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pixenite · 13 days

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Social Media Tactics for eCommerce Growth

Imagine this: thousands of potential customers scrolling through social media, just waiting to discover your amazing products. That’s the power of social media for your online store! Here’s how to use it to grow beyond.

Finding Your Fans

Not all social media platforms are created equal. Consider where your target audience spends time on the internet. Do they love pretty pictures (Instagram)? Funny videos (YouTube)? Sharing news (Facebook)? Pick the places where they’re already having fun, and join the party!

Content that Keeps People Scrolling

Now for the fun part: creating awesome content! Here’s the secret sauce:

Eye-Catching Photos & Videos: People love pretty things! Show off your products with high-quality photos and short, engaging videos.

More Than Just Selling: Don’t just talk about yourself all the time. Share interesting tips, fun facts, or even take people behind the scenes of your business.

Tell Stories: People connect with stories. Show how your products make life better, solve problems, or create unforgettable experiences.

Let Your Customers Shine: Encourage people to share photos and videos using your products (with a cool hashtag!). This builds trust and shows others how awesome your stuff is in real life.

Go Live!: Jump on live video to answer questions, show off new products, or just chat with your fans. It is the best way to connect instantly.

Make Your Profile Pop

Think of your social media profiles as your online storefront window. Here’s how to make them shine:

Clear Bio: Write a short, sweet bio that tells people what you sell and why they should care. Include a website link so they can easily find you.

Brand Match: Keep your look consistent across all platforms. Use the same logo, colors, and fonts to make your brand instantly recognizable.

Captions that Captivate: Write captions that are interesting, informative, and make people want to chat. Ask questions, run contests, and reply to comments to keep the conversation flowing.

Hashtag Hero: Use relevant hashtags to help people find you. Check out popular hashtags in your area and use a mix of broad and specific ones.

Boost with Paid Ads

Sometimes, you gotta give things a little push. Paid advertising on social media can help you reach a wider audience and target specific groups of people who might love your products.

Laser-Focused Ads: Reach the perfect customers by creating targeted ads based on their interests and online behavior.

Get More Engagement: Boost the reach of your best organic posts with paid advertising. This can spread brand awareness and drive more traffic to your website.

Building Your Online Crew

Social media is all about building relationships with your fans. Here are some ways to create a community that loves you:

Contests & Giveaways: Who doesn’t love free stuff? Organize contests and giveaways to spark interest and encourage conversations about your brand.

Reply Like a Champ: Always respond to comments and messages. Let your audience know you’re listening to their feedback and questions.

Polls & Surveys: Get your audience involved by asking questions and running polls. This helps you understand what they like and tailor your content accordingly.

Listen Up!: There’s a whole conversation happening online about your niche. Use social listening tools to track what people are saying and adapt your strategy to fit their needs.

Remember: Building a strong online community takes time. Be patient, keep creating great content, and show your fans some love.

Bonus Tip: Track your results! See what’s working and what’s not, and use that info to keep improving your social media game.

Conclusion

Feeling overwhelmed? No worries! Pixenite, an eCommerce marketing agency, can help online businesses like yours dominate social media. Our team of experts can create a winning strategy, manage your accounts, and track your results so you can focus on running your awesome business. Let Pixenite take care of the social media hustle while you focus on what you do best: selling amazing products!

FAQs

Q: How often should I post on social media?

A: There’s no one-size-fits-all answer, but it’s important to be consistent. Aim for a few high-quality posts per week on each platform you choose.

Q: What if I don’t have time to create all this content?

A: Repurpose content! Take a great blog post and turn it into bite-sized social media snippets. There are also many free and paid tools to help you create engaging content.

Q: I’m still not sure where to start.

A: Start by picking one platform and focus on doing it well. Research your target audience and see where they hang out online. Once you feel comfortable, you can expand to other platforms.

Article Source : https://medium.com/@pixenite/social-media-tactics-for-ecommerce-growth-cd7bc4b96649

#socialmeditps #socialmediatactis #ecommercegrowth #Pixenite

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instagramfollowersfreetrial-blog · 5 years

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The way to Get More Followers On Instagram In 2019

But if you host giveaways on your web site and embody an choice to observe you on Instagram and different social networks, you’ll have a much larger attain. In case your audience measurement is small you can post your giveaway in certain giveaway fb teams or on giveaway blogs. When i first began working in advertising, I’d attain out to giveaway blogs. I’d ship them some free merchandise in alternate for a review post. Most agreed to it for the free product though some did ask for fee as properly. They’d do a product assessment submit crammed with footage and their experiences with the product. At free instagram followers no verification , their audience would enter to win the product beneath the condition that you just send that customer the product. We’d get a whole lot of latest followers on all our social accounts. This is a great technique to get new followers if you happen to don’t have an viewers. But it won't be as focused than in the event you have been to host a giveaway on a relevant niche blog. If you’re simply starting out, giveaways can aid you get more followers on Instagram. Engagement finally plateaued on 1.5% for these with more than a million followers. You need to make sure that you search for the appropriate followers for your Instagram account. We have beforehand checked out fairly just a few tools you need to use to help you to find appropriate followers. You can use some of these in tandem with our Instagram Follower Growth Tracker to manage your Instagram account rigorously. However, there is simply a lot you can do using these instruments. Ultimately, you are going to want to pick the absolute best followers in your account - individuals who will take a genuine interest in the types of posts you make. It’s essential to attach with the proper people on Instagram if you’re to have high engagement charges. One of the simplest ways to realize quality followers who will show you how to meet your goals is to operate your account normally. Because of this you might want to observe all the great practices of running an Instagram account - in exactly the identical means that influencers do. The free version permits you to see your new followers, who has unfollowed you, which accounts you’re not following again, and which aren’t following you again. By digging into the kinds of accounts which might be following and unfollowing you, you’ll in all probability recognize some patterns. Follow for observe (‘F4F’) accounts. These are often fairly straightforward to spot. Accounts like this are distinguished by spammy sort handles that include words like ‘free’, ‘F4F’ and ‘followers’. Competitors. If the account has an analogous product or service providing to you, they could also be opponents. However, this isn’t essentially a foul factor if they’re not unfollowing you! Potential clients. You have to be ready to recognize when someone matches your perfect persona traits by searching by way of their feed and profile. When you recognize that your followers are a mix of ‘F4F’ accounts, opponents, or people that you do not feel are an incredible fit for your corporation, it’s time to rethink your hashtag technique. Your hashtags are what extend your reach past your followers and attract new eyes to your posts, so it’s important that they’re strategically researched and chosen. You probably have an account with only a few thousand followers and ask one other account with 500,000 followers, you’re either going to be ignored, politely refused, or outright laughed at. What possible benefit could that bigger account get from the smaller one? Unless you have got something equally priceless to leverage, then you shouldn’t be asking somebody to do S4S for you. That’s just about the equal of bringing a knife to a gunfight (don’t fear, no one is actually preventing). That leads to one of the questions we get asked the most at Foundr, “How do I present leverage in S4S? A lot of people get discouraged by the idea of approaching larger accounts for an S4S, because it looks as if they don’t have a comparable follower depend. But while your follower depend may be crucial metric on Instagram, it doesn’t mean that it's the one metric on Instagram. If it was, then anybody may very well be an influencer with a couple of bucks and few thousand bots as Instagram followers.

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growinstablog · 4 years

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This Is How to Grow your Instagram for Massive Results

Want to learn how to grow your Instagram?

You should! Instagram now has one BILLION monthly active users in 2020.

And they’re not just broke college kids! 60% of active Instagram users earn $100K and above.

Of course, you won’t be alone in trying to reach an audience on Instagram.

71% of U.S. businesses market on Instagram, including 90 of the world’s top 100 brands.

80% of IGers follow brands – but how can you stand out and get them to follow your business?

Follow these top 10 tips to get more Instagram followers!

1 | Create a compelling Instagram profile

What do IGers see when they visit your account? Your bio!

Is it clear what you offer, and why they’d want to follow you?

As they say, you only get one chance to make a first impression. When someone visits your profile, they’ll decide in seconds whether or not to follow your account.

Make sure your Instagram profile picture matches up with your other accounts, so people recognize you.

If your business name isn’t well-known like IKEA or GE, add a few keywords to your name to clarify your niche.

You only have 150 characters for your bio! I recommend bullet points that communicate at a glance.

Feel free to set them off with emojis. An emoji can communicate a lot in a single character.

Want to learn more about this step?

2 | Curate a beautiful gallery

Know what else IGers see on your profile?

Your last few posts!

Instagram is a highly visual platform, and users are discerning. You can’t just post any old thing that you might get away with on another platform.

Create your brand story:

Decide on a visual theme you’ll use to represent your brand.

Make sure your photos will provide value to your followers.

Use your products to tell a story that will be of interest to your audience.

Because of the grid gallery on your profile page, it’s critical that you develop and follow a themed look or style. This gallery is going to communicate at a glance what your account is about – or just look like a mishmash of swiped content and reposts.

Create your brand content:

Use your brand colors, fonts, and photography style.

Use high resolution photos and third-party editing apps to enhance your photos.

Use Instagram filters, third-party filters, or no filter as appropriate to your brand.

Product images should feature the product prominently in the picture.

Utilize Instagram video for more creative storytelling.

Who crushes this for graphics? .

Check out Mónica’s consistency in colors and feel.

Now take a look at ‘s purely photography-based account.

Her followers grow by leaps and bounds due to her gorgeous consistency (plus she is generous with engagement, see tip 10).

For fabulous graphic+photo branding, see .

Note the consistency of colors, plus a fun and energetic style that helps you decide instantly if this account fits your style.

And don’t forget to brand those Stories Highlights, too! You can see these gals haven’t.

Don’t know what to post on Instagram?

3 | Use Instagram Stories and keep ‘em coming!

Stories are a fun and effective way to stand out.

Instagram pushes Stories out, both at the top of the home page, and again throughout the feed.

They don’t want IGers to miss them, so take advantage!

Your Story will be bumped to the front of the line each time you add to it, so keep those updates coming. At least a couple a day – even better, every couple hours.

Don’t forget to curate your best Stories into themed Highlights you’ll show on your profile, under your bio.

Don’t know how to use Stories? Find Instagram Stories ideas for business here:

4 | Choose the best Instagram hashtags

I can’t overstate the importance of using hashtags with your posts and Stories. Hashtags really help your account get discovered.

But they have to be the right hashtags! Use a mix of brand-specific, industry-specific, and trending hashtags.

Should you use 3 or 30? In the caption or a comment?

You’ve got questions, I’ve got answers.

5 | Don’t forget to geotag

Here’s another way for your posts and Stories to be found! If you’re at a popular location, tag the location. IGers perusing that geotag will find your post there as well.

Posts with a tagged location result in than posts without a tagged location.

That’s the easiest engagement you’ll ever get!

6 | Craft an engaging caption

Now that you’ve got an awesome post or Story, be sure to get engagement on it, or it’ll just fizzle away.

Tell followers about your experience on a topic, and ask theirs.

Post an inspirational quote and ask if they agree with it.

Ask questions that encourage comments.

And don’t forget to respond to those comments! If you don’t want to engage on social media, you’re in the wrong place.

Need inspirational post inspiration?

Grab the free inspo quotes PDF there too!

7 | Use the best times to post on Instagram for engagement

Check your own analytics to see what works best for your account. Every account and audience is different!

As a general rule, the best days to post on Instagram are weekdays, with posts published on Tuesday and Wednesday getting the highest engagement.

Posting to Instagram from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. results in good engagement for brands.

Interactions on posts peaks between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m, with a lot of audience activity between 4 p.m. and 6 p.m. when people get off work.

If you’d like to schedule your posts in advance so you don’t have to be tied to your phone at a specific time, try Tailwind!

Tailwind will analyze your audience engagement and pick the best times for your account.

Just decide how many times you want to post per day, and let Tailwind set up a Smart Schedule for you.

Load your photos and videos with your captions. Use Tailwind’s Hashtag Finder to add the perfect array of hashtags to attract your best audience.

Sit back and let Tailwind post to Instagram at the best time, every time!

Disclosure: If you upgrade to a paid plan, I’ll earn a referral fee.

8 | Post consistently to grow your Instagram account

I know this can be tough. You’ve got a lot on your plate.

But you really need to post daily or your engagement will suffer.

Poor engagement means IG will show your posts less often.

Less new people will discover your posts, and it’s all downhill from there.

Check out the free post ideas linked above, or use a tool like my Social Media Content Planner to come up with a content plan.

Set aside a day to create a couple week’s worth of posts.

Schedule it up in an approved scheduler that posts to Instagram for you.

Then, just return to engage with your comments.

Tailwind app studied over 100,000 Instagram posts to uncover how successful different accounts were when they changed the number of times they post to Instagram each day.

Those that increased their rate of posting over the three month study saw a significant increase in their engagement rate, and enjoyed higher follower growth rates too!

Optimal: post at least once daily.

You can try Tailwind for Instagram FREE for a whole month of daily posting (30 posts).

Try it out now!

Disclosure: If you upgrade to a paid plan, I’ll earn a referral fee.

9 | Post user-generated content

Running out of post ideas? Get your audience to help!

Encourage your followers to create videos, photos, and GIFs with your products, or post a testimonial of your services.

Create a branded hashtag that can showcase all user-generated content for your brand. You can feature this on your bio too!

It’s a smart way to increase your brand awareness and get more content too.

Buffer grew their Instagram following by 442%, largely by sharing user-generated content. They posted relevant photos that their followers had clicked along with their Instagram handles.

Take the best user content from around the web and feature it on your own Instagram while giving credit to the original creator. (Best to get express permission first).

Tailwind app can help you with this, too!

Regram photos immediately from anywhere with their browser extension.

Try Tailwind regramming for free now!

Disclosure: If you upgrade to a paid plan, I’ll earn a referral fee.

10 | Like and comment to grow organically

This should be obvious, but it isn’t.

Get social with your followers, and those you hope to become followers, posts!

It’s quite amazing how often I see accounts of mediocre quality with hundreds of likes on their posts. Even into the thousands!

And how did I find these accounts in the first place? They dropped by my gallery and “liked” 10 or more of my posts.

Or maybe they liked a few and left a genuine comment on one.

THIS is truly the best way to make people aware of your account, and get new followers.

Why? Because it’s social media!

People are there to be social, and to engage with people who show an interest in them – not just in selling stuff to them.

So, go find the followers of your competitors and get engaged.

Engage to your heart’s content!

Like and comment popular photos. Mention both creator and other commenters.

Follow the 5/3/1 rule to find engage and gain new followers!

Like five photos, comment on three photos, and as a result you should earn one new follower.

Your Instagram account needs your personal touch.

The WORST way to grow your Instagram

Want to kill your Instagram account?

Automate liking, commenting, and follow/unfollowing.

You know all those irrelevant “cool!” “awesome!” “check out our profile!” comments you get on your posts?

Or the insistent following and unfollowing by certain accounts?

Those are brought to you by bots.

They’re not only super annoying to users, but they also violate Instagram’s Terms of Use and could get your account shut down.

And even if you don’t get caught – these followers are much less likely to engage, crushing your posts in the Instagram ranking algorithm.

A few years ago I tested a service that followed targeted IGers manually with real VAs.

My engagement rate tanked and never recovered. I eventually abandoned that account.

Followers aren’t the be-all and end-all! Engaged followers are.

Please use the top 10 tips above. They are proven to increase engagement and followers! You really need both.

How to Grow your Instagram Account: Conclusion

Theories and myths abound on how to grow your Instagram.

The ten tips above have been proven by research to actually work!

Pin the reminder infographic to Pinterest, and revisit this post to review.

Make your Instagram marketing easy by signing up for a free trial of Tailwind!

Schedule photos and videos directly to your Instagram feed with Auto Post.

Optimize every post for more engagement with SmartSchedule and Hashtag Finder.

Regram photos immediately from anywhere with the browser extension.

Automatically hide your Instagram hashtags in the first comment to keep your caption clean and clutter-free.

Make your posts more discoverable with user tagging & location tagging.

Analyze what’s working across every post and profile with smart analytics.

Disclosure: If you upgrade to a paid plan, I’ll earn a referral fee.

Got more tips, or questions on how to grow your Instagram account? Let us know in a comment!

very nice beaty hand LOUISE ILOVE YOU

Glad you liked it!

Hmmm…yr CLICK HERE links lead to this?? Why Instagram started banning hashtags (and why it’s a bad idea)

Thanks! Fixed!

The links in this article keep bringing me to a CIO article? Its not your signup page for Infamous to Influential. ???

Thank you for the heads up! Not sure how it got there, but it sure was the wrong link.

What a fantastic blog Louise. All great tips for Instagram success.

Thank you so much for mentioning Elevate It Now and sharing our feed! I’m so honored to be included in your amazing content along with all the other beautiful accounts featured. 🙏🏼

You do Insta like no one else, and I hope my readers will follow!

Thank you sweet lady!

Hi Louise,

Thank you – great article. I am at a loss, I do all these things and my account has stalled. I haven t had any new growth in 3 months as a matter of fact I lose between 3-4 daily now.

I beyond frustrated and ready to throw in the Insta-towel.

IG has definitely gotten more challenging!

Of these tips, I’d say the most important is #10 – outreach. It takes a ton of time but really works.

I wish it were easy! Best of luck.

Thanks for these tips to de-mystify IG!

YW!

Amazing amazing content. Thanks so much for sharing. I plan on implementing these right away!

I just had one question about the 5-3-1 rule. Would be liking 5 post and commenting on 3 post of a single individual account or am i going to the explorer page and liking 5 of the most popular posts? Even further am i liking a 5 post of a single account in the explorer page or just going through all popular posts on the explorer page? Sorry if I sound a bit confusing.

You can use it however you wish. Liking 5 of ONE person’s posts is more likely to draw their attention though.

https://growinsta.xyz/this-is-how-to-grow-your-instagram-for-massive-results/

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clarencenicholsonata · 5 years

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6 Best Brands That Dominate User-Generated Content on Instagram

User-generated content is a powerful form of marketing for any brand. It allows you to strengthen your relationships with followers and customers and broaden your online presence.

Around 86% of millennials believe that user-generated content (also known as UGC) is a good indicator of a brand or product’s quality. UGC speaks volumes more about your brand than your own content.

With an average of 60 million + images uploaded to Instagram every day, making Instagram one of the biggest platforms for sharing and finding UGC.

Instagram plus UGC equals marketing gold.

What is User Generated Content (UGC)?

User-generated content (UGC) is content created by individuals outside of the business. It’s authentic and created by people who love your brand.

Interested in adding UGC to your social media content mix?

To learn the best practices for finding and using UGC, here are the six best brands that dominate user-generated content on Instagram.

1. AirBnB

Airbnb is known for its captivating images of user-generated content, in fact, almost all of Airbnb’s social media content is UGC. The only time you’ll see something fully branded from Airbnb is in its ad campaigns.

Everyday, Airbnb shares UGC from around the world, asking questions, and making suggestions to their followers. Developing discussion with wanderlust travels who might be interested in bookings with Airbnb for their next stay.

A picture is worth a thousand words

It may seem like a simple task, but this marketing strategy has helped to create Airbnb’s online culture. 61% of marketers said authenticity is what makes content marketing most effective.

Airbnb’s UGC Lesson: Select the Best Images

UGC. Can represent how people genuinely feel about your brand (for better or worse).

Let’s be fair; not every UGC is worth a repost. Try to find the best images that represent your brand and repost them on your social media pages.

Here are a few guidelines for selecting UGC images or posts:

1. Pay Attention to the User’s Profile: You want to make sure the person’s profile matches your brand values. If your followers view the personal profile tagged to the image, they shouldn’t be caught off guard by the person’s own personal values.

2. Check the Caption: It’s easy to get distracted by a good photo, but what the caption says is also important. Read through and see if it’s all words of praise or hint of sarcasm. Also, check to make sure your competitors aren’t mentioned or tagged.

3. Get the Perfect Product Picture: UGC doesn’t always need a face or person present. It can be a creative layout and setting, just be sure that your products and label/logo are prominent at first glance for good publicity.

Luckily, today everyone wants to be an influencer, so it’s become much easier to find content that puts quality at the forefront.

Still need help to decide what kind of UGC to post? Check out this article on how to use User-Generated Content effectively.

2. Adobe Photoshop

Adobe Photoshop is another account known for sharing and publishing UGC on social media platforms. Each post highlights the tools, features, and the artist in the caption.

Adobe has mastered the art of soft social selling by showing off not only the creative community but also developing discussions and features that put them as the primary focus.

65% of customers agree that UGC is more interesting than the content created by brands. Which explains why Adobe makes little to no effort to sell Adobe products or its monthly subscription. Instead, they let the art do the talking, drawing in each follower.

Adobe Photoshop UGC Lesson: Always Tag or Credit Your UGC

We’ve all heard the term “sharing is caring.”

It’s true; sharing is caring for both the followers posting UGC and the brand reposting it.

People want to share content on social media as badly as they want to be recognized for it. So give your followers some props!

Customer Insight Group and Latitude Research found that people share for these five main reasons:

To bring valuable, enlightening and entertaining content

To define themselves to others (and to themselves, too)

To get and stay connected to others

For self-fulfillment, to be credited by others for what they shared

To support causes they believe in and brands they like.

That’s how important sharing and having content shared is to people.

Which leads me to my next point.

Ask for permission.

I’ve noticed a few big brands have skipped this part, well except for brands like Whole Foods and GymShark. As much as people love sharing content, it’s their content first and foremost, even if your brand is tagged in the picture.

After you’ve gotten permission, give your fan credit for their content. It’s become a social media etiquette to tag people in UGC on your page. This encourages people to keep sharing content and tagging your brand. It says, “Oh, We notice you.”

3. Xero

Xero is an accounting software that’s mastered the holy trinity of social media marketing; community, branding, and most importantly, UGC.

Each post speaks more about the customer, their mission, and the results of supporting the community that surrounds them.

Scroll through each post, and Xero’s tools or services are never really mentioned. Only the customers they serve.

Xero’s UGC Lesson: Share Real Experiences

Social media was originally meant to be social. Social selling was just something that we all stumbled on.

Today, people buy experiences, not products.

Customers want to hear more about experiences and stories; they buy into a concept or an idea rather than the product itself.

Sharing real experience also humanizes your brand

Maybe you’ve considered using storytelling for your social media marketing, but you don’t know where to start. Look at these 20 Creative Ways to Use Social Media for Storytelling.

4. Preview App

Preview is an app for editing, filtering, and cropping images to your Instagram’s aesthetic. So naturally, they use their social media to show off all their users’ Instagood feeds and post.

Did you know custom hashtags help you to find UGC

Preview also has a custom hashtag, #iPreview used by fellow previewers for Preview to find their content.

Instead of waiting to be tagged or lurking around on Instagram or Twitter, promote a branded hashtag that allows you to see content in your explorer feed easily.

Preview App UGC Lesson: Openly Ask for UGC

Over 50% of consumers want to be told what sort of UGC to create.

Just ask!

Yup, it’s that simple. Letting your followers know you're open to reposting or the type of UGC you want can send them into a creation frenzy.

Preview has been reposting UGC since the first day it created its Instagram page, but now and then they still ask followers to send in UGC. Check out the post below:

If your followers are camera shy when it comes to providing UGC, you can host a giveaway. Ask customers to submit UGC to enter. Once you’ve selected your winner, you can ask for permission to repost your followers’ favorite giveaway entries.

Ready to run your UGC contest?

Book a free call to learn how our team of contest experts can help you create high converting social media contest today.

5. SuperGoop

Super Goop is a sunscreen beauty company that prides themselves on their trending hashtag #butfirstsunscreen. Unlike the other UGC brands listed so far, Super Goop publishes a content mix of promotional, educational, and UGC to represent their branding.

How do you create the perfect content mix?

When you’re planning your content strategy (for marketing or social media), you want to consider the content that represents your brand. Here are five types of content to consider:

Industry expertise: Focus on what your business does best and provide advice to your target audience.

Brand focus: Highlight what your product or services do for your customers and how you’re shaping your niche.

Audience goals: What does your audience want to accomplish? For example, if you’re in fitness, talk about how the gym can get you closer to your fitness goals.

Audience interests: If you sell sports gear it means your audience might be interested in tips related to their sports. You are balancing your industry expertise and their interests.

Free resources: What kind of resources or freebies can you provide your audience? Think of Ebooks, quizzes, giveaways, or infographics.

SuperGoop UGC Lesson: Get Testimonials From Your UGC

UGC can be a great platform for real testimonials. Testimonials and reviews from customers are the icing on your content cake.

According to BigCommerce, the regular use of customer testimonials can help you generate roughly 62% more revenue.

Maybe you found the perfect image for your UGC, but the caption is lacking. Reach out to the person and ask for an honest review.

6. Glossier

Glossier has been listed as one of “The Social Media Brands to Follow” by marketers consistently over the past four years. Their social media marketing success boils down to their simple but effective content mix of branding, audience interest, goals, and UGC.

One of the key contributors to the brands success is how strong Glossier’s color palettes is for spot-on branding, even with its UGC. Ragan says that 80% of brand recognition regularly comes from color impression alone.

Glossier UGC Lesson: Use UGC to Get Customer Feedback

UGC can also be a safe medium for customers to give feedback and suggestions on products you might want to consider for your next sale or product idea.

Think about it

Your customers are already talking about you, why not control and direct the conversation to you?

Starbucks

You can get customer feedback by reading through the comments. You’ll be surprised what customers have to say about you through the content they share. It also allows you to reply and show off your superb customer service skills.

Ask for what you want. Let your customer know that you want to know what and how they think about your products, from dm’s to the comment section.

Summary

Building a community, consistently posting and monitoring social media, can feel overwhelming. But with the help of a loyal following and fans, UGC can take away from the day-to-day content struggle.

But with great power comes great responsibility, so consider these six things when curating UGC for your brands:

Select the Best Images

Always Tag or Credit Your UGC

Share Real Experiences

Openly Ask for UGC

Get Testimonials From Your UGC

Use UGC to Get Customer Feedback

Which brand caught your eye on this list? What brands do you think should have been added. Comment below and let me know.

I’d love to hear from you.

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#IFTTT #RSSMix.com Mix ID 8230801

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doxampage · 7 years

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7 Critical Steps to Growing a Profitable Jewelry Business, Part 1: Wholesalers + Stockists

Getting Started with Wholesalers and Stockists

Think of the first time you played Monopoly. There’s a good chance you were quite young and had a pretty rudimentary understanding of the rules. You rolled the dice, made your way around the board with your thimble or Scotty dog, and collected your $200 reward. Maybe you went to jail and maybe you even bought a house or two; likely, though, that was the extent of your experience. You were invested in the game, you spent time and energy, you wanted to win, but realistically, you were never really playing – just participating.

To really play a game, in the true sense of the word, you need to know the rules. Not only know the rules, but understand their intricacies well enough to strategize, plan, and execute on them. In this series for Growing a Profitable Jewelry Business, we are applying this principle to the retail jewelry industry.

While most jewelry business owners can envision the end goal of “winning,” few of them can visualize the tangible steps to get to that point. During each of the 7 parts of the series, we’ll be introducing essential rules of the jewelry game, walking through how to act on them tactically, and reinforcing best practices. As with any game, there is a factor of chance and luck, but we’re hoping to give you enough resources to maximize your opportunity for success.

In this first installment, we’re making an introduction to the world of wholesale.

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Most independent jewelry designers sell directly to those who will actually wear their product. Designers reach customers through marketplaces like Shapeways or Etsy, on their own Shopify or Squarespace sites, in-person at trade fairs, or through a combination of efforts. While this business-to-consumer (B2C) approach no doubt has the potential for substantial revenue, for many, it can be slow-going. It requires a lot of upfront effort, targeting to the right customers, and can often yield a low return on investment.

If you are serious about growing your jewelry business, your best route forward is to add a wholesale channel to your sales ecosystem. This business-to-business (B2B) model changes your customer from an individual to a wholesaler or stockist.

Wholesaler : a merchant middleman who sells to retailers. These retailers then typically sell that product to end customers.

Stockist: Person or stores that sell a particular assortment of products. This assortment is generally made up of a varied brand mix aimed at addressing a niche audience, e.g. NET-A-PORTER or Urban Outfitters

What Can Wholesale Do for My Business?

While adding a new sales channel may seem like a lot of work, wholesale can be integral to augmenting your speed of growth and your ability to build brand equity.

Larger Orders and Recurring Revenue

Acquiring these types of clients allows you to book larger sales at one time. Buyers are typically seeking to stock inventory for resale in their e-commerce or brick and mortar channels of business. This means larger budgets than your average consumer and more consistent need. With well managed relationships, you can establish larger one-time sales combined with more predictable and consistent recurring revenue streams for your business. A more stable cash flow is never a bad thing.

Bulk and Volume Pricing Breaks

Since wholesale orders are typically in larger quantities, these can be a great opportunity to take advantage of bulk and volume pricing breaks, such as those provided by Shapeways. We offer the following discounts on all of our cast metals except pure gold and platinum:

Order Size | Discount

26 – 50 | 5% off

51 – 100 | 10% off

101+ | 15% off

These discounts can lead to higher gross margins for you and can allow you to incentivize customers or stockists with discounted prices as well. We’ll go into greater depth on pricing strategy in a future installment of the series.

Increased Brand Exposure

By being strategic with the wholesalers and stockists you target, your brand is able to gain exposure in new customers and geographies, beyond your individual reach. Partnering with the right stores can also associate your product with more popular brands, providing the opportunity to improve brand recognition and brand positioning.

Choosing the Right Stockists for Your Brand

While there are countless jewelry wholesalers and stockists, considered targeting is a key part of both a success outreach campaign and effective brand building. Brand fit, customer fit, and price fit are at the core of these considerations.

Brand Fit

For a young company, any association shapes how people perceive and categorize your brand. Resellers are a direct association that can have a huge impact on brand perception; many times, they create an individual’s first experience with the brand. For that reason, brand fit is arguably the most important consideration in finding a stockist or wholesaler. A good stockist fit can reinforce your brand message and provide clout to your brand’s name; conversely, a bad stockist fit can devalue or convolute your product and brand identity to consumers.

Some key considerations to keep in mind when evaluating brand fit are:

Consistent or complementary aesthetic with your visual direction

Stocking of analogous brands/products that your target customer would seek out

Business core values, mission, and brand association that are in-line with your brand

Co-branding opportunities between your brand and the stockist, e.g. J. Crew x Your Brand

Customer Fit

Customer fit goes hand-in-hand with brand fit. The customer purchasing from your stockist should be the customer that you’re targeting for your own brand. Consider both the demographics and psychographics of the person you envision purchasing your products and consider the customer base associated with each stockist. Explore resellers’ social media pages (Instagram, Facebook, etc.) and followers . If possible, even go to their physical locations to get a sense of their customer base.

Price Fit

Keep in mind the retail price point for your products and evaluate how your prices compare with similar product categories at the retailers you’re considering. This will often be a deciding factor in whether a stockist will consider you and also whether your product will actually move. Price fit also plays into brand consistency, as surrounding your product with significantly cheaper product can decrease its perceived value and cheapen your brand.

How to Find Stockists

Once you have an idea of the type of stockist you want to target, the next step is to actually put together your initial outreach list. We typically recommend starting with about 10-15 stockists to start. The most useful tool for finding stockists is probably already at your fingertips: Instagram.

The app’s discovery algorithm is designed to aggregate similar content and similar users, so it is ideal for searching for stockists that fit into a similar profile. Start by searching for specific stockists that you may already have in mind and use the suggested accounts drop down on the user page to find more accounts like it (see image below as an example).

Repeat this process and you can quickly come up with a list of potential targets. If you’re having trouble getting started, try searching for hashtags that match your product type or aesthetic. It takes some playing around, but once you find your niche, you can fairly quickly generate the list. For getting access to contact information, use a combination of the companies’ websites, Google Maps, and Facebook business pages (great for locating phone numbers), and you can gather the basic information necessary to reach out.

Trade shows can be an alternative approach to expose your brand to many stockists at once, but we’ll cover this more in-depth in a future installment.

Stay tuned for the next part of our series, where we’ll discuss the components of price and an intro to strategic pricing.

To scope existing bulk jewelry orders, feel free to reach out to our Business Development Team

Learn more about Shapeways’ options for jewelry production and manufacturing here

About the authors:

Ross Keong is a Strategic Sales Manager specializing in growth development for B2B users in the industries of jewelry, fashion, art, and design.

Virginia Gordon is the US Jewelry Community Manager, helping designers build a successful jewelry business using Shapeways and 3D printing

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