DIANNA RAE HIGHOWNER
DIANNA RAE JEWELRY
LAFAYETTE, LOUISIANA
“I use Facebook to promote the store by engaging my clients
and their friends. I post engagement and wedding photo ‘love stories’ from my customers.
This is a fun way to announce their engagement as well as reach out to their
friends. I also post new jewelry, giveaways and custom designs.
“With Instagram, I can show what we’re working on in the
shop. We specialize in custom design, so it’s important that our customers see
our workshop, our staff and a bit of Dianna Rae culture. This helps them to
feel more connected personally.”
LARRY GILINSKY
PRESIDENT
BERGMAN JEWELERS
OMAHA, NEBRASKA
“Yes, we do a little bit with social media, but not enough.
We plan on expanding on that. It turns out that the internet is like word of
mouth used to be, except expanded a thousandfold. We do Yelp and try to promote
things on Google, because it seems like today, however many stars you have is
everything.
“We have people coming in almost daily who we haven’t seen
before. When we ask how they happened to come in, they say they pulled us up on
the internet. And I’m not sure the social media is as good as the Google and
Yelp. With those, people make the effort to look for something that they want
and find you that way, rather than the other way, where the social media pushes
you to the customer. I’m continually amazed at what the internet can do. We’ve
been in business for 130 years this year.”
JIMMY GREEN
OWNER
JGREEN JEWELERS
SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS
“The answer is yes, we use social media to promote the
store, tremendously so. Two days ago, I posted a video of a ring that had 11
diamonds, 3 carats each, D, E, F, VVS1. It got over 1,500 views. That ring is
outrageously expensive, but I sold two emerald-cut eternity bands off of that
posting — one for $18,000 and one for $25,000. It brought the customers in
directly off Facebook. Twitter does the same thing, and so does Instagram. It’s
all people coming into the store. They contact me online, but I don’t have an
online store to buy. They have to physically come in to buy.
“You just have to keep working it. You have to keep coming
up with stuff that attracts people’s attention — not just the same old, same
old. A lot of times, it’s something that gives the client a perceived value
that’s inexpensive. A year ago, I had a very unusual ring; the mounting wasn’t
more than $1,200 retail. We sold six of them in about three days off of social
media. It went crazy, with about 3,600 views.
“If you put something every day or every week on your
personal page, you’ll get no response. If you do it every couple of weeks or
once a month, you’ll get tremendous response. If viewers get used to seeing
pieces of jewelry pop up, they quit looking at it. I have two people who spend
a lot of time on social media, and I do some myself. It’s paid off for us very,
very much.”
VANESSA GUARINO
DIRECTOR OF SOCIAL MEDIA
LOUIS ANTHONY JEWELERS
PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA
“The two main social media platforms that we use are
Facebook and Instagram. We find we get the most engagement [with] our followers
when they get to see #BehindTheScenes.
“Social media isn’t about selling. It’s about building
relationships and getting to know a business and its people. It is better to
have fewer followers that are more engaged than a lot of followers who aren’t
engaged at all.”
Article from the Rapaport Magazine - March 2018. To subscribe click here.