Social Media Consulting for the Wedding and Hospitality Industries :: Splendid Communications

The Most Common Blogging Mistake and How to Avoid It

noreply@blogger.com (Liene Stevens) — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 13:00:00 +0000

One of the quickest ways to dilute your company's brand and get lost in the search engines is to abbreviate your company's name while writing your blog posts. Never, ever do this. I don't think I can stress this enough. If you get tired of typing out your company name, copy and paste it instead, but never publish a post with your company's initials in place of the name.

Marketing studies have shown that acronyms are remembered far less often than the company's full name and when seen in print, they are usually not instantly associated with the company in question. Also, while it may be clear to me that SC stands for Splendid Communications, since this company is literally what puts food on my table and pays my bills and what I spend the majority of my time on, for others SC could mean a multitude of things, from South Carolina to Scott's Cooking to Savannah Chapel. Retraining the public's mind to view an acronym the way you see it instead of the way they may have grown up knowing it is time and energy better focused elsewhere.

For search engines, SC is most commonly going to be South Carolina, never Splendid Communications. If I abbreviated this all the time, it would kill, or at the very least seriously hinder, my SEO efforts. Since having my site and blog indexed with information about an East Coast state is not my goal, it is important for me to take a few extra seconds when writing my blog posts and spell out my company's name.

Twitter Etiquette: Do or Don't? Retweeting an Update From a Locked Profile

noreply@blogger.com (Liene Stevens) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 13:00:00 +0000

I was recently asked a question on Twitter etiquette about whether or not it is appropriate to retweet (or re-post for those of you who may not be familiar with Twitter vocabulary) something that someone who has a locked profile said.

I wanted to pose the question to all of you. What do you think? If you're following someone who has a private Twitter account, is it appropriate to retweet something they've said on Twitter?

If you have a private Twitter account, have you ever been annoyed that someone retweeted something you only meant a handful of people to see?

Google's New Sidewiki and What It Means For Your Business

noreply@blogger.com (Liene Stevens) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:00:00 +0000

In September, Google launched Sidewiki, an add-on toolbar for Firefox and Internet Explorer, and soon, Chrome. Once installed, users can leave comments on it about any website they visit and these comments are visible to anyone who has this toolbar installed. This is not the first tool of this kind, but Google has a bigger brand and more marketshare than the others. Also, with the other tools they are rolling out, Sidewiki could very easily gain in popularity.

Conversations about your company are happening with or without you online and now, with Google's Sidewiki, they can happen on any website in the world, even yours . . . even without your permission.

So what does all this mean for you?

Both your internal and external customer service need to be on par. One snarky email to a bride or another vendor and that person can not only blast you on Twitter or Facebook, they can post about it to your website.

This new tool also allows competitors to comment on your site. Google does require that you use your real name to post (not exactly sure how they will monitor this, though they do track IP addresses for every interaction) and they do have policies in place that prohibit defamatory comments, however you will not have the ability to delete Sidewiki comments that others post like you can on your blog or Facebook. Google will have to do that for you and it will be at their discretion, not yours.

Because of this, you need to have a solid public relations plan in place if you don't already. Not public relations in the sense of garnering publicity or editorial features, but in the sense of protocols and actions that your company will take in responding to comments, both positive or negative, in the public arena. These policies really should be in writing, regardless of your company size.

This new tool has a lot of potential to be a great addition to the Internet and considerably useful. It can allow brides to mention that a wedding gown in a size 6 from a certain designer runs a bit small and to order larger or vice versa. It also can help raise the bar in the wedding industry: improved customer service, better vendor relations, better products, and so on. While companies have never truly been in control of the conversations about them, tools like these only amplify that truth.

What are your thoughts on Google Sidewiki? Do you think it will help or harm your business?

Meet Olivia

noreply@blogger.com (Liene Stevens) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:00:00 +0000

I'm bumping today's scheduled social media etiquette post to tomorrow in order to introduce you to Olivia, the newest member of the Splendid Communications team. Olivia's primary role is to keep me sane. It's a tall order. Without further ado, here are some fun facts about Olivia:

Name: Olivia Ann

My Alma Mater: Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, TX

My Starbucks order is: Not a huge coffee person . . . yet! But I can never pass up their chocolate chip cookies! Mmmmm . . . .

My favorite thing about weddings: The reception and dancing to Shout "Wedding Crashers" style . . . never gets old!

I am known for: Being a huge baby hog - anywhere there are babies you can bet I'll be holding one!

People are always surprised to learn that: My mom has 17 brothers and sisters . . . she was the eighth child of 18. What's kind of ironic is the "Duggars" live less than ten miles from where my grandparents live.

By the time I'm 30 I hope to: Have possibly started my own business and family.

My celebrity crush is: Ashton Kutcher because he has a great sense of humor and seems super laid back.

When I was a kid I: Used to have weird misconceptions about things. For example, when I was four I thought that dogs and cats were the same animal . . . only dogs were the boys and cats were the girls!

My favorite dish to cook is: Baked chicken and rice and grilled panini sandwiches.

I think everyone should: Travel as much as possible; there is so much to see and learn. The world is too big and our lives are too short not to.

Splendid Sundays Volume 16

noreply@blogger.com (Liene Stevens) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 15:00:00 +0000

A handful of splendid finds and interesting tidbits from around the worldwide web:

*Building a Culture of Employee Appreciation via Inc Magazine.

*As Facebook Ages, Gen Y Turns to Twitter. Facebook has a role in business marketing, however with the highest group of members CLOSING their accounts being in the 18-34 age group (what's your target bride's age? The average bride is 27, average groom is 28), it is currently not the best social media outlet for wedding businesses to focus on. Do you know why you are using the online tools you are for your business or are you using them because everyone else is?

*Six Social Media Trends for 2010 from Harvard Business Publishing. Pay special attention to number 5. If your website is heavily flash-based (including blog headers), your branding message will be lost on people reading via iphones who aren't able to see those elements.

*According to a recent study by ComScore, 13.8 billion display ad impressions were viewed on social networks in August of 2009, which accounts for more than 25% of all display ads viewed online.

*Book of the week: From Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap . . . And Others Don't. From Amazon: Making the transition from good to great doesn't require a high-profile CEO, the latest technology, innovative change management, or even a fine-tuned business strategy. At the heart of the rare and truly great companies was a corporate culture that rigorously found and promoted disciplined people to think and act in a disciplined manner. The book offers a well-reasoned road map to excellence that any organization would do well to consider. Good to Great is one of those books that managers and CEOs will be reading and rereading for years to come.

Do you have any splendid finds to share?

Follow Fridays - This Week's Picks in More Than 140 Characters

noreply@blogger.com (Liene Stevens) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 17:15:00 +0000

Today's post is really an excuse for me to expand on my Follow Friday list on Twitter in more than 140 characters. If you're not familiar with Follow Fridays, it's simply a list people make each Friday of a few Twitter users and who they think other people should follow. Here are some tips for best practices for Follow Fridays.

My picks for this week are:

One I copied from the gals at Two Bright Lights because they said it first and I completely agree with them: Jean Marks, Jubilee Lau and Wedding360. Jean and Jubilee have put together one of the best educational opportunities for wedding designers and planners with their Wedding 360 academy. If you are a wedding planner or designer and want to learn from some of the best of the best, sign up for this conference.

Next, Kate Parker and MyKPWedding. There have been vendor directories of some form or fashion online pretty much since the web began. Some have been a free-for-all where anyone could be listed, and some took a much different route and made them invitation only based on extensive research. In January, Kate is launching MyKPWedding, a hybrid vendor directory and wedding planning site which will completely change the way weddings are planned online. I have the privilege of working with Kate on this and trust me when I say that there is NOTHING currently like this in the wedding marketplace.

Finally, Terrica Skaggs of Cocktails and Details - CocktailTerrica. For the past year Terrica has been involved in a trademark battle and learned recently that she lost the fight for the company name that she has had for several years and a name she had FIRST. Rather than spend the money and pursue it further in court, she chose to change the name instead since the brand she has built extends far beyond the name. Lessons here? 1) Don't steal or take what isn't yours, even if you technically can. 2) Being actively engaged and involved in social media makes it much easier for the national and even international wedding community to have your back when something like this happens because they feel like they know you. 3) Trademark your company name right now. Stop reading this post and go file your trademark if you haven't yet.

I have been able to meet all of these women personally and they are each smart and excellent at what they do. They have great insight and are worth following.

Marketing Your Business Through Blogging

noreply@blogger.com (Liene Stevens) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 13:00:00 +0000

I received the following email yesterday from Becka Knight of Studio 222 Photography in Orlando. I wanted to share it not because of her praise for my blogging workshops (though I will admit I loved reading that it helped her - it's the very reason I teach them), but because it shows how instrumental a blog can be in marketing your offline business. If you want the cliff's notes version and don't want to read the entire note, skip down to the part in bold (emphasis mine).

--

Liene,

I just wanted to take a minute and write you a thank you letter. I know I said it before but now that more time has gone by I wanted to tell you the big differences that I've seen in our blog since implementing changes that you talked about at your bootcamp. When I attended the bootcamp I was writing two blogs: my business one and a personal one. I'd been a blogger since high school and had always loved it. But I was having such a hard time bringing the two worlds together. After your bootcamp I started implementing simple changes like writing with keywords and using the linking rules you talked about as well as tracking my analytics and using that to help me decide what and when to post. I still couldn't merge the two blogging worlds though and ended up closing down my personal one. It was just too hard keeping my brand consistent and professional between both. After a few months I began to miss it a lot. My personal blog was where I posted recipes (I love baking), stories about Nate and I, about shopping, about life. It was where I wrote for the sake of writing (a hobby I've loved since elementary school) and I was starting to get bored to death with my business posts.

When I made the switch from Blogger to Wordpress I wasn't intending to overhaul our blog. But then I came up with the idea of having a hybrid blog. A blog that merged my personal and business worlds. I knew that not many people were doing it so I was in new territory and all the advice out there was to be careful not to be too open or too personal. Don't mix messages. Keep consistency. But I knew I had to make it work. Inspired by the Pioneer Woman blog, I asked my designer if it was possible to create a blog that was divided into sections that our readers could subscribe to separately or as one and with her help we made it a reality. Since then I have found so much more joy in blogging. I blog (usually) 5 times a week and have noticed our traffic go from in the 100-200 visitors/day to the 300/400 and even 500 visitors a day with just over 200 subscribing to our various feeds (since this past August). In the last few weeks especially (since I updated our typeface and branding to its now current look across our twitter/website/facebook page/and blog) I have gotten so many positive reactions. People have actually called me to tell me how much they LOVE how the new blog is looking. We've booked weddings because of our blog ALONE. (I just sent out a proposal today and the woman on the phone told me her deciding factor was how much she loved the look of our blog and other than seeing our photos there, our writing voice convinced her that we were a perfect match for what she wanted.) And surprisingly to me, a lot of girls tell me how much they LOVE that I've been posting recipes and that Nate is now writing a column every Tuesday. Our male readership has gone up too because of his weekly posts. And our comments have steadily been going up. We usually get between 10-30 on most posts.

I feel like we're building a little community. Our grooms are following along and commenting as well which is just amazing to me. People tell me that they check in every day at 2:22pm (because that's when we generally post) and it's easy for them to remember because it's our name and it's always the same. It's also helped to establish those three numbers as our brand and people send us photos ALL THE TIME when they see "222" out in their daily lives. It's become a fun little contest among our friends and fans to see who can send the most creative or funny images in. I've also learned that our biggest traffic days are Mondays and Wednesdays so I always post photo heavy posts on those days. On the weekends I post more personal ones.

So, thank you. Because you were the steroid shot I needed to find my way. The basics that you taught have been the solid foundation for what has become my favorite part of our marketing.

Writing Tips for Finding Your Blogging Voice

noreply@blogger.com (Liene Stevens) — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:00:00 +0000

One of the things that people struggle with the most in blogging is finding their unique voice. I find that many tend to over think this and as a result their blog sounds much more like they are writing a high school essay or a literary analysis. On the opposite side of the coin are the blogs where the writing is largely ignored and sounds more like an elementary student relating the school day to her parents:
"How was your day?"
"Fine."
"What did you learn?"
"Nothing."

While there is a time and place for each of these writing styles on blogs, the point of a blog is to be a conversation between you and the reader.

To achieve this, pretend you are meeting a friend for a cup of coffee or a cocktail for happy hour. How would you speak to them? How would you tell them about your day? How would you describe the wedding you just worked on this past weekend?

Chances are, you wouldn't tell your friend that the wind blew through the bride's veil and caused it to flutter like a golden butterfly. You would relate the events of the weekend in a much more natural, conversational style. As you write your blog, pretend that you are chatting with a friend and type that conversation as your post.

It may feel odd and the practice may seem a bit cheesy, but it will help your blog posts to come across in your voice and to sound like you.

What is your blog writing style like? Do you feel that your blog sounds like you?

Preferred Vendor Directories and The New FTC Regulations

noreply@blogger.com (Liene Stevens) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 13:30:00 +0000

The new FTC regulations that go into effect December 1st also extend to preferred vendor lists and directories, not just reviews of products on blogs.

This means that if you pay to advertise in a magazine's, website's or blog's vendor directory, and display one of the blog badges that shows you are a member, you have to disclose that you paid to be included. The blogs and sites that you advertise with will also have to disclose that their membership is paid advertising, regardless of how extensive their research and selection process may be. If a blog features your work in an editorial post, and you are one of their advertisers, they will have to disclose that as well, even if it is not a "sponsored post". If you include the badge or site's logo in your press and awards page, you will have to either disclose that it is actually a paid membership or you will have to remove it.

The FTC does not care if you pay to advertise with another company, but they do care that you are honest about money changing hands for the privilege of being listed on the other site. It is also important to note that these regulations apply not just to blogs, but to websites, Twitter, Facebook and other areas of social media as well.

The fine for each infraction is $11,000, so be sure to review your websites and blogs and make the necessary edits so that you are in compliance by the December 1st date.

Social Media Etiquette: Responding to Brides on Twitter

noreply@blogger.com (Liene Stevens) — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:00:00 +0000

I received the following question on social media etiquette (note: question has been edited for anonymity):

If someone follows you on Twitter and in their blurb it says, "[Career] gal, recently transplanted to [City], attempting to plan a wedding..." Is it okay to send her an @reply or direct message? What is the new etiquette?

In these types of situations, if the person has actively chosen to follow you, then yes, it is appropriate to send some type of reply, either via an @reply or a DM. That said, I would recommend limiting your response to something along the lines of "Welcome to our city! You'll love it here" or "Welcome to our city and congrats on your upcoming wedding!"

I would not recommend your first interaction with them being something like "Welcome to our city! If you need a wedding planner, let me know." While this may seem harmless, it still comes across as a bit creepy and spammy and would be akin to a neighbor knocking on your door and saying "Welcome to the neighborhood! Here's a loaf of banana bread. Do you need a chiropractor?" Everything was great up until that last sentence. Then the relationship got weird.

If what you do for a living is in your Twitter bio (and if you are on Twitter for business, then it should be), then that person will already know what you can potentially do for them for their wedding. Don't use Twitter to channel your inner used car salesman. Keep the conversation friendly and welcoming.

Splendid Sundays Volume 15

noreply@blogger.com (Liene Stevens) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 13:30:00 +0000

A handful of splendid finds and interesting tidbits from around the worldwide web:

*Nancy Liu Chin, a wedding florist and event designer in San Francisco, wrote a fantastic article for WeddingbeePRO about the financial realities of owning a wedding business. Sean Low also wrote a great follow up post to Nancy's article about pricing models on his business consulting blog.

*It's not just print magazines that are closing, some of the original web pioneers are as well. This past week, Yahoo officially closed Geocities, which was one of the first platforms for personal websites, allowing people to participate in social media before it had a name.

*Ever wanted to send one of these types of invoices to one of those types of clients?

*An interesting article on how Tiffany & Co is changing how it sources its diamonds for the first time in its 172-year history in order to overcome the challenges the luxury retail market is currently facing.

*Book of the week: The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What To Do About It. From Amazon: In The E-Myth, Michael Gerber dispels the myths surrounding starting your own business and shows how commonplace assumptions can get in the way of running a business. Next, he walks you through the steps in the life of a business -- from entrepreneurial infancy through adolescent growing pains to the mature entrepreneurial perspective: the guiding light of all businesses that succeed -- and shows how to apply the lessons of franchising to any business, whether it is a franchise or not. Finally, Gerber draws the vital, often overlooked distinction between working on your business and working in your business. After you have read The E-Myth Revisited, you will truly be able to grow your business in a predictable and productive way.

Do you have any splendid finds to share?

How To Get Brides To Read Your Wedding Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Liene Stevens) — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:00:00 +0000

Editor's Note: This post originally ran in July 2009, and I am reposting it now since the topic of attracting readers is one I've been asked by several people recently.

If you want brides to read your wedding blog, don't try and sell them anything. Don't talk about what you can do for them as a wedding professional. Don't talk about your store or your publication. Don't only talk about the products your store carries.

Brides are reading your blog in search of information or inspiration that will help them have a better wedding. If you make it your goal to help them have the best wedding possible, regardless of whether they hire you or not, the chances of your phone ringing will increase exponentially and you'll find that doors will begin to open to opportunities you never even thought to dream up.

Remember, the world is a bakery that produces fresh opportunities each day. It's not a fixed pie where everyone has to fight for the last crumb. You can argue that these are quaint philosophies with no real-world application, but this is largely how I've built my wedding business in a relatively short amount of time. And it's worked.

Try it out: blog valuable "I should really be charging for this" information three times a week for six months. At the very least, if it doesn't get your brand a broader audience or more calls, it will have increased your search engine rank, making it easier for other brides to find you on Google later on.

Wedding Twitter Lists to Follow

noreply@blogger.com (Liene Stevens) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 02:19:00 +0000

Twitter has launched a beta Lists feature, in which it allows users to create lists of different people on Twitter, whether they follow them or not. The lists can be public or private and can be used to organize people you want to be sure not to miss an update from (much like you would in Tweetdeck) or they can be used to highlight people in certain segments of an industry.

I've created a few lists that highlight certain segments of the wedding industry in order to help you figure out who to follow. The lists are not just comprised of people I follow and I've chosen to include companies I feel have a high standard of integrity, including how they treat their clients, vendor colleagues and employees both publicly and privately. Some other companies may not be included simply because I forgot to add them as well as because I am still adding to and editing the lists.

Here are the lists and a bit of my thought process behind each of them:

Wedding Media
This list is a compilation of both print and online media resources specific to the wedding industry. It does not include any publicists or public relation firms - it is strictly the media side.

Wedding Pros to Watch
In twenty years when this handful of people have Preston Bailey or Colin Cowie status (or bigger), I want to be able to say "I told you so". This list is so I can say that. If someone isn't on this list it doesn't mean they won't have huge, fabulous companies in 20 years, after all I don't have a crystal ball. However, these are all people I am willing to bet actual large amounts of money on, and I never bet with anything more than Skittles or M&Ms or a $5 bill.

Wedding Fashion
This list was inspired by all the talented wedding fashion designers featured in recent Bridal Market tweets.

The B List
This is a list of the wedding bloggers who attended the inaugural B List meet up this past April. They are companies who are greatly shaping the way weddings are planned online and they're awesome women to boot.

Wedding Business Advice
A list of people on Twitter whom I know personally who have wedding business advice worth paying for and a track record to back it up. Bonus for you: they give a ton of solid advice away for free on Twitter and their blogs.

Seasoned Wedding Pros
These are people who have been in the wedding industry for "a very long time" as Marcy Blum calls it. They have seen the patterns of ebb and flow (that this industry is known for) over and over again, first hand. Many have greatly shaped the modern wedding industry as we currently know it and many invented the styles that are now commonplace. They are wise and have a lot of great insight.

Wedding Book Authors
These are people who have written books related to the wedding industry, either for engaged couples or for wedding professionals.

The Twitter lists are still in beta and not yet available to all users. If you're eligible for the beta testing, click on the links above and follow whichever lists you prefer. If you're not yet, sit tight, you will be soon. If I create additional lists, I'll update this post as well.

6 Tips for Using ReTweets to Your Advantage

noreply@blogger.com (Liene Stevens) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:00:00 +0000

One of the most useful aspects of Twitter for wedding businesses is the retweet factor. If your update is retweeted (or reposted by someone else), the information that originally went to your network, is now being shared with multiple other networks, putting your brand and information in front of a broader audience. Here are some tips on how to be retweeted more often and some advice for when you retweet someone else's updates:

1. Studies show that updates with links that are retweeted the most often use bit.ly or su.pr to shorten the links. Tinyurl.com is retweeted the least often because it is the longest of the url shorteners and often gets cut off in the retweets.

2. If you want the update to be retweeted by others, leave room for at least the number of characters in "space RT space @YourUserName". This is a strategy we employ with the @pinkinitiative daily quotes and tips (we leave 19 characters open at the end) and it works well. People spread relevant information to their followers and the word about the non-profit organization reaches a larger network.

3. If you are retweeting someone, the two most common models are adding RT @TheirUserName at the beginning of the update or (via @TheirUserName) at the end of the update.

4. If you are using the RT @TheirUserName method, put your own opinion or thought before the RT and not at the end of their statement. Adding your thoughts at the end, even in parentheses, causes confusion as to who said what.

5. There is no need to retweet every positive thing someone says about you. On occasion, this is acceptable because part of being an entrepreneur means you have to promote your company. Doing it for every positive tweet however is a surefire way to annoy your followers.

6. When you retweet something someone else said, be sure to include their name in your post to give them credit for the original tweet.

How has the retweet factor helped you on Twitter?

Page Views, Unique Visitors and Online Advertising

noreply@blogger.com (Liene Stevens) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 13:00:00 +0000

I was recently asked to discuss the difference between unique visitors and page views and whether there is a benefit of one to the other.

First, some quick definitions:
*A unique visitor is counted once for each IP address that visits your website during a certain amount of time. It does not always equal a unique individual (if you read this at work and then at home then you would be counted as unique twice because of the different IPs). Unique visitors are typically measured per day and per month.

*A page view or impression is generated every time a visitor refreshes the page or visits a new page within your blog or website. Multiple pageviews can be generated by the same unique visitor.

The reason page views are important is because the longer you can keep someone on your site with interesting, relevant content, the more apt they are to either click on your banner ads or subscribe, giving you permission to put your content in front of them in the future.

Blogs that have high amounts of page views often have deeper placed content for their readers to explore: forums for brides to chat with each other or vendor directories that are four or five clicks in, with each click generating a new page. With this strategy, one unique visitor could easily generate over 50-100 page views in one session. One note of caution if you are considering this method: be careful to not bury content so deep into your blog that people give up on clicking and close your site window instead.

Online ads are typically charged per CPM or cost per one thousand impressions (M being the Roman numeral for 1000) whether a blog reader clicks on the ad or not. This means that the more page views a website or blog can generate, the more ad revenue they can generate for themselves. This can also be good for the advertiser depending on their marketing strategy, because it means that their ad is in front of eyes more often, even if they are the same eyes.

The future viability of the CPM model is a hot topic right now in social media and online advertising circles and the subject of much debate (which I'll discuss in another post). In my opinion, there are marketing strategies where purchasing a CPM banner ad makes sense and others where it does not. It really all comes down to what your specific business goals are and what results you need the ad to produce for you.

If your goal with advertising is to generate client contracts with brides, then a blog that attracts a large portion of vendors as well as engaged couples may not be the best place to focus your ad dollars because the clicks generated are more likely not going to be qualified leads. Your marketing budget is probably better spent on a blog that receives lower visitor numbers but is more targeted to your market and has a higher conversion rate of ad clicks to closed sales. However, if your goal is to generate recognition for your brand so that other professionals in the wedding industry say "yes, we've heard of them", then paying for a CPM based ad on a more highly trafficked blog could be a very effective strategy for you.

Do you currently take page views or unique visitor numbers into account for your advertising? Which one shows better results for you?

Social Media Etiquette: Saying Thank You Online

noreply@blogger.com (Liene Stevens) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 13:00:00 +0000

Call me old-fashioned, but I am definitely of the camp that believes a handwritten thank you note trumps an emailed thank you any day. However, there are some instances when an online thank you via social media is appropriate, but even this line has become pushed further and further in the name of "efficiency". Here are some thoughts on the etiquette of saying thank you online:

*If you are saying thank you for a thank you gift, sending them a note on Twitter or Facebook or via email to acknowledge receipt of the gift and their kindness is perfectly acceptable. Drafting a handwritten note of gratitude for the other person's note of gratitude is a bit overkill in these types of situations.

*If you are sending a thank you gift that includes an online order (flowers, gift cards, etc), then a handwritten note doesn't need to arrive a few days later as well. The note that is printed from your order on the gift tag is sufficient.

*If you are saying thank you and not sending an online gift, then it should be via a handwritten note and not done via email or in a Twitter message.

Saying thank you should never be a matter of efficiency. There are some things in life and business that you should slow down for and expressing your gratitude is one of them. Even from a pure business standpoint, investing the time and energy into saying thank you via snail mail will set you apart from the majority of your competition because most of them won't bother saying thank you at all, and those that do will do so via email. It's not hard to tell which company will stand out.

What are your thoughts on saying thank you online?

Splendid Sundays Volume 14

noreply@blogger.com (Liene Stevens) — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 13:30:00 +0000

A handful of splendid finds and interesting tidbits from around the worldwide web:

*Sean Low, a genius business consultant and owner of The Business of Being Creative, will be speaking in Atlanta on November 19th. This is a chance to learn from one of the best business minds in the industry and at an amazing price. If you are in the Atlanta area or within driving distance or a short flight, be sure you don't miss it! You can read more about it here and register here.

*Event industry sales coach and wedding planner, Saundra Hadley, filmed a segment for Mutual of Omaha for their Aha! Moment ad campaign. Her video entitled Just Me and the Bride has made it to the top 25 finalists. If she wins, Saundra will be included in the national ad campaign. Please take five seconds and vote for her here. You won't be required to log-in or give your information or anything like that. Voting ends October 31st.

*On the heels of Conde Nast announcing the closure of four magazines, including Elegant Bride and Modern Bride, one of their magazines - GQ magazine - will be making their entire December issue available for download on the iPhone. The digital issue will cost $2.99 and be available in the iTunes store. What are your thoughts? Would you buy a magazine to read on your phone?

*If you advertise online, here are some tips on getting more out of your banner ads and designing them to perform better.

*Book of the week: Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, by David Allen. From Amazon: Allen, a management consultant and executive coach, provides insights into attaining maximum efficiency and at the same time relaxing whenever one needs or wants to. Readers learn that there is no single means for perfecting organizational efficiency or productivity; rather, the author offers tools to focus energies strategically and tactically without letting anything fall through the cracks.

Do you have any splendid finds to share?

Three Services to Track Your Blog Stats

noreply@blogger.com (Liene Stevens) — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 13:00:00 +0000

I am often asked which sites bloggers in the wedding industry should use for tracking visitor statistics for their own websites and blogs. Whether you want to measure your wedding blog's traffic or simply channel your inner Nancy Drew, here are a three analytics services and some thoughts on each:

Google Analytics
googleanalytics.com
Cost: free
Google Analytics is, by far, the most powerful free tracking service available on the market today. It is even better than some of the paid services (in large part because it used to be a somewhat pricey paid service before Google bought it). It allows you to track unique visitors, returning visitors, the amount of time those visitors spend on your site, the keywords people type into Google to find your site (example: wedding florist in San Francisco), the time of day your blog gets the most amount of traffic and much more. In addition, Google also recently purchased Feedburner, which tracks subscribers, and has been integrating those statistics into Google Analytics as well. If you only had to choose one statistics tracker to use, I would recommend Google Analytics.

Statcounter
statcounter.com
Cost: free for the most recent 500 visits, then $19.99 and up per month
Perhaps the most useful function of Statcounter is the ability to track the IP addresses of each visitor to your site and the ability to tag those IP addresses for easy identification on future visits. Because of this, I know exactly when specific people are on my site, including competitors, and exactly which pages and outgoing links they visit. It is also helpful in knowing which pages potential clients have looked at so I know going into a meeting what they have read about my company and what they may have missed. I would not recommend using Statcounter on its own as it is not always the most accurate in recording each visit, but it is good in combination with other services.

Clicky Web Analytics
getclicky.com
Cost: begins at $9.99 per month
Clicky features the ability to track and tag IP addresses, but also allows you to track product or link downloads per IP address. This makes it very easy for me to keep tabs on how many of my ebooks are downloaded, which are the most popular and who is downloading them. Clicky also allows you to integrate with Twitter links and track those as well.

There are many other statistics trackers available, but these are some of the most accessible cost-wise and powerful results-wise for solo entrepreneurs. To give you an idea of normal pricing for business web analytics, some of the more intensive analytics services I use for clients of Splendid Communications run over $400 each per month on the lower end.

For best results, I recommend using a combination of different services and not depending solely on one. All of these analytics services will allow you to export data so you can keep it on file and create your own benchmarks to compare where you are at now, six months from now, and so forth.

Do you currently track your wedding blog or website's analytics? Which services do you use?

The Value of Blogs vs Other Social Media Outlets

noreply@blogger.com (Liene Stevens) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 13:00:00 +0000

For the majority of 2009 I've largely neglected my wedding blog. This neglect has been purposeful and was part of an experiment I did in conjunction with my blogging workshops. I wanted to see, with real results, what would happen if an established wedding blog stopped posting on a consistent or frequent basis. While I certainly want to apply a "don't try this at home" disclaimer and don't endorse the type of absence I gave that blog, I did want to share some of the the findings here.

The results? Even with the purposeful neglect, the blog still receives several thousand unique visitors per day. Many find it through a Google search for wedding-related search terms that bring up related posts I wrote two and three years ago. The subscriber count has still been increasing daily as well. Because the content is largely text based and not photo based, it has given the search engines a wealth of information to crawl. Also, because my focus for that blog has always been practical, tried-and-true wedding planning advice rather than being heavy on the visual inspiration side, the information presented is still relevant to today's couples because it isn't trend based.

So how does this information help you? It means that even if you blogged often for a year, with text and not just photos, and then walked away, your blog would still help generate organic search engine results for your company. This is a benefit that blogging has that Facebook, Twitter, Friendfeed and other social media outlets do not. When you post your content on those sites, they help increase the rank of those sites. When you apply the content to your blog, it helps increase the search engine rank of your own site or blog.

I do believe Twitter and the other sites are valuable for their own unique reasons, but comparing each as though they bring the same things to the table is an apples to oranges scenario. Understanding what each social media tool offers and how it can help your company is critical to developing an online media plan that brings a return on the time, energy and money you invest.

Mental Detox Twitter Series

noreply@blogger.com (Liene Stevens) — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 13:00:00 +0000

At the end of last year, I declared that 2009 would be my year of zen. For the most part, it has worked. For the parts where it hasn't worked however, it has failed miserably. Because of this, I am rerunning last year's Mental Detox Twitter series this week. The series shares tips on focusing your mind on the things that matter and letting go of the stress of the things that don't.

You can follow along on Twitter here or you can download the free ebook here.

Social Media Etiquette: Sharing Private Conversations Online

noreply@blogger.com (Liene Stevens) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 13:00:00 +0000

Social media has made it easy to share conversations, but not all conversations are meant to be shared online.

If you plan on blogging or tweeting a conversation you had with someone in person or via email, ask their permission prior to posting. They may have meant that particular conversation for you only and not for public consumption.

If you are sending an email, consider letting the recipient know at the beginning of the email if you'd like it to remain private. There have been several emails that I have prefaced with a sentence such as "the following information is not yet public knowledge, so please don't blog or tweet about it yet". I've also asked, "is it okay if I post about this online?" in reply to emails I've received.

If someone asks you to not blog or tweet about part of a conversation you've had with them, respect their wishes. It isn't worth risking your professional or personal relationship with the other person over the buzz that information might create online.

Educational Calendar for Wedding + Event Pros

noreply@blogger.com (Liene Stevens) — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 21:09:00 +0000

One of the core values here at Splendid Communications is that if you think you've "arrived", then you've given up and have stopped trying. A true professional knows that there is always more to learn and more ways to think outside the box and improve.

There are a growing number of educational opportunities in the wedding and event industry for professionals in every segment and at all levels of business. Because of this, I've created a calendar to list the educational events, seminars and conferences available to wedding and event pros. When you sit down to plan out your schedule or education budget (or both) for the upcoming year, this resource can help you choose which opportunities you want to invest in.

To simplify things for you, there's an RSS feed to subscribe to, so you can get updates of new events in Google Reader as they are added. A permanent link to the calendar is also listed under the Be Splendid resources in the right sidebar of this site.

If you'd like to submit an event to be listed, please click here for more information on how to do so. If your event is not currently listed on the calendar, please don't take it personally. I am not aware of all the educational opportunities being offered (and there are quite a few!), so please contact me with the info. Local, national and international educational events are welcome for inclusion.

Splendid Sundays Volume 13

noreply@blogger.com (Liene Stevens) — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 18:00:00 +0000

A handful of splendid finds and interesting tidbits from around the worldwide web:

*Laura Novak, founder of Strategy Avenue - a business resource for photographers, launched PhotoPrice this past week. It is the first iphone app created especially for wedding and portrait photographers and allows you to figure out your cost of goods sold (COGS) so that you know exactly how much money you actually make on each sale. The best part? It is only $4.99! Check it out here.

*Brides Magazine also released an iphone app recently, this one focusing on, well, the bride. From their press release: Users of Brides Dressing Room will browse a variety of wedding and bridesmaid dresses, and sort by silhouette, designer or price - then check availability, and schedule an appointment with a local bridal shop for consultations and fittings. They can also email a photo of a wedding gown or bridesmaid dress to friends to get their feedback. This app is free and you can read more about it on the Brides.com Wedded Bits blog.

*If you're on Twitter and feel like you're the only person in the world NOT at Bridal Market in New York this week, you can keep up on the action by following the #bridalfashionweek hashtag and/or following the ladies at Brides.com either on Twitter @Brides or with their hashtag #bridescomrunway. You can also follow London-based event designer Mark Niemierko, who I think may be my new favorite bridal market twitter correspondent.

*I had the pleasure of meeting the brilliant ladies, Jubilee Lau and Jean Marks, behind Wedding 360 this past week at Engage!09 Encore, and I am so excited about this education series they are putting on. Wedding 360 offers education and inspiration for both engaged couples and wedding professionals through two different types of courses. Registration for The Academy for Planners and Designers opens soon, so check out their website to stay in the loop!

Do you have any splendid finds to share?

Engage!09 The Encore :: Wedding Business Conference Recaps

noreply@blogger.com (Liene Stevens) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 13:00:00 +0000

This past week I've been in Las Vegas for Engage!09 The Encore, a luxury wedding symposium put on by the genius Rebecca Grinnals and Kathryn Arce of Engaging Concepts (pictured above). I'll post more of my thoughts on this conference later next week, but wanted to share links to some of the recaps from the other attendees:

You can read the post by the fabulous Joy and Garrett Nudd here. I have been huge fans of the Nudds for several years and was so excited to meet them at Engage!09 in June (okay, I geeked out a little) and more excited that they came back for Engage!09 Encore this past week.

Lara Casey from Southern Weddings posted her iphone recap here (my favorite kind of camera).

Photographer Jen Domenick set up a Snapshot Studio at the farewell party at Blush nightclub inside the Wynn and you can view a slideshow here.

Juli Smith, who designs stylish wedding garters, live-blogged the sessions and you can read her take on it here.

Rebecca also announced the dates for both Engage!10 conferences next year. The Summer Engage!10 will be in Grand Cayman on June 7-10th and the Fall Engage!10 will be at The Breakers in Palm Beach on October 3-6th. Mark your calendars now so you don't double book. The Engage!10 website will go live January 10th, 2010, so keep your eye out for more information then. Rebecca has some amazing plans up her sleeve and I am already excited for next June.

Be sure to follow both Rebecca and Kathryn on Twitter. They are truly the very best in the entire world at what they do and are a must to know and learn from.

Photo courtesy Love Life Images

Social Media Etiquette Guide + Special Announcement

noreply@blogger.com (Liene Stevens) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 15:00:00 +0000

Beginning Monday, I'll be featuring a weekly series on social media etiquette. It will cover everything from minding your p's and q's with blog comments to posting photos of other people on Twitter or Facebook without their knowledge to posting snippets of emails people have sent you to sharing information that is in a grey area - not quite proprietary but not quite ready for public consumption, either.

The fun news is that this guide is in preparation for my second book, which will be on the same topic - social media etiquette. My first book, on marketing your business through blogging, comes next month and I could not be more excited about it.

If you have any questions on social media etiquette or situations you'd like me to highlight (even anonymously), please send them in an email to hello{at}thinksplendid.com.