Security is a big concern for jewelry store owners. Personal security and store security are a constant thought in the back of your mind. Safety is paramount for you, your employees, and your family. Social media marketing is now a necessary part of your marketing now, but how do you balance the public identity that best helps to build your business is you have all this security to worry about.There's no simple answer other than to tell you to use extreme caution. Jewelers should never share their location socially.
On Facebook you should never allow the mobile app to post your location. You should never allow your location to appear when you share through your desktop either. You should never use the Facebook check-in feature to tell friends where you are or who you are with.
On Twitter you should turn off the location feature. This will remove the ability to search your longitude and latitude of your last tweets.
On the Google+ mobile app you should not use the location feature to tag yourself at a specific place.
As the owner of a jewelry store, I don't think you should be using the Foursquare location based service check-in app.
Every photo uploaded to Instagram from your smartphone also includes geo-targeting information. This information can be tracked by anyone.
That said, there are ways to limit your exposure through each of these social networks as long as you carefully select what you share and who you share it with. To start off, jewelers should not be sharing anything that will clearly show someone where they are, meaning all those location aware posts should be turned off. Jewelers should also carefully consider the potential security issues of posting any photo of a recognizable landmark or location.
Another security precaution is to only share personal information with your well known friends. On Facebook this means organizing and sharing to a special list of friends; on Google+ this means sharing to a specific circle. For the other social networks you simply have to avoid posting personal information because there's no easy way to manage what becomes public.
Now that I've probably scared the bajesus out of you I want to switch gears and tell you unequivocally that it's extremely difficult for you to build a local business to meteoric heights unless you, the store owner, step forward and become the name and face of your business.
In this internet age we all want to make personal connections with the people we buy from. We want to know more about someone before we spend a lot of money with them. We each want to make sure that the person we're buying from knows what they are doing, and if they will be there in the future to support us when needed.
You, the jewelry store owner, are the only person in your store that's guaranteed to be there in the future. Employees come and go, but the owner and their families are the only people who have a vested interest in the long term success of the store. For that reason it's the store owner who needs to help build the reputation of the store.
In any business, no matter what size, the owner needs to become the most recognizable person in the business.
Using social media it's quite easy for a jewelry store owner to build up their local popularity. It starts with writing blog posts for the store's website. That then parlays into shared posts on social media where you can invite your friends to read what you wrote.
But it shouldn't stop there. Since you are the local jewelry expert you should continually share your jewelry knowledge socially when it relates to current events, trending news, or industry announcements.
For example, over the last week the next set of seasonal Pantone colors were announced. As a jeweler you should transform that announcement into a color wheel of how to match color gemstone jewelry to the upcoming clothing fashions.
Another example would be to write your own commentary on photographs from the next large fashion even.
Have you ever watched any of the entertainment industry's awards ceremony on TV? This includes the Tonys, Grammys, and Oscars--each of those represent an entire evening of opportunities to post jewelry related comments on your favorite social network. Many jewelers already do this using Facebook and Twitter, and it's easy to do while sitting on your couch.
Activities like this will show your audience that you are an expert in your field. Sharing this information needs to be done to the public, rather than limiting the posts to be seen only by your friends.
When you share information publicly you want to do it without any expectations of a sale, and you don't want to ask for the sale either. For example, when commenting on a red carpet event you don't want to say "Look at that celebrity's necklace and earring set, we have those in our store." The better commentary would be "The necklace and earring set this celebrity is wearing is by XYZ Designer. It's made of that metal and has this many diamonds in it. It's an exquisite combination."
That last example shows your expertise and it would be genuinely interesting for your potential customer to read. As I said above, customers want to know who they are buying from, and to make sure they are knowledgeable about their industry. Although this is a simple example of how you can educate your customer, that education will turn into lasting trust.
You should have a business account registered for all the social networks, and someone should be posting regular updates to those business accounts, but it's far easier to market yourself as a personal brand that is leading the business.
People like to buy from people, not companies.
Use your personal accounts to comment on the Pantone colors, the fashion runways, and the award ceremonies. Each of these will prove your expertise, and people will ask for you by name when they come into your store.
All these efforts could put you in a local celebrity spotlight of your own. There are huge rewards that will come from building your personal brand recognition this way, but you also have to carefully weigh the dangers to your personal security if you allow your movements to be tracked through location aware social posts.
