Yes, there are 2.27 billion reasons you should be selling on Facebook. That’s the number of active users on this giant social media platform. No matter how specialized your small business, chances are your market is found somewhere here.
Not only does Facebook give you great reach, but it also lets you focus your efforts in a number of different ways, so you can target exactly the segment you need for what you are selling.
While there are lots of different ways to sell on Facebook, I’m going to focus on three important ones for small business: Facebook ads, setting up a Facebook shop, and using an ecommerce website builder to create an online store with a product catalog that is linked to Facebook.
OK, let the selling begin.
1. Cost-Effective, Highly Targeted Selling Through Facebook Ads
One of the most attractive features about Facebook ads is that it’s the only platform where you can get super specific about who you want to target. You can specify age, gender, hobbies and interests, profession, income and much more as you design your ad campaign audiences.
Running a small business, every penny counts. And Facebook provides some of the most cost-effective advertising around. With spends that can go as low as $1 a day, Facebook ads not only reach as many people, or more, as you can with TV, radio and print, but you can do it for much less money. While it might cost on average $32 to reach 1,000 people through newspapers, or $7 through cable TV, the price sinks to $.25 (yes, 25 cents!) per thousand with Facebooks ads.
You also have a variety of different ad types to choose from, depending on your needs. These range from carousel and canvas ads to mobile and video ads. You can take these tools and aim them at very specific target markets. You can do this through a wide range of demographics, interests and activities, purchasing activities, people with special connections to you, remarketing prospects and more.
With all the choices available, I know that for many, Facebook ads can be confusing and a bit overwhelming. But, with a little guidance and a solid marketing strategy, it can prove highly successful in growing your revenue. There will be more about this in my next blog post.
2. Free Selling Through Your Own Facebook Shop
An average Facebook user spends more than 40 minutes a day on the platform. This is not just for updating statuses and seeing their friends’ cat pictures – many of these people are looking for things to buy.
To take advantage of this activity, Facebook lets you set up a free shop. All that you need is a Facebook account and one of their business pages (both also free). And it’s easy. Just click the Shop tab on your page, click Get Started and fill in the required fields, including ones for what you sell, banking details and shipping options. Agree to merchant terms and you’re off to the races.
With your shop you don’t need to already have an online store. In fact, you can make your Facebook store your only ecommerce presence, if you wish. It will let you:
- Access Facebook Marketplace and its huge number of potential customers
- Add an unlimited number of products, organized into collections and categories
- See stats so you can fine-tune your marketing efforts
- Communicate directly with your customers through your page
And of course, to build up business for your shop you can turn to boosted posts or Facebook ads, and set a little synergy in motion. In today’s competitive marketplace, you often need to reach beyond your own social media following to increase business. And Facebook ads let you target people who might be interested in what you are selling but don’t yet know that you exist.
3. Create a Store with Wider Reach Using an Ecommerce Site Builder
Without a lot of technical knowledge, you can use an ecommerce site builder to create an online store and then connect your product inventory to Facebook. Not only will this give you a much more extensive selling presence online, but you’ll also have access to more ecommerce functions than with a Facebook store alone.
A Facebook store, for example, has fewer payment options, only allows you to sell physical items and has some options only available in the United States.
Three highly rated ecommerce website builders include:
- Shopify: Perhaps the best of the lot, Shopify lets you build your own, scalable online store with hundreds of built-in features, and lots of apps. You can sell across multiple channels, including Facebook, Instagram, Amazon and eBay.
- Wix: Wix has easy-to-use tools designed for small business owners who aren’t tech savvy. Any changes to your Wix store can be automatically reflected in Facebook.
- Bigcommerce: Another giant—with more than $5 billion in sales compared to Shopify’s $10 billion—Bigcommerce has more built-in features than its competitors, is scalable and lets you sell across multiple channels, including Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest
Well, I hope you are sold on selling on Facebook. In future posts, I will go into more depth about how your small business can best take advantage of these amazing marketing tools.