Sharing emotion and capturing attention on Instagram

By Matthew Perosi

As a form of social media, Instagram continues to rise in popularity among those who enjoy looking at photos rather than talking about them. It’s a simple visual platform that makes it easy to take photos or short videos with your smartphone and post them online. And its focus on using visual media to attract viewers’ attention makes it a perfect match for an industry that relies on images to showcase beauty, tell stories, and capture emotion. But is it really just as simple as posting photos of your work? Not quite.

Image Matters…

One of the reasons for Instagram’s popularity is because it allows users to apply colorful filters to photos, which can transform a dull image into a stunning work of art. However, I caution against using any filter that will change the true color of your jewelry; otherwise your customers will be disappointed when they see your products in person.

Jewelry photos attract more attention on Instagram when the backgrounds are colorful, when the jewelry is worn by a model, or when the shot is extremely close, such as when taken with a macro lens.

Smartphone macro lens attachments are commonly sold anywhere you can find smartphone accessories. Extremely close images taken with a macro lens are un-common on Instagram, and the detail they provide often captures attention. Instagram does allow you to upload a group of photos at a time, so when using a macro lens, I recommend uploading a few different angles to fully show the fine details of the piece.Instagram users can quickly scroll through hundreds of attractive photos and double tap the ones they like. If they really like a photo, then they’ll pause long enough to read the description and sometimes even leave a comment.

…But So Do Words

Although your photography will be most important on Instagram, customers won’t find you unless you include a description with every photo.Because it’s a visual medium, you don’t need to fully describe what they see in the photo; you just need the details they cannot see. Those details include the gemstone, metal type, size, and even the availability of the piece.

In addition to the description, you also need to include hashtags. A hashtag is what we call any word with the # symbol in front of it. A hashtag can be one word or multiple words linked together. For example, when posting a photo of a solitaire diamond ring, you would include “#engagementring” in the description. Users know that they can search Instagram for their favorite topics by looking through lists of hashtags.

Instagram allows you to include up to 30 hashtags with each post. While that might seem a bit excessive, you will grow your audience faster if you include a strategic hashtag list every time. Those strategic hashtags should be chosen according to how consumers think rather than according to standard jewelry lexicon. For example, when posting a photo of a solitaire diamond ring, you might be tempted to include hashtags such as #engagementring, #solitaire, #diamond, #diamondring, #whitegold, #14kgold, and #weddingring, but people will only search for the first one in this list. Instead, choose hashtags that express the human experience, such as #isaidyes, #proposal, #gettingmarried, #bridetobe, and #engaged.

Building your list of strategic hashtags will require some keyword research on Instagram. Start your research with your own industry specific lexicon, but then look at the descriptions for all the photos that you find to see the tags that other people use. I suggest creating collections of different hashtags for different types of jewelry or emotions so you can rotate their usage every day.

You should plan to post on Instagram at least once per day. The photos you post don’t have to be professional quality, but you should try to make them artistic. Don’t think of Instagram as another boring online marketing tactic; instead, think of it as a way to show off the beautiful jewelry you sell. Over the last few years, many jewelry designers have already discovered Instagram as the best place for them to build their brand awareness. They’ve done this by showing eye-popping photos of how to match their jewelry with clothes, lifestyles, and life events that depict the customer experience.

Don’t try to sell directly through Instagram; let the photos speak for themselves. Although occasional event and sale announcements might work on Facebook, direct marketing doesn’t work on Instagram. Instead, use this network to provide visual aids that show customers how to enjoy the items they buy.