Meet the New WeddingIQ! How Our Site Can Help You Transform Your Wedding Biz
It's here, it's here!
A few months back, Kyle and I began working on a refresh of the WeddingIQ website. Honestly, our initial motivation was to have a site that was easier for us to update. Once we got started, though, our goal quickly expanded to become a complete transformation, not only of how WeddingIQ would look, but also how it would help to support small business owners within the wedding industry.
See, our mission has always been to raise the bar for professionalism, and to encourage wedding pros to seek success on their terms. While activating that mission via our honest, "real talk" blog content and related speaking engagements, we realized we could do more. More for our colleagues, and more for this industry that means so much to us.
So, with that in mind, we introduce the new WeddingIQ! Read on for a rundown of all the new features, and be sure to make it all the way to the end of this post to learn about six (yes, SIX) fantastic contests we're running starting TODAY!
Our New Look and New Blog Content
Clearly, our site looks more than a little different - we did it all ourselves, on a new platform with all new brand photography taken by Kyle!
In addition to being able to view our archives by category and date in the right sidebar, each post now has a carousel of related posts at the bottom, allowing you to easily browse similar content on topics that interest you. The addition of detailed tags makes this process even simpler.
Want to share our content with others? We'd love you for it! Our blog header graphics are already perfectly sized for Instagram, and like all images on the new site, each has a "Pin It" button hovering in the upper left corner. Most of our posts also now have tweetable graphics built in - simply click one of these, and a Twitter window will pop up with a quote from the post and a link back to our site already filled in. All you need to do is click to tweet! (Why, yes - that IS a tweetable to the right! Want to try it out?)
One more thing you'll notice - some small ads in the left sidebar. Yep, we're trying to monetize a bit, because WeddingIQ takes a lot of time and resources! If you have a service or product that you want to show off to smart, savvy wedding professionals, consider doing it on our blog. (Conference planners, bookkeepers, attorneys, designers, B2B vendors, we're looking at you!) Early adopters get the best rates, so email us for more details!
Our New Email Newsletter & Facebook Community
We have the best readers - some of the most interesting, opinionated and engaging people we know follow WeddingIQ, and it's with that in mind that we decided to create two new ways to interact with you! First, we're rolling out a monthly email newsletter called The Editor's Cut - it's full of the relevant "real talk" WeddingIQ is known for, and even more of it! In each edition, we'll be sharing some behind-the-scenes scoop on three recent blog posts (basically, the dirt we couldn't reveal publicly) AND featuring a piece of exclusive content - an article, video, downloadable bonus, or who knows what - available only to our subscribers. We'll also be throwing in some special offers, sneak peeks of upcoming features, and more.
Even better, subscribing (did we mention it's free?) to The Editor's Cut also gets you exclusive access to "The Sidebar," our private Facebook community. We're leading guided discussions on issues that really matter to business owners in the wedding industry, and there are plenty of candid conversations to be had, too. Basically, it's everything you've always wished the other wedding vendor groups were, but could never be, because they're not WeddingIQ. (Yeah, we said it.)
Dying to become one of the inaugural Editor's Cut subscribers and members of "The Sidebar?" Hop on over to our sign-up page and snag your complimentary subscription and membership now, and then come back to read what else we have in store. We'll wait.
Our New Resources
In alignment with our mission of supporting small business owners in raising the bar for professionalism in the wedding industry, we've made available a number of resources (many free!) to help you rock your wedding biz. E-books, workbooks, quick guides and more are available on our Resources page, and more content will be coming very soon! Bonus: all of these resources are digital downloads, with that coveted "instant gratification" factor!
(Oh, and if you're in the mood to enjoy some resources created by awfully smart folks who aren't Kyle and myself, or if you want to rock out some amazing WeddingIQ gear or benefit from our cool partnerships, check out our expanded Merchandise page. Your investment in any of these items helps put a little change back in our pockets and to fund this labor of love we call WeddingIQ!)
Our New Services
Of course, Kyle and I both continue to be available for speaking engagements (with two cool new formats, Tribe Takeovers and Team Training) and I continue to offer business coaching services (now with several new packages tailored to wedding pros!). We've significantly expanded our service offerings, however, to help our readers even more. WeddingIQ now offers professional copywriting, business photography, and both services bundled in our unique Identity Suites packages. We're really excited to work with our fellow industry professionals in a whole new way!
Our Contests (also known as Our Empty Pockets)
You've been so patient, and now you know all about the new WeddingIQ! In celebration of our (re)launch week, we're we're running multiple - as in SIX - social media contests today through this Friday!
Instagram, Twitter & Facebook Giveaway
We've created an entire suite of properly-sized social graphics to shout out our relaunch, and you can download any or all of them here! Share these graphics on Instagram, Twitter and/or Facebook, using hashtag #wiqrelaunch, and you'll be entered to win a $20 gift certificate to Amazon! Here's what you do:
- Follow us on Instagram (@wedding_iq), Twitter (@WeddingIQ) and/or like our Facebook page (WeddingIQ), depending on which platform you're using to enter.
- Download the graphics you like best from our site at this link.
- Post them to Instagram, Twitter, and/or Facebook with the hashtag #wiqrelaunch (we'd be thrilled to be tagged in your post, too, but the hashtag is how we're tracking contest entries).
- Alternately, for Instagram, you can regram WeddingIQ's own post with the launch graphic (be sure to leave the caption intact, or add your own with the hashtag #wiqrelaunch, so that we can track your entry!) You can also share WeddingIQ's post with the launch graphic on Facebook for an entry.
- Each shared graphic earns you one entry in the contest to win a $20 Amazon gift certificate - you can enter this giveaway once per day for 5 days (today through Friday) on each social media platform, and each social media platform has its own contest, for a total of 15 chances to win!
Twitter Giveaway Part Deux
Remember those tweetable graphics I mentioned earlier? Click to tweet one (or more) of them, and you'll be entered to win a $20 gift certificate to Amazon! All you have to do is this:
- Follow us on Twitter, if you haven't already: @WeddingIQ.
- Skim through the WeddingIQ blog archives (viewable on the right sidebar, by categories or by publication date) and find a favorite article from days past.
- Click on the tweetable graphic - a new Twitter window will spawn - and simply click to send the tweet! (Be sure to leave the @WeddingIQ Twitter username intact, as that's how we're able to track your tweet!).
- Each tweeted graphic earns you one entry in the contest to win a $20 Amazon gift certificate! You can enter this giveaway once per day over the course of 5 days (today through Friday) for a total of 5 chances to win!
Pinterest Giveaway
We've also completely transformed our Pinterest account, and will be using it to share not only our own content, but the business and creative content from around the web! Simply repin anything you like from any of our boards, and you'll be entered to win a $20 gift certificate to Amazon! Here's what you need to do:
- Follow us on Pinterest: WeddingIQ.
- Browse our boards, find a pin you like, and repin it.
- Each repin earns you one entry in the contest to win a $20 Amazon gift certificate! You can enter this giveaway 10 times per day over the course of 5 days (today through Friday) for a total of 50 chances to win!
The Grand Prize
We'll be combining all of the entries from all 5 contests and drawing one grand-prize winner - that person will win a $100 Amazon gift certificate, plus their choice of any one item from the WeddingIQ merchandise shop!
All contest winners will be drawn at random this Friday, May 6th at 4:00pm Eastern time and will be announced right here on the WeddingIQ blog (winners will be notified by email, too, so no worries if you're waist-deep in weddings at that time!).
In case you couldn't tell, we're incredibly psyched about all that WeddingIQ now has to offer to the wedding community. Please take some time to browse our site, and don't hesitate to reach out with your feedback. We'd love if you'd help spread the word about WeddingIQ to others who may benefit, too - we joke a lot around here, but we're dead serious about bringing real value and relevant content to wedding business owners.
We'll be back Wednesday with our first "official" blog post under the new flag - and this one's a pretty hard-hitting one, on a topic that's not easy to talk about. (Kind of our forte, right?) See you then!
