UK wedding retailer refreshes online presence as it seeks a more engaged community

UK wedding retailer refreshes online presence as it seeks a more engaged community

UK wedding retailer, Confetti has selected the Pluck social media platform from Demand Media to power the forums, blogs and commenting activity on its new website.

Confetti already had a large active community among brides-to-be, but its existing forum technology was struggling to cope with the volume of conversations that were taking place on the site.

Making the most of the ‘big day’

It needed a social media platform that could address the scale of forum posts on the site, as well as a solution that would serve as a content management system, allowing the online team to easily upload content to the site for community members to engage with.

“Weddings are such memorable days and people love to share their experiences,” said Brian Merttens, head of online content for Confetti. “Confetti plays a huge role in making peoples’ weddings special and our fantastic community have been instrumental in that; sharing tips and ideas with other ‘soon-to-be weds’. It was essential that the functionality of our website supported the needs of our community and we have been delighted with the ease of use and scalability of the Pluck platform.”

Maintaining existing value

The Pluck social media platform imported hundreds of thousands of forum posts dating back to 2004 across to its platform, which has taken over as the forum application alongside Confetti’s new shopping website. Confetti will also use the Pluck blogging application to upload editorial content to the website and the commenting application to allow users to leave their thoughts on the stories.

“Importing the existing forum posts across to the Pluck platform was vital to ensure that Confetti did not lose the SEO [search engine optimisation] value of the hundreds of thousands of existing conversations that had already taken place on the site,” said Stephanie Himoff, vice president of sales and business development for Demand Media in Europe.

“The new forum will allow for a much more social experience for the community and allows a more thorough level of engagement. The commenting function will help the company cement its position as the UK’s leading destination for those looking for support and advice about their forthcoming wedding.”