Is your business getting the full value from its social media presence that it should be getting?

Do you sometimes lose sleep wondering if all that time you and your team spend on social media marketing is giving you an ROI? Are you spending money on social media ads, but not sure if they are yielding results? Here are a few things for you to consider.

Social is . . . Well . . . Social!

As an industry, we understand the value of person-to-person interaction. Our entire trust model is built on the handshake, and relationships that go back decades. So in many ways, the shift to digital business is jarring. In the mad rush to take enough pictures and post enough updates, one thing that a lot of businesses forget is that social media is supposed to be a digital extension of the real-life experience.

We don’t walk around at trade shows with little sign-boards professing our love for certain foods or showing pictures of our products. We stop and talk to each other! We meet at the bar, sit down for meetings, and hug one another in the aisles (yes, vaccinations-willing, that will start happening again too). But when it comes to social media, it seems we have forgotten how important that is.

If you have delegated all social media responsibility to your junior team members (because they’re young!) or outsourced it completely, you’re missing a lot of opportunity. Because there’s a good chance that your youngest  team members don’t know Lenny B, and how his dad and your dad go way back. So when Lenny B hits “like” on one of your images, nobody thinks to pop in and write “Hey Lenny! How’s is going? Good to see you on here!”

There’s a very good chance your youngest team members don’t really understand what it’s like to feel the pressure of running a business. So when one of your customers posts about the challenges she faced during a power blackout, or when her employees had to go on quarantine, they wouldn’t think to respond with a heart-felt message of support.

Business owners in the jewelry industry should be monitoring social media feeds for opportunities to communicate with customers in an authentic way. You should also ask your employees to bring to your attention any post that would benefit from your response.

You may think this will be a lot of work (and it might), but don’t you expect the same in your store or at a trade event? You want to be called out front for certain customers. You hang out on the floor looking for long-time customers. You engage in conversations just for the sake of relationship building. This should be part of your social media experience too.

Especially during these times of social distancing, anything you can do to increase conversations with your clients will have a positive return. So don’t just do social media. Be social! Your customers will thank you.