THE BIG STORY America’s Most Social Jewelry Stores would post about 100 items, and it was wildly successful. We could order high-margin jewelry, post it on Facebook and people were buying it. People had discretionary income, and earrings were huge. It kept us going and got our name out there.” When her store reopened, this online engagement drove traffic to the physical location. In a town that once had three jewelry stores, Black Dog is now the sole survivor, a success Kauffman attributes largely to their social media presence. “This past year, we gained a lot of new customers and our numbers were off the charts,” she says. Allison Love, owner of Allison Love’s Fine Jewelry in Rockhill, SC, has found that consistency pays off, even if results aren’t immediate. “It’s like radio, it takes a while for people who like the posts to actually show up in the store,” she explains. “It’s important to live up to their expec-tations in person. Offering some unexpected fun is important, too! We invested in a slushie machine.” Joseph Denaburg of Levy’s Fine Jewelry de-signs videos that boost engagement. VIDEO: THE ESSENTIAL ELEMENT W hile still images have their place, video has rapidly become the most engaging format across plat-forms. Joseph Denaburg of Levy’s Fine Jewelry in Birmingham, AL, has mastered the art of creating video content that stops the scroll. “It’s more important to post once a week and have it really be cool than to post something every day and have it be lame,” he advises. With 24,000 followers on Face-book and more than 70,000 on Insta-gram, Denaburg has found a formula that works. His videos often feature slow reveals of jewelry pieces from boxes, and his approach is strategic: “The reason all of our videos get six-figure views is the people who are going to scroll within one second, 50% of them stay four seconds be-cause it takes four seconds to open the box for an eight-second video.” This engagement prompts algorithms to serve the video to more viewers. Den-aburg hasn’t bought paid ads in five years, finding that organic reach works better for his brand. Perhaps most sur-prisingly, he believes that the jewelry itself Inspired by his viral videos, Zach Emigh gives each client a video telling the story of their jewelry’s reinvention. isn’t the primary draw. “What people actually want is to be entertained,” he says. “I try to make videos where even if you don’t care about jewelry at all, they’re fun to watch.” His attention to detail sets his content apart: “How I got good at social media is that occasionally at night, I will look through hundreds of videos of ours and notice small details that could be better. I obsess over doing things better. Better zoom here, less focus on something there. That obsession with improvement is why we’ve gotten to where we are on social media.” STORYTELLING THAT CONNECTS ach Emigh, owner of Emigh Jewelry Company in Butler, PA, has built a following of 700,000 across platforms by focusing on storytelling. His breakthrough came when a customer brought in a ring that had been cut off in the emergency room after a bee sting caused his hand to swell. The video telling this story garnered 20 million views. “It clicked at that point that I should start sharing some inter-esting stories that I come across,” Z Emigh says. “Once I started focusing on the storytelling aspect and kept things relatable to a large audience, it really took off.” His most popular content features emo-tional stories behind jewelry transforma-tions. One told the story of an engagement ring client who was riding a motorcycle when he was in an accident and the car behind him crushed a ring box, causing damage to a newly purchased engagement ring. Emigh has found particular suc-cess with videos about remodeling inherited jewelry. These videos have drawn customers from Florida, Chi-cago and New York, who will travel to work with him. (He doesn’t accept client jewelry by mail.) Emigh makes a complimentary video for each client, detailing the story behind the piece. For one client, Emigh combined her late husband’s thumbprint pendant and his wedding band into a new pendant. “She loved the piece, but she had more of a reaction to the video,” Emigh says. “She broke down in tears. She can share that video with her family and friends to tell a story about the piece she wears every day. The video is the extra cherry on top.” For another project, Emigh is working with a client whose young daughter died of cancer. Her daugh-ter’s wish was that her mother con-tinue to wear her mother-daughter necklace. “She’s afraid the original will fall apart, and so she’s going to send me photos and we’re going to re-create it in platinum,” Emigh says. The hundreds of videos showing his craftsmanship have built tremen-dous trust with his audience. “I have a decent track record now,” Emigh says. 48 MAY 2025 / INSTOREMAG.COM
Instore Magazine May 2025: Page 48
