How To Plan a DIY Wedding Using Social Media

I’m getting married next July, and being a Mashable editor, I’ve naturally attempted to use social media wherever possible when planning my wedding. Some things for the wedding have required me to go the traditional route — picking out a venue meant actually going to see a few, and to my knowledge, there isn’t yet a way to actually taste food over the Internet. There are plenty of local wedding vendor directories and review sites that were helpful in locating vendors to try out, but actually checking them out in person is a must.

However, much of the wedding actually can be planned via social media and the web, especially if you take a more DIY approach and assemble bits and pieces of the event on your own. I’m taking that approach to the planning of my own wedding and have been relying on social media and web-based tools to help. In this post, I’m open sourcing my wedding planning work-flow and sharing all the tricks I’ve learned so far. Feel free to share other ideas in the comments.

Fighting the Fear of Social Media

When it comes to Social Media, a lot of individuals and companies are quite afraid. Fear of the unknown. Fear of lack of privacy. Fear of retribution and negative response. Fear of ex-girlfriends’ new boyfriends, or of strangers stalking your kids. I hope to quell some of those fears with some good old fashioned rationalization and logical determination of what Social Media can do for you.

Social Media for Personal Use

When it comes to personal use, there is a lot more to fear from Social Media on an individual level than on a corporation level. There is a level of comfort that some were able to adapt to quickly (they all work in PR) and some took a little while longer to come around. Some still haven’t come around, but have their little toes in the water and some flat out refuse to be involved at all. Most of the fear in the latter categories come from lack of knowledge about the Social Media networks and false assumptions about what kind of information you are required to share.

10 Secrets to Using Twitter to Attract More Followers and Get More Clients

I do wonder at times if some Twitter users have any time to get any work done. Several of the more prolific ones that I follow swear they spend no more than 30 minutes a day on Twitter, but I really find that hard to believe. Many times it seems they are twittering just to say something, like ‘Good morning Twitterverse’ when they begin their day, give more details than I want to know about what they had for lunch, what their children said to them, or when they take a nap.

I realize that this is part of the ‘like, know, and trust’ process that enables people to get to know each other, but sometimes it’s simply too much information..LOL. I’m Twittering primarily to market my business. Consequently, I try and limit my personal twitters to no more than 2 per day. My clients, who create Twitter accounts for marketing, as well, tell me, ‘I’m signed up. Now what in the world do I Twitter about? How do I market my business with this tool?’

Here are 10 strategies that I use regularly to market my business and my expertise via Twitter. Remember, you have only 140 characters for your tweet (Twitter post).

1. How you’re helping clients. Talk about specific ways that your business helps clients and use their Twitter ID if you have their permission, i.e. ‘Just finished @clientname brainstorm great Internet marketing plan for 2009″ or ‘Finally finished setting up Quickbooks for local hardware store — now they can invoice their clients’

2. What you’re doing in your business. This is a perfect time to tell others when you’re blogging, writing an article, creating your weekly ezine, recording your podcast, i.e. ‘Had great interview with Jane Smith today on speaking to grow your biz. Great ideas! Subscribe to podcast & listen here (URL here)’

3. Useful tool or resource you’ve found. I run across these all the time in my daily activities, and Twitter is a perfect place to share,. i.e. ‘Found great new Firefox plug-in to monitor & check multiple Gmail accounts at same time at (URL here)’ or ‘Read great blog post on workíng at home with kids under 5 at (URL here)’

4. Ask a question. Need some ideas or some quick brainstorming? Twitter is an ideal place to gather opinions, i.e. ‘Help! Desperately seeking new laser prínter. Recommendations?’ or ‘How do I find training organizations online?’

5. Conduct a survey. What do your Tweeps think about a particular issue? Ask them via Twitter, i.e. ‘Quick poll: Do you get more clients from Facebook or Twitter? Respond at (URL here)’

6. Report on live events. The latest Twitter trend seems to be tweeting what’s happening at conferences or workshops. In order for Twitter users to follow a particular event, it’s usually referred to by a name preceded by a # sign, as in #JVAlert, for example, to make it simpler for people who want to follow those posts. So, if you were at an event, you might tweet ‘#JVAlert John Smith speaking on affiliate programs. Just got great idea on training affiliate managers!’ Just don’t get so wrapped up in tweeting that you ignore the content delivered in the conference!

7. Product or service launch. If you’re about to launch a new product or introduce a new product, let your Twitter followers know, i.e. ‘Pre-launch pricing for new DVD set about how baby boomers can start an online biz. Get $100 early bird discount at (URL here)’

8. Responding to others with advice or answers. The way to build professional relationships on Twitter is to help your tweeps. So, if someone asks a question, comments about something to which you have a response or an idea, or you want to ask a followup question, this is the perfect place to do so.

By Donna Gunter (c) 2008

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(Via KDI Media : Savannah, GA.)