Pritesh Patel, the lab’s chief operating officer, will take over as president and CEO of GIA.
Business Pulse: Who Handles Your Store’s Social Media?
For nearly 30 percent of jewelers who took National Jeweler’s latest poll, it’s the store owner who’s getting social.

New York--The jewelry store owner is most likely the one handling his or her store’s social media accounts, posting about once a day or once a week, probably on Facebook.
That’s what National Jeweler/Jewelers of America’s latest Business Pulse poll, which was completed by 162 retailers, shows.
When asked to describe the role of the person who manages the store’s social media accounts, 29 percent said it was the store owner/executive, followed by a member of the sales staff at 21 percent, and an employee who works in marketing at 16 percent.
A total of 10 percent of jewelers reported having an employee, or employees, whose job solely was to do social media.
Other responses included that it was a “team effort” and that they used an outside agency or individual.
When it comes to what social media platforms are most utilized for marketing, the responses yielded no surprises.
Facebook was the No. 1 most-used platform by far, selected by 90 percent of those surveyed. That was followed by Instagram at 46 percent, Pinterest at 43 percent and Twitter at 35 percent. (See chart at top of story.)
A total of 9 percent selected Snapchat, the image messaging app that’s growing in usage.
As far as frequency of posts on these platforms, only 10 percent of survey-takers said they posted content more than once a day; there were actually more respondents (11 percent) who said they post less than once a month.
The majority of jewelers (63 percent) post about once a day (32 percent) or once a week (31 percent).
June: Hot and Cold
The Business Pulse poll also asked jewelers about their sales in the month of June as compared with June 2015.
Responses were fairly equally divided.
A total of 44 percent of respondents said sales were up year-over-year, with the greatest percentage (29 percent) reporting an increase of 25 percent or less.
Thirty-seven percent of respondents said sales dropped, with 26 percent reporting that the decline was less than 25 percent.
National Jeweler/Jewelers of America fielded the latest Business Pulse poll between July 28 and Aug. 9.
It was done in conjunction with the Product Pulse poll, which asked jewelers about branded jewelry sales.
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