6 Steps to be More Effective on Social Media

Social media can either be a great way to generate new bridal leads or a big waste of time, depending on your social media plan. Don’t have one? Start now to stop wasting your time and make social media count for your wedding business.

Here are 6 Steps to a Social Media  Plan:

1. Set Your Goals

Do you want to generate new leads from social media or use it as a place to share your latest weddings with your existing fans? Is your main goal to connect with other wedding pros for referrals?

In order to be more effective you need to start with the end goal in mind. Are your current social media efforts meeting these goals? If not, what can you change?

2. Choose Your Channels Wisely

Based on your goals above, choose the channels that would work the best for your business and list them in order of priority. Should you be on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube or Pinterest? Where do your ideal clients hang out? Start with one channel and build from there so you don’t get overwhelmed. Once you have a following on one, move to the next.

3. Determine Types of Content to Share

What type of content do you want to share – inspirational quotes or photos, real weddings, planning tips and advice? Make a list of the content that would be easiest and have the most value for your clients and where each would be posted. For example, behind the scenes photos do well on Instagram, while planning tips would work well on Twitter (great material to have re-tweeted) and real weddings do well on Facebook. Sharing other’s content counts as well. Make a list of pros you’d like to network with and share their content with your audience. Your content needs to fit the goals you chose in step one.

4. Make an Editorial Calendar

You can have one calendar for all channels, or a separate one for each – whatever works best for you. Save time by planning and writing content for the entire week (or even the entire month) at one sitting. If you have a blog, make sure to add promotions for your blog articles to your social media plan. You can even post links to older articles as long as the content is still relevant.

5. Automate Your Posts

Tools like Buffer and Hootsuite, which allow you to pre-schedule your social media posts are a busy wedding pros best friend. Be sure to also make use of automatic feeds – set up your Instagram or Twitter feeds to post to Facebook automatically to save you time.

6. Schedule Check in Times

Social media is supposed to be that – social. Even though you can pre-schedule most of your content, be sure to check in regularly and post comments, share and interact as well. It’s a good idea to set a specific amount of time to do this, say 15 minutes per week or you can easily waste a ton of time on social media.

How can you make your social media posts better?

Photo Credit