This roundup of five good reads features a shoe brand’s social media’s successes and failures, social media statistics for small businesses, and a cool infographic on estate jewelry.

1. Converse has 39.6 million Facebook fans and was named one of the Top 100 brands on social media by Socialbakers. However, Econsultancy points out areas that the brand is lacking in social media, including the complete lack of a Pinterest page and a Vine account that is infrequently updated. The lesson should be: Don’t let your success on one channel prevent you from developing winning strategies on other social media networks. Your audience isn’t operating on one channel and neither should you.  

2. A recent study by LinkedIn, which included a survey of nearly 1,000 small businesses in the U.S. and Canada, found that companies experiencing hyper growth reported a 73 percent increase in social media spend.

Two other important stats:

• 61 percent found social media useful in gaining to customers
• 90 percent are either current users of social media or plan to use it in the future

Broken-record alert: As more small businesses embrace social media, your business is likely to fall farther behind without a social media presence.

3. Speaking of stealing, I mean, borrowing good social media ideas, BaubleBar cofounder Daniella Yacobovsky recently shared some of her company’s social media strategies. The company’s overall strategy boils down to “be authentic, be personal, and listen.” That’s sound advice for all of the social media managers in the jewelry biz.   

4. First of all, shame on you if you’re a jeweler posting solely text-based Facebook messages! You’ve got a sparkly product that is click-bait without even trying. Show it off! Social Media Examiner cites a study that found photos account for 93 percent of the most engaging posts on Facebook. Posts that include images get 53 percent more likes, 104 percent more comments, and 84 percent more click-throughs on links than text-based posts.

5. Enough about social media, here’s a cool infographic on the eras of estate jewelry:

JCK