Here's a simple Daily Golden Nugget for you. Let's look at the social media sites that jewelers are using, and some of the best ways they are generating website traffic.
These are the top referral social sites of interest, in order of measured results:
1. Facebook
2. Yelp
3. Google+
4. Pinterest
5. LinkedIn
Facebook generated the most number of referral clicks, with a 5.15 average number of pages viewed by a visitor.
Yelp is in second place with the number of visitors, with an average of 5.81 pages viewed per visitor. Visitors from Yelp stayed an average of 3 minutes 52 second.
Google+ may be in third place with the number of visitors, but those visitors browsed through an average of 11.58 pages over an average of 3 minutes 51 seconds.
Most referrals from Facebook are arriving on the home pages of a retailer's website. Although I didn't measure it this time, in previous tests I discovered that home page arrivals were being clicked from the About page on Facebook rather than from the Facebook timeline or News Feed.
The best Timeline posts to generate links back to your website include links to individual product detail pages, links to designer line pages, and links to general product category pages. I also notice several jewelers are starting to share their own website About Us page, and it's getting clicks.
If you're looking to make money with all the time you spend on Facebook you need to figure out what will make your audience leave Facebook and click to your website.
Moving on to Yelp... Jewelers are not doing anything impressive here. Most of them link their Yelp account to the home page. Yelps own marketing and visibility in local markets makes this a useful service that you all should sign up with.
I'm pleased to see retail jewelers finally taking an interest in Google+. It seems Google's merging of Places into Plus is getting attention. Most of the referrals from G+ land on the retail jeweler's home page. Because of the higher number of average pages viewed, I will draw the conclusion that G+ visitors are more interested, and perhaps more educated.
For myself, when I want to laugh and see what friends are doing I browse through Facebook for a few minutes. When I want to find out more interesting things, I read Google+ and usually hang out there for a considerably longer time. How do you use Google+?
My recommendations for Google+ usage include setting up both your Google+ Local account and a Google+ Page for your store. Post photos of rings, but make sure the photos are clear, colorful, large, and have a story. Google+ users love photographs, especially photos with stories. Snap a pic in your store and blab a story to Google+ for some good website traffic generation.
Pinterest is still growing. From what I can tell, all of the visitors referred from Pinterest landed on a product detail page. Naturally this makes sense because the jewelers using it are pinning product photos and links to the product detail pages. This is something you should be doing.
I'm giving an honorable mention to LinkedIn because the few jewelers who use it have positioned themselves as professional jewelers, and included links to their website in their profile. There's not much in terms of direct consumer marketing, but let's face it, other professionals are your potential consumers.
LinkedIn activity includes an occasional participation in a group conversation, or sharing a link to your own website when you have an event to announce. I don't suggest doing direct sales advertising. You could also create your own conversation within one of the groups you are a member of. Many times someone will look at your profile and website before answering your question.
