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Tips on Selling

Instagram is more about sharing a business’s personality through “personal” or “behind-the-scenes” images.

Instagram can turn happy snaps into sales

By Emily Mobbs • Former Editor

Instagram is proving a useful online photo-sharing tool for jewellery businesses looking to create customer interest. Emily Mobbs looks at the benefits of getting behind – and in front – of the lens.

There’s no denying that the jewellery industry is visually driven. Its success relies on appealing to the eye of all those involved – designer, supplier, retailer and consumer.

With this in mind, the proliferation and evolution of photo-sharing social media platforms should be music to the ears for those looking to engage with existing or potential customers.

Instagram, which is owned by Facebook and has more than 100 million users (1 million-plus in Australia), is one such service that is proving beneficial for jewellery businesses.

The platform lets users take pictures, apply digital filters to those photos and share them on a variety of social networking services like Facebook and Twitter.

Instagram is more about sharing a business’s personality through “personal” or “behind-the-scenes” images.

Great examples
Co-founders of American fashion jewellery brand Dannijo, Dannielle and Jodie Snyder, are great examples of how to use image sharing social media platforms in order to build a successful business.

According to The New York Times’ Caroline Tell, the pair inadvertently became “cool-hunters” for jewellery by documenting events such as music festival Coachella and Paris Fashion Week, then uploading relevant photos to sites like Instagram.

Similarly, Australian jewellery designer Samantha Wills experienced incredible growth by sharing her design journey and travels via photo-based social media services.

While not everyone is fortunate enough to attend Paris Fashion Week, these business cases highlight some important points. Instead of posting generic items on an Instagram account or sharing other people’s posts, a company should produce its own content. People follow or “like” a business because they want to know more about what it does.

It’s easy to get bogged down in bookwork and sales targets, but don’t forget the industry can also be fun and glamorous. Customers aren’t often aware what goes on behind the scenes, which provides enormous amounts of content sharing opportunities.

Using Instagram to share design and stone-selection processes or a jeweller’s bench will allow customers to connect and get excited about a company or store and help to highlight a jewellery business’s point of difference.

When at international and national trade shows, why not post images of staff attending the event and exciting jewellery finds? One retailer has found success by posting pictures to Instagram of product at trade shows that she thinks her customers will like. Customers then have the opportunity to order the item while the retailer is overseas – the pieces are sold before they are even bought!

Similarly, retailers that stock many different branded items can share photos and real-time updates of product launch parties. Customers can also become involved in helping to choose new stock.

Let followers vote on their favourite products, and then stock the top three.

Remember, the key to this is "engagement".

The photosharing platform also provides specialist retailers with an ideal opportunity to document and publicise unique processes. A retailer, for example, that sells polished diamonds to specific dimensions could create an image-based documentation of the steps involved, from sourcing the rough stone to polishing the diamond.

Tiffany & Co’s Instagram account is a perfect model for how to document the jewellery-making process through photos. Every detail is recorded, giving fans access to the tools, techniques and technicians involved in producing those famous diamond rings.

#Hashtag Rules
Hashtags are a way to help users discover photographs and each other.

According to Business Insider’s Luis Sanz, they are the best way to categorise content and also the easiest means of building a brand on the service.

“Instead of using a spray-and-pray strategy for your hashtag, you should define a few hashtags and stick to them. This will help your followers to remember and identify them with your brand,” Sanz explains.

He believes it is good practice to tag the company name, best-selling products and location of a business.

Still in need of inspiration? Instagram has created a great learning resource for businesses that are using (or thinking about using) the platform. Visit http://tinyurl.com/instagramhelp.

Posted May 02, 2013