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The temperature outside was rising during JA New York’s Summer show, but Dave Kerpen from Likeable Jewelers had the holiday season on everyone’s mind during his educational seminar about social media for holiday marketing.

“Social media’s the new word of mouth,” Kerpen told the crowd.

Kerpen advised investing time and resources in social media during the summer, so there will be a return on investment by the holiday season. He suggested these tactics to build a following of loyal customers on social media:

Show personality and product. Use social media to differentiate your store from other retailers. Include stories about culture, employees and customers.

Ask for engagement to capitalize on social media word of mouth. Ask your followers questions in the post. Request followers to share, like, comment and tag friends. For example: a photo post of a ruby ring with the caption “Tag your friends who are July babies!”

Listen and respond to everyone — even the negative comments. Show customers that you are the kind of brand that cares about helping people, listen to your followers! Don’t delete or ignore negative comments, listen, apologize and thank them for their feedback.

Use social media’s advertising capabilities. Be extremely specific with your target audience. Use demographics like age, gender, zip code, employment or interests to get your message to the right people.