INSPIRATION - THE BRIDAL SHOWER

Your bridal shower is one of the many fun events you get to attend leading up to your wedding day. Looking for inspiration? Who better to turn to than Hostess With The Mostess. Here are just a few of the themed bridal shower ideas featured on their site.

Love In Paradise

Beautiful orchids, a little sand, and a vibrant palette of lush greens and rich purples & plums are all you need to create a simple, elegant, and modern version of paradise that bride-to-be is sure to love!

Butterfly Meadow Bridal Shower

Elegant butterflies and earthy greens give a fresh, "New Beginnings!" vibe to this wedding shower. We used white butterflies to play up the bridal aspect - but bright colors would look fabulous as well!

Citrus Twist

Citrus meets sweet in this hot-hued shower theme! You'll find vibrant shades of orange and yellow, adorable flower pots with mod ribbon bands, mini orange blossoms, fruit-lined vases, romantic quote displays, fresh-squeezed OJ...and more!

Something Blue

Give bride-to-be her "Something Blue" a little early! Vintage-mod patterns, elegant ribbons, sparkling champagne, and the ever-enticing "little blue box"... Something Blue = something she's sure to love!

Natural Bride

Photo Credits: Hostess With The Mostess

It's time to talk social media & online marketing...

For the next two weeks we are going to spend a good deal of time on social media, social networking, SEO (search engine optimization), and we hope to cover the important aspects of what we as photographers need to do to maximize and capitalize our online presence.

As I mentioned a few posts back, if you don't know where you are now it makes it extremely difficult to get directions to where you want to go.

Seriously, if someone called to ask directions to your house the first thing you are going to ask is "where are you coming from?" and if they respond with "I don't know" it would be impossible to guide them to your home.

So before you start mapping out your "directions for success" find out where you (and your website) are now with the free SEO tool "Website Grader".

Some of the resources we will will talk about are products and resources you can get for free, and some you will need to pay for, but today we will kick it off with some (really good) free resources.

1. New Media Photographer - It is both a blog and podcast produced by Rosh Sillars (a photographer and teacher). Rosh talks about the business of photography and social media (Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn).

2. Google Analytics for Photographers - Is a free 50 page pdf from PhotoShelter that walks you through everything you need to know about using Google Analytics to sell more photography and book more work using your website.

3. Social Marketing Playbook - This is another free 56 page pdf download dedicated to getting you started down the road to social marketing.

4. Seo Photo - I think the title pretty much covers it, I do like the fact that they provide a good deal of information on how to optimize for the new Microsoft and Yahoo search tool Bing.

I know, I know, this kind of stuff is not "sexy" and some of you may find it mind numbingly boring, but if you ignore this (very important) aspect of marketing you will have yourself to blame when the only person checking out your website is your mom.