Jewelry Business Guru by Cindy Edelstein

Who’s Driving Twitter’s Popularity? Not Teenagers - NYTimes.com

Twitter is a mini-typhoon of marketing chatter bringing with it a lot of real and perceived value. I'm getting the hang of it and can see its' potential and other jewelry folk like Michael Schechter of Honora Pearls and Daniel Gordon of Samuel Gordon Jewelers have really captured its power.

It starts with a few self-promotional tweets and it can move on to regular communication with key customers or vendors and even twitter-based promotions like tweetups (live meetings amongst twitter fans) and scavenger hunts for your customers with jewelry prizes. There's a lot here - and it could mean good business.

Who’s Driving Twitter’s Popularity? Not Teenagers - NYTimes.com.

Another reason that teenagers do not use Twitter may be that their lives tend to revolve around their friends. Though Twitter’s founders originally conceived of the site as a way to stay in touch with acquaintances, it turns out that it is better for broadcasting ideas or questions and answers to the outside world or for marketing a product. It is also useful for marketing the person doing the tweeting, a need few teenagers are attuned to.

“Many people use it for professional purposes — keeping connected with industry contacts and following news,” said Evan Williams, Twitter’s co-founder and chief executive. “Because it’s a one-to-many network and most of the content is public, it works for this better than a social network that’s optimized for friend communication.”

Should a designer's website be written in 1st or 3rd person?

About pages in 1st or 3rd person: A compromise — Art Biz Blog.

The 1st person v. 3rd person discussion for About pages on web sites can be a tough one for me to balance with my web design clients since artists’ sites are often light on the amount text they include. Google, an important “target audience” to consider, uses the plain (HTML) text to understand a web site. If an artist’s name appears only in a graphic logo it may be highly beneficial to incorporate the full name into the text on several pages within the site or the site may be invisible to people searching for the artist by name.

Read more of Alyson Stanfield's advice.

Twitter for jewelry designers is now a good thing -- we see the power

The JA Show wrapped up on Wednesday (we'll post more about that shortly) and we ended the show with a designer business mini-conference organized with the gals at Collective-E.

There were two panel discussions (video to come if we fix some bugs like the missing sound!) and while I moderated the first one the girls from Collective-E tweeted (the act of posting a comment on twitter) the topline notes from everyone's comments.

Then I was able to sit and watch the second panel -- and tweet the great points -- and learn that while I was on stage Beth and Katie had tweeted my panel AND a host of folks at home were following (and commenting) on our tweets!

Ok. I get it... twitter is very useful. I'm still not sold on the "I just had raspberry sherbet on 10th St." type of tweets but for it's usefulness for a community of likeminded business folks (i.e. designers) I totally get it.

So here's an encapsulated trail of the tweets from our Designer Business Mini-Conference so you can see for yourself what you missed on twitter for that day:

Do you tweet?

By TwitterIcon.com

Jewelry Designers Who Blog -- Who Does it Well?

I was asked recently to recommend some great blogs by jewelry designers - to show how it can be done in a good, entertaining, useful way.

Thought I'd share my top picks:

www.daniellemillerjewelry.blogspot.com

www.studiojeweler.blogspot.com (by Natasha Wozniak)
www.pamelafroman.blogspot.com
www.wendyculpepperblog.com
www.amytavern.blogspot.com

Got any others to nominate to my list?

            These just in from readers:

www.jeannejohngren.blogspot.com
www.gentrydesignco.typepad.com

Call for Entries - Jewelry Business Development Grant by Halstead Bead

Deadline: June 17, 2009
Award: $6,000 in start-up cash and materials
No entry fee required
Application details at www.halsteadbead.com/grant

Halstead Bead, Inc. is calling for entries to its fourth annual Business Development Grant competition for new American jewelry designers entering the bridge jewelry trade. The grant will be awarded to a winning candidate in August. All finalists will be eligible for a mentorship program that matches new designers with established and successful jewelry entrepreneurs.

The Halstead Bead Business Development Grant differs from other jewelry industry competitions and awards because of its emphasis on business skills. Entrants must demonstrate not only extraordinary design, but also a strong business strategy.

Designers utilizing a wide variety of fabrication techniques including casting, lampworking, precious metal clay, beading, or metalsmithing are eligible to enter the competition. Candidates must be US citizens who began their businesses after January 1, 2006.

Previous grant winners include Bridgland Studios, Belle Brooke Designs, and Ananda Khalsa Jewelry.

See you in Tucson during GemFair for Designer Business Workshops and Consulting

Ah, Tucson in February -- great weather, great things to see at the dozens of gem and bead shows and now, great education, too!

We're bringing our unique designer business workshops to Tucson this year -- Feb. 4-6 -- to help designers gain valuable insights and skills to go along with their new materials and components. First time in Tucson, we usually do this in NYC, and first time we're hosting so many in a row.

Join us for one, two or all seven classes -- your choice -- at the historic Manning House downtown near the Convention Center. The Manning House show is bead-centric but our classes are not. It's just a beautiful, convenient location that was offered to us.

Each class is $95 or $80 each for two or best of all, $70 each for three or more. Register on the Manning House website.

Our classes are:

Wed, February 4, 2009
9:00am - 11:20am
#1. How to Make a Living at Your Art w/ Marlene Richey

12:00pm - 2:20pm
#2. Defining Your Brand Identity w/ Cindy Edelstein

Thursday, February 5, 2009
9:00am - 11:20am
#3. Building Your Marketing Toolkit w/ Cindy Edelstein

12:00pm - 2:20pm
#4. Craft Fairs, Trade Shows and Personal Appearances: How to "Show Up" for Success w/ Marlene Richey

Friday, February 6, 2009
9:00am - 11:20am
#5. How to do Your Own PR w/ Cindy Edelstein

12:00pm - 2:20pm
#6. The Art of Selling w/ Marlene Richey

3:00pm - 4:30pm
#7. Profiting from an Online Presence w/ Cindy Edelstein and Larry Chasin, Ideal Diamond Solutions

We're also offering one-on-one speed coaching in the afternoons to help you put your plans into action. Bring your designs, plans, marketing materials -- whatever you need input on -- and we'll consult right there on the spot for the special rate of $2 per minute -- talk as long as you like.

Workshop registration is on the Manning House website and consultations can be booked via email to [email protected].

There's also fun to be had in Tucson so we hope to see lots of designers at:
Contemporary Deign Group's Annual Awards Dinner - Wed. 2/4
GemJammin' - our industry's own ad-hoc garage band playing at The Hut - Thurs. 2/5

And we'll be visiting the Centurion Show as well as the AGTA GemFair -- to see great designers and gem dealers, too.

DeBeers Advertises Restraint -- evidence #1 of the New Era

Ever since that New Luxury Market webinar mentioned in my previous post I am finding evidence to support Pam Danizger's predictions in every publication I pick up.

Here, evidence #1 from Sunday's NY Times, a full page ad from DeBeers:

Here's to Less.

Our lives are filled with things. We're overwhelmed by possessions we own but do not treasure. Stuff we buy but never love. To be thrown away in weeks rather than passed down for generations.

Perhaps it will be different now. Perhaps now is an opportunity to reassess what really matters. After all, if everything you ever bought her disappeared overnight, what would she truly miss?

Brilliant, no? A marketing conversation you can adopt for your own treasured work???

Looking Ahead to 2009 and The Post-Recession Luxury Consumer

I attended a great webinar by Pam Danziger of Unity Marketing that covered a recap of the 3rd quarter '08 luxury consumer spending and, more importantly, some predictions for 2009. It was a fascinating report and one that I will be quoting frequently.

Unity Marketing "helps companies understand their customers -- their shopping behavior, their needs, designers and mindset." They do this by tracking spending and polling for opinions. And studying demographics and statistics.

The overarching commentary about Post-Recessionary luxury consumers is that they are a new breed of consumer who are unlike their predecessors.

What that means is: what you did to capture customers last year (or frankly for the last decade) will NOT work next year ... or ever again.

Not only has the economic crisis permanently changed our habits but there are changes in our demographics (Generation X is moving into its prime spending years while Boomers are shifting beyond them) and our social mores ("is there value to this beyond just having it?").

So, consumers will spend their money but it will be in a different way than ever before -- they will want value and meaning with their luxury. They can take it or leave it so if you want them to take yours you'd better imbue your jewelry with good value and good values.

It will no longer be chic to pay 10x the price for a luxury item just for it's name or because you can afford it. The new consumer will still spend more for a luxury item IF it comes with a good value-to-cost-of-goods ratio and a green or charitable component to it.

They'll want to know that they are spending their money for their own enjoyment while helping others or society or the planet or at the least.....not harming them.

So, at the end of this year is a great time to plan your strategy for next year (and beyond) by figuring out how you can add more value into your jewelry. As the saying goes, "there has to be more there there than ever before."

Great Ductape Marketing Tip -- via InStore Magazine

Just read this on the tips page of INstoremag.com and had to share:

THINK SMALL Big dreams have their place, but it’s the sum of the little things that get you there, says John Jantsch of Ductape Marketing.

To ensure you’re focused on the right things — making more sales calls, networking in the local community and, yes, taking a journalist out to coffee, Jantsch suggests you create a scorecard with 10 marketing-related actions and rate each one for importance, say five points for attending a local women’s group meeting and one for writing on your blog. Set a daily target of 20 points.

This routine should help you stay focused on what’s really important.