Social media can bring potential clients to your business, but what happens once they land on your profile? In this episode of Mind Your Wedding Business, Kevin sits down with Nina Addeo of I Do Wedding Marketing to talk about how wedding pros can create social media that attracts the right audience instead of leaving potential clients confused.

Nina shares how clear messaging, an optimized profile, strong storytelling, and a mix of polished and real-life content can help potential clients better understand who you are, what you offer, and whether you’re the right fit. She also explains why your inquiries and sales conversations can be some of your best tools for figuring out what your social media may be missing.

Nina Addeo is the founder of I Do Wedding Marketing, a social media and marketing company dedicated to helping wedding professionals turn their online presence into a consistent source of inquiries and bookings. With a background in digital marketing and a deep focus on the wedding industry, Nina is known for her practical, no-fluff approach to content that prioritizes clarity, strategy, and results. She is also the host of the I Do Wedding Marketing Podcast, where she shares actionable insights to help wedding pros grow sustainable, profitable businesses.

Highlights:

• How to tell if your social media is attracting the right potential clients
• Why your profile should clearly communicate who you are, what you do, and where you work
• How storytelling can help educate couples and create warmer leads
• Why polished portfolio content and real, behind-the-scenes content both have a place in your strategy
• How your inquiries and sales calls can reveal gaps in your social media messaging
• Why relying too heavily on AI-generated content can cause your personality to get lost

Connect with Nina:

Website

Instagram

Facebook

LinkedIn

Connect with Kevin:

Wedding IQ

Fantasy Sound

Instagram

YouTube

TikTok

LinkedIn

All right, folks, welcome to another episode of Mind Your Wedding Business. I'm with Nina Addeo today, and she's from I Do Wedding Marketing. And today she's gonna be talking about your social media is either booking your clients or confusing them. And I'm really excited to get into that topic. But before we do, Nina, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and how we got you here today?

Sure, sure. I am really excited to be here and to be back, not just 'cause I made Kevin talk about Disney

I was gonna say

we had a whole Disney thing before, but

but cause it's just so much fun to to geek out over social media and the wedding industry. So my start was doing social media in-house for a group of wedding venues back in the day when social media was not really its own thing. So it was paired with being the admin assistant, which meant I gotta do a lot of experimenting and exploring while also doing, you know, the vendor list, the bridal showcase, sending out leads and things like that. So that allowed me

to learn the back end while also learning the marketing end and putting them two together. I realized that what I was creating was essentially formulaic and that I could apply it to other wedding businesses worldwide as well as teach it to those who aren't able to outsource it. So that's what we do here at I Do Wedding Marketing.

I love it. And Nina, who who are you helping today specifically like market for wedding professionals?

Yeah, I would say, you know, right now, especially in podcasts, I'm speaking to the people who are doing it themselves and trying to juggle it all. But if you can outsource it, I always say knowledge is power. You wanna know what your social media manager should be doing so you know if they're doing it right or wrong. So anything I do with a full service client is transparent. You know, I don't gatekeep.

the techniques or the strategy because they need to know that I'm doing the right job. And so if you're somebody who is currently outsourcing, whether to a VA or a team member, this is still really important because you want to make sure they're doing the right thing for you.

Well, and I feel like it's ever, ever changing. Like it's it's you know, like what you're doing this month and maybe, you know, 'cause we're recording this in June, probably by December there's gonna be some new thing that everyone needs to do differently, you know, as we go through the the social media world. It's ever changing. Yeah.

absolutely. Especially with

how AI has impacted it. Cause I think over the past, you know, first half of of the year, a lot of us got almost addicted to how easy AI and AI tools were making social media, right? And then

yeah, yeah.

now it's all become so oversaturated and stale at the same time. And people are craving what they had in the beginning, which is just

Things that are authentic and personal and showing something real.

Yeah, and it's it's all the graphics are looking similar. Yeah, if you know like a

Yeah.

lot of social yeah. So I'm I'm really I'm involved in the little league still in my local little league and the girl that does our social media, the graphics look like almost every other thing that I've ever seen. But and I'm like, You use the chat GPT for that And she goes, Yeah it

Yes.

yeah, I do and I'm like, I she goes, Well, how can you tell? And I'm like, Because the graphics look like every other graphic- She's like, They do and then she she got all like

Yeah.

worked up about it, but anyway

We

we digress. All right. So your topic today is your social media is either booking you clients or confusing them. So Nina, what do you mean by that?

Well, you know, I think it's important we remember that not everybody who is inquiring with us has planned an event before, planned a

Mm.

wedding before. And a lot of how we have our packages and pricing is very overwhelming to somebody.

you may do a post just talking about maybe your micro wedding, you know, package. And then when somebody looks at it,

They don't know what it means when they're seeing, well, this package is this, but then it says if I add, you know, extra hour for fire pit, it's 100 per person plus plus. Like what does that mean? You know? Things

Yeah, yeah.

like that can be very confusing to people. Or just any terms that we use, you know, when we're talking about rounds and setups and and floor plans, these things don't

Come naturally to people who are not in the industry. Maybe they don't realize they either do or don't get a say in the floor plan. I once worked at a venue that was very strict and they didn't want different shapes of tables and things like that because they were harder to carry. So kind of yeah. Where

like staff wise- yeah, yeah. Okay.

for here's an example. I have one venue where they only allow the bridal suite included in the package for an hour. So if I

Really?

Mm-hmm. And if

wow.

I were doing so, this isn't they're in a larger area where they're doing, let's say, maybe two weddings a day. So maybe the first person would be able to get ready at any time, but then the second wouldn't. So that's where the hour came. And so when I would have photos of the bridal party getting ready in the suite, saying, get ready at our luxury suite, et cetera, it was confusing the audience who would then go and discover they only get that for an hour.

Okay. Yes.

So either I'd have to articulate,

yeah, add-on coverage for the full morning or I avoid leaning into that. And if they're in the bridal suite on social media, they're already dressed and in their gown.

Well, and that makes a whole lot of sense. You know, like how are you gonna get ready and to do that and you know yeah,

Yeah.

a bride can't get ready in an hour, you know, it just is not possible. So

Yeah. So what I mean by that is really we wanna make the sales process as easy as possible through the social media. So when somebody books a tour through social media or they book an inquiry and they're chatting with you over Zoom, I want them to already know as much as possible or be aligned with what you do and who you are as much as possible. So those calls are a dream. We want the social media to bring you

Qualified people. So that means doing as much storytelling as possible. It's not just sales, it's really just storytelling. And even when you talk about your past clients or share their reviews, get into the story a bit more of saying, you know, Stacy and Elena came to us with, you know, only three months to plan. This isn't the norm, but here's why it was able to work.

I like the story idea. 'Cause it

Well

and I think that you know, people like to hear, you know, how often do we like, reality shows and different things? It's like telling a story, it's almost like watching a reality show. So Yeah.

yeah, absolutely. Look,

and hey, if you're watching Love Island, I mean it may be when this goes live, it may not be at its peak, but that should be posted about in your stories because I guarantee you for a lot of people, a large amount of your audience is probably watching Love Island.

probably watching Love Island.

Yeah, it's a big deal. All right. Nina, what are the biggest signs that Wedding

Pros' social media is confusing potential clients when we go through there?

Yeah. first let's just start, you know, I'm gonna use Instagram as the example, but this can apply for any social media account. But when I initially go to your profile, are you saying there on that page who you are, what you do, and where you do it, right? If I Yeah, yeah, in your in

So like in the top and the all that. Okay. All right.

your bio. Now the name field, not your handle, but the name is searchable. So if you go to my profile,

I do wedding marketing, it says Nina, then dash.

social media management for wedding professionals. And that's because that's a searchable term. So

Okay.

people likely aren't gonna be searching Nina. They're gonna be searching social media manager for wedding professionals. So somebody who hasn't met you yet, they don't know that you're an existing wedding planner in the Houston area. So we want you to come up when they search Houston wedding planner. So when you put

Okay.

your- in the name field,

put your brand name and where you work and what you do to help not only the searchability, but when people do go on your profile, let's say you do a great trending reel and it brings people over, we want to qualify them right away or qualify you for them. So if

Mm-hmm.

they get to your profile and they're in Houston and they see, great, she's a wedding planner, she's in Houston, you know, they're learning

right away that they're gonna wanna stay with you and on your profile. So whatever those the branding work you've done, whether it's on your own or with a, you know, a brand and web designer, those are the elements you kind of want to put into your profile. If you're working with, you know, outdoorsy couples for elopements that are, you know, on the cliffs and mountains and things like that.

That should be clear as soon as we see your profile through what you have written there and the visuals too.

a little off topic, but is there other items that should be on our profile that we you know, like neglect

Mm-hmm.

to put on there?

see the location left out the most and I think it's sometimes

people get scared because they're like, Well, you know, I work on Long Island, but I'd love to travel. So put that. But Long Island plus destination or Long Island plus

Okay.

travel. But putting where you work, 'cause you know, when I'm looking for a vendor and I'm looking for a vendor on a social media perspective, likely to tag somebody, right? So I'm gonna dig till I know I found the right person.

But somebody just casually looking for wedding planners, they're gonna give up. They're not gonna keep searching to find out who you service or where you're located. They're not gonna leave

Mm-hmm.

Instagram to go to your website just to find out maybe if you're in their area, unless they saw something they outrageously loved. So that's a big gamble. So you want that information there. So the people who are going to your profile and then to your website.

Are qualified. Ideally, I consider a link from Instagram a warm lead because if somebody's

Mm-hmm.

stopping the Doom Scroll to go to your profile, that usually and to go to your website from there, that indicates they have a heavy interest. So the more

Yeah. Yeah.

information your Instagram gave them, the warmer of a lead they're gonna be. And hopefully a better, better closing rate, right?

No, and that makes a lot of sense. Yeah,

yeah. That makes a lot of sense because, you know, you gotta think about it. it's hard to get someone's attention and then if you got it for that minute, yeah, they are a warm lead at that point. So

Yeah, 'cause I try to, you know, think about our own behaviors on the phone and typically I'm scrolling while I also have the T V on while I'm petting the cat and maybe something else is happening too. So we're competing with a lot of things at once.

Yeah, it makes sense. All right, Nina, so why do so many wedding businesses struggle to clearly communicate what they do and who they serve?

I think we forget that not everybody does what we do, understands what we do. we because for us, we're like, there are more wedding professionals than ever before. Maybe we even

Yeah.

think, you know, what I do, it's not different, or it doesn't stand out. But we're not realizing that to the consumers and people we're reaching, it does stand out. And there's something

Yeah.

different about

Our portfolio than someone else's, or we're just so ingrained in the day-to-day of this work that we forget what makes it special, forget what people don't already know about it. I had a wedding planner mentioning in her area that helium balloons are banned from venues, right? Like, so that's something like even I didn't know. So, you

Yeah.

know, when you share those things, if you're sharing a balloon arch, you can even say,

This had to be done using, you know, this type of air and this type of design because we can't use this in the air, you know, and then you're the authority. And now I trust you, right? 'Cause you told me something I didn't know and you saved the day.

Like educate a little bit along the way, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

That makes a lot of sense. All right. When a potential client lands on someone's Instagram profile, what are they looking for in those first few seconds, you think?

They're looking for if you basically have what they need, right? I guess

part of an example of what I'm looking for a new nail artist to do my nails. And there's this nice they have suites for for hair, makeup, beauty artists where they book. they have like an office space. So it's like an office rental building for people who who are in the health wellness beauty industry. So there's like

Okay.

And everything. So when I went to the Instagram profile, I'm looking quick to see if I see anything about nails, right? And I didn't. I saw spa treatments, I saw hair. There wasn't a nail person there. And I was able to determine that pretty quickly through what was on their page and what was being shared. So somebody who's planning a wedding, right? They they want to see what type of weddings you do. For a venue, they want to see what that space really looks like.

For a photographer, they want to see what's I always say they want to see the fireplace photo, which is the photo of themselves they're gonna put over their fireplace, right? I have this one client and he hates cliche poses. And he's like, if their foreheads are touching, I don't wanna see it. And sometimes though, it's like this epic photo, and I'm like, but this is the fireplace photo. This is the photo

Yeah.

a couple's gonna print out and put in their home, right? So

Mm-hmm.

people wanna see what they're gonna apply to their own wedding. And I think what we see a lot on social media now is how the realness, so to speak, is selling alongside the portfolio images. And by the realness I mean what content creators are doing or reels are doing where it's real footage at the wedding day, so people can really see what does this look like in real time. And

Mm.

That content we're so used to, especially in the wedding industry, of everything having to be perfectly polished. But by allowing some of that real, still curated content to come on the feed, it helps couples kind of pre-shop and know, okay, this is what this service looks like. This is what their work in the space looks like, et cetera. And we're getting that lead warmer and warmer.

Is it confusing for like a potential client if like say I'm a a wedding planner and I work by myself and I don't have anybody else and but I use my Instagram for my personal life as well as my business life? Is that a confusing- or is that

Yeah.

yeah, okay.

'Cause to me, well then well it's especially if it's a personal account where it you know it's doesn't even it's not even branded, let's say, where this looks like a personal account. That would be very

okay.

confusing because I would think, Am I am I gonna is this invasive to message them? Right. So you want it you want it clearly showing if you're showing your personal side on your brand.

page, that's fine, but you want it to be clear. Like this is where my my work lives. This is where you come to inquire. This is where, you know, and that's what's part of the bio too. You know, some bios say there's a big X emoji and it says no DMs, right? Because DMs are not part of their funnel. They want you

Okay.

going to the website. They want you going to the inquiry form. So whether you welcome DMs or not, putting in your bio what the next step is, right?

DM or visit website, things like

Yeah.

that, helping people to know the next step. But showing your personality and your personal side is definitely great. But if you're doing vlogs that are days in the life of you making sandwiches, you know, for your kids and getting dinner ready, that's going to confuse not only people, but the algorithm. They're not going to

Yeah.

know to feed you out to couples. They're going to feed you out to people looking for lifestyle and home content.

Yeah, it makes sense. All right.

Real quick, I want to dive into the no the the the no DMs. I

Yes, yes. No DMs

I feel like that's a mistake. And I I I mean, I'm not a social media person, but when you said that, I was like, that's a major no no because you gotta get them where they are. And I feel like today's

Yeah.

couple, you need to you know, if they wanna DM you, you need to DM. they're not gonna be your traditional person. Eventually you can get them to your, sales funnel, your Dubsado,

You know, you get on your CRM, but

Yeah, yeah.

but for that first initial little bit, you gotta meet where they are.

Yes. And so the people who do it are probably in a really privileged spot where they can and where they can go, well,

No.

if they really want me, they won't DM. But what I do and what I do for my clients is we guide them to whatever that form or process is going to be. But look, if somebody doesn't want to fill out the contact form, right? If somebody's DMing me, they know they know the contact form is where they should inquire with the venue.

Mm-hmm.

They know that. They obviously don't want to do that.

So I try to get as much information as possible to then pass on to whoever's doing the sales. So for venues, it's a little different because some larger venues may be dealing with teams and commissions. So I don't want to get involved in that. You know, I so we make sure we have a clear process. I'll get, I'll ask the couple when they inquire through the DMs, I'll say, you know.

I'm gonna give this over to our sales manager. Can you let me know you know if you prefer email or phone, if you have any date in mind, maybe I'll ask a guest count or just tell me as much as you're willing to share. And they

Yeah.

almost always give me an email or phone and then I hand it over to the team to get in touch. Cause really

Yeah.

they know they can fill out the contact form. They don't want to.

People don't want to always give up their email address and then be in

Yeah, yeah, makes sense.

someone else's funnel. So I'm willing to meet clients where they're at for my my clients in order to get them that lead.

Yeah, no, makes sense. Makes sense. All right. sorry for getting off topic, but

I'm I I'm

No, no, it was good.

I'm good at that. So all right, Nina. So what messaging mistakes do you see wedding pros making most often?

not being detailed enough in their message and in their captions.

Okay.

so messaging in terms of like the content they're putting out and maybe not giving enough detail about where they were, where this venue is at. Once again, with the reviews, we were talking about what made it special, what were the circumstances of this event, kind of using more storytelling, because this is not only good for clarity for couples, right? But also for the algorithm.

Right. The algorithm

Okay.

is relying on what you're posting and saying to know who to push your content out to. So I'll use the example of Houston wedding planners, right? If you're mentioning, you know, the Houston area and you're mentioning a venue there and you're tagging vendors who are in that area, it's becoming more and more clear to Instagram where to file you, who you're similar to. If people like this content, they'll like yours and so forth.

So it has a dual purpose. It's not only sharing this information for couples, but also for the algorithm. And

Mm.

like I mentioned, you know, most couples haven't booked a wedding before. And so I love giving as much information as possible of doing posts which says this is what it looks like, you know, when if you want to work together. First you'll inquire, I need this because I need to know if I have your date.

Or I need to know, you know, to get you on my schedule so we can meet or do a Zoom. Cause then somebody's already gonna be at ease knowing, okay, I have the option of a Zoom, but I like to meet in person and they're willing to do that too. Like hearing

Mm-hmm.

these things, because we are, and I think the younger we get, because more people are growing up on their screens.

We can be really anxious when we don't know what's coming because we know so much already, right? And so instead

of having

Yeah.

people turn to Reddit and AI and getting wrong information, give them the right information directly from you. Cause they're gonna be searching for it and trying to get it somewhere anyway. So it might as well come from you.

Yeah. Yeah,

it makes sense. You you should come from the source, so yeah.

Exactly. Cause I

know with pricing especially, not everyone likes to post or share pricing. But the truth

Yeah.

is people are trying to get it and they're looking on Reddit and they're looking on what AI gives them and they may be getting the wrong information. So I'd rather you post something right than them get something wrong.

Yeah,

I'm a big believer you have to have a price range. You know, I it just because you're i i you are attracting the wrong people probably if you don't have a price range on there. So it's yeah. Yeah, exact and that's probably

Mm-hmm. Absolutely and they're looking for it anyway. So that's if they're on the fence, yeah.

yeah, it it doesn't have to be the exact, it just a range and this is what most clients spend and that way they know they they you know, if they're coming to you roughly how much it's gonna cost. So

anyway.

Yeah.

All right.

How can someone, you know, like a wedding professional tell if their content is attracting the wrong audience?

Definitely through your inquiries and your sales call. So if you get an inquiry and they are saying things, well, you know, well, well, I had no idea you only did that, or I have no idea you don't travel here, or I was expecting XYZ, or their price point was way off. These are great indicators that something in your messaging is is disconnected and not working.

Is off. Okay.

And I said your sales calls are really your best tools for your marketing and your social media. I have on my Zoom, I have it so it has closed captionings, which is helpful. But then it also makes a transcript. So after your sales call, if you have that transcript, load it into your AI and say, you know, what were the things that maybe

They should have already known. How can I or what can I use from this to post on social media, right? Because if they were asking about if they found out your venue does allow full use of the bridal suite that entire morning, and and they say to you, the other venue only offered an hour, you just got a sales point. You know, you got

Yeah.

something that you should promote and use on your social media. And this also helps educate people to know, if I need a place to get ready.

And I need a venue. This one has both. And it explains to your audience, not all venues offer this, but we do. So now they're trusting you for information. They're getting the accurate information from you. And this came from just using your sales call as a tool.

Yeah,

makes sense. All right. What type of content actually helps move someone from a follower to a customer?

So I have this belief, and this comes from doing so many wedding industry accounts, you know,

Yes.

worldwide that reels bring new people in, but it's the portfolio work that converts them to go to your website.

So reels are really important for getting more views and more people and more eyes to your profile, but it's the actual work.

the nice photos, the layout photos, the things like that that get people to then say, I want to learn more and go to your website. Cause a lot of

Okay.

reels, they get a lot of views, but we're all posting the same trending reels. We're just filling

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

in our work for it. So that brings them over, but then they can see how you're different through those other posts that you're doing that's showing your end result.

And that's what gets them to go. So I really encourage to do a blend of both. And then maybe after three months you'll have a ton of data to go, Okay, which one brought in more new people? Which one brought in followers? Which one brought in link taps? And then compare from there.

All right. okay, consistency. so this is something that is talked about I think at every conference you ever go to and

Yeah.

and the number is always different. So how important is consistency in messaging versus consistency in posting?

I think, gosh, both are important. One should be the same, right? Your your

Okay. Okay.

messaging should be just as important as your posting. Cause if you're gonna kind of either post and ghost or post and all it says is just married, that doesn't do anything, right? Well,

Mm.

it does do something, right? The couple who's just married, they're gonna like it, and their friends at the event are gonna like it, and that's a good thing. It is, right?

But for those who are on the fence, is it gonna move the needle? Like this post could have done so much more than just that. Like instead of just being something for those who were at that wedding to get excited about and share, that post also could have converted people who are curious about you. So allowing the messaging to be a part of everything you do is how you're gonna get the most life out of each post.

Mm-hmm. Makes sense. All right. what role does brand clarity play in converting social media traffic into bookings?

Think it's really important and they go so well hand in hand. I think if you're doing branding, the next step should be either for yourself, making sure you can schedule out social media at least the next six months intentionally, or you know, booking it out and having someone do it for you because they both enhance each other, right? And the

Mm.

branding alone on the website.

You wanna make sure as many people are seeing that as possible and it's gonna foster your social media so well. And then social media brings people back to the website. It's just like this beautiful dance. And what I really like about it is your branding and your website work, that's where everything's perfect, right? On the website

Mm.

is where they can see that perfection. Users know that on your website, that's where you've put all your best stuff, right?

Mm-hmm.

But your social media is where they get a bit of that realness, a bit of the behind the scenes, maybe, a bit of the setup, a bit of you know, all that other stuff we were talking about. So they both are like companion pieces for each other and enhance one another. So using the real content on social media to get people to see where everything polished is

Yeah.

on your website. And all the branding work you do.

will apply for your social media. And for those who are using AI, your website is the first place where you have all your curated branded information. So if you have content on your website that you wouldn't want to copy and paste into Chat GPT, then you need to change that ASAP. Because when I'm working with a brand and they're giving me their branding information, they're articulating it to me verbally, but I'm

also using their website as a trusted source for their voice. And so is AI. So if you

Mm-hmm.

don't like what's on your website, change that as a priority.

Yeah, so many people neglect their website and when you neglect it it's like you gotta have everything in harmony you may have a great social media, but if they click the button go over to your website and it's really bad, they're gonna be like, Ugh you know, yeah.

Yeah, I

consider the website to be where your brand voice is born. And then so it starts there and then we pull from that to your social media. So definitely don't overlook what you have on your website.

Yeah, it makes sense. All right, Nina. So how can wedding pros showcase their expertise without making every post feel like promotional?

by just showing it, right? Show and tell. It doesn't have to be show, tell sales. Showing and

okay.

telling is just enough, right? The message isn't always book me now for 2027. Right? The message they know that they're thinking about weddings and they're thinking about booking. They want to see what you can do. So

Yeah.

share about what you do, talk about what you do, and you can throw in, you know, learn more about this specific.

you know, space, this package, whatever you want to say, you can include that in the post, but that's already in your bio, right? If your bio is optimized, they know where to go, that material is there. So right now it's really just getting comfortable kind of strutting your stuff, showing what you got, putting your best foot forward, and also

Being present on the platform too, the more you can engage with the other vendors in the post and comments and things like that, it really does help give the post life and give your profile life.

Yeah.

and one thing that I just thought of that I wanted to share, it may not exactly relate to the question, but I find when I get my clients to feel comfortable enough showing a photo of themselves, what happens is

Past clients get so excited to see them that they comment on it saying what a great impact

Well

they had on their wedding day. And now you have live reviews on your posts because you finally allowed your face on the feed. So if anyone's

Yeah.

on the fence about that, go for it.

It's a little over it's been almost a year and a half now. We hired a brand manager and I was never a part of the social media process and then all of a sudden I was. And I'm, you know, I have a podcast, yes. I I'm not afraid to MC stuff, but I'm a little shy behind you know, like I'm not good I'm not comfortable with seeing myself on on the, you know, I hate having my photo taken and all that stuff. But anyway, I learned to get to the point where I don't

Like I let her shoot it and long as she doesn't put me in a bad you know, I know she I trust that she's not gonna put me in a bad light and I don't have to look at it. But I have gotten so many compliments from past clients, from different people. They're like, Man, your social- you know, they're really l liking what we're doing, but we're also putting me and as well as other staff members out there, you know, in front of everyone. So it it's yeah, it just

And that

puts clients at ease. Cause look, before I get in a call with someone, I want to know who I'm getting on a call with. So Kevin, before

Yeah.

we did our first podcast together, I knew exactly who to expect on the screen because of your social media. And that

Yeah. Yeah.

puts me at ease because I'm about to have, you know, an hour-long conversation with someone, especially

Yeah.

in the wedding industry where they're about to potentially book to spend some serious money. The

Yeah.

more they can be warmed up to you before that.

The better. So they're eventually gonna see what you look like. So pick

Yeah.

your favorite photo and and start to let them see.

I it just

I I've learned I don't care anymore and it's funny and it even even in my personal like I've had people go find me on the my personal side and and pick me to work at their wedding because there we had some kind of a connection. Like one of was a Golden State Warriors cheerleader and I'm a Sacramento Kings season ticket holder and so she knew I love basketball and she goes, This guy loves basketball and I'm I I and she picked me, even though it was the wrong

Different off opposite teams, she still pick, you know what I'm saying? So that it gives the people I feel like a connection. So

Yeah, that's why I said mention Love Island. I say mention Love Island even if you're not watching it. People who do

No

are gonna be so eager to be the one to tell you why you should. Be like, I don't want

Yeah.

Love Island convince me in one message that I should start and

Ha ha ha.

see the responses that gets.

It's probably crazy.

I know the girls in the office watch Love Island. they love that after the day it it comes out. They lot lots of talk around the water cooler here. So

Kevin, I was floored to realize it's on like every day. Like yeah,

I didn't know that.

it's on like every day in season and there's a US and UK one both at the same time. So this is like a huge commitment too.

Yeah, that is that is a huge commitment. All right. We we we digress from Love Island.

All right.

Yes.

So are are Nina, are there some common social media habits that feel productive but don't actually generate inquiries?

Yes, and that was what we were talking about before with the plug and play AI. And I got I say this as someone who did it. I got

Okay.

so hooked on this where I would just take, you know, a bunch of hooks. I have I have a social media membership where I give hooks that will work well for the wedding industry and I write these out, but then I would take them and I'd put them in Chat GPT and go, now do these for me. Do these for I do wedding marketing.

And I would just not even look at it and just trust AI and plug and play what it put in. And finally I was like, you know, I'm not in my marketing anymore. I'm not in my social media. I'm

not even really vetting these, right? I'm not even stopping to to use my creativity or anything because it was so tantalizing how easy this could be. You know, it was like, wow,

Yeah, yeah.

I can create content for the entire month.

in an hour while I put the latest true crime doc on. And that to me felt like such a great time. But it wasn't getting great results. And it was really just kind of oversaturated. And like you mentioned with the flyers, everyone knows once they see an AI flyer and you start to become blind to it. It's kind of like when Google used to have the first three paid people coming up first. And we kind of would subconsciously just skip over those to see who the organic ones.

So when you and it's not saying not to use AI, right? Or not to do AI flyers, but sprinkle it in or then give another prompt saying, now make this look different from the norm. Make it look

Mm-hmm.

more like this. Or one thing I love, Kevin, I love vintage cards, like the vintage style of like Valentine's, right? So

y yeah.

I'll take one of those and say, what would I need to prompt you to create this type of style, right?

Mm-hmm.

And then

so find the type of style you want to do, learn how to ask Chat GPT for that and try that. So you can still lean on it. And I still lean on AI for ideas for my content, but I'm no longer interested in that quick, juicy shortcut. And what I recommend people do is take the hooks I'm giving them, but then add things in for yours that make it about you. So an example would be, you know, rather than saying,

That here's people don't believe this until they they hear from me XYZ. Like people don't believe this till I tell them I'm a wedding planner with 10 years experience doing NYC weddings, and then you fill it in. You know, add in things about you or things about your audience. For myself, I was just saying wedding pros when they realize. But I realize I'm speaking to wedding pros who hate social media, right? They don't want to

Yeah.

do

Adding in that second thing. So maybe couples who are trying to please everybody, couples who want an outdoorsy wedding without worrying about XYZ, whatever it is that makes you different and makes your client different, add

Yeah.

that in yourself. Maybe let AI come up with the concept or the hook, but then you add in your differentials.

Yeah. Yeah, 'cause they're not gonna know that anyway. So

yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

All right. So I'm a wedding professional. My social engagement is looking good, but my bookings are down. Where should I start looking for the problem?

I would look as to what content had been converting people. And you can even one

okay.

way you could use Chat GPT or Claude for this. Claude has the co-work feature where it can see the website you're on. So if you go to your analytics page on Instagram and you can open up your AI and say, look at these analytics. Tell me what posts were converting to clicks.

And it will pull out the ones that were. And if your clicks weren't good or those inquiries weren't converting or aligning with you, then maybe we need to shift these posts. We need to make them more concise. We need to make them speak to your audience better. So thinking about why these clients weren't a fit and how we could articulate what our ideal client is better. So I'd start by looking where those leads were coming from.

And then if it's social media, what posts on social media was driving them over?

Hmm, makes sense. All right, we're getting to the end here. before we wrap up, I wanted to ask you this one question Is what's one change a wedding pro can make this week that would immediately make their social media like more effective?

So number one would be the bio stuff, making sure you have yep. Yep.

I was I was that was my guess. Yep, that was my guess.

That's the easiest and quickest one to do. And then making sure you mention those significant terms like your area and things like that in your captions. That will help too.

Okay. Makes sense. All right, Nina, thank you for being here. But before you go, can you tell the listeners where can they learn more about you and connect with you?

Yeah, so I am at @iDoWeddingMarketing on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, LinkedIn, you can find me at Nina Addeo A D D D E O. And hopefully soon I'll have Kevin on my own podcast, the I Do Wedding Marketing Podcast, but you can get more geeking out about marketing there.

I would love to be a guest on your podcast as well. So Yeah, you never know. We're we're

Maybe live from Orlando. Yeah.

going live, we're taking our podcast live to the NACE conference this year. So NACE is we we got a sponsorship with NACE and we're their official podcast and so we're gonna be we did it last year and it was kinda like a last minute thing, but this year we're

We learned everything that we did wrong. It still w it still went well, but we we're gonna we're gonna go live from New Orleans this year. So we'll see how that goes. Yeah.

That's exciting.

It it is exciting. So all right, Nina, before I let you go, I was gonna I was gonna put you on the spot and your favorite thing to do when you're at Walt Disney World.

so lately,

Ha ha.

and I'm gonna get a lot of flack for this. I've been a

bit of a universal girly in the

Okay.

past few years because there's a little less anxiety, a little less FOMO, a little less going on, you know,

Yeah.

a little less reservations. So I have been loving the universal theme park area and dark universe in the new theme park epic universe was my favorite.

area to explore of the new park. So I would encourage anyone who's going to Orlando to give Epic Universe a shot and

Right.

try out the rides at Dark Universe because they were awesome.

I heard I heard a lot of positive stuff about the the the new park. So

Yeah, yeah, lots of fun.

that's a fun. All right, Nina. We can't thank you enough for being here today. And folks, thank you for listening to another episode of Mind Your Wedding Business. We'll see you next time.