The internet of things (IoT) now connects so much of daily life it's hard to remember what things were like 23 years ago when it was just in its infancy. New internet connected devices are announced every day that will undoubtedly shape our futures of personal life and how we reach customers and conduct business. Although there are plenty of new tech toys announced every week, it's the smartphone which has changed how we manage our daily lives.
With all these changes happening in the world around us, it's hard to im... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
Once upon a time, Facebook was the social network for college friends only. Then it was opened up to anyone to join. It was a free-for-all of friends keeping in touch without any special filtering getting in the way of seeing your friend's status updates.
When they let businesses join, there was a sudden surge of unwanted solicitations and plenty of users complaining that they were seeing too many business posts in their news feed. As is all things internet related, businesses viewed Facebook as t... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
I recently had someone tell me that they felt it was better to post anything to their business Facebook account than nothing at all. This particular jeweler didn't have anyone in the store willing to manage their Facebook account, yet they felt it was important to be active.
Their solution was to hire a social media management company that didn't know anything about jewelry, and was posting non sequitur information to their account. Although their fan base was slowly increas... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
Many retail jewelers still struggle managing the time it takes to promote themselves on social media. Unfortunately, even though you can hire an agency to manage your social accounts, the best way to engage your customers is to establish your brand's own online identity.
It's difficult to allocate the time needed to engage on social media amidst the daily routine needed to run a jewelry store. Instead of doing it all yourself, you could allow your employees to engage soc... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
This is the Friday website review edition of the Daily Golden Nugget. Today, I'm going to perform an incognito Google search for a random jewelry store candidate in Blackstone, Virginia, then review their website.
The goal of this weekly website review is to learn something new, or at least to see an implementation of something good or bad that you never knew.
When I used the search query "jewelry stores in blackstone va" I was given these results:
This is the Friday website review where I dissect a random retail jeweler's website to find the good and bad that we can all learn from. Although I write about website design, search engine optimization, and online marketing every day, sometimes all that stuff doesn't make any sense unless you see exactly how it applies to a real website.
That's why I dedicate one day every week to these reviews of randomly selected jewelry stores.
Normally I ask someone on my team to give me a random city name, but this week's review c... VIEW FULL GOLD NUGGET
Back in February, I reported that Facebook changed their Advertising Guidelines to limit how much space in your cover photo could be used for text. This guideline quickly became known as the 20% Rule my many Facebook marketers and it seriously limited how you could use Facebook to quickly attract attention of your page fans.
To the delight of many Facebook marketers, this 20% Rule was removed on July 1, 2013. This is great news that allows us to use our cover photos for ads, notifications, and calls to action... Facebook gave us back the permission they took away from us when they launched the 2012 major layout redesign, back when we only had tall Profile Pictures in the left margin.
This Nugget might be more of a Soap Box statement than an educational piece, but it's important.
Facebook services an alleged 600 million users accounts now, but they only have around 1,000 employees. They have no customer service department, and when you have trouble, you are forced to use the online help system to get answers from other users.
Their system is very big, and even with the help system, it is impossible to figure out how to post a question. The only way you can talk to a live person is to have a paid advertising account with them.
Facebook has a very strict set of rules. They are almost absurd, actually. The most absurd is that each person is allowed only 1 account. We've expressed our dislike of this policy during our Live 2 Event in August 2010.
"...articles are easy to follow and seem to have information one can use right away." -Ann, Gallery 4, Hamden CT
"...serious kudos to you. We love your straight talk, pertinent information and plain language. I don't know how many industries have something of jWAG's caliber available, but I learn from the emails every day. Really, really nice work, and very appreciated." -Cheryl Herrick, Global Pathways Jewelry
