I'm on a mission to help a retail jewelry store owners find new and interesting things to blog about.
Every jewelry store should have a blog as a way to build organic traffic to their website. Making the blog interesting is important, and the Jewelry Information Center (aka JIC) can do a lot of the legwork for you.
JIC maintains 3 different website properties that all jewelers should tap into. Here they are:
Website: http://www.jic.org/
Facebook:http://www.facebook.com/JewelryInformationCenter
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JICjewelryinfo
Many jewelers already share the blog posts from the JIC website to Facebook and Twitter. Other jewelers retweet their Twitter musings. You could copy those strategies, or you can step up your marketing effectiveness by blogging about the JIC. Here's how...
First, you need to follow them on Twitter and Like them on Facebook. You should also monitor their "Trends" blog on their website. If you forget to monitor their website, they usually share some details about their Trends on Facebook that should remind you.
For each of their trends, they sometimes post examples of the jewelry. As I write this, they have a post about "Statement Necklaces" and some example photos. (here's the link:http://www.jic.org/index.php?page=jewelry-trends-2012-fashion-influences-statement-necklace)
As a jeweler, you can read what JIC says and go through those photos for fresh blog post own inspiration. Do you carry the same or similar items in your store? If so, take your own photos and describe the styles on your own blog. Always make sure to indicate that they are current styles for today, or for that season.
The actual blog posts on JIC tend to be terse, and sometimes you might have something more to say than the actual post. When that happens you can write a commentary about the original JIC blog.
For the commentary you need to reference the original blog, and link to it. You could also copy the JIC photos for use on your own website. I'm only suggesting you reuse their images because as of this writing the JIC website has no copyright or terms of use policy for their images.
Once you snag their images, give them credit, and link back, then you can make any additional commentary that you'd like. It could be further explanation of the photograph, the model/celebrity in the photograph, the jewelry style, the jewelry designer... anything that adds value to the original post.
With each of these blog posts, like all others, you should share their existence to your Facebook and Twitter accounts. This will help build links back to your blogs, generate social interest, and give Google a way to find your new posts.
Speaking of sharing... With each new JIC post to Facebook you have the opportunity to reshare it to your own jewelry store's page. They spend a lot of time providing education information for the consumers, and that information is, in fact, interesting. This is a free source of information that you can tap into to increase your Facebook EdgeRank.
Additionally, as you sift through the @JICjewelryinfo Twitter account you should retweet anything you find interesting. You could also respond back to one of the JIC tweets by using the Twitter name @JICjewelryinfo in your own tweet.
For example, on July 3, 2012 the JIC tweeted this message "Planning to hit the pool or beach this 4th of July? Remove ALL jewelry before swimming in the ocean or in a pool! Why? ..." As a jewelry store you could comment on that by saying "@JICjewelryinfo gave us some good advice why we should remove our jewelry before swimming this summer (include link to original post)" Conversational tweets like this will generate interest.
So give some attention to the JIC, they could make your blogging a lot easier.
