Brand Awareness

Sure, you may have a solid business built solely on word-of-mouth, but who isn’t looking to expand their business? And what better way to do that then through the use of social platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest? All of which are just mediums to amplify word-of-mouth exponentially through the power of the Internet. It’s basically the difference between having one satisfied client telling 2-3 friends about you, or having them go online and share their positive experience with the world, so that not only will their whole social network have the potential to learn about your company, but so will anyone else who happens to stumble across that client’s post about how happy they were with the service that you provided. And while the 2-3 friends may or may not be planning a wedding, baby shower, milestone birthday or graduation, it’s almost guaranteed that someone in their social network is, so why not let your client put your name in front of them so that you have the opportunity to be considered for that business?

Customer Data

What else is so great about social media marketing? Sites such as Facebook provide analytics that allow you to not only find out the demographics of your followers in terms of gender, age or region but also help you to learn what they like, by tracking the engagement on your posts. So if you look over your page analytics and notice that all your posts about winter weddings (Imani: or whatever topic you feel best fits here) get several likes, and tons of feedback, you may want to use that as a sign to possibly expand upon your offerings in that area as a wedding planner, or do more promotion around the fact that you’re a female business owner if you notice that your following consists primarily of women. And for those of you thinking, “Facebook is cool, but I’ve found more of my clients are on Twitter/Instagram/Snapchat, etc”., then just know that those platforms have ways of tracking customer data as well, rather through the software itself, or a third-party app that mines the data.

Site Visits

If you’re using social media marketing the right way, all that Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/Pinterest exposure should lead more visitors to your company’s website. “What’s the right way?” you ask?  Well it starts with making sure visitors to your social media pages can easily locate your web address, and includes other efforts that can be optimized (on some channels) by taking out sponsored ads and posts to bypass algorithms that limit exposure, and include “calls-to-action” for visitors to visit your page. Looking for a specific demographic, i.e. women, age 18-35, located within 20 miles of your location? No problem, social media marketing channels like Facebook & Twitter allow you to do just that with their paid posts. And in most cases, a small budget goes a long way.

Sales

While all of this may sound interesting, we know the purpose of being in business is to make money. So to drill down to the bottom line, effective social media marketing means more sales! With the use of social media, you’re able to get your name out into the market, and make more people aware of your brand. You can collect data and analytics on your customers (and potential customers) and their preferences. Once you get them to your site, all you have to do is close the deal! While social media marketing can’t make consumers buy, in some cases (Facebook), it can help you track them from a social media site to your page, and even show you what pages they visited while they were there. How useful is that? If you happen to see that many consumers are clicking around your page, without ever reaching out to you, maybe you need a more visible call to action, perhaps you only have an email address listed and potential clients would rather contact you by phone, etc. This is valuable information that comes as an added bonus to all the other advantages of using social media marketing.

In this modern, technological age that we live in, the Internet is the first place many people go to research businesses. And word of mouth outweighs traditional advertising by a landslide. If the only channel potential clients have to reach you is your company website, you’re at a serious disadvantage, as it’s quite likely that your competitors are engaging the same audience via social media, and using it to better understand them and build relationships, while you’re still relying solely on a website and a prayer to produce new leads. Be proactive and place yourself in the scene where future clients are already looking, and allow your company to be found.

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Historically, one of business owners’ favorite ways to reach people has been through retargeting lists. Retargeting email lists are created when you upload an email list to Facebook and they match it up with the profiles of both Instagram and Facebook users. This process is quick and painless. (Instructions here.) This allows you to target only the people who are familiar with your brand and therefore, most likely to take action on your ad. In fact, the engagement rate is 3x higherwith Facebook retargeting than a regular Facebook ad. Once you’ve selected your audience  on Facebook or Instagram, you can begin creating your ad. We recommend that you keep your ad copy current and relevant.  For example, “Nice to meet you at the (insert the Wedding Expo name)! Congratulations on getting engaged. Be sure to follow our blog for (insert wedding colors) wedding inspiration.” This ad copy would work well with a related, high-quality carousel photo. If you know a client’s wedding colors are cranberry and cream, show photos of your recent work with

For example, “Nice to meet you at the (insert the Wedding Expo name)! Congratulations on getting engaged. Be sure to follow our blog for (insert wedding colors) wedding inspiration.” This ad copy would work well with a related, high-quality carousel photo. If you know a client’s wedding colors are cranberry and cream, show photos of your recent work with

Click the photo for the tutorial.

This ad copy would work well with a related, high-quality carousel photo. If you know a client’s wedding colors are cranberry and cream, show photos of your recent work with similar colors. The link and description should lead back to a custom landing page on your website.  Your event planning company can run ads year round with this retargeting list, as your client travels through the planning journey.

We’ve found that retargeting advertising works best when paired with follow-up emails. However, we must warn you to limit emails to those who have expressly given you permission to do so, either via a subscriber list or a check of approval on an event registration or confirmation email. Directly following your event, you should send out a “Thank You” email, complete with high-quality photos of previous affairs that you’ve put on, and that you believe display your best work. Every great email list should have the date of the event along with email, name, and colors. Group emails by dates or colors to give each couple a personalized approach.

Here is a sample email:

Hey Amber,

It was great meeting you at the Tutera Wedding Expo Saturday. We loved hearing about your plans for your Fall 2017 wedding. Here are few services that we offer that can help you along the planning process. (List services)

We know  this process can be overwhelming, so follow us online to get wedding hacks and wedding inspiration to help you plan for the big day! We would also love to feature your wedding on social media for Wedding Wednesdays, so let us know if you’re interested! Thanks for your time, and congratulations!

Brandy Lane

www.WillUParty.com

Every ad should lead to a landing page that is as customized as possible. To maintain personalization, you should also include as many details as are available about the event and/or prospective client. For instance, in the example above, you could include the colors, or the month of the wedding, depending on how you split your email list up. In addition, every landing page should include a call to action or pop up to get clients to call your business for an actual consultation.

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Q: I suck at social media. What should I post?

You don’t suck at social media! You’re great! Your audience wants what you have to offer. You should post company and industry updates, ask questions, post behind the scenes photos, and other interactive posts.

Should I have more than one profile?

Here at iSocialPR, we recommend having a profile on the main social media platforms. Not only is this good for SEO (Search Engine Optimization), but it also gives you multiple opportunities to present your company on multiple platforms. Your same audience on Facebook may not be on Instagram, and vice versa.

There are tons of tools out there that take the pain out of posting on multiple channels and allow you to save time.

I am overwhelmed by social media. I have content. How can I schedule it off?

We recommend a variety of social media management. We have used Sprout Social, MeetEdgar, and Hootsuite. We love them.

Social media audits:

Brand Consistency

Great social media pages have great brand consistency. iSocialPR recommends that your logo should be your social media profile photo for companies. Your logo is easily recognizable as a thumbnail when people are looking for your business page on Facebook. At the National Speaker Association’s Masterclass, we came across many exceptions to this rule. Professional Speakers are their brand. In this case, we recommended that all speakers have their headshot as their business profile photo.

Another area that we saw a lot of brand consistency was with the social media posts. We explained this using the Pepsi example. You can always tell that a Pepsi is a Pepsi without looking at the logo. The shape of the bottle, the blue color on the label, and the blue top all hint to us that it is a Pepsi. Your social media posts should provide the “Pepsi” experience. They should all carry similarities. Your potential customers should be able to see your posts and know exactly who you are without seeing your logo.

Social Media Pages Incorrectly Set Up

Facebook recommends that all business and personal pages be separated. There were some people who were using personal pages to conduct business. It is against Facebook’s terms to use a personal Facebook page to represent a business. If you violate Facebook terms, you will permanently lose access to Facebook.

In addition to this, we recommend that the name of the Facebook page should be the name of your company or your name if you are a speaker. This makes it easier for people to find you because they will naturally search for the name of your company.

Types of Content Posted

Facebook ranks content, which people react to, higher. For example, the heart, laugh, wow, sad, or angry emoji. Your post should move people to react. Content suggestions to increase engagement can be asking questions, tagging organizations in status updates, sharing content from other pages, and posting when your audience is online.

Do you have a question about social media? We would love to help. Drop your comment below.

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I had the pleasure of teaching the Event Planning seminar on the 30^th of April at The Venetian in Detroit. Our audience was a mixture of new and experienced event planners. iSocialPR, The Velvet Touch, and the Four Seasons Group covered social media marketing, floral design, and style shoots. Our segment covered how social media marketing can bring in more opportunities for event planners when done correctly. It was great meeting everyone and helping them to advance their marketing strategy through social media. I was happy to give back and provide the following insight about the journey of the social media buyers.

How to Turn Content into Cash

Many people ask us about how social media can benefit their business or want to know why people who follow them online are not booking with them; hence, the reason why we choose our presentation “How to Turn Content into Cash.” During this presentation, we covered how event planners can use content to walk people through the purchasing stage. We also discussed how to identify individuals at each stage and what type of content to create in order to get them to the finish line.

The Event Professional Panel

The Event Planning Seminar also included a panel discussion where members of the audience could ask us questions related to social media and event decoration. Many of the questions that Imani was asked were related to the tools that iSocialPR uses to build social media marketing campaigns. Three tools that we love are Sprout Social for their analytics, MeetEdgar for their scheduling capabilities, and OnlyPult for Instagram scheduling.

iSocialPR enjoyed themselves at the Event Planning Seminar and appreciated the invitation from Regal Event Planning. This event was educational for us as well. We value industry events because we are able to get up close and personal with event planners to understand the pain points they experience at different stages of their business.

How can we help you? Submit your social media marketing question below. We would love to answer them.

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