Laryssa Wirstiuk 0:08
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.

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.

This is episode 185, and today I’m going to be sharing five creative ways that you can use LinkedIn for marketing your jewelry business. These tips will apply to all categories of jewelry businesses from direct to consumer to business to business and beyond at any size, in any category within the jewelry industry. You can modify the tip to make it work for you.

So in this episode, you’ll learn:

1. What is LinkedIn? Why does it play a relevant role in digital marketing for jewelry businesses?

2. What are my five tips, I’ll also share some examples of how they can be applied and modified in a few different ways.

3. And finally, a takeaway homework assignment, so you can start using LinkedIn to your advantage.

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 active 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. Moving forward I’m going to be reading some of my favorite reviews, and even creating new episodes based on the recommendations and topic suggestions that you all the Joy Joya podcast fans leave in their reviews, so please let me know what you want in the future.

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.

So this week Sparkle Award goes to Tiffany & Co. I learned about this from Women’s Wear Daily. They are getting ahead of the NFT wave and have made the decision to create NFTiff passes for holders of the NFT community Crypto Punks. With this NFTiff pass collectors will be able to purchase a bejeweled pendant featuring their valuable NFT avatar. This is a pretty bold and exciting move for Tiffany because NFTs typically pander to a younger audience. This innovative and fun approach to bringing utility and real world use of an NFT will be a trailblazing trend that I suspect many jewelry houses will want to jump on as well. Tiffany has taken the initiative to keep their brand fresh, and it seems like it will pay off. It’s also interesting that Tiffany will be accepting Ethereum the cryptocurrency as a form of payment for these pendants, making them one of the first jewelry fashion houses to conform to decentralized finances. Tiffany plans on only issuing 250 NFTiff passes, and each pendant will be made of 18 karat rose or yellow gold with diamonds. And they plan on getting the physical product out by early 2023. Really exciting.

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.

Let’s discuss some recent news related to jewelry or marketing. Each week I share my thoughts about three relevant articles, and if you want to read the articles yourself and get those links, you can find them in the show notes.

The first one comes from envato.com, and it’s called “Product Packaging Design Trends for 2022”. From sustainable packaging to personalisation if you are a jewelry brand that’s looking to upgrade their packaging, maybe for holiday maybe for next year, perhaps it’s just time to have a refresh, then you’ll definitely want to know about some of these packaging design trends, and possibly incorporate them into the new version of your packaging.

So a few quotes from the article that I thought were really important. “72% of American consumers say their purchasing decision is heavily influenced by the packaging design of the products they buy or don’t”. And then “product packaging is evolving to be more focused on practicality, sustainability, and organic handcrafted design”.

So let’s go through the trends.

One, illustration, and collage, a lot of packaging features like hand drawn illustrations, or maybe even a collage format, which is like a mishmash of pictures or images.

Definitely gradients. So that’s when one color shifts to another in a subtle way. This is an easy and effective way to add texture and dimension to packaging.

Three – eccentric typography, so really interesting fonts, unusual fonts. Sometimes they’re hand drawn, things that you wouldn’t normally see like your typical Arial, or Times New Roman.

Number four – more handmade and handcrafted designs. So one quote from the article, “more and more people are asking for brown or kraft paper with plain white or black printing. Shiny and new looking packaging is now long gone, and the world of slightly unpolished is here”. Now, again, that may or may not resonate with your brand, but I think it’s a really interesting approach.

Number five, of course, no surprise here, sustainable packaging, there are a ton of new materials coming out in the packaging world like mushroom based packaging, edible packaging. They may be a little bit out of reach for smaller brands, because these materials typically tend to come at a premium. But if you research what’s out there and sustainability is important for your brand, you could likely find a material that will satisfy both you your business values. And also not just those two things, but your customers.

Number six, value engineered packaging. So not only are you delighting the customer with beautiful packaging, but you’re kind of making more for it for your brand. So sometimes inside their packaging, there’s some kind of advertising, it doubles the amount of space that you have to provide an additional message to your customer, maybe you want to share a customer loyalty program.

And of course, no surprise, along with this sustainable packaging personalized packaging is in. It’s great for building rapport with your customers by demonstrating that you really value them and want to build a personal relationship with them. And 80% of consumers today are more likely to buy from a company that provides a tailored purchasing experience.

This second article comes from insiderintelligence.com. And it’s called “What Consumers Want From Loyalty Programs”. When it comes to loyalty programs, if you’ve been thinking about implementing one, or you do have one and you want to upgrade it and take it to the next level, 61% of consumers worldwide would use them more if rewards were applied automatically. So if that’s not currently a feature in your loyalty program, or if you’re thinking about launching one and you’re like “what features should I have?”. That’s definitely one that’s important. More than half would be tempted if they could use rewards across multiple brands, personalize their rewards, or track their points easily. So the first one may be a little bit out of reach for small businesses unless you have a partnership with another brand. But personalizing the rewards or especially being able to easily track points. I think that last piece is a very important feature of a loyalty program.

And then number three: around the world 56% of consumers said they’re more likely to buy from a brand with a loyalty program. But 64% of loyalty program members don’t redeem rewards more than a few times a year. So they definitely don’t want perks that are going to make them jump through hoops. They want loyalty programs that are easy that makes sense for them. And that encourage them to come back and not only use their points but also make more purchases, which makes everyone happy.

And then the last article comes from socialmediatoday.com. It’s called “Meta Publishes New Guide on How to Get Started With Reels”, and how to improve Reels performance. This is awesome. If you’ve been wanting to get more into Reels, create more Reels, better and more compelling reels. Now there’s a guide from the source.

So I’m just gonna give you a quick rundown of some of the tips. And then if you want, you can go to this article that will be linked in the show notes, and you can check out the guide for yourself.

So, topic is super important, especially if you’re doing an informative reel, you want to stick to the topic and be really focused, it can sometimes be tempting to like just incorporate some of these fun features of Reels or hop on a Reels trend. But audiences who are viewing Reels want the content to be super focused format.

If you decide you want to include pictures in your Reel, or if you want it to be strictly video, pick one format and kind of stick with it so that it doesn’t become like a mashup of a lot of different things. If you’re just doing photos, you want to consider doing a voiceover as well, to kind of add that dynamic element to your Reel.

Music and sound are huge considerations when you’re creating Reels. Some creators shy away from adding music to their Reels because maybe they think it distracts from the content. But the truth is, if you use a trending sound, which can help you get better reach on your Reel, you can lower the volume, so it’s not distracting at all. But the trending sound is still present in the Reel and can still give you that reach that you want to get in the benefits of the trending sound. So it’s a chance for your Reel to be seen more.

Using effects and stickers can also be useful when doing a promotion during a holiday. So for example, Instagram often has trending stickers for special days, like Small Business Day or Fourth of July. And if you include the stickers, then you will ensure that your Reel shows up in the feed where others have also used it allowing for more visibility.

Of course, use hashtags to help categorize your Reels content, and make sure you pick a cover photo for your Reel that attracts attention when people are scrolling through their feed. As I mentioned, if you want to get the links to these articles, just check out the show notes. They’re all there. I would love to hear any feedback or thoughts that you have about what’s going on now in the jewelry industry and in the world of marketing.

Without further delay, let’s talk about LinkedIn and how you can creatively use it for marketing your jewelry business. No matter what kind of jewelry business you have. Remember that marketing your jewelry business doesn’t actually always mean a focus on attracting your end consumers. Sometimes it means attracting and getting the attention of brand partners, influencers, collaborators, new employees, partnerships, investments, press opportunities, vendors, retailers, new sales, channel opportunities, and more. There’s a lot that goes into marketing and building relationships that’s not always directly focused on the end consumer. So even a direct to consumer brand can benefit from having an active presence on LinkedIn. And who knows an educated and savvy consumer may even want to see more about your business, about your brand values, business news and updates before deciding to purchase from you. And that’s all that I’m going to share today.

So first, I’m going to answer the question, what is LinkedIn? And why does it play a relevant role in digital marketing today for jewelry businesses. LinkedIn describes itself as “the world’s largest professional network on the internet”. It was founded in 2002 as a place for people to connect regarding their jobs, professions and careers. So you could connect with your co workers and supervisors, people you’ve worked with collaborated with professionally, etc. You could find jobs and career opportunities and share updates about things related to your work and industry. According to Statista, in 2022 professional networking platform LinkedIn is projected to reach 66.8 million monthly users active users in the United States up from 50.5 million users in 2018. Most people see LinkedIn as a place to connect with colleagues and then they kind of stop there with it. They don’t really spend any time on the platform, they don’t engage. It’s kind of more like a virtual Rolodex of people who they’ve come in contact with throughout the years related to their careers and work. Or they only see it as a place to do b2b sales. So if you’re a jewelry wholesaler, for example, you may be using LinkedIn to prospect buyers at jewelry retail companies to see if they’d be interested in carrying their products. But it’s an awesome place to build brand presence, brand awareness, and start forming important relationships with movers and shakers who can support your marketing efforts. It’s also a place to further your brand’s story, and especially to share your brand values, which we all know is very important in 2022. So what are my five tips? I will tell you them right now. I’ll also share some examples of how they can be applied and modified in a few different ways.

Tip number one, publish unique and engaging content. So if you haven’t been on LinkedIn lately, you may not realize that LinkedIn actually offers a number of different ways that you can post content. First, you can share links, videos and photos through a Facebook style update that’s available to every LinkedIn member. And then there’s actually what’s called Creator Mode on LinkedIn, that allows you access to many other tools anywhere and it’s not limited to any specific person. If you have a LinkedIn account, you can activate Creator Mode, it’s a setting on your profile. And it’s just a setting that gives you access to additional content creation options. And those include a newsletter. So that’s what LinkedIn is calling a set of regularly published articles typically about a specific topic. It’s almost like a blog that you maintain on LinkedIn. And then your followers get notified every time you post something new. If you want to see examples, you can subscribe to a newsletter, and then choose to receive in-app notifications whenever the author publishes a new article. You also get access to livestream and live audio content, which you can publish from your personal profile. I really liked this quote from marketing expert Katie Brinkley, “People want to do business with other people. So show them you care about the human element of your business, show off the positive things you’re doing in your community”. And I think that really summarizes the advantage of LinkedIn that perhaps you don’t, you won’t get from like Instagram, or TikTok or Facebook. You as a business owner, a leader, a top employee, or team member in your business, can really show off the human element of what it’s like to be in that business day to day, what that business represents, in a really human way, and then communicate that to the world, again, in a way that is possible on some of these other platforms. But it may not resonate as clearly, as it does on on LinkedIn, that’s really a space for doing that. Now, if you want an example of a, let’s call him a thought leader on LinkedIn, who’s doing such a great job of posting content, engaging, meaningfully, interacting, being a really good representative and face of his business, you should definitely check out the profile for Zulu Ghevriay. And he’s the CEO and creative director of Smiling Rocks, which is a lab grown diamond jewelry company that does both wholesale and direct to consumer. And I’ll put the link to his LinkedIn profile in the show notes. So you can just get a feel for and see what some of the what some people in the jewelry industry are really doing on LinkedIn.

My second tip is encourage your team or people who are in your circle to also be active on LinkedIn. So if you’re a solopreneur, maybe this won’t apply to you. But I think even if you are a solopreneur, there are definitely people you collaborate with, whether they are people that you get materials or tools from, whether they’re like freelancers that you work with. And if you do have a team of people, even if it’s small, I would really encourage your employees, your collaborators to post on LinkedIn and share the exciting things that they’re doing for your company, or even to just reshare your content so that it can get seen by more people. If it’s your employees, you can even potentially provide them with weekly or monthly ideas of things that they can share on LinkedIn, and make it part of the business culture to have people have an active LinkedIn presence, the content that they post, which you can also reshare. Or maybe they can reshare your content will draw attention to your brand via your circle of influence. And it just shares like overall good vibes about your brand on LinkedIn and beyond.

Tip number three, definitely create if you haven’t done so already, or if you have update your company page. So a company page exists separately from your personal LinkedIn profile. And it’s just, it is what it’s what it’s called, it represents your business. So it’s a page where you can share updates and news about your business. You can also add yourself as an employee to your company page. And if you have team members or collaborators, you can encourage them on their LinkedIn profiles to connect to themselves as employees or contractors to your company page. When you do create this company page, take the time to ensure that the colors, images and content align with your organization’s visual brand in general. So it should have the same look and feel as your website and your other social media presence on other platforms. Some things that you can post on your company page, news about new products and collections, celebrate new hires or like work anniversaries of people who have been with your company for a long time. New business partnerships, press. That’s a huge thing for jewelry, Where has your jewelry recently been featured? Are you doing any live events? Any business wins? Maybe it’s your business anniversary, or you’ve had like the highest grossing revenue year yet. Any news about philanthropic efforts or ways that you’re giving back to your community. And again, as I mentioned, if you have employees, I would also encourage them to connect themselves to your company page. If you want to see a great example in the jewelry industry, I would definitely look at Stuller. They do an awesome job of keeping their company page updated. And it looks very much in alignment with their brand overall.

Tip number four, send out those good vibes and engage on the platform. I would definitely suggest following industry leaders that you really admire or even leaders and thought leaders in other industries that are doing things that you think are really cool, interesting, that you look up to. The best part about LinkedIn is that it really reminds you that you’re not in a vacuum in the world of this jewelry industry, or in entrepreneurship or business in general. And it reminds you that in your business challenges, you don’t always have to try to reinvent the wheel that there are people and companies who have come before you that have figured out some of these challenges that you may be dealing with. And I think on LinkedIn by following those people you can admire, you can learn lessons from those companies from those people who have come before you and paved the way. Many companies are often posting news about things like their marketing campaigns, their new initiatives. So you can kind of get a sense to see what other people in the industry and even outside of the industry are doing and really learn from and get inspired by them. Also, following journalists and other thought leaders in this industry can help you stay on top of trends and innovations that you can also incorporate into your messaging and marketing. And I would really encourage you to be part of that conversation on LinkedIn. And don’t just be a lurker, but actually engage with some of these posts, and share your thoughts and ideas. And let them get to know you as well because there may be some mutual opportunities for partnerships or other things in the future.

And then tip number five, consider joining LinkedIn groups to make connections that will help you enrich your marketing. You can search groups for anything related to the jewelry industry. So all you have to do is go to the search bar at the top of LinkedIn. You can type something like jewelry, digital marketing, social media marketing, entrepreneurship, leadership, whatever the topic is that you’re interested in and kind of struggling with and maybe you would want a sense of community around, and you can type that keyword into the search box. And then there are filters where you can choose people. I believe it’s companies, and then there’s a filter for groups. So if you type groups, it will show you all the groups related to that topic. And you can simply request to join them and also see how many people are members of them. And those are great ways to do some virtual networking, to maybe see what are other people’s concerns within this topic. And again, to learn from engage with and to potentially make new virtual connections, you may even be able to find local groups in your area to do some like local cross promotional business marketing, or just help you learn your local market better.

So my homework for you might ask for you is to start exploring the possibilities of LinkedIn, maybe it isn’t where you want to be focusing your time and attention. But maybe it is, and you won’t know until you take the time to explore there. So one, if you don’t already have a business or company page, or you do have one, and it’s been a while since you looked at it and checked, if it was updated, I would really invite you to start there to make sure that your business does have a presence on LinkedIn. And if you do have an updated company page, maybe it’s time to do some housekeeping on your personal profile. How are you showing up on LinkedIn? Do you ever take the time to kind of engage meaningfully with other people on there, comment on posts? I would say maybe once a week for 10 minutes, get on the platform. And at least try to immerse yourself in the industry and see what you can learn there. Because there’s a lot of great knowledge sharing happening there. At the very least you can learn about trends in the industry. Follow some industry journalists, like people who write for national jeweler or JCK. And see what are they posting about. And I would really invite you to take the time to see one, what you can get out of the platform, and also how you can add to the industry conversation and what value you can get out of it. So that is my homework for you.

What do you think? Have you ever tried sinking your teeth into LinkedIn? If you have thoughts, ideas, questions, 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 iTunes 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