How to Use Social Media to Market your Wedding Venue
With time being spent on social media increasing, gone are the days of just having a website to promote your wedding venue, you need to be across social media too. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and even Pinterest can all help increase your bookings and promote your event venue.
Wedding Venue Social Media Post Ideas that Work
Social media is a great marketing tool that is free to use. By spending just a little time on this each day or week you could help boost your venues visibility, leading to increased bookings. We take a look at ways to boost social media ROI for wedding venues and ideas that work.
Get set up
The first step to take if you haven’t already is to set up your social media accounts. Create a business page on Facebook, create an account on Instagram which you can then change to a business account, and set up an account on Twitter.
If your venue is a hotel you may already have social media accounts set up, however if weddings are a big part of your business, then a specific account for this can work very well as it is completely focused on weddings and can be linked to from your parent account.
Keep it Visual
On many of the social media platforms you have a profile photo, also Facebook and Twitter allow for a cover shot. Make the most of this, add your logo to the profile photo and ensure this is consistent across your social media accounts and in line with your branding and website.
Make the most of the cover photo, on Facebook you can add multiple photos or a video. As this is one of the first things a person will see when they look at your page make sure you use an eye catching photo that reflects your venue.
This space is also a great way to help promote open days or offers, create an image that fits this area and add a clear message about the day with the date. Pinning a Facebook post to the top of the page can then include more details and a link to your site.
With the header of your page looking great it is important to keep the feed visual too. Visual posts perform hugely better than just a text based post. Add an image to make it more engaging and to stand out.
Post Consistently
Managing different social media platforms can take time, however it is important to schedule a little time a day or each week to keep these pages fresh. People are less likely to follow or like your page if you haven’t posted anything for the last few months.
Ideas for wedding venue social media posts include; images from recent weddings, tips from wedding planners, details of offers, open days and recent blog posts from your website.
When writing your description or message; tell a story, give advice, ask a question, make it engaging and useful to the reader.
You can schedule posts on Facebook and there are tools to allow you to do this to on Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest. Don’t just go on and post 5 things in one go, set them up to be posted automatically 2 times a day, maybe at lunchtime and then one in the evening too.
If you just don’t have the time to spend on multiple platforms then focus on the ones that work, Facebook and Instagram are great choices. Read our content ideas for Instagram here.
If you have a platform that you just don’t post on, you may wish to remove or deactivate that account it doesn’t give a great impression if it hasn’t been updated for months.
Tag the Bride and Groom
When posting photos on your social media account try to tag the couple in the photo as well as any other suppliers used.
Tagging the bride and groom will make the image pop up on their social media feed and it helps promote your venue to their friends and followers too. This is great way to easily promote your venue and is a great way to endorse your venue to their friends increasing your audience.
Engage
Look out for comments and replies to your posts, engage with your users, they may have asked a question or want to know more information. Make sure you don’t ignore or miss these replies, set up notifications so you are aware and get back to them as soon as you can.
Work with Photographers and Videographers
With every wedding there is a photographer capturing the day, if they are using social media to their advantage they will also post up a few sneak peak shots of the wedding on their social media profile and then maybe more photos once they have been edited and shared with the couple.
When you have a wedding, introduce yourself to the photographer, make a note of their Facebook page and look out for any shots that may be uploaded in the days after the wedding. You can share these on your Facebook page, its a great way to share recent photos of weddings at your venue and a great way to add content to your feed. Share the post from the photographer or videographers page and make sure they are credited.
You can easily share posts on Facebook and Twitter, re-pin on Pinterest, and there are apps that allow you to repost on Instagram too.
Many photographers are happy with this, it helps share their work with other potential couples planning their wedding or looking to hire a photographer, and it also shows they have worked at your venue too.
Call to Action
When posting and reviewing your social media pages, remember to think about the action you want people to take when viewing your page. Would you like visitors to; share with an engaged friend, click through to your website to read an article, get in touch for a quote or book a viewing?
You want to make it easy for users to get in touch, adding a contact button to your Facebook page makes this easier, however you also want to make sure your webpage that it links to is simple and quick to complete.
On instagram you can add a link under your profile, either add this to your wedding page on your website, or perhaps use Linktree to create a simple menu that can link to different pages, such as your ‘book a viewing’ page, a blog page, contact page or facebook page.
Encourage Reviews
Facebook allows users to post reviews on a business page, so do stay in touch with your couples after the wedding. From 1-2 weeks drop them a follow up email, expressing you hope they enjoyed their honeymoon and had an amazing wedding day.
Ask them if they don’t mind leaving a review on your Facebook page, a genuine review left by the bride or groom is a great way to add trust and build confidence for other potential couples to get in touch and book your venue.
#Hashtags baby!
Hashtags are used on Twitter and Instagram and also now Pinterest. Adding hashtags allow your posts to be seen on the explore pages and when a hashtag is searched, for example #weddingvenue.
You can use up to 30 hashtags on your Instagram posts, make sure they are unique and don’t use the same each time otherwise you may be penalised by the Instagram algorithm.
Hashtags you may wish to use on your posts:
- #weddingvenue
- #weddingvenueuk
- #scotlandweddings
- #londonweddingvenue
- #weddingvenuelondon
- #weddingplanning
- #justengaged
- #weddingceremony
- #weddingreception
- #weddingceremony
- #ceremony
Using relative hashtags helps your posts to be seen by engaged users, location based hashtags also helps your posts to be seen by local users. Don’t use popular yet generic hashtags, keep them relative to your post and your industry.
Ensure your Venue Info is Correct
If you have a new phone number or email address make sure you login and update your contact details on your social media accounts. You want to make sure potential clients can easily and quickly get in touch with you, calling a disconnected number doesn’t give a good impression, or sending an email for it to bounce back as it is not used anymore.
Monitor the Insights Page
With a business Facebook and Instagram page you can view insights about which posts perform best and the audience that view your posts including their age, gender and location.
Look at which posts perform well and look to follow that style. With posts that seem to under perform look to adjust these when posting again, perhaps it is the image style or theme, perhaps the caption or the message.
There is no one template that works for all, be creative, try different posts and see what works for you and your venue.
Investing in Paid Ads
Social media is a great free platform, however for maximum reach you will need to consider ads. paid ads allow you to target your audience ensuring your posts and ads reach the right people and maximising your return on investment.
With Facebook and Instagram paid ads you can target your advance, for example, newly engaged, female, interests include wedding planning, within 40 miles of your location. Here you are targeting your ad on brides to be that live close to your venue.
Again there is not one template that works best, it is about trying different images and engaging text that tells your audience about yourself as simply as possible. Find what works best, make adjustments and try again to see what works and what doesn’t.
Unlike printed ads you can easily track your ROI and understand how your ad is performing by viewing the cost per click or engagement, how many impressions it has had and how many times it has been clicked.
What to post where?
With different social media platforms there isn’t one post for all, you need to create content and posts for each. So what works best and where?
It is all visual here, share photos of your venue, recent weddings or photos from wedding photographers at your venue. Try and keep your feed consistent. Add in hashtags to help your posts reach more users.
Stories are a big thing on Instagram too, take quick short videos of the table set ups, the ceremony decor. You have the visuals and the content, it is about capturing and sharing. For stories consider doing little videos or snapshots from “behind the scenes” showing your venue being set up, what is being done, new areas or features.
With Facebook you can easily share weddings, recent shots from weddings, keep it visual, and keep it consistent. Take your own photos and share them, or share wedding photographers posts of recent photos at your venue. Talk about the day and how much fun it was, how beautiful the table decorations were, even the brides dress.
Posting here about open days, wedding fairs and offers is ideal on Facebook. You can easily create a special event post providing lots of information that you can then share. Users can then show an interest and say if they are attending too.
With twitter you can share photos and content, ensure you use hashtags to get maximum reach and post consistently. Twitter is a great way to engage with other wedding professionals, who may also share your posts.
Use twitter search for couples asking questions about wedding venues in your area and if suitable engage with them about booking a viewing. Be proactive, and be engaging, ask questions, share open days and events as well as offers and late space deals.
Pinterest is a haven of wedding inspiration and a great place to share your venue. Upload photos of your venue, table decor, the little details and outdoor spaces. A report states photos without faces receive 23 percent more repins, so make sure you focus on your venue.
From Social Media to Bookings
It is important to try and track where your enquires come from, did it come from a printed advert, a venue directory or from social media? Was is a Facebook ad that you were running that led to the enquiry for a viewing, did that viewing then lead to a booking? Did a client see you on Instagram, then Google search for your venue and get in touch that way? Instead of being found via Google, you were actually found via Instagram.
It is difficult to track every lead or where they first made that connection with you, however asking when they enquire allows you to collect the most reliable data, if they know they just saw you on Instagram, then they are likely to select that. Once they attend a viewing they may just say on Google.
Don’t Give up
Decide what works best for you and decide how much time you have to spend, it is better to spend time on one or two platforms and be consistent and get the best from them, rather than little time on all and spreading yourself to thin.
Be consistent and don’t give up, it takes time to build up your presence and audience. Keep focused and ensure you create time for marketing your wedding venue on social media.