With everyone staying home right now, couples at the beginning of their wedding planning have more time than ever to browse their favourite social media – will they discover and be inspired by you?
The last few weeks have been an emotional roller coaster, so we completely understand if you haven’t felt like sharing much on social media. We also understand that sometimes, it’s knowing what to say or where to start that’s the hardest part. To help, we’ve come up with 31 social media ideas to take you through the upcoming month of May, plus we’re sharing our top tips and apps to ensure you’re acing your social media strategy.
Build trust & engagement
If a couple have clicked through to your Instagram, discovered you on a third-party feed or found you under a hashtag – they are looking to connect with you.
Your social media is there to build trust, build a community and encourage engagement from potential couples and of course your booked couples (past and present). Ensure the tone of your copy is speaking to your ideal client, keep your language open, friendly and professional. If you have comments on your feed, make sure you’re liking and replying promptly to build a conversation.
Your bio is also the perfect place to tell couples a little more about you and to encourage them to make contact:
- Add a short bio (one sentence) summarising your venue
- Add your website
- Add your category ‘Wedding Venue’
- Add your location
- Add your email address
- Add your telephone number
All of the above can be done under ‘Edit Profile’ on your Instagram page.
Consistency is key
When it comes to social media, consistency is key. Consistency can be applied to both how often you post and the quality of content you post.
Our May Photo Challenge below will encourage you to post one image per day, but you might want to schedule what you’re planning to post to help with time management.
There are several scheduling apps, but my personal preference has always been Mosaico. Mosaico will connect with your Instagram feed and you can then upload your planned images to the app to see how they work across the grid as a whole. For example; you might want to spread out images with couples or perhaps you want to create a colour theme across a few squares. This app will allow you to plan your grid, upload the copy, add hashtags and then post directly to Instagram when you’re ready to push.
Other planning/scheduling apps are:
Professional vs. iPhone
Now I wouldn’t usually recommend snapping away with your iPhone and uploading to your feed – however during this time, if you’re still onsite at your venue, then you may want to take some shots of the venue and continue to share with your couples.
If you do want to do this, then I would certainly recommend getting to grips with an editing tool such as VSCO for mobile. This editing software will allow you to upload your image and choose a filter to apply, making your image just that little bit more polished. If you’re unsure which filter to use, then the app can suggest which filters work best for your image. However to give a consistent feel to your feed, I would look at which filters you’re drawn to and keep in your favourites so that your feed continues to look consistent in colour and tone.
VSCO also allows you to add filters to your videos, which is perfect for stories or IGTV!
Adding video
Whether it’s a behind-the-scenes stories of you walking around the grounds of your venue, or uploading a beautiful wedding film or brand film to IGTV – it’s time to embrace video!
For uploading to IGTV you will need a .mp4 file of the video rather than a link, so make sure you have this on file for any professional wedding films you’d like to share. The videographer should be able to share this with you if they and the couple are happy for you to use the film for marketing purposes.
For iPhone stories, remember your VSCO and Unfold apps to ‘fancy up’ your story uploads.
A story only lasts for 24 hours on your feed, so if you want to make sure couples can continue to view your upload then you can create a highlight and save your story to this highlight. This is a great idea if you want to film a virtual tour of your venue during this time and have this visible to visitors on your feed.
Know your analytics
As our day-to-day routines have changed slightly, your analytics may now be reflecting this shift. If your Instagram is set to a business profile, do check in with your analytics – you can find this under the burger menu in the top right corner of your feed. Click on ‘Insights’ in the menu and head to ‘Audience’ along the top, you will find details about which days/hours your audience are most active. You can use this info to plan in which times you will be posting on each day.
If you then head back to ‘Content’ along the top and click on ‘See All’ under posts, then you will be able to view which images are getting the most engagement – this will help you to plan similar content across the month.
When you’re posting to your grid, do add in your location to the image – images with a location tag have a higher level of engagement.
The importance of crediting
I want to end on this note – probably the most important element of using social media – crediting is vital!
If you’re using images from previous weddings, please do tag the photographer and any other suppliers in the copy (by using their handle – ‘Styling by @cocoweddingvenues’ for example) and tag them in the image too. Getting the crediting etiquette right will go a very long way with suppliers and they will most likely share that you’ve mentioned them!
If photographers also see you’re crediting correctly then they will most likely be open to sharing their images with you in the future.
