Viral Wedding Marketing

Wedding Professionals:

With the power of social media, it is easier to get more out of your marketing messages.  Your marketing messages can become viral and spread like wildfire - all for free. 

First, let's talk about your marketing messages.  Whether you are updating your website, writing a blog post, creating a status update on Facebook, or tweeting - your marketing messages need to provide value to your customers.  I believe that marketing messages will likely provide value to brides if they include one of the following topics: wedding tips, new trends, celebrity wedding news, planning ideas, special offers, and new product/service announcements.  Once you pick a topic that will provide value to brides, then create a message that is simple and clear. You only have a few seconds to grab a bride's attention, so make sure that your message “pops.”  Look at your most recent marketing message.  Does the message that you delivered provide value and “pop"? The more helpful your message, the more likely that it will be shared across the web. 

• How to Make your Website & Blog Go Viral - Make it easy for your website's visitors to share your marketing messages by including social networking 'share' buttons on every page of your website and/or blog.  For BridalTweet, I use the free tool bar from Add This. This makes it easy for my readers to share my content with all of their friends — and this equates to free marketing. In addition, each time you create a new blog post or add something to your website, announce it on Facebook, Twitter and BridalTweet.
  
• How to Make Your Facebook Posts Go Viral - On a daily basis, you should try to post engaging questions or content on your Facebook business page in order to get free exposure for your business.  I consider content to be engaging if it delivers valuable/helpful information to your fans and if it encourages your fans to Like or Comment on the content.  Once your fans Like or Comment on your posts, then their friends will also see your business in their News Feed.  Better yet - Facebook recently launched a new feature where you can sort your News Feed by ‘Top News’ or most Liked posts.  Posting valuable information will increase your chances of rising to the top of thousands of brides' (and their friends') News Feeds.  Again, this results in free exposure for your wedding business. 
• How to Make Your Twitter Posts Go Viral - Being that I have 25,000 followers on Twitter, I have a lot to say about this topic.
  • When tweeting, ask yourself - would my audience like this tweet enough that they would share it on to their friends?  When you get into a routine of writing great tweets, then you'll build your reputation and people will be more likely to share your great tweets. 
    
  • The next trick is to write tweets that are less than 120 characters.  Yes, 120 characters and not 140 characters.  Why?  Because doing this will give your followers the opportunity to pass along your entire message AND to add their own commentary to it.  Your followers are also more likely to share tweets that are concise and include a link.
    
  • Unless you are replying to someone, don't start your tweets with @.  The reason is that a tweet starting with @FakeName will only appear in the Twitter Feeds of people who are following both you and FakeName.  Instead, you'll want all of your followers to see your tweet in their Twitter Feed.  The more people who see your tweet - the more people who will likely share (or retweet) it.  So, start your tweets with anything but @.
    
  • And finally, I've found that people love to share tweets that have links of wedding photos.
    

What wedding marketing tips can you share with our community about making your messages turn viral?

Enjoy!

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, 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.