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Meet Our Group Content Editor

We meet Ocean Media’s rising star Zoë Burke who is helping to transform the company’s online platforms

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We meet Ocean Media’s rising star Zoë Burke who is helping to transform the company’s online platforms

Tell us a little about yourself and your role at Ocean Media?

I’m the group content editor at Ocean Media – I look after the digital content for Bridal Buyer, and also our consumer-facing products, Confetti and Wedding Style Collective (WSC). Originally I worked solely on Bridal Buyer, but after six months my role expanded and I run the three sites, as well as their social media channels and additional features.

WSC is a new launch – tell us about it.

I look after the digital content on WSC – I’ve been working on the project since I started at Ocean Media and it’s been so exciting to see it take shape. We’ve pulled together a list of the most searched wedding fashion terms and are creating content to match each one – so whatever a bride is looking for, we’ll have something that will help her, as well as fun, trend-led pieces.

WSC is going to be a curated, stylish experience for contemporary brides, designed to help them understand the value of the traditional bridal retail experience – these are brides who are too used to fast fashion and bridal publications pushing high street alternatives. I’m striving to champion the importance of independent boutiques across all my websites, and Ocean Media built the Wedding Style Collective website to enable us to further do this.

Listen to the latest episode of our podcast to hear the Project Manager share more about Wedding Style Collective.

How have you changed Bridal Buyer’s website?

When I came to work on the website, there wasn’t a clear content strategy, but I spent my first few months at Ocean getting to grips with what our audience loves and what they don’t need to see.

My Content Assistant, Sophie, and I have worked hard to establish a community feel online – we’re proud of Bridal Buyer’s heritage and I’m lucky that I can draw on that whilst working in a progressive and forward-thinking way. We talk to our audience regularly and take all feedback on board to make sure we’re delivering something valuable and useful – and our traffic has never been better!

Can you talk us through the new digital initiatives on BridalBuyer.com?

Our team is in such a great place at the moment and we decided at the start of this year to really give the website our all – we wanted to be more than just a static website with standard articles. We’ve built the private Bridal Buyer Community on Facebook, following feedback from our audience, and we regularly stream live videos with suppliers and retailers.

Sophie takes care of our Wonder Woman Wednesday feature – we profile an inspiring woman in business every week, as we’re all women in business who can learn things from each other.

We also launched the podcast a couple of months ago – inspired by the Housing division of Ocean Media, who have their own successful trade podcast – as yet another way for our audience to consume content. Not everyone is a magazine person, not everyone wants to read articles on their phone or laptop, so this way they can plug in their headphones and catch up on the latest industry news.

Catch the first episode of our podcast here.

We’ve also got the Bridal Buyer Bestseller feature, which is one of my favourite pieces of work. We want to reward a different member of the bridal industry for their contribution every month – you can email me your nominations and we’ll profile the winner each month on the website and send them a gorgeous thank you gift. It’s a really nice way to learn more about the people who contribute to this industry, as well as highlighting those who deserve it for their great work.

Check out our most recent Bridal Buyer Bestseller here.

Finally, our Instazine! Instagram is such a fun tool and it’s great for sharing pictures, but hasn’t always been the easiest way to really engage with an audience. Our Instazine is a bite-sized crossover of our digital presence and our print magazine. Again, it’s another way to share with our audience and it means I get to harass you (Anna-Marie) for content even more…

Since Ocean Media bought confetti.co.uk last year the website has really grown; can you share any future plans?

I almost don’t want to say too much... if it’s recorded on paper, I have to do it! I’ve been working really hard with my content team on Confetti to overhaul the website. The content section needed a little bit of TLC, but we have a huge SEO plan which we’ve already started to put into action and we’re seeing immediate positive results.

We’ve redesigned our venues and supplier section, and next we’re going to overhaul the bridal fashion section of the site. My background is in consumer wedding journalism so it’s hugely exciting to be able to oversee the content strategy on a site as iconic as Confetti, and I feel like it’s not really a job, because I enjoy what I’m doing so much.

How do all the brands you work on fit together?

There’s actually a really nice synergy between all three brands – through my work on Bridal Buyer I can understand the issues faced by the bridal industry right now, and learn about the latest bridal trends. I can then use that information to steer the content on Wedding Style Collective – directing brides to retailers and encouraging them to buy into the latest bridal fashions.

Finally, with Confetti as our hero digital brand, I’m able to learn from brides and grooms and share my learnings with retailers, and inform our audience on Confetti about the value of the industry and why they shouldn’t take shortcuts, but instead relish the traditional aspects of wedding planning.

What can we expect from you at Harrogate?

I’m so excited for Harrogate – it’s the perfect opportunity to catch up with all my favourite retailers and suppliers, and to meet new people too. We’ll definitely be working on some more interactive content to share online, as well as streaming the fashion shows and recording our mini Harrogate Update podcast, which will come out directly after the show.

If you see me or Sophie around at the show, make sure you stop us and say hello – I really love chatting to members of our industry, hearing their ideas, thoughts and feedback – it helps so much when shaping the content on Bridal Buyer. We’ve also recently headed up north to record our pre-Harrogate podcast special, so stay tuned for that!

To nominate someone as a Bridal Buyer Bestseller, or to just get in touch with Zoë, please email zoe.burke@oceanmedia.co.uk.

Want more digital advice? Check out digital guru Warren Knight’s SEO tips and tricks.

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