In today’s wedding market it’s a given that to succeed you must utilize the Internet. With such social-networking sites as Facebook and Twitter growing in leaps and bounds, certified wedding and event coordinators have to not only be comfortable using these sites, but they must also figure out how to successfully fit them in to their business plans.

The Wedding Report estimates that online wedding sales will grow to $22.7 billion by 2013, with an estimated growth rate of 7 to 10%. It also found in a recent survey that 81% of couples use the Internet to plan their wedding because of the specific planning tools they find there. Their top reasons for using the Internet? Tips and ideas; photos of other weddings; creating a wedding website. The Wedding Report also says that the average age of a newly married person is about 27, which means that most of your bridal couples are part of a generation that is the most technologically advanced ever. It also means that for your wedding and event coordinating businesses to survive you must embrace technology. How can you do this? Here are a few ways:

1. You turned to your community college or local university to become a wedding planner, right? You may want to consider turning right back around to check out what kind of classes they have on Web design, online marketing and social networking.
2. Pick up copies of popular magazines that cover computers, marketing and networking. An afternoon spent at your local bookstore, coffee in one hand and magazine in the other, will be time well spent.
3. Integrate social networking into your business plan. Build a Twitter following by focusing on the wedding industry in the region you target. Start a Flickr page, and fill it will slideshows of the weddings and events you’ve planned. Start a blog, giving tips to brides, showing them how a coordinator can help alleviate their stress! And create a Facebook page to help guide users to your blog and other sites.
4. Keep all of your sites and information updated. Wedding and party trends ebb and flow, and you need to show possible customers that you’re up on the trends - and maybe even have a lot of great ideas of your own.

Getting out there, pounding the pavement, if you will, is definitely one way to grow your business. But to attract the Wired Generation you have to show them that your business is modern and growing. Being a successful wedding and event coordinator depends a lot on word of mouth, yes, but you want to attract business from every possible angle. And the Internet is an excellent place to begin.