Wedding in Instagram: how to make a social network on a photo from a celebration
'22.08.2017'
Source: with the BBC
For most people, social networks have become an integral part of life. No holiday passes without the hero of the occasion or the guests sharing on the personal pages in Instagram colorful photos and videos. A wedding, perhaps, is the best reason for pictures in the social network.
And companies began to make money on this trend, selling personalized hashtags and services of SM managers, writes with the BBC.
So, 33-year-old Briton Jessica Lehmann, who works in New York, announced her engagement to director Jess Esch, publishing a photo in Instagram. The picture was with the hashtag #JessTheTwoOfUs, which she used in subsequent publications.
When Jessica marries in September, she will ask her guests to add the same hashtag to the photo from the wedding, which they will publish on social networks.
As a brand strategist, Jessica is well aware that “a successful wedding hashtag can tell a lot about a spouse,” so she thought about hers well.
The hashtag makes people smile, it is remembered first of all when there is a pun in it.
Today network Instagram 700 has a million active users worldwide, more than a billion people visit its page every day in Facebook.
Therefore, it is not surprising that when planning a wedding, the newlyweds are increasingly thinking about the role of social networks in it. This stimulates the growth of a new industry that has begun to make money on this trend.
Together in joy and in brand
In 2016, the journal editor Los Angeles Mariel Wakim founded a company called Happily Ever Hashtagged (“Happily ever after with a hashtag”). The idea for the startup arose after friends began repeatedly asking her to come up with a personal wedding hashtag.
A hashtag is actually a search tool that helps users Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and other networks to find messages or photos with a specific meaning. Now, for the production of one personalized hashtag, Wakim charges 40 dollars, and for three - 85. But there are now one and a half hundred customers waiting in line for an order.
Last March, 28-year-old graphic designer Ellie Bertelson launched in the online store Etsy network filtering service Snapchat.
Geofilters are special decorative frames with geolocation that are superimposed on photos on the web Snapchatto mark a specific event: a music festival or a gay parade. You can create them yourself, but Bertelson makes filters for couples who do not know how to do this or simply do not have time for it. One filter costs 8 pounds sterling. Newlyweds can offer their guests to choose a filter to your taste and apply it to photos and videos from the wedding, which they will upload to the network.
If people during the holiday will still publish photos in Instagram и FacebookWhy not create a continuous stream of these downloads on a digital wall?
In 2014, Amsterdam entrepreneurs Yusef El-Dardiri and Pim Stuurman founded the company WeddingHashtagWall.
You can order such a virtual “wall” for $ 79. For this, clients receive a unique web address. It features a constant stream of photos and messages that wedding guests upload to social media with a special hashtag. For those who missed the event, this feature allows you to take part in the celebration, and guests can exchange photos in real time.
Some companies even offer special assistants who will post photos and posts on your special day on social networks. This service is offered, for example, by a New York company. Maid of Socialfounded in 2015 by two former wedding magazine editors The Knot... They call themselves the PR team for your wedding.
The cost of services varies from a package for 500 dollars, which includes the creation of a hashtag, the photo on the company's page in Instagram and also advice on how to "promote" a wedding in social networks, up to a package of "5 carats" for several thousand dollars. Services of this level include attracting influential bloggers with millions of subscribers, a dedicated team of CM managers, developing a media strategy for brands who will become your partners on your wedding day, as well as covering the event in Instagram и Snapchat, and possibly in the press.
Is it too?
For those who are not an ardent user of social networks, all this may seem a bit too much.
But for those who “live” on the network, accounts in Facebook и Instagram - has long been not only a part of his personal life, but also the opportunity to promote his professional and creative efforts.
“It's like a red carpet for ordinary people,” says Jean Tweng, author of Generation Me and iGen, due out soon.
“Millennials are great individualists, they feel more comfortable in the spotlight than previous generations at the same age,” she adds.
And a wedding is one of the cases when it is quite possible and necessary to attract attention.
“Escorting” weddings on social media is one of the reasons why its value has been steadily increasing in recent years, although the younger generation is not eager to follow the traditions of their parents.
In the UK, weddings recently surpassed £ 25k and in the US $ 35k, according to a 2016 study by websites Hitched и The knot respectively.
Excellence above all
But won't all this fuss prevent you from feeling the singularity of the moment? As noted in his book "Together Alone" (Alone Together) sociology professor at Michigan Tech University Sherry Turkle, smartphones inhibit intimacy, shallow our relationships, and increase loneliness. She notes that wedding photos have always existed. But now we have so many “special” moments that we capture on our social media pages that the demands for excellence have become extremely high.
“This is a paradox of our time: we profess originality in everything, but“ order ”it from others,” the researcher adds.
Professor Turkle suggests that there will soon be a counter-current - “wedding without gadgets”, but so far she sees nothing wrong with guests using hashtags for the celebration. After all, they will still post photos on social networks.
Jessica Lehmann weighed the pros and cons. At her wedding, she will offer guests a photo in a photo booth, with props and selfie sticks, as well as a Polaroid for souvenirs. The hashtag #JessTheTwoOfUs will be prominently displayed to remind you of its use.
“Knowing that friends will also be taking photos reduces the pressure a little,” she says. - So, we will not miss anything during the day, which will fly by like an instant. And the next morning I will be able to look at the photographs and perhaps find real masterpieces among them. ”
However, during the wedding ceremony itself, Jessica will ask guests to switch off the telephones, she will not use her at all on the wedding day.
“There has to be a limit, though,” she explains. - The wedding will take place very quickly, and I want to enjoy this day as much as possible and feel every moment of it. It's hard to do when you have a phone in your hand. ”
