Time flies. Yes it does. As the Independence ads started inundating me with red, white, & blue, I knew the firecracker stands couldn’t be far behind.

What hit me next is tomorrow is July 1st,  marking the beginning of 2009: Part 2. To our Canadian friends, July 1st is Canada Day (a national holiday) and start of the NHL draft. But I digress…

As a wedding marketer, the calendar change to July should be a prompter for making an assessment of your first-half-2009 accomplishments and your prospects for the balance of the year.

Don’t let the calendar run your business. Take a day or two (not necessarily on the holiday) to step back make mid-year corrections and adjustments.

If you are proactive, the second half of 2009 should be even more productive and prosperous for you.

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing  Authority

written by Andy Ebon \\ tags: Andy Ebon, Facebook, independence day, July 4th, LinkedIn, mid-year adjustments, Twitter, wedding marketer, Wedding Marketing Authority

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The fine people at Hubspot specialize in optimization and testing of various kinds. Previously, on the site, I have recommended Website Grader, a free service that analyzes and helps you tweak your website.

More recently, Hubspot has introduced similar services to better understand your Facebook, Blogging and Twitter performance. As part of the Twitter Grader service. Without disclosing the exact scoring algorithms, Hubspot explains that your Twitter Grade is based on Followers, their ReTweets of your Tweets (forwarding to their followers), and various other levels of interaction and relevancy.

When I checked my Twitter Grade, it came up at 96.6, which seemed pretty high (out of 100). As The Wedding Marketing Blog is a niche business blog, comparing it to general consumer sites doesn’t typically play very well, as that is an Apples and Oranges situation.

Within the Twitter Grade service, there is Twitter Elite (Top 50). There are various subsets of Twitter Elite. Just for fun, I thought I’d see how I compared to the TOP 50 Twitterers in Las Vegas, NV. To my surprise and amazement, this site (and I) ranked #46, just a couple of slots below MGM Grand and the Tony – CEO of Zappo’s; just a couple of slots above the world famous Las Vegas Sign.

What does that mean to me?

It means this: In order to have influence, one must have an audience. In terms of my goals, it means have loyal readers on this blog. Twitter and Facebook, in particular, are part of my social media plan to direct focus toward The Wedding Marketing Blog.

None of that works unless the content on this blog is interesting and helpful to its readers. Clearly, the stars have aligned as June 2009 is this blog’s best month ever.

The challenge to you: What is it, you can do, to make your blog and website the thought leader in your industry, in your market?

Think about it, make a plan to leverage awareness of your brand, and go do it!!

Andy Ebon

The Wedding Marketing (and Twitter) Authority

written by Andy Ebon \\ tags: Facebook, Hubspot, MGM Grand, search engine optimization, SEO, Twitter, Twitter Elite, website grader, Wedding Marketing Authority, wedding marketing blog, Zappos

In business, it’s difficult not to get caught up in the numbers: Sales, dollars, bookings, inquiries, appointments. In blogging, one measures success by the impact of the blog on its readers.

Blogging impact can be measured in a number of ways:

With all that said, I’m proud to announce that this morning, The Wedding Marketing Blog surpassed 10,000 visitors for the month of June. I probably should have waited until the end of the month for a final total, but this was too exciting.

Besides the soaring number of visits, it’s exciting to see improvement in all areas, especially comments and questions from readers… like you.

As The Wedding Marketing Blog continues to grow in activity, there are a number of features, benefits and goals that will roll out during the second half of 2009.

They will include

I’ll stop there, because it will take quite a bit of effort to launch all of that. Your suggestions and ideas are always welcome. I do my best to read every inquiry, comment, and email.

Each post and reader are important to me. I’m conscious of the fact that different people are interested in different issues. I will continue to give my best effort to provide valuable and stimulating content to you.

With my deepest appreciation for your readership!

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Blog

written by Andy Ebon \\ tags: Andy Ebon, blogger, content, impact, measuring success, readers, success, Wedding Marketing Authority, wedding marketing blog