Social Media Secrets for Wedding Planners

Meagan Murtonen, WPICC
Lead Planner, Designer, Florist & Lifestyle Blogger, Botanica and Bloom

Raise your hand if you’re looking for the magical secret way to boost your social media following instantly? 🙋 Yeah, me too. The thing is, there’s no way to authentically gain followers overnight. Growing a following takes patience, consistency, content creation, and so much love. We want to gain followers that truly want to follow along with our journey and engage in what we’re doing. Social media is about being the leader of your tribe. So how do you gain a tribe?

Target Audience
How many of you know who your ideal target audience/client is? I mean really know who they are. A 20 something-year-old woman who just got engaged and loves blush pink isn’t enough. In order to lead a tribe, you need to know who your tribe truly is.
To get started, here are some basic questions to ask yourself.

Want to dive in even further? Get FREE access to the rest of the forms here.

Brand Message
Now that you know who you’re talking to, you can figure out what you want to say. What does your brand stand for? What do you do? Why do your ideal clients care? How does what you offer resonate with your clients and how do you get those messages across?
The first question you should ask yourself is “Why do you do what you do?”.
Now think of 5 Key Messages Your Brand emulates.
These messages should be present in every single piece of content you put out into the world. From Instagram captions to photos, email newsletters, email responses, website copy, etc.

Relevant Content
It’s not enough to just put content out into the world and hope that it sticks. Actually, not only is that not enough it’s an incredible waste of time, and time is money. But hey, now that you’ve done the work to figure out your ideal client and key messages, you know exactly what kind of content your audience will resonate with!
Example:
Ideal Client Avatar: Lucy
Lucy just got engaged. Her favourite drink is red wine. She loves; going to yoga, heading to the beach, walking her dog, relaxing on the couch with her wine, reading. She loves to shop for her home at Homesense and Pier 1. She values family, people with great taste and true love.
Content you could share that Lucy would resonate with:
Instagram photo of your favourite red wine, photos of your puppy, a glimpse at your home decor.
Blogging about wedding tips (obviously), your current reading list, how yoga helps you de-stress.
The thing about content is that now every piece of content is going to directly convert to a sale, nor should it have to. Some content is merely to gain awareness of your brand, other content is just to get your audience to engage.

Blogging
We need to talk about your blog. Yes, you need one. Yes, you have to stay consistent.
Having a blog…

-shows authority and expertise
-drives traffic to your site
-great for SEO
-you own it (the fact is, social media platforms could disappear without a trace- remember Myspace? Exactly)

When you write a blog post you’re showing authority and expertise in your field. You’re also writing in your unique voice which is going to speak directly to the right people.

Obviously, if you want people to find and hire you, they need to get to your website. The more content you write to show up on google and that you can share on your social media outlets, the more chances there are for people to find you.
Here’s the thing. You do not own any social media platform. The algorithm could change again at any time drastically decreasing the reach you have. The outlet could also disappear completely from you. Your content should always redirect back to your blog.
When it comes to blogging (and social media) you need to be consistent. If you let your blog or your social media platforms go too long without an update or new post, it could look like you’re not in business anymore. I get it, we’re all busy and blogging can be one of those things that’s easy to push aside because “you don’t have enough time”. Well friends, make the time. Make your blog a priority, make it a non-negotiable.

Use a Template
The easiest way to make sure you’re getting the most out of your blog post is to use a template that helps you brainstorm your main points, directs your audience to similar posts on your site, builds up outbound links, promotes a freebie in exchange for an email address which builds your list, and keeps track of how you’re growing. And guess what? I have an instant download for only 12! (That’s over 50% off of the regular price!).
I know I’m biased because I’m selling it, but I promise you this template is 3 pages of actionable content for each post. I print out about 4 months worth of sheets and keep them in a binder on my desk. Every single post or article I write starts by filling out this template (including this guest post!).
So, if you want to snag this deal, head over here and use the code “SOCIALSECRETS“.

Scheduling
Listen, if you’re going to blog consistently you’re going to need to schedule your blog posts and your social media. This is especially important during wedding season. How many of you have consistently blogged in the off months, and then once the season picks up you put it to the back burner? I know because I used to do the same thing.
Now I plan my blog content for about 4 months at a time. Then I plan out a few days to write it all out. I may not get all 4 months written, but I at least fill out my templates so that when it’s getting close to my scheduled post date, I can quickly go in and fill out the content I need to write.
I also use this incredible app called CoSchedule. You guys, this app has changed my life. First of all, it connects right to my WordPress blog. I can also plan out a full social media campaign for each post that runs on an automatic schedule so I don’t have to lift a finger. You can check out this full post I wrote about using CoSchedule here. (It even has a video to show you how I use it!).

Growth
Consistency- posting consistently shows your followers that you are showing up for them. Consistency also means being consistent with your brand, your images, and captions.
Content- post relevance content like we talked about above. If your content isn’t relevant to your followers, why would they continue to follow you?
Schedule- Seriously. Do you know how much easier it is to be creative when you have the time to do it and you’re not rushing because, oops you left it to the last minute and now you have to think of a photo to post and something to say?
Get on Pinterest. Now. In the past 11 months, I’ve grown my Pinterest account from virtually 0 views to 707K monthly views with 45.5K monthly engaged users! When I share a blog post to Pinterest, all of those users have the possibility of finding my content and heading to my website.
We need to talk about Tailwind. I 100% owe the massive jump in my growth to the Tailwind App. I write a detailed guide on how to do the same thing in my Social Marketing for Wedding Planners course. I also write more in-depth guides to social media growth specifically for Pinterest and Instagram.

Social Marketing for Wedding Planners
Ready to learn even more about creating content and automating your social media? Join me in my Social Marketing for Wedding Planners course where you’ll learn:
How to define your target audience so you can tailor your social media efforts to speak directly to them
How to communicate a clear brand message to connect with your ideal clients.
How each social media outlet contributes to your big picture marketing plan and how to leverage the unique benefits of each platform
How to create months of shareable content in advance
The importance of why you have to have a blog as a wedding planner
How to write relatable blog posts and stay consistent doing it
How to promote and get your blog content in front of your target audience
Ways you can make additional, passive income from your blog
How to grow your social media audience, email list, and website traffic through specific, highly detailed guides for each social media outlet
How to create an almost-automated marketing plan that incorporates all of your social media outlets and gets your content in front of your target audience.

Join today for a special price of only $129.99 (reg $175) with the coupon code “socialmedia“.
P.S. you may want to hurry because this code is only good for the first 100 people who purchase it.

Tools
As a little bonus, here’s a list of tools I use to help me with my blog and social media efforts
Grammarly– an app that not only tells me when I’m spelling something wrong, but it also corrects sentences that don’t make sense!

CoSchedule– the scheduling app I talked about above!
Tailwind– Pinterest scheduling and tribe app that has grown my account by 707K views! You can also schedule Instagram!
Planoly– This is the app that I actually use to plan my Instagram. Even though Coschedule schedules Instagram (and is able to automatically post), I prefer the way I can visually layout my content in Planoly.