Jewelry Making Tips with Metalsmith Society

When Instagram Posts Go Viral

• Corkie Bolton • Season 1 • Episode 11

Share episode

In today’s episode I am 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 going to share the experiences of two women in our community that also had posts go viral. It’s an interesting topic so stay tuned! Stats are from March 2024 and will likely increase!

Be sure to check our gorgeous turquoise from over 25 mines from Turquoise Moose. Save 10% with code MSS at checkout: https://turquoisemoose.com?aff=5

Production tip for applying patina, 5 million views from @scottjamesjewelry: https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cp44ODMPkfP/

Dog Nose Ring process video, 5 million views from @kathryn Reid Jewellery https://www.instagram.com/reel/Ck1ZSnUPhxp/

Tips for using a milgrain tool, 3.5 million views from @jo_mako https://www.instagram.com/reel/CxDXFsVOVkP/

My jewelry page @corkieboltonjewelry https://www.instagram.com/corkieboltonjewelry/

Viral video using specialty forming pliers, 6.5 million views from @allieperrydesigns: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CgmbYxxgE4r/

Viral process video, with 5.7 million views from @chelsealeighjewelry https://www.instagram.com/reel/ChXVhgWjbOu/

My viral video I didn’t even know went viral with over 9 million views: https://www.instagram.com/reel/CddWC1praN8/

THANK YOU TO EACH OF THESE COMMUNITY MEMBERS FOR GENEROUSLY SHARING THESE TIPS!

Support the podcast:

Please subscribe on your favorite platform, if you love it leave a review!

Join the Patreon community, your small monthly donation helps support me in creating this podcast, my blog at metalsmithsociety.com and sharing tips @metalsmithsociety on Instagram. You will also get exclusive discounts from companies like Rio Grande, Gesswein, PepeTools, Sunstone and many more! https://www.patreon.com/metalsmithsociety

Music attribution: Stock Music provided by RomanSenykMusic, from Pond5

Corkie Bolton:

Welcome to Jewelry Making Tips with Metal Smith Society, the ultimate podcast for anyone passionate about the art of jewelry making. I'm your host, Corkie Bolton. 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 you searching for the perfect gemstone to add a touch of natural beauty to your creations? Look no further than Turquoise Moose, your go-to destination for genuine turquoise cabochons and gemstones. Each turquoise cabochon and gemstone is meticulously hand-cut by skilled lapidary artists, ensuring that every piece reflects the unique character and natural allure of the stone. But what truly distinguishes Turquoise Moose? They are women-owned business that works directly with independent miners and cutters from over 25 mines. We have a special promo code for my listeners. You can save 10% off your order with code MSS at checkout. I will share my affiliate link in the show notes and when you purchase through the link, you help support the podcast. So now 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.

Corkie Bolton:

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.

Corkie Bolton:

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.

Corkie Bolton:

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.

Corkie Bolton:

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.

Corkie Bolton:

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.

Corkie Bolton:

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.

Corkie Bolton:

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.

Corkie Bolton:

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.

Corkie Bolton:

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.

Corkie Bolton:

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.

Corkie Bolton:

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.

Corkie Bolton:

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.

Corkie Bolton:

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.

Corkie Bolton:

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.

Corkie Bolton:

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.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Corkie Bolton

Host