A strong social media presence is essential for modern day wedding venues. Most brides (and grooms!) will be spending many hours on Instagram, Pinterest, and other platforms to find inspiration for their big day – and if your venue is not there, you will be missing out on valuable potential customers.
But it is not enough to just be on social media – you have to do it right to attract the right audience for your venue. Having worked with a number of exclusive country house wedding venues, here are our best tips on how to market your venue on social media!
Connect with suppliers
If you are posting about a wedding, tag all the suppliers that were involved. This is an excellent way of forming relationships with others in the industry, and anyone mentioned is highly likely to comment or like your post, which in its turn will boost your organic reach. Sharing content from others is also a great way of making your feed more varied.
Don’t forget to like and comment daily on posts from the accounts you follow – the more you interact with other wedding blogs and suppliers, the more likely they are to reciprocate. And no, setting up a bot to do this is a bad idea – remember, you want to form personal relationships.
Visuals
A picture says more than a 1000 words, and this certainly holds true for wedding venues. Couples planning their big day love seeing photos – the more, the better. Seeing beautiful images of your venue will let couples imagine what it would be like if they got married there, and entice them to contact you for a viewing.
Most venues will have a trove of gorgeous images waiting to be shared. Approach photographers and couples who have wed at your venue to ask if they agree to you sharing their photos – most of the time they are more than happy for you to do so. Remember to also keep an eye on your social mentions, and re-post high-quality content.
Hashtags
Using the right hashtags is vital for being found by brides-to-be. But which ones should you use?
Aim for a mix of wide and narrow hashtags. Many people will be searching for #Wedding, but your picture will quickly be buried far down in the hashtag feed as new posts come up. To ensure longevity, you also want to use more narrow tags like #belovedstories or location specific like #Leicestershireweddings.
Use the specific hashtags of major wedding blogs or magazines for a chance of having your content re-posted – for example, #rockmywedding or #youandyourwedding. A lot of brides will be following these tags, so it is a great way of expanding your following.
Don’t forget to switch up your hashtags regularly. Have a look at some of the big wedding blog accounts for inspiration and to find new hashtags that you might not have thought of.
Blogs
A regularly updated blog is an integral part of your content strategy, and will also be helping your SEO. Couples will have a lot of questions when planning their wedding, and most turn to the internet to get their answers. Blog posts need to be useful and informative – draw on your experience in helping couples make their big-day dreams come true. Sharing your knowledge will also build trust with potential customers, as they can see for themselves that you know what you are an expert at what you are doing. High-quality content like blog posts can be repurposed and shared on social media, driving further traffic to your website where the aim is to capture visitors’ details and ultimately convert them into a sale.
Encourage photographers to submit their photos from a wedding at your venue to one of the many wedding blogs out there. With audiences in the 100,000s, this is a fantastic (and free) way of gaining exposure for your venue.
Want to find out more about how we have helped wedding venues thrive? See how we increased Hodsock Priory’s website enquiries by 1,193.75% here, or read more about how we ensured Iscoyd Park’s Open Day was fully booked here.
Marketing your venue can be a full-time job, but we are here if you need a helping hand. Get in touch today to see how we can boost your wedding bookings!
