When Instagram Posts Go Viral

Metals mith Society is a community on Instagram that has over 240,000 individuals , from professional jewelers to small business artisans , hobbyists , students and even those curious , lucky lose eager to learn about jewelry making . Together , we share tips , kindness and support .

In this podcast , I will discuss tips from the Instagram page , provide deeper insights , address questions and share bonus tips that often surface in the comments section . So , whether you've been making jewelry for a while or you're just starting your jewelry making journey , this podcast is your go-to resource for all the jewelry making tips .

So grab your tools , dust off your workbench and join me . In today's episode . I'm going to talk about some of our tips that went viral with millions of views . What made them go viral , what happened as a result of them going viral , and I'm also going to share the experiences of two women jewelers in our community that also had post-go viral .

It's an interesting topic , so stay tuned . Are

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let's get into a few of the tips that I've shared on Metalsmith Society that have gone viral . The tip to date that has the most accounts reached was shared by Scott James Jewelry . It's been viewed 5 million times by 4.8 million accounts . In this video , Scott is applying patina to a bunch of chains at once .

He has a glass jar filled with black max patina and , using a wire as a handle , he dips what looks to be about 25 necklaces or so into the patina .

I completely understand why this video went viral , because it's not only a fantastic production tip , which will save you time if you need to patina a bunch of chains , but also seeing the chains instantaneously turn black is deeply satisfying . This video had about 300 comments for me to go through . Some were asking what's in the jar .

Some were stating their preference for liver of sulfur , which is another patina option for silver . Many people asked how Scott finishes the chain after blackening them , to which he kindly replied that he gets a brushed finish with a Scotch-Brite pad or steel wool .

Then came the haters such ugly comments from internet trolls , people that likely spend their days finding posts where they can be mean and spread negativity when they themselves are not artists nor content creators . Listen , black and silver jeweler is not for everyone .

For me , I don't really care for white gold , but I'm not going to go comment on someone's gold ring . That's ugly . You ruined it by making it in white gold . Some people that shared their opinion that they don't prefer black and silver weren't like vicious , but there were a lot of comments that were pretty rude .

One of the potential plus sides of a video going viral is that you're able to go into your analytics on Instagram and you can see how many followers you gained from that specific reel . So I'm going to share that data today while I talk about these different videos .

So , in this particular instance , 2,500 people started following Metalsmith Society after seeing this patina tip shared by Scott James Jewelry . When I started Metalsmith Society back in 2018 , from the very beginning , I created pillars as a standard for everything that I was doing , posting and saying , and those pillars are kindness , community education .

I didn't want this to be another place on the internet where people are mean to each other . I wanted beginners to feel confident that they could ask questions and not feel judged , or someone could share their technique and someone else could say , well , hey , that's not how I do it , but that's cool that you shared that and everyone could just be supportive .

For the record , scott of Scott James Jewelry has been a community member since 2018 , and he is one of the kindest people I know , and I'm so saddened to see all these negative comments . While considering Scott has been in the game for a while .

I'm sure he just avoided looking at the comments at a certain point , which is sort of what you have to do if a video goes viral because it invites all these people to the party that aren't a part of your community . They aren't the people that believe in kindness , community education .

The next video I want to talk about was viewed 5 million times by 4.6 million accounts . 11,000 people followed Metals mith Society as a result of seeing this video by Kathryn Reid Jewelry . This video is a process video , start to finish , of Kathryn making one of her dog nose rings .

One thing that popped out as a tip is that she heats her steel ring mandrel and slides her wax blank onto it . To size it quickly , there were over 1200 comments so , honestly , I didn't make it through them all . For this particular video , the overwhelming consensus was that the video , the ring and Kathryn herself are all awesome , which I love to see .

This does seem to me to be the ideal scenario when you're sharing a video of your work and process and it goes viral and people are just really loving and supportive . And no doubt Kathryn's page has grown exponentially from these videos that have gone viral for her because it wasn't just me , she was helping me out . She created this viral content .

She's had multiple videos go viral and I've seen that her at the time of me recording this , I think . She has over 175,000 followers and she's been doing a great job selling her unique dog and also cow nose rings that she creates . So in this instance , I'm like , yeah , this video going viral was a huge help .

The next viral video was tips for using a Millgrain tool from Jo Mako . It was viewed 3.5 million times by 3.1 million accounts . 1300 people subsequently followed the Metals mith Society page from this post . The post is a close-up video of a Millgrain Edge being applied and , as one commenter stated , it is horribly satisfying to watch .

Jo shares these tips on creating Millgrain . She said . For the best results , millgrain needs to be applied to a fine edge , slowly applying pressure while pushing forward . If you slip off , slowly run the wheel back over the done section until the wheel once again aligns in the indentations , allowing the pattern to continue evenly again .

Now , as someone who personally does engraving and Millgrain , this is awesome information about using the Millgrain tool . For sure .

A lot of people try to run a Millgrain tool on , just like you know the edge of a ring , when really it's helpful to engrave a line and run the tool between you know the edge and what you engraved , so that you're kind of running it over a little mountain peak .

Hopefully my words and description are helpful , but you can definitely head over to the show notes and see this tip . I think one of the things that made this tip go viral is it's a great shot .

You're seeing the before and after of you know the ring before it has the Millgrain after , and it's sort of you know just a few seconds long , and I think that people have a short attention span , and what I've noticed is that a lot of these viral videos are things that run on a continuous loop or show off a cool technique , but just a quick clip .

They don't really require any explanation . You just kind of see this transformation of the metal in this instance . So that's certainly interesting . You know the comments on this particular post . It was just people being like this is awesome , this is cool .

So there wasn't really any negativity on this one , and so hopefully this was a good experience as well for Joe to have this video go viral

. Besides Metals mith Society , I'm also a jeweler and I also have an Instagram page for my jewelry at Corkie Bolton Jewelry . And in researching for this podcast , you know , I did want to talk to some of my peers that have had videos go viral . I wanted to hear , you know , what did that do for you ?

And so this is a very , you know , small sampling , but I first spoke with Allie Perry Designs . Now Allie's had several videos that have reached between one to eight million views , so I thought she was the perfect jeweler to discuss this with .

So one video she shared with me got 6.5 million views and accounts reached and from it she got almost 11,000 followers . Her video plays on a loop and in it she's using these awesome specialty pliers which I actually own , where you can modify links . You know you can turn circles into ovals .

So be sure to click on the show notes and check out her video and that tool because it's pretty cool . And she also poses a question at the end of some text in the video saying what do you think I should make with them , them being these links . So she has a call to action and some text for folks to read and it's a quick video playing on a loop .

This is what Allie had to say about the video . It was so crazy . It was mostly positive . It was a what do you think I should do ? Post . So lots and lots of people offered opinions . Lots of people also asked about the pliers I used in the video , but it didn't necessarily translate to sales , at least in the short term .

Who knows if any of those new followers went on to buy from me ? And , as I mentioned previously , she said , I've had about a half dozen reels get between one to eight million views . Never once have I sold out my website .

Viral videos attract eyeballs but they aren't targeted at our ideal customers , so it's a crap shoot whether the followers become customers , and it's been my experience that my process videos that went viral attracted other creators and metalsmiths . They're definitely looking to learn , but perhaps not here to shop .

Another member of our community that's gone viral is Chelsea Leigh Jewelry . In her video she's showing the making of a pendant , but it's a very quick loop , so in one second clip she's filing , in one she's sawing with a jig . In the other she's putting her piece in what looks like Jet Set , but it's just like a two second video looping over and over again .

This video got 5.7 million views . I asked Chelsea why she thinks the video went viral and she thinks it's because she used a trending sound at the time . The sound was very short . The sound and the clips played on a loop , so you didn't really notice when it started or ended , making for a lot of replays .

The clips were short clips of a piece in progress but didn't show the final result , which left a lot of people curious . So I asked her what happened as a result of this video going viral .

She said she gained close to a thousand followers in a matter of a few hours , which was probably pretty impactful if she had about 5,000 to 6,000 followers at the time . As soon as the post hit about 5 million views , she made the difficult decision to archive the reel and I asked her why .

She told me , unfortunately , the followers and attention the reel was getting was nowhere near my target audience . I was getting mostly young and middle aged men as followers and people interacting with the post . I know it seems crazy to shut down a reel that went viral like this maybe it was but I feel pretty good about my decision .

To this day I value my community and my engagement so much . I have an amazing community and have worked very hard to build one that is truly engaged and interested in me and what I do . The traction from this reel was taking away from that .

I actually went in and individually removed hundreds of followers I got from that reel that did not align with my target audience . I was getting some strange and inappropriate messages from some and while most people wouldn't go to that effort to remove all those followers , it's what felt right to me in my gut .

I really appreciate both Allie and Chelsea taking the time to share their experience with me .

I know this is such a small sampling of people that have gone viral , but it does provide an interesting perspective because I think , you know , I was always wishing and hoping that you know , I would have videos go viral with my jewelry and then I would grow 100,000 overnight and it would translate to all these sales .

And yeah , you see this story occasionally , but like beware , because I don't think that that's 99% of people's experience . I think the thing is about videos going viral is it does welcome a lot of people you didn't invite to the party . It's probably gonna be a lot of people that aren't your ideal .

You know customer or target , if you will , and so it's just something to consider that even if you have a post that's only got , you know , 50 people engaged on it , like , those 50 people are your true community members that really care about what you're doing and they are your hottest leads .

I think one of the lessons we can learn from some of these posts is that you know some things you can do to make engaging content , especially reels . I think it's really interesting to have a call to action or something that hooks people in to what you're talking about .

A lot of times these days I will put a caption in the first few seconds of a reel that let people know , like , what's going on and kind of hooks their attention . I think that jewelers that are showing their faces are getting a lot more traction and engagement than jewelers that aren't , because it really humanizes your work and connects people to you .

I think that you can feel free to be funny , to be real , to be authentic , and I think one of the most important things you can do is have some sort of call to action .

You know Allie invited people to comment about what they thought she should do with these links that she was creating , and when you encourage people to comment on your posts , that right there is going to increase the engagement . You know you could ask them a question , you could ask their opinion , you can ask what their experience is .

Calls to action can also be . Check out the link in my profile . There's a lot of different ways that you can go with it .

This podcast episode got me curious about Corkie Bolton Jewelry and I was like , have I ever had a video go viral and then I went into the analytics and I clicked on two years and it turns out I actually do have a viral video that I really wasn't even aware of and you know , like other jewelers have experienced .

It's a quick clip of me using my Pulse Arc welder on a jump ring and it's super close up like macro lens and it's just like a one second , like dink you know , fusing of that jump ring . So it has nothing to do with my work .

I got almost 10 million views on it with almost nine million accounts reached and yeah , I mean I don't think I necessarily sold any jewelry from that , unfortunately , but hopefully I've found some new fans in the content that I'm creating

. Big thank you to all the members of the community that I shared in today's episode and truly all the episodes . Metals mith Society is only a thing , because members of our community generously share their knowledge , their time and their experiences . So we appreciate every last one of you . They will all be linked in the show notes .

Thanks for tuning in . Your support means the world to me . If you enjoyed today's episode and want to help keep the podcast going , there are a few ways you can show your support . Subscribe on your favorite podcast platform . Leave a review and let others know what you think , and share the podcast with your friends .

I also want you to check out Turquoise Moose , today's sponsor for all the gorgeous , responsibly , sustainably sourced turquoise and other gemstones . So check that out in the show notes and I'll catch you next time . Bye , thanks God .