RAPAPORT...
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Jordan Scott
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The 4Cs are not the only things that make a piece of diamond
jewelry a sales winner. In an ongoing series, Rapaport Magazine explores the
“3Ws” — what’s selling, what’s not and why — by going straight to the people
who really know — jewelry retailers. Each month, we ask a sampling of retailers
to comment on the important issues that are facing the industry today. Here is
what they had to say when asked: “Do you use social media to promote your
store?”
JAY MEDNIKOW, OWNER
MEDNIKOW JEWELERS
MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE
“I do, but not nearly as effectively as I know I should. We
have a Facebook page and we have a lot of fans and occasionally we do something
on there, but I’m embarrassed to say that’s one area where we are somewhat
deficient. It requires constant maintenance. We can have good intentions, but
often, other things get in the way. My intention is to get more into it. But at
the same time, while I know it’s effective, I question sometimes whether it’s as
good as the hype makes it out to be. Social media is great. Does it convert to
paying customers at a rate that’s as good as advertising? I don’t know. I think
it has to be part of the entire package; you can’t cut out the traditional
ports of advertising.”
MARK & MONIKA CLODIUS, CO-OWNERS
CLODIUS & CO. JEWELERS
ROCKFORD, ILLINOIS
“The answer is yes; specifically Facebook and email contact.
We started a presence a year and a half ago and we’re just now in the process
of better managing it and finding a management company that specializes in
these things for jewelers. You can use it to let people know about specific
events, but what I read is that if you use it as a sales tool or as an
advertising tool, people will tune that out very quickly. We are preparing to
launch a number of contests on social media and have come up with some novel
things, treasure hunts and other fun ways for our customer base to interact
with the community. We’re excited about that.”
DAN WIXON, OWNER
WIXON JEWELERS
BLOOMINGTON, MINNESOTA
“We are just diving into that feet first, everywhere we
possibly can. I am hiring a guy just to make sure that we are constantly at the
top of our social media game. We are going everywhere we can possibly go; it’s
clearly the future. Depending on the media, we’ll use it to get our name out
there. The up-and-comer is Pinterest: You start with things people like, so
that you are basically promoting sales. And Facebook can be different; so, it’s
a combination of both.”
TOM WRIGHT, CO-OWNER
WRIGHT’S JEWELERS
LINCOLN, NEBRASKA
“We’re barely touching the tip of social media. As an
older-generation management, we aren’t as quick or adept at it as the very
young. We have a Facebook page for our store and we have individual Facebook
pages. We haven’t gotten into Twitter or Pinterest.
“We’ve just started approaching our clients to ‘like us’ on
Facebook. And we’ve just recently started a gift drawing that customers can
enter if they fill out our card and like us on Facebook. And that’s getting us
a few people, but it’s slow.”
JIM ALATI, GENERAL MANAGER
SIMMONS FINE JEWELRY
MERIDIAN, IDAHO
“We do pretty much all the major social media. We have
Facebook, of course. We also have a YouTube account and we use Twitter. And we
are considering Pinterest. On top of all that, we do emails and our website. We
do quite a bit of interaction — every time we post something on Facebook, it
goes automatically on Twitter. And any time an email goes out, it gets
connected to Twitter.
“As far as whether all this is bringing in customers, it’s
really hard to track that. But as far as keeping in contact with people,
especially the 18-to-35 year olds, they’re all about that media. Most of the
people on Facebook and most who follow us on those types of outlets either have
been a client here at one time or another or are friends with somebody who has
shopped here. It’s really about staying in contact with people who are
currently our customers. Sometimes the only way they will ‘like you’ on
Facebook is if they’ve had a good experience or one of their friends
recommended the store.
“We have run an ‘if you like us’ enter-to-win promotion,
which we’re thinking of doing again. It bolstered the number of people who
follow us. We try not to advertise on social media but rather ask questions, to
see if they’ll interact with us. And we do get some feedback on that. We have
about 2,500 followers at the moment. When we have in-store events, we do use
Facebook and other social media to let people know.”
GEORGE FOX, OWNER
FOX FINE JEWELRY
VENTURA, CALIFORNIA
“We’re on Facebook — we’re always posting pictures and
having contests. We use it all the time; we have about 1,700 fans…it’s great.
It’s not business-oriented but more to get a buzz going about jewelry and keep
Fox Fine Jewelry in the forefront of people’s minds. We still do traditional
advertising but we’re putting most of our efforts into Facebook. And it pays
off because it brings us higher in the search engine and we garner reviews —
sometimes people will comment on a job we’ve done for them on Facebook. I
haven’t seen any negative comments. And we’ll direct people to reviews on
Google and Yelp, and those reviews really drive people to the store.”
JIM MESSIER, PRESIDENT
ARTHUR’S JEWELRY
BEDFORD, VIRGINIA
“We started out with some of the high school kids here and
realized what a communications tool social media was. We’ve recently integrated
our Facebook page so it shows up on our website. We found that trying to do
strong selling on Facebook didn’t really do it for us. But by having it be more
of a passive thing and making ourselves a part of people’s lives, it worked
better. And the store does use Twitter. The whole idea is to make the store
become relevant.
“I’ve noticed that with our young first-time diamond
customers in their twenties, whatever social media and web presence we have
lets them check us out online and see what we’re all about before they walk in
the door. You can fight it or you can join it — we may stumble a bit along the
way, but it’s working. It has helped our diamond business, which in my opinion,
is what it’s all about.”
CLAYTON BROMBERG, PRESIDENT
UNDERWOOD JEWELERS
JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA
“We do Facebook and Twitter — I have a social media person
who does it for us. The biggest investment is some person’s time to keep it
maintained but since it’s not really a hard cost because they do it part-time,
if you get any kind of return, it’s an immense return in comparison to the
investment. We don’t use Facebook and Twitter to sell as much as we do use them
to help give customers an awareness of us so we’re the jeweler on top of their
minds. Then, if they need a diamond, we have a shot at making that sale.”
Article from the Rapaport Magazine - June 2012. To subscribe click here.