In the age of social media marketing and E-commerce, selling your products online has never been easier. Social media selling is a popular term that sounds similar to social media marketing or social media advertising but is actually in a lane all on its own. Social selling is about how brands use their social media channels such as Facebook and Instagram to connect with prospective customers and engage with potential leads.
Untapped Social Media Markets
Consider it the modern-day relationship builder that allows you to nurture and form an authentic connection with customers. One of the biggest landscapes for social selling occurs on Instagram and Facebook that both boast over 1 billion active users each month. 65 million entrepreneurs have a dedicated Facebook page for their business and 77% percent of marketers use Instagram to help build and enhance their brand’s social strategy.
Let’s dive into how you can adapt your social media strategy by using Facebook and Instagram marketing to sell your products.
Instagram Selling For Today’s Consumer
Instagram for today’s modern users is complex and offers a variety of social selling opportunities from stories, reels, posts, and the Instagram Shop. The benefits of selling directly on Instagram and creating an Instagram Shop allow you to tag individual products from your website and turn customer engagement into purchases.
Instagram marketing has never been easier with numerous options and features to help you package and curate your products for your ideal consumer. It is one of the ideal social media platforms for selling products because it provides real-time interaction with customers which helps to foster natural relationships. Whether you’re a small business, E-commerce brand, or mom-and-pop shop, Instagram makes it easy to set up your shop in just a few simple steps.
In order to create an Instagram Shop, you need a business account on Instagram, physical goods that comply with the commerce policies, and a Facebook catalog for your business manager. After your shop is approved and published you can create shoppable posts through tags, pricing, quality photos, and product stickers in stories.
For example, if you’re a candle business looking to gauge new scent options you can create a poll in your Instagram stories for real-time responses from your customers. A key feature of Instagram marketing is that the posts are visually stunning which gives your brand the versatility to showcase how your products can be a part of a customer’s lifestyle versus an inanimate object.
The Facebook Shop
Facebook has continued to redefine and shape the social media landscape and that became more concrete when they introduced social selling via their Facebook Shop. As a social media selling tool, Facebook makes it very simple for a business or entrepreneur to launch their products to new customers because of their integration with Instagram and third-party E-commerce websites like Shopify.
This social media platform is all about information versus images, so if you’re looking to share in-depth information, functionality, or product details to a customer, this is the place to do it. As a text-first social platform, it allows customers to learn about who you are, what you are selling, business hours, or newsworthy content. You can easily create a Facebook Shop that allows you to add an unlimited number of products, communicate directly with customers, and get metrics on how your shop is performing. All you need to create a shop is a Facebook account and business page.
Using Facebook Business Manager
After your shop is set up, you can leverage the Facebook Business Manager to review your product catalog, run ads, connect your page to Instagram, and delegate tasks to multiple team members. If Instagram tells you how your content is performing, then Facebook focuses on the content and internal business operations that can help you make more informed decisions about where to market your products.
You can get the most out of your manager page by running different types of ad campaigns that measure brand awareness, conversions, traffic, and build leads for future products. If you have a niche item like perfume or fragrance then you can share essential product information like the type of bottle used, scent, fragrance notes, and details about any promotions or sales on Facebook. While visually Instagram is still ideal for showing your product, Facebook can help you market that to a wider audience in the business manager.
How You Can Use Instagram and Facebook to Sell Your Products
A new year means more opportunities to sell your products online as each social platform expands its features and functionality to their global audience. One of the most crucial steps to social selling is to create a social strategy that correlates to each platform’s audience and demographics which have slight variations based on the type of user that engages with that platform. For example, Facebook has an older audience and Instagram is mostly Millennials and Gen-Y. Deciding which platform to invest your marketing dollars in can be determined by developing your target audience, social strategy, and business goals.
2022 Facebook trends predict E-commerce will expand with live stream shopping that will allow customers to purchase their favorite products in real-time. Business owners can create dedicated groups of loyal customers that link to your Facebook shop or Instagram with special promotion codes and incentives to build brand loyalty. Shoppable options for the Instagram consumer are being readily available via stories in addition to expanding the network of working with micro and macro influencers with paid posts. If you’re looking to get into a video strategy, Instagram Reels are capitalizing on the short format of TikTok that lets you tell a quirky, informative, or brand-worthy story in 60 seconds or less.
Are you ready to take your products into the realm of social media? Both of these platforms are excellent options to showcase your products to a global audience and share your unique brand story online. Social media selling has never been easier with these innovative shops that give fun and creative ways to get your products in front of new customers in a few short clicks.
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