Strategies for Jewelry brands to engage on Social media

Rising now, more than ever, after the dampening effect of Covid-19, is the demand for branded jewelry. This points out to the trends that are increasingly governed by social media. Since the past few decades, the need for an online presence is only growing and jewelry brands are now exploring the opportunities offered by social media. 

The desire to capture a potential customer’s attention, and the ability to convert this interest into a successful online transaction is increasing every day. The goal of maintaining a social media presence is to communicate one’s brand values and shape the perception of the consumers towards the brand. 

Luxury jewelry brands have always focused on selling an experience physically, which is effectively done in offline stores and showrooms. However, the effects of the pandemic have compelled these brands to shift their focus on digital platforms, including social media. Here’s where a huge market lies and this has given brands an opportunity to explore new markets. With opportunities come challenges, and vice-versa. The challenge here is to maintain a steady brand image – online and offline.

Let’s have a look at how social media widens your brand presence online. 

1. Engaging content is the order of the day

Every day, millions of people post, comment on, create, purchase, even “cancel” content. Content is consumable on social media – in the form of  videos, reels, livestreams to stories and images. 

Social media is an ever widening space consisting of people from every background imaginable. This means that user engagement is not easy, and is a skill that needs to be honed regularly. While intending to create engaging content for social media, remember that it should be easy to understand, creative and highly visual, directed towards a targeted audience and be careful about hurting any sentiments. A catch-22 that follows is that an engaged audience will consider your ideas for engaging content. 

2. Stay up-to-date when it comes to trends

Trends on social media come and go, but their emotional impact on the audience stays. Therefore, content based on these viral trends become popular and are a good way to connect with the crowd. It is important to tap these trends immediately before they fade out. And in order to do that brands must constantly track trends and current affairs.

3. The power of influencers and purchasing on Instagram

One of the most formidable agent companies can employ, are people who can affect their audience’s purchasing decisions. By involving people who represent your brand’s ideologies, and making them promote your products, you’ll allow a larger set of audience to understand who you are and connect with them. 

This strategy is a part of digital campaigns implemented by David Yurman, also using Instagram’s latest social shopping feature to increase customer interaction. Only choosing people who fit the brand’s image, this is how brands target a  niche  audience. Bulgari, the Italian luxury house, speaks of this by adapting their profile to local markets – selecting influencers from different geographic locations, and sending them on a Roman holiday, to target its customers in the USA. 

4. The effect of a good story

Every social media entity wants to churn good content, the path  to which is an excellent story. Stories provide an emotional arch to a brand that soars its worth in the customer’s eyes, making it personal.

Stories can be visual – in image or video format, or it can be written. Well written captions, descriptions on posts also produce better engagement. It could be short and sweet, or describing the historic significance of the jewelry piece. Your  story and its relation to  customer’s values, preferences, and dreams makes you stand apart and gain a loyal fanbase. 

5. YouTube speaks quality

2020 was a golden year for YouTube content creators and people who wanted to step into creating product reviews, how-to videos, vlogs, gaming videos etc. The platform attracts people who choose  a niche, and build content that is heavily monetized. 

Van Cleef & Arpels maintains a strong web community, hosting a series of detailed behind the scenes videos, giving their followers an insider peek. Even Sabyasachi, the Indian heritage and fine jewelry brand maintains an active profile by putting up short videos detailing their collections. The neatly done, sophisticated videos conjure the brand image that Sabyasachi dreams to create  – regalness personified. 

6. Environmentally conscious customers are on a rise

Audiences now want an environmentally conscious brand that lives up to its name. The portrayal of this shift on social media not only adds to the brand image and quality, it connects it with people who are aware, dynamic and in sync with the times. 

Able, Arlokea, Astor+ Orion, Laura Elizabeth are brands targeting minimalists, with a taste for eco-friendly and sustainable jewelry. MiaDonna, a beautiful fine jewelry company, offers lab grown diamonds, and every time you purchase fine jewelry from MiaDonna, 10% of net profits are donated to the Greener Diamond Foundation to fund initiatives and programs that work on restoring land and lives which are impacted most by the illegal trade of conflict diamonds.

7. Digital campaigns

Targeted digital campaigns coupled with a study of trends, are a powerful way to attract new groups and be more inclusive. For example, a smaller section of fine jewelry is self-purchased. Focusing on self-purchasers, millennial women, who are high earners using Instagram and YT, with a collection focused on empowerment brings a lot of engagement. 

This can be done through clever use of stories and interactive visuals on these platforms. Live streaming, in the times of Covid 19, with influencers, fashion designers, key people in the sector is also a way to develop interest and signify collaboration with the brands.

8. Getting creative with campaigns

Buccellati and Van Cleef & Arpels set clever examples with their social media engagement strategies. The former had partnership with Noonoouri, a virtual influencer. This influencer was an attempt to target a social media generation, with 86,000 Instagram followers. Van Cleef & Arpels, with their century old heritage, use their Instagram stories to make fairytale narratives to present their latest collection, and then further drive followers to their ecommerce platform.

Using real world events to generate content online, is also a creative way to boost your online presence – for instance, Damiani, in 2017, with its exhibition at the Palazzo Reale in Milan – hosting an exclusive dinner with well-known faces in the fashion community.

If perception is key, then social media is the door that unlocks the ability for your brand to be perceived in the way you want by your consumers.