We are so happy to have you as part of the Little Black Book community. WELCOME! While your portfolio automatically populates when signing up or renewing, we’ve got a few tips and tricks to setting up the anchor of your membership for success.
First things first: you have two ways of editing your portfolio. In order to view the portfolio as a reader sees it, go to the SMP website and type in your business name in the search bar. You can edit the front end of your portfolio in real time. It is possible to edit your portfolio via your internal dashboard as well!
The profile image is the square thumbnail image appearing on the listing page and also translates to the circular image on your portfolio page. To add a new profile image, simply click on the “Upload Profile Photo” link that shows up in the profile photo section. You can then choose an image from your local computer and simply hit open. The new profile photo should now be displayed on your portfolio page. In an effort to simplify listings, all listings now use the profile image as their main image in the Vendor Guide. It may take up to 24 hours for your new image to be updated in the Vendor Guide.
The cover image is the image at the top section of your portfolio page. If you need to change this, simply click on the “Upload cover photo” section on the page. Then, click where it says “Click Here To Upload Image” and select an image from your computer.
The contact section is one of the most important sections of your portfolio page. This is how brides can reach out to you, check out your website and your social network pages. To the right, when in the Edit section of your portfolio, you will see a form where you can input all social accounts. We recommend that you fill out all parts of this section for best results. Don’t forget to click ‘Save Changes’ when you’re finished!
While we’re chatting about your social, did you know that over 50% of couples hire their vendor team after discovering them via social media? Yep, that’s how important social media is in today’s wedding industry landscape. Here are a few quick tips to check over your own:
Every portfolio has a bio/about area where vendors can write a description about their work and specialty. To add a new description or update your existing one, simply type in the designated area. Unsure what to write? Here are a few tips:
Scroll to the lower section of your portfolio and you’ll find the Featured Galleries section. The Featured Galleries section is a crucial part of your portfolio as couples love to do their due diligence and fully research (aka swoon over…) your work! There are two types fo Featured Galleries:
You can choose which 9 galleries you’d like to publicly display to readers! You can also sort the galleries to choose in which order they display. In order to change the selected 9, you must click ‘edit portfolio’ at the top of your portfolio, scroll down to the gallery section, and star and unstar the galleries. Click the three dots to the left of the gallery to drag to the position you choose.
If you do not have 9 galleries uploaded, no worries. We do recommend at least 3 to fill out one row! You can either upload full wedding galleries or you can upload galleries grouped by category (i.e. Bridal Portraits, Reception Details, and Wedding Ceremonies for example). Let the brides and grooms stalk you ;)
To upload a new gallery, simply click the pink button titled “+ New Gallery” on your portfolio. This will take you to a new “Collection” submission form. Please note: as with all of our submissions, the form autosaves! Once you’ve uploaded your images, entered in vendor credits, rearranged the images as you see fit… the gallery is ready to go.
One more thing: the description box is not required for portfolio galleries. A typed description will not show up on your gallery.
What makes a great collection of Featured Galleries for your LBB portfolio? Simple! Anything extremely beautiful that shows off your work in the best light. The number one piece of advice we dish out: put the work out there that you want to get back. This means show off your best work that most closely aligns with the type of work you want to continue doing or do more of.
Click into the gallery you’d like to edit. You can scroll through the images and select ‘Gallery Cover’ in the top left hand side of the screen.
The most important thing about your portfolio is that you keep it fresh and updated. We recommend popping in occasionally to freshen up the about section, display your newest and best work, and make sure the contact/social info is up to date.
One last tip is to make sure you both show off your LBB Badge on your site (access this via your Vendor Dashboard > Settings > Badges) and also link to your portfolio! This improves the Google rank of your LBB portfolio and encourages couples to hop over and see your work on SMP if they’re browsing your website.
Photography: Lynette Boyle Photography | Photography: Madix & Co