Top Tips From The Marketing Team At Weddingdates on how to ramp up Your Social Media Efforts And Performance In 2023
One of the top priorities for venues is getting those weddings on the books. However, to do so you need the all important enquiries. Increasing your visibility is one of the many ways you can ensure you receive more interaction this year. With tight budgets, social media is a good way to achieve this and the costs involved are relatively low. According to G2, nearly 75% of the world’s population aged 13 and older uses social media. Not only will you establish a presence online, but it will allow you to showcase your offering to a wider audience. Linking to your social media platforms directly on your website provides social proof to potential customers – a huge thing for couples when it comes to making decisions.
Managing social media accounts can be daunting and time-consuming, but here are some ways to get the most out of your social media platforms.
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Getting started
If you don’t have much social media activity the first step is to decide on one platform to focus on. Once you have one successfully up and running you can look into other platforms to further your reach. Start small before scaling to keep it manageable. In our 2022 and 2023 industry reports, Instagram came out as the top platform for wedding couples seeking inspiration in both Ireland and the UK.
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Business account
Ensure your profile is a business account which allows you to track your metrics and report on your efforts. This will help you identify posts and topics that perform well with your audience and help measure ROI. We can’t over-emphasise the importance of tracking what you do, so you can be strategic in the future.
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Updated information
It may seem like a small thing but regularly update your social media account’s bio with descriptive keywords to keep the information relevant and on brand. Include your venue’s hashtag in the bio so that couples can use it to tag their photos. Have a link to your website wedding page from your profile. If couples click through to your page, make sure you make it easy for them to submit their details so you can capture their lead. If you have a WedPro subscription our enquiry plugin does that for you and sends them an immediate reply back.
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Stay on brand
Balance is important. You want to create a cohesive look and feel with your content, without losing your personality. Bringing the venue and staff’s personality through to the content will help prospective couples get a better idea of what they can expect from your team. It will set the tone for more lasting relationships if they feel they know you from the start. Bring the humanity, and show them you are more than just a venue.
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Post consistently
This is the best way to succeed on social media. The most suitable content to post on your account is images and videos of the venue, real weddings, behind-the-scenes and inspiration pics.
Image: Pexels, Anna Nekrashevich
We are on social media but aren’t seeing any results, what are we doing wrong?
If you are posting regularly and not getting any results, there are ways you can improve your content to increase your social engagement.
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Tag your location
Posts with tagged locations get 79% more engagement according to G2. Make sure you are adding your venue’s location in each post by “checking in” or using the “add location” function. You can also alternate it by tagging the town you are based in or the greater geographic location to reach a wider audience.
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Quality over quantity
Share engaging, quality content. This goes for both images and written content. You don’t need to be a professional photographer or a journalist to succeed, but using quality photos, videos and writing will improve your reach. Posts that add value for your audience or start a discussion are always a good shout. Using content from real weddings hosted at your venue is an excellent way for couples to imagine their own wedding in your space. A good question to ask yourself before posting is will people engage with this or will it add value for our followers?
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Use descriptive captions
Social media algorithms work almost like a search engine so when writing the captions for your posts be sure to use descriptive keywords. Keywords are words and phrases commonly used in your industry that couples would likely type into a search bar or search engine. This will allow the platform to suggest your content to followers with similar interests or to appear in relevant search results.
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Hashtags
When using hashtags in your post make sure they are relevant to the content and not too vague. Overused hashtags will flood out your post and if they are too unique no one will see them. Find the middle ground and alternate them between posts. For example, instead of using a generic hashtag like #Wedding with more than 240 million posts use #WeddingsIreland with only 33K posts. Or #WeddingFlowers with over 8 million posts versus #WeddingFlorals with only 800K posts.
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Engage with your audience
Ask couples to share their wedding photos with you or tag you in their posts. Resharing to your social media and commenting on their posts will show prospective couples that you are interactive and interested in their big day.
We hope you found these tips helpful. We’ll be sharing more helpful content so be sure to follow us on social media for the latest news, updates and info.
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Header image credit: Pexels, Cottonbro Studio
