Social media marketing is a much more complex animal than most people seem to think. You cannot just do a bit of it and think it will achieve your goals. In truth, for it to work it has to be a full on social media campaign. Like a well orchestrated symphony, if one part is missing or off key, it will fall flat.

All the tools of Social Media are but pieces of the larger puzzle. Some are to build buzz, some are to spark interest and build tribes, some are used to give deeper information and yet others are best used as a clear call to action. Then there are tools like Twitter and Foursquare that serve to provide the constant beat of jungle drums in the background to keep the movement alive.

Let’s break one down. In our example we are marketing an event to showcase our business.

First off, get your information ready for  your blogsite.Big, splashy, information rich with links and details aplenty. This is in essence, the home base for your media campaign. But don’t launch it all yet, just tease it.Put a lead generator on the page to gather email addresses. “Be the first to know more”

Next you should start teasing it on your FB and Twitter. Lay it out and start building excitement. Put up tweets and status updates saying that “You won’t believe what we have in store for you.” Then start leaking details. You have to do this frequently and you can’t stop. In your symphony, this is your base line. Mind you, you can’t just keep retweeting the same thing over and over. Change the notes. Every thing should link back to the page on your website.

Now that you have tweaked everyones curiosity, roll out the full content on your blog/website. Start getting into buzz building detail on FB. “Just met with {caterer} for a tasting and OMG the food will be fabulous!” “What do you think about our signature cocktail {name}?” “Just saw the mock-ups from {florist}. Wow, just Wow”

Everyone of those vendors needs to be in on the campaign, even if you have to write the content and set up the tweets for them. This is a multipronged attack and it all has to work in unison to achieve it’s goals.

Now you send out the email blast. You send it, your vendors send it and you track your response. The email should match the page on your website and it simply must limit the number of reservations accepted and a time frame. The more scarse and coveted you make the tickets the faster they will sell.

Now you and all of your vendors should be posting updates on their blog helping to build the excitement.

One week later, send the next email blast. In fact, do two. On would go to the people that opened the first but did not respond. Say something along the lines of “Don’t miss the boat” or “Last chance to register”. the other email should go to the people that did not open the first one. Your subject line has got to make their mouth water.

Don’t forget to keep up that baseline of Twitter and FB. On Twitter you should start thanking people for registering. “@{name} I’m so glad you are coming! Can’t wait to see you.” “Dear friend of {company name} @{name} just registered. I can’t wait for you all to meet her.” Put those names out there and make it a social event.

Keep this thing running until the event starts and beyond. Heck, Tweet the event. Those that missed it won’t miss your next one.

Yep, it’s a lot of work. If you look at the alternative of using traditional media you are looking a a massive spend in money instead of time. If this is important to you, take a fraction of what you are saving by not doing traditional media and hire some one to orchestrate the campaign. Money well spent.

or you could just wing it. LOL yeah right.

I met with a friend last week that needed some advice on promoting an upcoming event. We talked about the time frame (very short), we talked about what they were doing already(great event, some advertising, no social media) and what they hoped to get out of the event.

In the course of an hour we tossed around ideas and looked at some possibilities. By the time we were done I thought that we had laid out a fairly comprehensive plan. The thing was, it needed to be implemented almost immediately. Now, yesterday if possible.

I still haven’t seen one word on social media. Not. One.

This needed to be mobilized by all the people that are involved in it. By getting everyone  involved, setting them all up to update automatically and letting it roll, it should have been an easy thing to do.

Sometimes, when you have a lot riding on your PR and marketing and your hands are already full running your business, it just makes sense to hire someone to do it for you.

There seems to be a huge push by certain people in the wedding marketing industry this week to convince you to abandon Facebook as a marketing tool and put all your eggs in the Twitter basket. Hmmm, where is this coming from.

On Tuesday Lienne Stevens of Splendid Communications posted this article about the supposed mass exodus from Facebook.

Then today I found this press release from two bright lights saying…

Most wedding professionals should spend less time blogging and on Facebook, and reallocate this time to building a business presence within the wedding Twittersphere

I Call Bullshit!

bullshit_detector

One of the things that has gotten me where I am today is the massive amounts of data I ingest everyday. I analyze information from sources both within and outside of the wedding industry. Well, just let me tell you, what I have read above just didn’t ring true with I am seeing.

And here’s why…

It has always been my position that if you look at your twitter followers that you would find that the majority of your followers are fellow wedding professionals. In fact, I even say this in my seminars and in my blog. Apparently, it isn’t just me. I posted an article earlier this week siting the very interesting infographic that NearlyWeds had posted regarding Twitter followers. NearlyWed did the math folks. They are self described as a bunch of geeks, I trust their data.

Having said that, I also want to say that I still believe that Facebook is your better bet and here is my backup on that.

Check out this article on eMarketer.

Here are the juicy quotes:

Unsurprisingly, despite Facebook’s growing appeal to older users, 18- to 34-year-olds spend the most time on the site per week, at 8.5 hours out of 22.4 spent online.

And this:

In Q1 2010, comScore found that the visitors who spent the most time on Facebook also spent the most money online. Targeting users who not only spend large amounts of time on the site but also devote a large proportion of their total online activity to the social network could translate to going after the most lucrative portion of the audience.

I have to tell you, I still think Facebook is a good bet. People are still using it to connect, not just to play Farmville. As long as your target market’s friends are on there, your target market will be there to connect and keep up with their tribe.

The other aspect of Facebook that works in my mind is the “peer pressure”, if your tribe Friends something, you will be prompted to Friend it as well. It is word of mouth marketing on a whole new level. One thing that Facebook does very well is to read your tribe and use that data to make recommendations. You may not like it on a privacy level, but on a marketing level, I’m not going to pass it up.

If you have ever been to one of my seminars on Social Media then you know that one of the things I recommend is that you take a look at who your followers really are. I have long suspected that most of the phenomenal growth in followers and friends is with other wedding professionals. Stated simply. it isn’t brides-to-be following you, it is most likely other wedding pros. Finally someone has done the heavy lifting to prove the point. Many thanks to bloggers at NearlyWed Blog for this fab infographic. Go read the whole article, it’s fascinating.

Well now, what does that mean? Should you bail on Twitter? For me, that is exactly where I want to be because my primary clients are wedding professionals, but what about you? If you are thinking about Twitter as a marketing tool how much time should you be investing in it  if it isn’t attracting clients? Twitter and building your network of like minded professionals isn’t with out merit. Networking is always valuable, but it isn’t the be all to end all in marketing. Don’t get me wrong, I have made some lovely friends because of Twitter, none of them brides. I go back to the question, how much time are you spending tweeting and are you thinking you are marketing? Well, you aren’t marketing, but you are building your personal brand. If a potential client want to know more about you it’s out there for them to find. (Do I need to remind you how search savvy today’s brides are?) Be careful what you say on social media. I suspect that the same is true if you sort through your friends on Facebook. Facebook however may just be a much smarter place to be. I’ll give you some more of the how’s and whys on that one in an in-depth look later this month.

I see it all the time, wedding professionals tweeting like crazy but never really getting it. Twitter is really a powerful tool for marketing if you take a little time to understand it.  Here are some pointers if you want to use Twitter as a marketing tool.

I see so many people using Twitter as a platform for chat. Fine, that’s fun and a great way to make friends but it isn’t really a marketing tool.

The other thing I see is the ones that pretty much do nothing but tweet spam. Wow, that’s annoying.
So what is the right way? Share your passion with me. Chances are good that you are passionate about your business or you wouldn’t be trying to grow it. So show me!

I teach best by example so here we go.

Last night I spoke with a chef for a catering company that had been assigned the twitter account. She was at a total loss. I told her to tweet about the fabulous artichokes that came in today and the ideas she had for them. I told her to tweet about the new recipe she was developing. I told her to tweet about how amazing the spring lamb smelled as it roasted for tonight’s party. I told her to make me drool.

I have a client that is a floral designer that always takes pictures at the wholesaler of anything that looks particularly lovely and tweets it. She tweets pictures of brides reaction as she hands them their bouquet on the morning of their wedding. She shares her passion. Sometime she tweets about the madness that is a floral design studio on the day before a huge function.

Another  tweep I have been coaching to talk about all the amazing changes taking place at her venue. They are doing some moderate renovations and everything in the garden is coming to life. I suggested that she talk about the interesting way each bride transforms the space into her own. I suggested that she tweet that some of her brides are renting the place for an afternoon well before the wedding to use a setting for boudoir photo shoots. In the telling of these, she is intriguing me enough to want to find out more about her property.

Talk to me about your passions; show me why I want to join you in your world. Invite me in and inspire me.
No matter what you do, if you share your passion with me I will feel it and most likely become engaged enough to want to explore you and your product or service further.

That is what customer engagement is all about in the time of social media.

Every now and then I run across these videos. I’ve used some of them in my presentations and seminars. This one has a lot to say about the power of social media. If you think it is just a fad or that you don’t need to use it for your business you are sorely mistaken.

As wedding vendors, your target market IS GenY. If you ignore the media that they use you have no hope of reaching them. In order to sucessfully market anything, you have to:

• Understand your target market
• Know where they are
• Reach out to them in a way that they are receptive to hearing

You can not market your goods or service only in the way that you would be receptive to; or that worked well for previous generations.

Because of how unique our industry is, our target market is constantly shifting. They move at light speed and you have to stay on top of their trends to find them. It is no longer enough to stay up on the latest trends in weddings. You have to constantly scan the jungle to see where the herd you seek to capture is lurking.

I had an interesting conversation with a new client recently. Part of my review of his marketing strategy included asking him when he last updated his website. His answer startled me; he hadn’t updated anything in over a year!

I’m sure you are thinking big deal but this really is a big deal. In the case of this particular client, a caterer, he hadn’t even changed the prices on the posted menus. If you have bought anything in the last year like oh say food or gas then you know what has happened to prices. What do you think having to live with year old prices did to his bottom line? Exactly.

When he told me why he was doing that to his business I was even more stunned. He hated to call the webmaster to change anything because it cost an arm and a leg. Sound familiar? I am dealing with the same situation with an organization where I am a member of the board. This is lunacy.

In today’s culture a website has to be a dynamic, current, ever changing entity. Today’s bride can smell outdated at thirty paces. I’m not necessarily talking about changing the over all look of a site, although that should be done every 2 to 3 years. I am most concerned with you keeping the information up to date.  Are you a wedding planner that only has pictures of weddings you did 4 or 5 years ago on your site? Why not the images from last weekends wedding? I know, the webmaster again, right? What about you florists, those bouquets look a little out of date do they? Are you representing your business to its best advantage? Probably not.

With the tools and products on the market today there isn’t any reason why you should have a website that can’t be quickly and easily updated BY YOU at the click of a button. If your web designer is telling you different he is holding you hostage to old technology and stuffing his wallet at your expense.

I also have clients that have come to me with a perfectly good site that was in fact built so they could update it but they never learned how. WHAT??  Come on, that’s such an easy fix I almost feel bad telling you. If you need to learn how to use the website you have, call whoever built it, offer to pay them for their time and have them sit down with you and teach you how to use it. How do you think I started learning all this stuff oh those many years ago?

I’ll tell you something else, most web designer will get a kick out of showing you all the nifty bells and whistles in your site. Remember, they are techies, this stuff excites them as much as that new source for the perfect ribbon or staffing solution or newest gown collection excites you. Let them show it off. Something else to think about, if you buy a new website make sure that a complete one on one tutorial is part of the package. That site doesn’t do you a bit of good if you can’t use it to its full advantage.

Technology is moving at light speed. The days of building a website and forgetting it are over. Remember, that is where you potential customers are looking for you.  Can you afford to show them you are outdated and out of sync with their world?

If you would like me to review your website, just drop me a line. If I get enough of them I may just do a column reviewing them next month, with your permission of course.

This newsletter was in my inbox this morning.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009
I’m Getting Married — And Social Media Is Helping
By Joe Marchese

So Saturday I say “I do.” It has been an incredible whirlwind trying to keep pace with work and wedding preparations, although I have to say, @ChristieM ( www.twitter.com/christiem) did all the real work for the wedding. The other thing I have found interesting is how much social media has impacted the planning of the wedding. It makes me wonder how people did it before.

First the obvious, I was able to find almost every friend and family member I needed to reach on Facebook. No calling old numbers or mailing invites to old addresses. And Facebook gave me a permanent connection by which to bug people for RSVP responses.

I never would have imagined how hard it is to pick wedding music, but with a combination of iTunes Genius feature and Pandora’s magical ability to suggest other music based in part on the wisdom of the crowd, we have one kick-ass play list. Christie and I could even turn to Twitter and Facebook to ask our networks which song (“The Blower’s Daughter” or “First Day of My Life”) Christie should walk down the aisle to, when we had differing opinions. Everyone agreed with Christie’s choice (“First Day of My Life”) by the way, something I am sure I will be getting used to in married life.

The honeymoon was my responsibility, and again I turned to Twitter and Facebook to get suggestions on where to stay in the cities we will be visiting in the coming weeks. The responses were amazing. Thanks to all the feedback, I am feeling very confident about the hotels we are staying in, even though I have never been to any of the cities before. For example, in Dubai we are staying at Mina A’Salam at the Madinat Jumeirah (. Dubai was particularly difficult, because sites like Travelocity and Expedia seem to rate every hotel five stars. But people in my Facebook network actually introduced me to friends they have living in Dubai, and I was able to get some local insight on a city I knew very little about.

I plan on trying out iPhone apps and crowd sourced programs to find great places to go while traveling. (Does Paris or Rome have Foursquare?). The whole time, I’ll be keeping my Twitter network apprised of how the trip is going and asking for more suggestions @joemarchese ( www.twitter.com/joemarchese). So if you want to keep up, or have any great tips, come say hi on Twitter or Facebook. I will try not to tweet during the ceremony.

How did people do all of this before social media?

Just saying….

Come play and learn in New Orleans for The Special Event 2010.

I will be there to speak on social media for wedding professionals. This is a must attend for anyone marketing to today’s brides. If want to reach them you have to go where they are; and social media is the place.

Here is what I will be teaching in this powerful 1:30 Seminar. Don’t miss the boat. 1/14/2010   1:15 PM -3:15 PM

What is Social media Marketing and just how do you do it? Blogs: Why you need one, where to get one, how to write effective posts for both readers and SEO, how to read & understand your stats. Twitter & Facebook: How to use both to effectively increase your exposure in the market place and increase your readership. Email marketing: Best practices, effective design and writing, and reading and understanding your tracking stats.

Deliverables:
1.  Come away with a deep understanding of the new media available.
2.  Who can benefit from using these new tools.
3.  How to effectively craft a blog and it’s posts for maximum results.
4.  How to put together an effective campaign using a full spectrum of social media tools.

Many wedding professionals are using Email blasts for marketing. Let me show you why moving to WordPress will make that easier and more beneficial.

In today’s fast paced environment, email marketing works best when it teases several articles rather than using the full article content. If a reader doesn’t get hooked by the first one, there are more chances on down the page.
I have been doing this with my Think Like A Bride newsletter. The great thing about it is I can look at the stats for the email campaign and see what articles are catching my reader’s eyes. Then I of course write more of them. The thing is, you have to have somewhere for those full articles to live.

Publishing content remains a huge barrier to small businesses who too often rely on static Web sites – and sometimes-expensive, often-hard-to-reach Webmasters to update those sites.
That is where WordPress comes in. Publishing via WordPress is something that most anyone can grasp. It becomes a simple task to get your content online. Even if your newsletter is just a collection of images from the last month’s weddings, you can still manage it yourself.

In each teaser in your newsletter you link to the post for the full article on your WordPress site. By posting it on your site you have the benefit of added content and better SEO. That is something that just putting it in an email won’t give you.

Additionally, WordPress sites are set up to easily allow you to install the tools needed to gather leads as well as cross post your material to all the other social networks like Twitter, Facebook and FriendFeed. Again, great for SEO and a timesaver for you.

Even if you aren’t ready to completely switch you website to a WordPress CMS, (which I highly recommend) you can still just have a WP blog set up on your existing site. Call it something like “Latest News” or “Fresh Ideas” and let your articles live there.

It is something to think about. Why not get all the benefit you can out of the effort you put into writing articles for your newsletter? Kind of seems like a no brainer to me.