Before the SMART Show, the session I was most looking forward to seeing was the “Strategies for Advertising Fine & Designer Jewelry” panel with Dan Gordon (Samuel Gordon Jewelers, Oklahoma City, OK), Sean Moore (Borsheims, Omaha, NE) and Michael Finn (E.B. Horn, Boston, MA).

All three retailers are on the cutting-edge of digital marketing, and all three had incredible tips for jewelers who are trying to understand how to market in today’s high-speed environment – so many good things, in fact, that I’ve decided to split up my recap by retailer. I’ll start with Dan, who, coincidentally, has provided us with a captivating column on “native advertising” in social media, which will run in INSTORE in an upcoming issue.

If you know anything about Dan, you know he’s the industry expert on social media, and based on what I’ve seen and heard, he probably knows as much about how to use it to succeed in business as anyone this side of Mark Zuckerberg (and maybe more). You can learn a lot simply by following him at www.facebook.com/DanGordon and @DanGordon on Twitter. He shared his latest discoveries during the SMART Show panel.

1 Samuel Gordon’s current social media of choice are Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest. Because Instagram and Pinterest are visual-based platforms, they are perfect for showing off jewelry.

2 Twitter is most useful for connecting with high-profile people in your market, especially celebrities. So although Twitter doesn’t boast the following that Facebook does, the connections you can make with celebrities can be a huge boon to your business going forward.

3 You need a Google Plus account – but not for the reason you might think. No, it doesn’t look like Google Plus is going to overtake Facebook anytime soon in terms of users, but having an account does help you immensely in terms of Google searches (I can verify this: I Googled my own name, and the first item that popped up was my Google Plus account, though I’ve only logged onto it a few times). Dan advises that you create a Google Plus account even if you never plan to use it to connect socially with anyone. That said, Google most likely rewards active accounts even more, so Dan says to go into Google Plus and add users in your marketplace to your “circles” (you don’t need their permission to do this).

4 Samuel Gordon’s only advertises in niche print publications – no other print. Dan calls them “narcissistic publications,” which means people only open them up to see themselves or their friends (i.e., local magazines). The store does not advertise on TV or radio at all.

5 In regards to brands, Dan states that customers are more interested in “social ethics, the story of the jewelry, and finding something that fits them as an individual” than following brands.

6 Dan says he loves it when a customer asks to take a photo of the store’s jewelry with their phone. He says he also loves to hear that other local jewelers won’t let customers do so, because that means Samuel Gordon’s jewelry is what’s being shared among friends on Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, text messaging and more.

7In terms of “native advertising” – which means posts on Facebook that you can pay for in order to have them show up in people’s News Feeds – Dan purchases a geographic area (Oklahoma City) and targets interests like travel, jewelry brands, and competitor brands. He says promoting to people who are interested in your competitors is one of the best ways to target people who may buy from you in the future (based on the quality of your message, of course).

Next week, I’ll share tips from Sean Moore of Borsheims. Stay tuned!

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