. You have 346 million potential readers.

Here is some further reading on blogs and blog statistics if you are interested.

State of the Blogosphere 2008

Wikipedia

Social media, when you get right down to it is nothing more than human conversation. Conversations like you have every day, at work, at play at any social gathering; with one exception.  Social media makes it happen on a global scale in the blink of an eye.

When you talk about social media, you are talking about tools like Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and a dozen other sites just like them. The common denominator is that they each have the ability to turn what you have to say into a conversation. You put your thoughts and ideas out there for your network to respond to. You share what you know and what you have with others and they share what they have with you. It really is that easy.
One of the comments/concerns I get from people when I suggest they start a blog or join Facebook or Twitter is “No one wants to know what I had for breakfast.”  Well that’s true, but if you think that is the only thing you have to talk about you’re not listening to yourself. Don’t you have more intelligent conversations daily? I bet you do.
Think about what you have talked about today with a bride; or what was said on the phone with a colleague. The thing most people don’t realize is that each one of us has a truly unique perspective. We all see things differently than anyone else on the planet. Take for example a group of photographers; if you give them all the exact same subject they will all capture it differently. Whether it is the equipment they choose, the angle or the lighting, no two images will be exactly the same.  It’s the same with florists; give eight florists the same bucket of cut flowers and you will get eight completely different arrangements.

Being a part of social media is sharing your unique perspective. The more you share, the more your network will grow. Then you have all these people that are sharing their unique perspective with you. Whether you are learning and sharing with other wedding professionals or sharing your unique perspective with your target market, everybody wins.

Tomorrow I’ll start exploring some of the tools of social media.

Back in the days before social media marketing, the king of the hill for micro businesses like ours was Guerrilla Marketing. I think it is high time for a little resurrection of our inner guerrillas, and apparently I am not the only one. Companies as large as Miller Brewing and Carnival Cruise Lines have jumped on the band wagon of thinking outside the box.

As you can see, Carnival unleashed a giant beach ball on the streets of Dallas. Next they tried a giant piñata filled with 8,000 pounds of candy. That didn’t go quite as well but still got a lot of attention.

As for Miller, it’s was all about the SuperBowl. Long the nearly private party of Anheuser Busch and outrageously expensive, Miller still wanted to play. So rather than go the traditional route of forking over billions to the network for a 30 second spot, their ad men got creative. Rather than spent $3m on 30 seconds they produced a series of 1 second ads and ran them on the local channels running the game in markets all across America. The spots ran throughout the game. There is an out of the box solution. They haven’t released how much they spent on the campaign, but I can guarantee you it was a better value than a single $3m spot would have been.

Sometimes you have to think differently to get noticed. Now I am not for one minute suggesting you commission a giant beachball or buy a Superbowl ad; I’m suggesting that you let your freak flag fly a little. Here are a couple of ideas to get you started.

How about those beach balls? Is there a local outdoor concert that draws people in the age likely to be thinking of getting married? Get some beach balls imprinted with your name, number, url and logo and send in a couple of people to start blowing them up and setting them flying. I’m not talking 3 or 4, more like 30 or 40. Heck, why not 100, beachballs are cheap. Extra score if they are in a really bright color. Can’t you just see all these beachballs being tossed around above the crowd all afternoon? I’ll bet you whatever local TV station is taping for the 10 O’clock news will get a nice shot of it. Repeat the stunt every chance you get.

Do the same thing with Frisbees. This time send your team off to the local college campus on the first pretty spring day and start handing those babies out on the quad. Oh yea, they’ll get tossed around and shared and kept. One day when those students get married, they will remember you as the wedding professional that was enough fun to think of Frisbees on the first day of spring. If you’re lucky the college paper will even cover it.

A group of wedding professionals in Indiana got local firefighters and police to volunteer for a men’s beauty pageant at their cities summer street festival. All the locals gathered to whoop, holler and cheer on the sexy men. Of course the formal wear portion was sponsored by the tuxedo shop and you know they all wore boutonnières. Yep, they got some nice publicity.
I don’t know what kind of events there are in your community, but find a way to make a splash.
Have you ever heard of Sir Richard Branson? Virgin Record, Virgin Air? Ring a bell now. Why do you think he keeps doing all the crazy stuff he does? It’s all guerilla marketing and it isn’t just for people without marketing budgets.
If you want to bounce your ideas off me, drop me a line.

This article appeared in the March issue of Think Like A Bride. If you aren’t already a subscriber, please join us.