Top 3 Social Media Trends Every Brand Needs To Know Now

In the world of social media marketing, each day brings new challenges as well as opportunities for businesses. As hard as it is to stay on top of the latest algorithm change or a new app feature, it’s essential for jewelry brands and retailers to look ahead and plan their social media strategy accordingly. To help you navigate the ever changing social media landscape, we’ve compiled the top three trends you need to know right now.

TREND # 1: SOCIAL MESSAGING

Jewelry brands can tap into social messaging apps for their business by providing personalized customer service directly to the client via messenger apps. You can tap into this marketing tool by creating messaging groups and sending product updates and special promotions directly to your customers.

Chatbots are also quickly gaining popularity and provide a one-on-one interaction 24/7 with customers. Chatbots can answer frequently asked questions and offer suggestions and more information on the brand's various products and or services. Services like Chatfuel, Manychat & Botisfy help brands create chatbots quickly and economically.

TREND # 2: LIVE CONTENT

Live streaming on Facebook, Instagram, Youtube and other platforms is crucial for your social media marketing mix today. Live streaming helps you build trust, credibility and empathy with your customers. Live streaming also allows you to reach your most loyal customers since it takes dedication and a high level of interest to watch a livestream.

Many jewelry brands are using live streaming to showcase everything from their latest products to life and work highlights behind the scenes. Users can live stream directly from networks like Facebook and Instagram. You can also look into tools including Agora and OBS that allow you to live stream to multiple networks at the same time.

TREND #3: SOCIAL VR

Many social media users are taking social media networking to virtual reality with the help of popular VR headsets like the Rift and HTC Vive. Facebook's Spaces experience allows you to become an avatar and interact with people from around the world. Users go live, make messenger calls using their avatars and take selfies of their VR memories.

Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) are allowing brands to create a fully immersive experience for customers that are memorable and highly shareable. Giving customers the chance to try before they buy from anywhere in the world is also a major marketing tool that shouldn’t be missed.

The most popular social VR apps include Facebook's own Spaces, Altspacevr, Big screen and vTime. Brands and stores can create their own “try on app” for their jewelry collections by using a third party service like the Try On App or hiring an AR agency.

CONCLUSION

As the second half of the year begins, we hope that you’ll incorporate one or all of these trends into your social media marketing mix. Social media trends come and go faster than ever so it’s important to keep your brand’s DNA and choose to incorporate trends that make sense for your business. Also, don’t forget to keep an open mind and be as flexible as possible to easily adapt to the new digital landscape.

- MILLISSA MATHAI

Social Media Tips for Fashion Brands

I received a lot of positive feedback for my last post on “Social Media Tips for Jewelry Brands,” and in this article I’ll share a few other tips for my fellow fashion industry members. Fashion and social media go hand in hand, so it should come as no surprise that all fashion brands should embrace social media in order to enhance their presence in the marketplace. I've had the pleasure of working with fashion brands big and small in the past seven years and have discovered a few proven tricks for gaining followers, driving more traffic to your site through social media, and, of course, generating sales leads.

Wanelo

Wanelo, short for ‘want, need, love,’ is one of the most effective mobile shopping apps, beloved by fashionistas under 25 worldwide. It's a never-ending feed of things you never knew you needed. I discovered this app when I was a social media specialist at a popular online boutique. I noticed that Wanelo was driving significant traffic to the store's Web site and I wanted to explore the capabilities further, so I had my team place all of our products (over 2,000 SKUs) to the app, and within six months it became the top traffic-driving referral source (even trumping Facebook). It's a good idea to post all of your items to Wanelo; and once on Wanelo the products will link back to your site if the user is interested in making a purchase. Make sure to put in all the appropriate tags for your products--don't get lazy with tagging!

Twitter Chats

Want to get in on the conversation? Join #StyleChat, the weekly fashion chat that takes place every Wednesday from three to four PM EST. This fashion-focused  chat lets you genuinely engage with the fashion flock and is a proven way to showcase your expertise by answering questions. It's also a good idea to follow the people who take part in this chat because they are Twitter power users who are more likely to engage with your brand in the future.

The Power of Pinterest

I can't believe how many fashion brands are not on Pinterest. What a mistake they’re making! Pinterest is now the world’s third most popular social media network and it cannot be ignored. In my experience, visitors to our Web site who come from Pinterest have a better conversion rate. The average referral order via Pinterest is around $80, which is twice as much as Facebook. Instead of making random boards, why not create boards based on different themes, trends, and even color stories. Look at your moodboard and see what inspired you that season, and then create different boards for each of your inspirations. Lastly, don’t forget to install the “Pin it” button on your Web site, making it super easy for your customers to pin items from your site to Pinterest.

Facebook Albums

Most people nowadays don’t go directly to a Web site; instead, they search for brands directly from Facebook and  browse the brand’s Facebook page looking through their albums to see their latest offerings. You can benefit from this behavior by creating albums of your products. You can do new arrival albums where you post up your latest stock items as they come in, and also create albums based on your different categories. Make sure to put a link back to your website on each photo.

Want more social media tips? Follow me @MILLISSAMATHAI for the latest social media, tech and fashion news!

-Millissa

Top 10 Social Media Tips For Jewelry Brands

Happy 2015! I’m so excited for this year and the many opportunities for all of us that lie ahead. In this week's blog post I wanted to talk about 10 strategic social media tactics all jewelers should implement into their social media strategy in 2015. I hope you will add a few of these tips into your social media strategy this year to boost engagement, gain new fans, and increase sales.

#1. Define your brand

I see a lot of brands trying to encompass everyone and everything instead of focusing on their niche. Start the year off right by really defining the DNA of your brand. Here are some questions you NEED to answer and they will help you carve out a nice little space in the industry. Also try to answer these questions with your C-level execs or discuss these questions with your client, if you're a social media manager, to make sure everyone is on the same page.

1. Define your brand in three words.
2. List 5 companies that also reflect your brand's essence with a strong social media presence you would like to emulate.
3. What type of posts have worked the best last year?
4. Which posts bombed on social media?
5. What kind of feeling do you want your social media audience to have when they visit your Facebook page?

Now that you have a better idea of what your brand stands for, make sure that all you social media postings stay true to your brand. 

#2 Refresh your pages

It's important to freshen up your social media cover pages on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ at least every month. Cover pages will help define your brand's aesthetic and also showcase your latest designs and stock. I like to use collages since you can display more than 3 images at a time. If you don’t have graphic skills you can find a designer on odesk.com, elance.com and many other freelance sites.

#3 Share more customer photos

Social media should be social so don't be afraid to get REAL. Sharing customer photos is an effective way to increase your page's interaction and also give potential customers another perspective on your products. This year create a customer album and fill it with photos of customers who post pictures of themselves in your jewelry on your wall. Also create a unique hashtag and encourage customers to use it on Instagram so their photos will be easy to find. 

#4 Post more "real" photos

Instead of depending on product or ad shots, mix it up by taking photos of your jewelry on a real person. I've noticed that "real-life" photos get a lot more engagement and are more inspirational. They let customers see your jewels in the flesh and allow them to imagine the piece on themselves.

#5 Put your social media links on everything

I'm always surprised when brands fail to display their social media pages on their email signatures, business cards, and magazine ads. Make sure you add your social media links to everything that lists your website. That means on all marketing materials.

#6 Do giveaways

Want to make people excited in under 10 seconds? Host a giveaway! Choose something small but still exciting to give away. An engagement ring brand might want to give away a diamond band, or a jewelry store might want to give away a gift certificate. Make it significant enough to cause people to care. Contests will boost your engagement and also win you additional followers.

#7 Influencer program

We all have super fans who comment and like most of our posts. It's important to keep their loyalty and encourage their  brand evangelism. Identify ten of your most engaged fans and followers and make them your brand ambassadors. Engage them by giving them free products, exclusive discounts, and access to VIP events. If you're a local jeweler make sure they live in your area, they will tell their local friends and family.  If you are a national brand you should consider paying style bloggers to be ambassadors for wider reach.

#8 Make videos

This is something I'm working on myself this year. Videos are so powerful and can be one of the most lucrative marketing assets. You can hire an actor to do the videos and either tape the video in a camcorder, phone, or laptop and use iMovie to edit them yourself. There are also companies that can do all of this for you. Make sure your videos are interesting and try to make them informative rather than pushing your product. Make sure to title your videos and add descriptions that will make your video easy to find.

#9 Set up a feed

It's hard to stay on top of all the news, but this year make it a point to discuss more current events on your page. I like to use Feedly, a reader that pulls in the latest articles from my favorite news sites and blogs. Once you have your Feedly set up you can share the articles directly to your social media pages. You can also use Feedly with Sprout Social to either schedule posts for a later date or go into Sprout's queue and be automatically scheduled and posted at optimal times.

#10 Facebook advertising

What if I told you that you can get 10,000 fans in one week with only $1,000.00 . . . would you do it? Well you can easily achieve this with FB ads. The key is to choose your target well. Your best bet is to target a competing local business or brand. Once you have done this, target local publications or niche publications. Last but not least, target your own demographic. Facebook has been the top social media site in terms of referrals to my clients’ websites, so investing in Facebook ads is a sure way to expand your reach in 2015.

I hope you enjoyed this article! Please comment below with any questions you have and I will try to answer them. Also please let me know if you have any article suggestions you'd like me to write in 2015.

Wishing you all a dazzling 2015! May success find you in all of you endeavors.

Millissa Mathai