This is the Transcript of the #WeddingMarket Live at the Wedding MBA on September 16, 2015 with special guests Kristen Maxwell Cooper, Deputy Editor of The Knot, Chris Easter of The Man Registry, Leila Lewis of Be Inspired® PR, Kellee Khalil of Lover.ly, Harmony Walton, Founder of The Bridal Bar. The answers were made on Twitter so responses will appear different.

Photography by Adam Frazier
Sponsored by Forever Grand Wedding Chapel , Wedding MBA and WedFlick .

Kristen Maxwell Cooper

Kristen Maxwell Cooper is deputy editor of The Knot where she oversees the brand’s fashion, beauty, style and wedding planning coverage in both print and online.

Chris Easter Chris Easter is co-founder of The Man Registry, the leading online wedding resource and gift retailer for grooms and groomsmen. He is also the founding editor of GroomsAdvice.com, an offbeat groom blog featuring articles, guides and checklists all aimed at making the wedding planning process easier and more entertaining for men.

Kellee Khalil While working in the bridal industry and simultaneously helping her sister plan her wedding in 2010, Kellee experienced firsthand the difficulty of making a wedding come to life. One year later, on February 14, 2012, Lover.ly launched, forever changing the digital bridal landscape. Since inception, with Kellee at the helm, the site has grown into the leading trendsetting brand connecting millennial brides, bridesmaids and their wedding guests to gorgeous inspiration, products, celebrity insider scoops, fashion & beauty hacks, and expert advice.

Leila Lewis
Leila created Be Inspired® PR in 2007, the first full-service public relations agency dedicated to the wedding and special event industry. Passionate, focused and results-driven, Leila works closely with wedding and lifestyle brands – educating clients on marketing strategies, rebuilding corporate image, securing top-level media placements and helping them book new business.

Harmony Walton Harmony Walton, the founder of The Bridal Bar, has over a decade of marketing, consulting and brand representation experience in the luxury wedding industry. Harmony expanded the brand and launched a destination wedding and honeymoons blogsite, Jet Fete by Bridal Bar, a platform dedicated exclusively to the growing market of luxury destination weddings and all things romance travel. In 2013, Harmony also became the host of Bridal Bar Radio, the only talk show about weddings powered by Clear Channel and airing weekly on iHeartRadio.

Q1: How did you get involved with blogging?

Answers

Chris Easter: When we launched our #groomsmengifts shop in 2008, we also noticed a huge void in wedding blogs that target the groom. Blogging has helped grow our business in so many ways and even led to a book deal (@groombook).

Kellee Khalil: When Loverly launched in 2012, we had a mission to make wedding planning easier and more fun – we wanted to be a destination where brides and grooms alike could come to get inspired, find people to work with (vendor reccos), shop big day must haves and also take away valuable planning advice and etiquette tips. Our really big editorial hub push happened last year, to AMAZING reception!

Leila Lewis: When starting Inspired By This I saw a need for a place to collect and share the creativity of the wedding/lifestyle industry.

Harmony Walton: In 2006 we worked on the wedding of #TomCruise #KatieHolmes so in anticipation we began blogging to increase the pr effort. Then later we expanded our reach with an exclusively #destinationweddings #honeymoons blog called @JetFete .

Q2: What platform do you use or prefer? (WordPress, Etc)

Answers

Chris Easter: From ease of use, functionality and plugin standpoints, @Wordpress is the best. I’ve happily used it for 7 yrs.

Kellee Khalil: Our CMS started with WordPress, but we’re actually going through a content migration in the next few weeks and will be transitioning to a custom/home grown platform. As we have continued to grow our network of contributors, increasing the numbers of submissions, we were no longer able to work with an out of the box solution. We have over 5M images in our database.

Leila Lewis: I use WordPress for everything – I love it!

Harmony Walton: We blog exclusively on #wordpress for both @bridalbar + @jetfete .

Q3: What are the benefits to blogging?

Answers

Chris Easter: So many benefits to blogging. The most basic is the interaction with the people you want to sell your product/service to #Weddingmarket. Blogging also drives traffic to your site/store, funnel conversions and establishes you as an expert in your niche. Through using funnels, like those found from clickfunnels, as a marketing strategy, your blog can become monetized by leading more of your followers towards purchasing your products. This can be a major benefit to blogging, you’re able to do something you love and gain money from it.

Kellee Khalil: For Loverly, the health of our brand is our most cherished attribute – and that truly comes from having honed a voice and vision that our fans and followers love and trust. Our modern and millennial-focused editorials fine-tune our voice and our social channels serve as an extension of that voice+inspiring imagery. When we share links of our posts with our followers, we’re able to get direct feedback and engagement. They tell us if they love it or not!

Leila Lewis: I’ve been able to inspire, create a community, and collaborate with people all over the world!

Harmony Walton: Blogging improves our global reach, gives us another tool to teach + inspire, and promote our other platforms.

Q4: How do you decide on a blog topic? How do you keep it fresh?

Answers

Kristen Maxwell Cooper: Consider all trending topics, then put the wedding lens on them.

Chris Easter: Blog about what’s hot. @GoogleTrends & Pinterest are valuable tools for researching trends that would make good posts.

Kellee Khalil: We try to keep to an editorial calendar that aligns well with where the majority of our readers are in their wedding planning cycles (give or take a few that might appeal to the future bride, bridesmaid, etc.). We also have a great pulse on pop culture news and what topics are currently making headlines, and we’ll put our own Loverly twist on the news.

Leila Lewis: Staying current on trends and pop culture! It’s all about keeping your content relevant.

Harmony Walton: We look to market trends in fashion, home, travel to generate new blog ideas. We also look at current events. Couples also help inspire us with new ideas, from the real #weddings + #destinationweddings we get to share.

Q5: What topics are brides & couples looking for?

Answers

Kristen Maxwell Cooper: Personalization is the new black. They want any and all ideas to make their wedding uniquely them.

Chris Easter: Grooms navigate towards posts on style, gift ideas, rehearsal dinner planning & (of course) the bachelor party.

Kellee Khalil: Our readers LOVE our relationship content – stuff that really looks at the couple as a unit, their ebbs and flows as they go through the planning process. Even couples who aren’t yet engaged, but may already be thinking towards the future (i.e. looking for date night ideas, etc.). Also, our readers love coming to our “News & Tips” section to find out more ways to personalize and put a stamp on their unique wedding. We’re all about that – offering helpful wedding 101 protocol and useful how-to’s.

Harmony Walton: Couples always want real content – weddings, showers, destination weddings. The more ideas the better. Couples also want to know who you are, get a sense of place, person, or uniqueness when blogging.

Q6: What methods do you use to gain traffic or subscribers to your blog?

Answers

Kristen Maxwell Cooper: SEO can be one of the most powerful ways to gain traffic. whether you make use of blogger outreach or keyword research.

Chris Easter: There’s no shortcut to building a following. You must create unique, original content that your readers will want to share.

Kellee Khalil: We see the major portion of our site traffic derive from our strategic social syndication partnerships. We’re always on the hunt for media partners (who share our content ideologies) to broker new relationships with – and we successfully borrow from their followership. We also deploy emails to our nearly 220K subscribers three times per week: Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday (peak times) to drive further traffic.

Leila Lewis: Engage with readers and use social media to get more eyes to the blog!

Harmony Walton: I use traditional media plus press to create awareness to our site. We also use WordPress SEO tools + forecasting. Some may make use of a combined wordpress seo pricing package to make this happen for them. By getting ahead of hot google topics, we create interesting content plus better search results for the site. Working with like-minded companies with large audiences also helps to cross-promote by using niche edits to link various websites together to improve visibility and web traffic. It’s a cumulative effect of many streams to grow the blog including other forms of social media plus a core biz.

Q7: Do you have guest bloggers on your site? Do you blog for others?

Answers

Kristen Maxwell Cooper: Guest bloggers can be influential in introducing your brand to a new audience.

Chris Easter: Yes. Guest blogging is a great way to network, grow your brand and get more eyes on your content. Re: @Google’s Penguin algorithm. Guest blogging isn’t dead, just don’t use it to try and game search rank.

Kellee Khalil: When we first started, as an inspiration-search platform, we recognized how powerful bloggers and other influencers were in the wedding industry and knew that there was SO much untapped content that we could learn and grow from. As such, we actually have a network of 30+ diverse bloggers at Loverly, who we pull content from (for use on-site and on social). We also have existing editorial syndicate partners (like Refinery29, Bridal Guide and Brit+Co) with whom we share Loverly exclusive content to feature on their sites.

Harmony Walton: I will blog for others on a case by case basis, but it’s about quality vs quantity. We don’t publish guest posts on our site but we host a Q&A or interview to work with others for content.

Q8: How do you manage the spammers who want to comment about their products on your blog?

Answers

Chris Easter: It’s next to i.mpossible to manually manage your comments. If you use WordPress, @akismet is a great spam blocking plugin.

Kellee Khalil: We don’t have a function for commenting on our site, itself, but we do hear (often) from brands who are interested in being featured on Loverly. We have a general email address ([email protected]) that we’ll field inquiries from and are ALWAYS eager and excited to build new relationships with like-minded partners. We do have a fashion+beauty section on News + Tips that we add roundups to, as we see fit. As for our social platforms, we allow the engagement and conversation to follow (posts, pictures, etc.), without editing, and will only ever delete comments that are outright defaming or controversial.

Leila Lewis: I use the @disqus app to manage spam comments – it’s so great!!

Harmony Walton: We have a zero tolerance for spam. If it looks like it, it gets rejected. We monitor prior to approval.

Q9: How do you schedule to write? Do you ever get writer’s block?

Answers

Kristen Maxwell Cooper: Figure out what time of day you are at your best, schedule time and never miss it. Write every day–even if it’s not very good some days.

Chris Easter: Writer’s block happens to all bloggers. It’s a waste of time to stare at a blank screen if you’re not inspired.

Kellee Khalil: Of course, writer’s block is inevitable! And for us, since our brand integrity is of paramount importance, sitting down to write a story can definitely be challenging. From what we post on news plus tips to what we showcase on Instagram, everything is well thought through and vetted to ensure we’re maintaining our voice and aesthetic.

Leila Lewis: Yes! But removing distractions and setting a time limit to write often cures the block.

Harmony Walton: I have been an editor at many bridal magazines so I feel like I always have something to say on the blog. I also have in house writers who work on the sites so it’s a group effort of ideas plus content. I don’t schedule my writing time well, I make time when I need to!

Q10: What suggestions do you have for pros that struggle with grammar?

Answers

Kristen Maxwell Cooper: Hire a copy editor who can look at your work before it goes up.

Chris Easter: Very common issue. Is there someone you work with or a friend/family member that can serve as your editor? Or spend some time re-familiarizing yourself with basic grammar concepts. Truly not as difficult as it sounds.

Kellee Khalil: Truly, I can’t recommend a quick-fix for grammar help – but with the internet, there is a wealth of information out there for in-a-pinch writing quandaries (I love quickanddirtytips.com). If you do confess that grammar is your biggest pain point – make the conscious decision to brush up on your skills (to ensure you’re never compromising the editorial voice).

Leila Lewis: Always have someone proofread your writing before sending or publishing! A fresh pair of eyes always helps.

Harmony Walton: Google is a great tool for writing tips, never stop googling when you’re unsure. Always enlist a second pair of eyes for help making your copy that of quality.

Q11: Should you worry about keywords for your blog title, post or photo for SEO?

Answers

Kristen Maxwell Cooper: If you’re not paying attention to SEO, you are doing your blog a disservice.

Chris Easter: Pay close attention to alt text on your images. This becomes the text that accompanies photos when pinned from your site.

Kellee Khalil: Yes, we definitely consider keywords in our post titles. We also manually adjust our post URL links to optimize for SEO (eliminating non-descriptive tags like numbers or words like ‘and’ ‘the,’ etc.). As for photos, we prioritize photos that are clear and bright.

Leila Lewis: Super important! Great content will only get you so far – it needs to be searchable!

Harmony Walton: We always pay attention to titles, labels plus keywords with a balance of what the reader can tolerate.

Q12: How often do you blog? What would you suggest for wedding pros?
Answers

Chris Easter: As often as I’m inspired. There’s no magic # of times you should post in a week. Think quality over quantity.

Kellee Khalil: We post 3-4 editorials per day on our News plus Tips platform. The majority of the content is new, but every once and awhile we’ll refresh a well-performing post from the past. For wedding pros, I think it’s a good idea to post as frequently as you can. The trends in the industry are ever-evolving and increasingly unique for each couple, so posting regularly just gives readers a constant flow/feed of ideas to work with.

Leila Lewis: I blog daily but the key is to be consistent – so create a realistic schedule and stick to it!

Harmony Walton: We blog everyday. I suggest professionals who choose to blog do it at least 2-3 times per week if possible.

Q13: Do you schedule your blog posts or post on certain days?

Answers

Chris Easter: Monday through Wednesdays tend to be our best days to post, but every site is different. Never stop learning about your readers/subscribers. When do they interact most? Study your @GoogleAnalytics.

Kellee Khalil: Yes, our managing editor will schedule posts for the future and move things around in the queue to stay as timely as possible (especially if/when buzzy news hits the airwaves).

Leila Lewis: Scheduling is great to maintain the consistency – so for daily posts, it is very helpful to schedule them out!

Harmony Walton: We schedule our posts M-F with a bonus on Sundays at times.

Q14: What is a good length for a blog post?

Answers

Kristen Maxwell Cooper: If you’re attracting millennials, keep it less than 1000 words.

Chris Easter: All depends on topic. Keep in mind that brides & grooms are visual readers. Sometimes one photo is better than 100 words.

Kellee Khalil: Again, there’s not a hard-and-fast rule for best blog post length, but in my mind, a blog shouldn’t be very text heavy. We use imagery from our real weddings platform (pulled from our blogger network) a lot to break up a story, and give it some visual context – we also try to make lists, bullets, as much as we can to streamline the information.

Leila Lewis: Depending on the topic – keep the text minimal and focus more on the pictures!

Harmony Walton: @thinksplendid once told me 400 words should be the max, so we make sure it’s shorter than that!

Q15: Do you use videos often in your blog?

Answers

Kristen Maxwell Cooper: Unique topics and photos that speak to personalization and diversity.

Chris Easter: Video is a quality resource to add to your posts esp. if it’s an original creation. @google loves seeing video on sites.

Kellee Khalil: For buzzy/newsy posts we do use videos (especially if we’re writing something about some sort of viral video) – and we also use GIF files for a lot of our stories – like ‘10 Things Brides Can Do That Normal People Cannot” – it’s a super funny application and appeals to our audience.

Leila Lewis: Sometimes! Mostly for DIYs or real wedding features.

Harmony Walton: We do use video in our blog, but only when accompanied by photos as well. We love video!
Q16: What types of information would you suggest wedding pros share in a blog?

Answers

Chris Easter: Write what you know. Show your readers why you’re a trustworthy expert they should spend their money with.

Kellee Khalil: Everything that we write about on Loverly has a ‘teaching’ or advice moment – and we do a good job of making our readers feel like we’re right there with them (that’s especially important for the emotionally-charged wedding world). If we’re not offering a completely teachable moment, we’re making our readers laugh, letting them in on new trends as we see them, etc. For bloggers, there should definitely be a mix of aspirational content and attainable. Offering great, beautiful inspiration is helpful, but there should also be 1.) a how-to there for creating x, y, and z (a DIY cocktail bar, an escort card table, etc.) 2.) appropriate crediting (vendor information, etc.).

Leila Lewis: Advice, tips and tricks! They’ve seen it all and can share all of their insider information.

Harmony Walton: It depends what that company does for a living. But share their expertise, personality, work, inspiration.

Q17: Do you network or meet with other bloggers regularly?

Answers

Chris Easter: As often as possible. I strongly encourage bloggers & biz owners to network or host events to help grow relationships.

Kellee Khalil: Definitely! Looking forward to bridal market in NYC in a few weeks, that’s always a great time to network.

Leila Lewis: Yes, maintaining relationships with social influencers and bloggers is crucial!

Harmony Walton: I network with bloggers often, through forums, meet ups, email and now @aislesociety .
Q18: How do you manage your social media daily & weekly?

Answers

Chris Easter: To stay sane, I’ve embraced post scheduling. To make an impact socially, I suggest doing the same. Re: social media scheduling: BE CAREFUL. If a national crisis or major news story hits, cancel your posts.

Kellee Khalil: We have a dedicated social media manager who facilitates all of our social channels (Instagram, Twitter, Facebook). She uses a number of tools to help streamline our content production, output, tracking and optimization.

Leila Lewis: Posting and engaging daily on social media is a priority! Take 15 minutes in the morning/afternoon to get it done.

Harmony Walton: We pre-schedule most posts for Instagram plus Twitter weekly. Facebook is done more on an as needed basis. We also pin as often as we have content plus use wedding gawker daily.

Q19: What is the best way to obtain advertisers for you blog?

Answers

Chris Easter: Demonstrate that you have traffic, user demographics and an ad setting that aligns with their target market. It’s easy to get a first-time advertiser to buy. The challenge is delivering results & getting renewals.

Kellee Khalil: We actually have a full sales and operations team in house that sells ads on behalf of our bloggers. The bloggers can focus on writing great content, and we handle all of the heavy lifting (i.e. sales, proposals, serving, optimization, reporting, reconciliation, billing, etc.).

Leila Lewis: Join an ad network or use google adsense to get ads.

Harmony Walton: Advertisers want to see quality content, strong reach, unique perspective, variety of offerings plus service. We get a lot of referrals because we provide a great niche product plus service. We also have a larger core biz.

Q20: What do you want everyone to take away from this #WeddingMarket Chat?

Answers

Kristen Maxwell Cooper: Discipline is key to creating and maintaining a successful blog.

Chris Easter: Building a strong blogging strategy is crucial to your business’s success. Brand yourself an expert, embrace research!

Kellee Khalil: How important it is to carry your brand voice and personality throughout every single bit of copy you craft.

Leila Lewis: Use your blog to inspire – post great content, engage daily and use social media to your advantage!

Harmony Walton: Don’t let blogging overwhelm you, take it one step at a time. Focus your efforts plus determine what you want out of your blog instead of only going for mass reach. Do what you do best plus skip the rest.

See #WeddingMarket Live Video