Facebook is a great platform for keeping in touch with your friends and the latest happenings around the world. But have you thought about using it to promote your online store?
After all, with more than 2.6 billion monthly active users, Facebook has a huge reach. Getting a slice of that for yourself can just significantly boost your customer base!
Facebook also offers many features that help businesses market themselves on the platform, so it’s definitely worth checking out if you want to take your sales to the next level.
With this in mind, here’s a quick guide to promoting your store on Facebook.
1. Launch your Facebook Page
Facebook Pages work in the same way as Facebook profiles for people, but they’re designed to be promoted more publicly.
And if your store doesn’t already have a Facebook Page, then the first step is to create one for it.
(This is especially if you want to use some of the strategies that I’ll be covering below—where having a Facebook Page is a prerequisite.)
Setting up a Facebook Page is easy and takes less than five minutes. To make your store’s Facebook Page stand out, be sure to create an eye-catching cover photo or video for it!
This is the banner that is displayed at the top of your store’s Facebook Page. Here is the cover photo for personal finance blog NerdWallet, for example:
Graphic design platforms such as PosterMyWall offer free Facebook cover templates that you can use as the starting points for your store’s Facebook cover photos and videos.
2. Promote your store in relevant Facebook Groups
To get more customers for your store, it’s a good idea to go to places where they hang out, and promote your store there.
In this regard, check out Facebook Groups. These are communities of Facebook users with shared interests. Facebook Groups are free to join, but some group admins might require you to abide by certain group rules when you do so.
And before you start promoting your store in a particular Facebook Group, check what the group’s rules say about spam and promotions.
For example, members of the Knitting Facebook Group are required to comply with rules such as the following:
In particular, rule #3 states that members aren’t allowed to promote their own knitting businesses in the group.
On the other hand, the Etsy and Small Business Promotion for Buyers and Sellers Facebook Group more than welcomes members to promote their businesses:
Choose your Facebook Groups carefully before joining and sharing your store in them. You don’t want to get banned!
3. Advertise special offers using Facebook Ads
To supercharge your reach on Facebook, you can also buy Facebook Ads.
These ads are tagged to your Facebook Page and can appear in a variety of places on Facebook, such as the:
- News Feed
- Video feeds
- Right column
- Messenger Inbox
In a nutshell, to place an ad, you will upload your ad images and copy to the Facebook Ads Manager, choose where your ad is to appear and to whom, and set a budget for showing it. Facebook’s algorithms will then display your ad according to your instructions.
But don’t just set up your ad and forget about it. You should also run experiments on the types of copy, images and calls to action that resonate with your target audience the most.
As an example, check out these ads by stuffed toy retailer Build-a-Bear Workshop, where the business is testing ads with the same copy but with different images:
4. Go Live on Facebook!
Here’s a way of engaging with your Facebook followers more dynamically compared to posting on your Facebook Page:
Using the Facebook Live feature, you can start a live stream for followers to watch what your business is up to—in real time. This is great for streaming exciting content such as the unboxing of newly launched products, or covering a local charity event with a partner company.
You can even use Facebook Live to auction off your stuff!
This is exactly what luxury bag reseller LuxLexicon does: in regular two-hour streams, its staff show off different luxury bags, and people tuning in to the live stream can bid on them.
The highest bidder wins, and LuxLexicon then arranges for payment and shipping.
Going Live on Facebook may involve some extra work, from mounting your phone on a tripod to setting up lights and a mic.
But the experience of being able to chat with your fans and customers—and possibly even taking new orders on the spot—can be well worth the effort!
5. Set up a Facebook Shop
Finally, check out Facebook Shops.
These are storefronts for the listing of your products on your store’s Facebook Page. Facebook users will be able to browse your products and head over to your main store website to buy them.
Alternatively, certain eligible United States-based businesses can also enable the Checkout feature to take payments for orders right within Facebook itself.
Setting up a Facebook Shop is a good opportunity to further promote your wares on Facebook, and potentially drive more traffic to your store.
After all, Facebook tends to deprioritize the showing of content that leads to people leaving the platform, because it wants to keep Facebook users on Facebook for as long as possible.
But with Facebook Shops, users are actually invited to leave Facebook if they want to buy something from your store.
Need some inspiration with getting started with Facebook Shops?
Then head over to Adventure Cats’ Facebook Shop, where you can buy apparel with cat motifs and kitty accessories—purrfect for adventure-loving cats and their hoomans.
Promoting your store on Facebook: what’s not to “like”?
Facebook has come a long way from just being a platform for people to “poke” or even throw virtual sheep at each other.
If used strategically, Facebook can be a powerful platform for expanding your reach and getting sales for your online store. Don’t forget to pair your content with beautiful images and videos to attract the attention of potential customers, too.
Apply the techniques shared in this guide consistently, and Facebook will be helping you bring in extra moolah for your store before you know it!
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