Free Marketing Series: Social Media

April 6, 2017

Do you ever feel like you spend your down season just spinning your wheels? Does your marketing strategy look like throwing spaghetti at a wall to see what sticks (and nothing EVER sticks)? What if we told you that it’s possible to spend less time on marketing and get much better results? What if we told you that the right strategy is half the battle? We are SO excited about this new blogging series. Over the next couple of months we are going to be sharing some of our favorite, FREE marketing strategies that you can turn around and implement into your businesses. It’s going to be fun. First up, we are tackling Social Media marketing strategy.

This will likely come as no surprise to you, but 75 % of internet users are on social media. That makes social media one of the most broad reaching (and FREE) ways to market your business. The bad part is that it’s really easy to get lost – to treat social media strategy like throwing spaghetti at a wall and to see what stick. And, hint hint, when we do it that way… NOTHING sticks. Good news: when use it accurately, more like firing an arrow at the center of a bullseye, it can be a super effective and accessible part of your marketing strategy. We are just going to talk about Facebook and Instagram today, but Twitter, YouTube and Pinterest have also proven to be effective when used correctly. Social Media marketing should be planned out as a part of your workflow just like anything else you do in your business.

Facebook Rules:

  • Direct clients to tag themselves – since Facebook doesn’t let businesses tag people directly, we send an email to our clients once their blogposts are up with a link to find the blog via our Facebook page and we ask them to tag themselves (and any friends or family who would want to see the blog).
  • Tag venue and every vendor – while Facebook doesn’t allow you to tag individuals, it does allow you to tag other businesses. The cool thing about tagging on Facebook is that is drastically increases the number of eyes on your images, so tag and share as much as you can.
  • Keep it pretty – Make sure your showcased images reflect your very best work and consider sharing pictures of yourself or your team from time to time. This business is so personal, and people LOVE seeing who they will be working with.

 

Instagram Rules:

  • Instagram is like an artists’ marketing dream because it’s completely visually based and we all offer visual products. So we aren’t trying to share visual products on an overly text laden platform, it’s ripe for the using with exactly what we offer.
  • Hashtags – These little hashtags (#) are Instagram’s search tool, so use them to your advantage. We have found the best success using hashtags that are LOCATION based (things like #floridawedding #coloradophotographer). Funny hashtags can be entertaining, but they don’t provide much marketing value, so consider keeping them to a minimum. A lot of couples are using event hashtags for their Weddings, so we always ask for their hashtag and post a same day image on Instagram so that the very first images guests are seeing are ours. You get 30, so don’t be afraid to use them all (you can stack them in the first comment after you post your image so that you aren’t overwhelming people with hashtags in the image description). Check out our account for an example of how this works.
  • Instagram tags – Tag every single vendor associated with the event. It allows them to follow along with what you’re doing and it not only shares images but strengthens vendor relationships because it acknowledges their hard work! Also try to tag as many bridal party and family members as possible.

 

Make Social Media a Timesaver: Timesavers are these magical things in our business. They are what happens when a task is done well (high effectiveness) and done quickly (high efficiency). We want to have as many timesavers in our business as possible. Time-sucks, on the other hand, are things that drain us of our margin; we want to cut as many of these out of our businesses as we can. When I say timesuck, you probably automatically think of social media. And I totally get that. I used to spend SO much time scrolling through social media – getting lost in Instagram Land or Facebook World and jumping head first into the spiral of comparison that social media can be. And then I changed the way that I thought of Facebook and Instagram and started using them as business tools for marketing. And they are WONDERFUL tools. This practice take discipline, but the reward is amazing and it’s easier than ever to set yourself up for success in how you use social media. Companies like Hootsuite, Planoly and Buffer have made it so that you can schedule out your social media posts weeks in advance. Social media is now a simple thing on our schedule just like blogging or submissions. I post to it and then I SHUT IT DOWN. I allow myself 30 minutes a few times a week to go back to my posts and interact with comments, but not to scroll.

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Social Media marketing strategy

And if you’re ready to jump in and make 2017 your biggest year of growth yet, check out our 6 week course Growing on Purpose.

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