The Covid-19 pandemic turned the wedding industry upside down last year. Hello, small backyard ceremony! Goodbye big, in-person event.
Wedding industry pros found themselves working virtually and developing plans for more #pintimate weddings. Think smaller guest list, but higher per-person budget.
It’s no surprise social media marketing tactics have shifted, too.
In their annual report, the Wedding Academy has documented all of the new skills and current best bets for industry practitioners.
In this post, we’ll dig into what you need to know about the latest trends and tips for using social media to grow your wedding business in 2021.
And, we’ve summarized it all in one cheat sheet, waiting for you at the end of this post.
Instagram Best Practices for the Wedding Industry
Instagram is a marketing powerhouse for businesses in the wedding industry; it’s hyper-visual, and its hashtags, exceptional organic reach, and strong visibility options can help you connect with clients.
When using Instagram, these tips from Lauren Grove can help drive results:
- Share your most beautiful work. You always want to put your best foot forward. Weddings themselves are formal visual feasts. Match that tone in your Instagram feed.
- Think about how engaged couples (not individuals) use Instagram. Gone are the days when brides called all the shots. Today, many engaged couples are making decisions together. Consider how they might use Instagram to research potential vendors and post accordingly.
- Cater to lurkers. Some people are big engagers; they comment on everything. Others, not so much, but they could still be potential customers. Share tips for inspiration and to offer value – even if you don’t get a ton of feedback.
- Use Reels for education purposes. Reels are wildly popular on Instagram right now. Use them to share tips like “hottest looks for 2021” or “questions to ask your florist”. Reels can help build rapport and trust.
Remember that while you should use hashtags, you shouldn’t rely only on industry-focused tags. Couples are searching in very personal ways, and they don’t always begin with hashtags you might expect. Experiment here to see what works.
See Lauren’s section in the Wedding Trend Report 2021!
Wedding Industry Pinterest Marketing Best Practices
There are few more effective or powerful social platforms for wedding vendors than Pinterest.
Here are some current Pinterest marketing tips from the report to keep in mind from Rachel Waring at Rachel Emma Studio:
- Create fresh, useful content. Inspiring content is great, too, but nothing comes close to “useful” content that offers value to your target audience. Think about sharing your most gorgeous photos of your work and attaching them to resources that are optimized for search.
- Beautiful, positive pins should be at the core. Weddings are meant to be happy occasions, so putting a positive spin on everything is important. Instead of a Pin promising “how to deal with annoying family wedding drama,” go for a spin on “how to make your future in-laws part of the wedding planning process.”
- Watch your “Today” tab and follow Pinterest Trends. Do you know what people are searching for on Pinterest when it comes to weddings? This year, for example, yellow and grey have been named the “wedding colors of 2021.” You can detect trends like this through the Today tab, and you can then create relevant content accordingly.
- Use shopping Pins. If you sell physical products like wedding decor, hair accessories, veils, and wedding favors, create shopping Pins to help drive easy purchases.
See Rachel’s section in the Wedding Trend Report 2021!
Wedding Business: Video Marketing Tips to Keep in Mind
The concept of a Zoom wedding would have made us laugh two years ago. But, here we are, with couples brainstorming ways to get their grandparents logged on for the big moment.
The move to video includes marketing too. If you’ve been holding off on incorporating video in your marketing plans, now’s the time to jump in!
Use video to provide value, build rapport, and capitalize on emotion more effectively than with standard images alone.
Here’s the TLDR for wedding industry video marketing on social this year from Kylie Carson, CEO of the Wedding Academy:
- Use captions. Always include closed-captions for your videos. They’ll ensure that the content is accessible to all users, including those who are deaf or hard-of-hearing. Plenty of users also elect to watch videos without sound.
- Don’t stress about perfection. Mobile-shot videos (which look like they’re shot from customers) are perfectly acceptable. Bust out your iPhone, and remember that the quality of the content of the video is the most important part. Instagram Stories are a great place to try your hand at an informal feel.
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- Do opt for live broadcasts. Use live video to help customers get to know you, answer their questions, and nurture them toward a booking. Live video makes a huge impact on every social platform. And, it definitely needs a place in your strategy for both Instagram and Facebook in particular.
- Add longer videos to your strategy. The days of making only short, 30-second videos are over. IGTV, YouTube, and Facebook allow for longer videos, and if you’re offering valuable content, people will keep watching.
- Create videos with hotspots. Hotspots are interactive elements within a video. Viewers can click, download or take other action when a video includes a hotspot. Instagram Stories, for example, allows accounts with 10,000 or more followers to add “swipe to click” CTAs, and you can add clickable elements on YouTube videos, too. Take advantage of hotspots to snag leads WHILE users are engrossed in your video.
See Kylie’s section in the Wedding Trend Report 2021!
Final Thoughts
As with all industries, wedding pros will succeed with a mix of generic social media tips, and unique advice tailored just to them. The trends discussed here are all relevant and actionable right now as we move further into 2021, so consider choosing some to incorporate into your strategy as soon as possible.
Interested in seeing the full report on social media trends and tips in the wedding industry for 2021? Download it here.
Cheat Sheet Infographic Wedding Industry Social Media Tips
As promised, here’s your cheat sheet for easy reference.
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