One of the Biggest Tragedies in Social Media- Are You Letting This Happen To You?

So you have a Facebook and Twitter account.  Good for you.  You even post updates regularly.  Fantastic.  And you've been following one of the top social media rules for wedding businesses, which is to cast yourself as the expert and not just exclusively post what you are doing all the time. You balance status updates with helpful expertise advice in your field for your fans, special offers, endorsements from clients as well as picture and video updates of your wedding business life and what you are up to.  But are you violating the number one rule of social media for businesses:  engaging with your fans? 
Not doing so can cost you more business than not posting.  You see, social media is designed for conversation.  "Micro-conversations", perhaps, but still, your fans are accustomed to a dialogue if they are on social media (and expecting it) and if they take the time to comment or share, you need to be present , too, and respond.  Engaging with your followers is proven to help your chances of continued business almost better than any other means in how you use your social media. In fact, when wedding businesses start using social media properly, they stop "selling" by traditional standards because engaging becomes the "new" selling and it does it naturally. 


Every day I see status updates from wedding business professionals who are not maximizing their social media efforts by posting too many "newsy" status updates (i.e. "Today we are working a fabulous wedding at 'X' Venue"), constantly boasting (with little to nothing else to balance it out) or not posting at all. But the worst violation of all is when their fans engage in the thread and they don't respond.  Social media is all about engaging - and in as real time as you possibly can.  This does three things:

1.  It validates who you are and that you are an expert.
2.  It sends a message that you are "live" and open for business.
3.  It validates your customers and potential customers and makes them feel a part of your life, business, brand and more likely to buy because they trust you.

Now, I'm not saying you have to respond to every single comment.  But there should be evidence that you are reading the comments threads, participating in a dialogue as you can, etc.  Additionally, it is just good manners.  If you cannot engage with your followers at all, you are probably almost better off not having any social media presence at all (notice I said almost).  It is that important.  If your fans/followers took the trouble to ask a question, or answer your status update question or post a comment that would normally - in an in-person conversation- deserve a comment back, they are owed some kind of interaction.

Example:  For one of our luxury resort clients, their fans continually make comments on photos posted such as "I can't wait to come stay with you next weekend" , to which we respond - in the thread - "And we can't wait to have you Ms. Smith. Please let us know what we can do to make your stay more comfortable."  By doing this, we have also turned it into an upselling opportunity for our client.  When another hospitality client had a remodel and we posted a photo of their newly-renovated rooms, a customer posted that they had just stayed there and loved their new room.  We responded and were authorized to offer them a 10% discount off their next stay just for engaging.  After that, their fan base grew daily as others saw this as a place to engage with this property and have the opportunity for special deals and become customers for life, too.

For Twitter, if someone has taken the time to "tag" your wedding business, acknowledge them with a "retweet" or "favoriting" their Tweet. It's not only good manners, but it actually benefits you as you and your business are seen as being open, present, dialed and also getting in front of the other's fans, too. Example: at a recent wedding conference, we learned some key points from a wedding attorney specializing in wedding contract law. We tweeted his advice , credited and tagged him. He later not only re-tweeted our Tweet (exposing his fan base to our business) but also put in a comment of "Spot on- rock on" back to us.  This gentleman obviously has mastered his social media strategy and the art (and science) of engagement.

Our favorite case, however (for a hotel client), is this:  one of their guests tweeted something that was not favorable about their stay, we caught it, responded immediately in the social medium, notified the hotel and they were able to take that customer complaint and turn it around immediately into a positive experience before the customer left.  The guest was blown away and now that hotel has a customer for life who will only write positive reviews.  Now that's the power of social media. Not just posting status updates all the time. 

Afterall, social media is not just posting your news - it's about the opportunity to have a conversation.  It's like your own personal "Open House" to showcase you, your style and your expertise 24/7. And that doesn't happen just by always posting status updates out.  You have to engage and draw them in.  Then keep them in. To do that, you have to be present and on your social media practically 24/7.

Don't have the time? Need someone who knows this industry - and your niche in it- to do the "engaging" with your followers and fans?  We provide this service to all our wedding business social media clientele.  For more about what we do to help wedding businesses, visit us on our Website, Facebook and Twitter .

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Engaging Inspiration provides sparkling social media, marketing and training solutions for the wedding and event professional and venue.  It is the sister division to event planning company Santa Barbara Wine Country Weddings & Events