3 Things I Just Learned from Martha Stewart

Wedding Professionals:

Last week, I had the privilege of attending TWTRCON in New York City. TWTRCON is a one-day conference focused entirely on the business use of Twitter. The highlight of the day was hearing the keynote speaker, Martha Stewart, talk about social media. While Martha only spends 5 minutes a day tweeting, she had some very insightful tips to share. With 2 million loyal Twitter followers and 72,000 Facebook fans, Stewart is definitely someone worth listening to!

Here were Stewart's three insights:

1. Be where your customers are. Different social networks attract different crowds. Instead of just picking one network, Stewart suggests finding ways to adjust your communications to reach each social network or community differently. For example, Stewart’s Facebook fans tend to be most interested in fashion, while her Twitter followers love recipes and the sense that they’re having a real conversation with her.
2. You have to use your own voice. “Authenticity is extremely important in all social media,” she explained. That means no ghost-writing. I was surprised to hear that Stewart sends out every single Tweet herself and doesn’t pay someone to do that for her.
3. Experiment. You have to be willing to try different things. Stewart uses Twitter for research, asking questions and taking surveys. Being able to collect this information quickly has helped shape her life and her business decisions.
   

At the end of the event, I was also happy to find out that I had won TWTRCON’s Open Mike Contest. The rules of the contest were: Have a good idea about how to use Twitter? Can you sum it up in less than 140 characters? Then you may get a chance to go on stage and tell everyone about it at TWTRCON NY!

My winning tweet was: #TWTRCON OpenMike: Twitter made my biz possible,influential & profitable in 1 yr.Use its power 2 to do what u luv http://www.BridalTweet.com

I was flattered to win and even more ecstatic to have the chance to present on the same stage where Martha Stewart spoke earlier that day. I spoke for 140 seconds (yes, it was timed!) and I talked about the quick success of our thriving wedding forum. The main focus of my conversation was on the wonderful relationships that we’ve all built here.

Finally, I left the TWTRCON audience with my own three Twitter tips:

1. Only post messages that are valuable to your audience. Don’t talk about yourself and if the message is not something that you would personally ReTweet, then don’t send it out.
2. Ask questions in order to engage your audience.
3. Be responsive. Thank your audience and answer their questions in a timely manner.

What Twitter or social media tips would you like to share with our wedding forum? Please comment below.

(The photos in this blog post are from MarthaStewart.com.)

About This Blog: Christine Dyer is the Creator and Founder of BridalTweet. Christine has an MBA in marketing and shares over ten years of marketing expertise with the wedding community. In this weekly blog called Supercharge Your Wedding Business, you'll find advice on an array of wedding business topics such as how to market to brides, social networking, wedding PR, wedding sales, vendor networking, branding, pricing and much more. Please pass this news along to your own professional wedding network. To receive this advice in your email inbox each week, Sign Up for a Free BridalTweet Membership.