When to Adopt a New Social Media Marketing Platform

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Welcome to the Joy Joy Podcast, where “jewelry is joy”, and everyone is encouraged to add more polish and sparkle to the world. With topics ranging from marketing tips to business development, best practices and beyond, this is the go-to podcast for ambitious jewelry industry dreamers like you.

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Hi, I’m your host Laryssa Wirstiuk. Through this podcast, I aim to empower and inspire jewelry entrepreneurs and professionals, so they can thrive while adding more beauty to the world. I’m passionate about digital marketing for jewelry brands, and I’m excited to share my passion with you. As we all know, “jewelry is joy”, so I’ll gladly seize any opportunity to talk about it.

0:56
This is episode #201. And today I’ll be answering the question: how can you tell whether a new or new-ish social media platform is right for your jewelry business? I’ve had a number of listeners and viewers as well as clients asked me, “Should I jump the shark on Instagram and start a TikTok account or even supplement Instagram with TikTok?” But the question isn’t only limited to Instagram and Tiktok. So let’s put that aside for a second. Social media networks are popping up all the time. Last year, for example, Clubhouse wasn’t a social audio trend this year, then an app called BeReal is taking hold. Even Pinterest just introduced a new collaging app for Pinterest users. Do you feel confused and overwhelmed by all these new platforms that are constantly emerging and claiming to be the next best thing?

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In this episode, I’ll be covering what to do when you start hearing buzz about a new social media platform. How will you know if it’s right for you? How do you start on a new platform? Also tomorrow on the Success With Jewelry podcast which I host was with Liz Kantner, we’ll be talking more specifically about TikTok and whether or not that’s right for your jewelry brand. So look out for that episode. But in this one, I’ll keep it a little bit more general and just talk about new social media platforms overall.

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But before we get to the solid gold of this episode, I’d like to take a moment to remind you that this podcast has both an audio and video component. So you can either listen on your favorite podcast platform or watch on YouTube by searching Joy Joya. I love creating this content as my act of service to you, my awesome listeners and viewers. And you can support the podcast for free by taking the time not only to subscribe, but also to leave a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, which helps other jewelry dreamers find it too. I want to read my favorite review of the week. So CJF789 says, “I highly recommend this podcast for anyone who has their own business and wants to refresh on their marketing.” Thank you. I really appreciate that. And I agree. If you leave a review, I might read it on a future episode. So please let me know what you think about this episode, or any other major takeaways you’ve had recently.

3:28
In this segment of the podcast I give out my Sparkle Award for the week. During this segment, I highlight a jewelry brand that’s impressing me with their marketing. The Sparkle Award is also interactive, so you can visit sparkleaward.com to nominate a jewelry brand that’s inspiring you these days, and I might feature your submission on a future podcast episode.

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So this week’s Sparkle Award goes to Greenwich Street Jewelers, and I read this really compelling and interesting story about them in Entrepreneur Magazine. I’ll link to that in the show notes. The article is called “This family owned Manhattan jewelry shop struggled to rebuild after 911”. Today two sisters who run the 46 year old business reveal what it takes to persevere. This was such a great story and it told me so much more than I already knew about this brand. I was like surprised to hear about the history and everything that they’ve been through. So in 1976 Milly and Carl Gandia opened at the store in downtown New York City, a block and a half south of the World Trade Center. Obviously 911 impacted their store, and the owners had to close for almost a year. But when they finally did reopen just two blocks from the original location, they found that the area and the clientele and just the opportunities there for business as a jewelry store had drastically changed.

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Jennifer Gandia, now co-owner of Greenwich St. Jewelers with her sister Christina Gandia Gambale, tells Entrepreneur. “We used to joke about tumbleweeds coming down the street. It was very quiet.” So they did not just sit around and kind of let this disappointment about business deter them from moving forward. They tried a lot of different tactics and implemented them to make small pivots that would eventually lead them to success. And to weather a lot of other challenging times, like the 2008 ish recession, the COVID 19 pandemic, they’ve been through a lot. And so some of these tactics were integrating more technology into the business, revamping their inventory process, establishing a website back in 2006, leaning into digital marketing, including local marketing platforms, leaning into the service aspect of their jewelry store business like repairs, building out their wedding jewelry offerings, which they say is recession-proof, because people are always going to be getting married, and connecting with business partners in their communities. There was one really great quote in this article, quote, “it’s a testament to all of us, and especially our parents, when shifts had to happen, or we needed to pivot. Everyone very much had an open mind and was willing to try. There was always a let’s try, let’s see mentality.” I love that. And I think it’s so important in marketing to have that kind of mentality, especially if you’re going for longevity in your business. What do you think about that? As I mentioned, you can visit sparkleaward.com to nominate a jewelry brand that’s inspiring you these days, and I might feature your submission on a future podcast episode.

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So let’s discuss some recent news related to jewelry or marketing. Each week, I share my thoughts about three relevant articles. And you can get the links to these articles by checking out the show notes. The first article comes from Yahoo Finance, and it’s all about Etsy. And the fact that they are set to drop or at least have started to drop $600 million on marketing this year, according to the CEO. So in helping its sellers prepare for the busy holiday season, Etsy is investing hundreds of million dollars into its platform, even in what many would say are very difficult economic times. $600 million to be exact, CEO Josh Silverman said on Yahoo Finance Live. “While a lot of other people might be pulling back, we think this is a great time to be leaning in and gaining share.” They definitely saw an uplift in interest during the pandemic. I think a lot of people were home shopping, maybe they want to discover something new. A lot of people were supporting these more like handmade jewelry brands. I know I personally was buying non surgical COVID Masks on Etsy because I wanted to support these makers. And also I believe it was just easier to get them in some ways because there was a shortage in stores. And so as he doesn’t want those customers to go away or lose interest. They got them interested during the pandemic, how can they keep their interest moving forward? So the company is now really focused on retaining that interest. And as that interest from the pandemic fades from view, Etsy sellers aren’t discounting more. And Etsy has launched more tools to allow sellers to decide where and to whom they want to offer discounts. And sellers also have an opportunity to raise their prices, if they think that’s appropriate as well. The fact that you’re getting something handmade just for you is valuable, and the sellers ought to be able to price for that. I love that Etsy is kind of giving that control back to the sellers, no matter what the pricing strategy is. So the main takeaway that I want to say about this article, is just like Etsy, now is probably a good time to invest in marketing in general, when the economy seems a little bit strained. It’s not a good time to pull back on the marketing budget. I know that that’s like a temptation for many people because they think they don’t have the money or the space. But even if it’s not budget than time, so whatever you’re investing into marketing, you need to be doubling down on it in a time of economic uncertainty.

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The next article comes from Sprout Social, and it’s called “How prioritization frameworks can make you a better marketer”. So Sprout Social, they are the makers of a social media marketing management platform. So they’re really experts at strategic social media marketing. And I really liked the article, this article from their blog, because it touches upon something I mentioned in Episode #194, which I’ll link in the show notes, when I talked about maintaining focus and marketing and setting your priorities. So, do you have trouble prioritizing tasks and strategies in your marketing? This article really talks about something that will help you. They mentioned a thing called prioritization frameworks. And these are great for when you have a ton of creative ideas, because I know all of you listening are probably very creative people, you’re probably awesome at brainstorming. You can come up with ideas all day long. But maybe you don’t know how to implement them, what order to implement them in, what’s the best approach for implementation.

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So knowing these prioritization frameworks can really help you with that. So I’ll just give you a summary of the ones that they mentioned. First, they talk about the value and effort framework. So this is one of the most straightforward frameworks to start with. And it’s a priority matrix that shows ideas on two axes, so value and effort. So obviously, when you put your ideas on this matrix, you want to think of things that will deliver the most value with the lowest effort, because those are the quick wins, and should really be tackled first. So knowing how much value a task or an initiative is going to give you, and how much effort it’s going to take pairing those two together, looking at them, and then setting your priorities accordingly, will really help you understand what to do first, second, third, fourth, etc. Another prioritization framework that they mentioned in this article is the PIE framework like a desert, pie. So this builds upon the value effort matrix that I just talked about, but breaks it down a little further. So pie stands for potential, importance, and ease. So potential refers to based on the size of our audience, based on our target customer, what is the potential impact here? Like what kind of result can we expect to see? Importance refers to based on your goals. How important is this thing to get you to where you want to be? And then ease kind of speaks to that effort thing I just mentioned. So like, how much time and complexity is this, this task going to take? So looking at those things together, can really help you prioritize. And then the last one they talk about is the rice framework, which stands for reach, impact, effort, and confidence. It’s very similar to the one I just talked about, but it adds confidence in there as a variable. So you can know based on data, insights, the condition of the marketplace, how confident are you that this is going to pay off. So these are all really important things you can take into consideration. If you struggle with implementing your ideas, finding like a priority order to put them into place, the main takeaway I have for you is to try one of these frameworks to start prioritizing your marketing activities, and then see how it works in helping you get things done and moving forward in your business.

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And then the last article comes from martech.org. And it’s called “Content Marketing. What is it and why marketers should care?” You’ve probably heard that content is king or queen. But what does that really mean? It’s kind of a vague statement. So today, and you’ve heard me mention this on the podcast before, part of delivering an exceptional customer experience means delivering relevant personalized content to customers in a way that works for them. Whether that’s through blog posts, video content, audio content, ebooks, etc. Content also really presents a lot of opportunities for personalization, which customers crave today. So content when it’s used in marketing, marketing, in an ideal sense, should really get users to take a next step action, whether that means signing up for your email list, asking you for more information about a product, following you on social media, scheduling a consultation or appointment. So you’re leading them along the buyers journey rather than just like spreading content all willy nilly. You should be meeting people at various stages. And to kind of sell you on content marketing a little bit more. If you’re not sure like why this matters. 91% of companies said they achieved some level of success with content marketing in 2021, According to SEM Rush’s 2022 State of Content Marketing Report, and most respondents said they plan to increase their content budgets and hire more content talent in 2022. So when you implement content marketing, you measure the success through tactics like website traffic, search engine rankings, and things like email, signups. And in the future, new technologies, like artificial intelligence and content technology will help marketers keep up with the demand of the personalized aspect of content. So my main takeaway for you from this article is content marketing is definitely something you should consider. If you’re tired of keeping up with the marketing rat race, and you have a really strong story brand, and you want to amplify and reiterate and consistently tell your story in a way that a lot of customers just aren’t getting in the jewelry industry today.

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For more information about any of these articles, check out the links that I provided in the show notes. All right, so let’s get into the main topic of the episode. What are you supposed to do when you start hearing buzz about a new social media platform, and you’re not sure whether you want to jump on it, whether it makes sense for your brand, etc.? So if you’re a primary marketing decision maker, and/or you’re involved in social media marketing for your business, ie, you’re the one doing it, then you’ll want to at least sign up for this new platform. And you don’t have to start a business account or one with your brand, you can start a personal account. I would say spend a few minutes on it every day just to begin to understand how it works, and how to really interact with it, and what other people are doing on it. And also, are there people on it in general? I know that I sign up for some new things, and they seem really popular. And then I go on there, and I realized that no one’s really engaged in it anyway. So I would say really get curious about this new platform. But try not to make any judgments about it. You’ll be tempted to make judgments, you’ll, you might think it’s stupid or silly, or, or maybe you think is cool, but try to reserve any judgments you have and look at your experience as objectively as possible.

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Then you really want to get more data about it in general. So how many active users does this platform have? Which demographics are spending the most time on it? Which kinds of brands are really utilizing their platform for their for their marketing strategies? And what are the projections around growth for this platform, because all of these things will impact your decision about whether or not to utilize it or not. And if there’s even a hunch, if you have even a thought that maybe you’ll join this platform as your brand, then you’ll definitely want to claim your brand’s handle or user name before anyone else does. Because there may be a copycat or someone else will take your name. And then you will lose that opportunity in the future and be really frustrated that you didn’t get your name before anyone else. So now that you’ve done the initial legwork, and you have an idea of what’s kind of going on on this platform, you’ll want to know, is this right for me and my brand? How do you know? Well, there are there’s like kind of a checklist, let’s say of things that you should go through to see if this new platform or tool is right for your brand.

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So number one, here comes broken record, Laryssa, know your customers, it is one of the most important factors, you have to know, are your customers on this platform? Could you see them joining in the future? If they are not there? Now, if your customers are on the platform, what are they doing there? Are they shopping? are they interacting with each other? Are they interacting with brands? What type of content do your customers want to see there? These are all things that you really need to investigate and know. You also want to know the platform’s opportunities and limitations. So like what is this platform actually good for? What is it known for? What do people hope to what do they expect to get there? And also, what does it not do? Because no social media platform or any platform really is perfect. Most of them have their own specialty. So like understand what the positives are and where the platform falls short and be realistic about those things.

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You also want to know your competition. So are your competitors signing up for this? Do they have a presence there? Are they doing it or not doing it? And either either answer whether they’re doing it or not doing it, that could potentially mean you want to be on it. So if they are on this platform, then maybe you want to join them and be competitive with them. They’re, if they’re not on this platform, then maybe you can be in a blue ocean, as they say, a clean ocean without sharks fighting, because you are the early adopter, the first brand of your kind that has decided to join this platform. So there are kind of reasons to do either or based on what your competitors are doing.

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Are you prepared to commit to this platform, especially to the content type that it requires? So let’s just take TikTok as an example. TikTok, obviously, you need to produce a lot of video content for the platform. That is the point. That’s what the algorithm likes. That’s what it wants you to do. TikTok also says that posting very frequently is another way to kind of get noticed and favored by the algorithm. They recommend three times a day. I’m not saying you have to do that. But can you keep up with like a regular pace that makes some kind of sense for you to be successful on the platform? If you can’t commit to these things, then it’s automatically it’s not a good fit for you. Also, are you willing to engage the way that the platform wants you to engage? So like on Instagram, for example, Instagram loves when you interact with Stories, in comments, and DMs. And as a brand, you really need to be engaging as much as you are posting. And different platforms have kind of different best practices around engagement. So you have to be really prepared for whatever the platform is going to demand of you. And then lastly, how do you know if it’s right for you? Is it aligned with your business and marketing goals? So not everyone has, when it comes to social media, sales as a goal, sometimes the goal of the social media presence is brand awareness. Sometimes it’s like, brand partnerships. Sometimes it’s to get those followers to sign up for an email list. Some people have that goal of sales, because they want people to engage with like, the Instagram checkout, or the Instagram shopping, or whatever the thing is on the platform that you’re using. So you really need to know your goal for that platform. Is it in alignment? And is it going to help you get to your goal? And then the last question I’m going to be addressing: how do you really get started on a new platform? I know that even if you decide that this platform, whatever it may be is right for you, it can be super overwhelming to start from scratch with anything and be patient to kind of wait and see how it will work for you. Well, definitely you want to have a strategy and a calendar. As I mentioned before, you want to know your goals, what you want to get out of the platform, and how that platform can help you achieve them, what the opportunities are, and know how you’re going to approach it. Like how often are you going to be posting? What types of content are you gonna be posting? And then have a calendar that says all of these things, then you want to choose goals around like numbers or measurable data, and then the key performance indicators that are going to help you understand that you’re on the track to achieving the goals. You definitely want to be researching the best practices of the platform. So as I mentioned earlier with TikTok, for example, it’s video first, it’s posting really frequently, when it comes to engagement, like what are the best practices around engagement? Know all of these things, and then familiarize yourself with all the tools and features that are available to you. Like just to take Instagram, for example, we know all the different surfaces like Reels, posts, videos, stories, Lives, and Instagram really wants you to utilize all of these things. Follow and study brands that are impressing you and are doing well or seem to be doing well. And I would encourage you to look outside of the jewelry industry for that. Remember that with social media, the point is to be social. So even as a brand you want to be authentic, and human.

24:41
Don’t get discouraged. These things take time to work, especially if you’re starting from zero. Just keep following through on your plan and continue having these like guideposts and milestones to make sure that you are actually moving toward your goals even if progress seems a little bit slow and steady. You can announce and cross promote on your other social media profiles. So if you are supplementing your Instagram presence for example, with TikTok, you can mention on Instagram that you’ve moved to TikTok. Make sure that you have slightly different content for both platforms, so that people are encouraged to follow you on each one. And don’t just stick with one or the other. Always when it comes to your brand, make sure there’s visual consistency and consistency with the tone and language as well. So you no matter how anyone is interacting with your brand, you want them to be getting the same experience from one customer touchpoint to another. And then as I just mentioned, having those like guideposts, those milestones and things to measure those key performance indicators, measuring and making strategic adjustments, so definitely not flying by the seat of your pants guessing, but continuing to try new things. And then pulling back when something doesn’t seem to be working and leaning in when something does seem to be working.

26:11
What did you think? Are you on the fence about joining a platform like TikTok? Let me know how you feel about it. You can always email me Laryssa that’s laryssa@joyjoya.com. If you love this podcast, please share it with a friend who’d appreciate it. And don’t forget to subscribe as well as leave a review on Apple Podcasts. To purchase a signed copy of my book Jewelry Marketing Joy, visit joyjoya.com/book for more information. Thanks for listening. Remember to subscribe so you never miss an episode. For more information about working with Joy Joya, visit joyjoya.com where you can sign up to download our free eBooks about various topics in jewelry marketing.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai