Selling on Facebook is very different to selling on other social media channels. Particularly during holidays. These tips will help you excel on Facebook during the holidays.
Facebook started as a Myspace-duplicate site for college students, where they shared their thoughts and relationship statuses. It has since evolved to be so much more. Facebook can be used both with its organic Page sales features as well as with its ad system to become a powerful selling tool.
If you want to build relationships with your Facebook followers, it is important to know how to sell on Facebook. This requires careful use of the features that are sales-focused and a set of strategies.
Social media selling is not a one-size fits all approach. If you are wondering how selling on Facebook works, keep reading. We have plenty of strategies and tips to help you get results.
This post will cover everything you need to sell on Facebook. It includes how to create a strong content calendar that is sales-oriented (you can even get a free content planner), various sales features on Facebook and other tips to increase conversions.
Get Started with a Strong Content Calendar
If you are looking to increase sales, a content calendar is a must-have for any Facebook Page. It is a good idea to keep one all year, with seasonal content, promotions, products, and so on.
You can use content calendars to plan out what you will be posting over a given time period or at least most of it. You can include images, videos and hashtags. Because you aren’t scrambling at the last minute, this can reduce stress when executing your social marketing strategy.
Use a social media content calendar to plan ahead.
You’ll be less likely to copy content if you can see the current status of any post at any time.
It will also save you time and save your sanity. This is a valuable resource for social media marketers. (Feeling overwhelmed? (Suffering from overwhelm?
You can see when your promotions will be posted ahead of time so that you don’t have to scramble at the last moment to update your status and take a photo about gift baskets that are 20% OFF TODAY ONLY.
We’ve already covered the reasons why you need a calendar. Let’s now look at how to choose one that works for you and your company.
Create your Content Calendar
When I start filling out my calendar, there is a process that I follow: planning and preparation. Although it may seem like a lot of work, this is essential to ensure that you have all the information you need for your promotions.
Select a calendar format
There are many great scheduling tools out there. However, I have yet to find one with a calendar layout as good as Agorapulse. You can add posts and photos to it, and a preview of the image is displayed when you hover over a post.
Example: Social media management calendar
You can set up posts to appear on the day and time you prefer.
A queue of seasonal or evergreen content can be set up to fill any gaps in your schedule.
Get your sales content calendar prepared
When I create a calendar for Facebook posts I do some research to find out if there are any holidays (including National Ice Cream Day) that I should be aware of.
As we approach the holiday season, here’s a tip: When creating a holiday calendar, remember to include Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday. Christmas, Hanukkah, Christmas, Cyber Monday and Cyber Monday.
Summer vacations, proms, wedding seasons close to you, back-to school, graduations and many more are all potential sales opportunities. This will help you create the framework of your plan.
Next, consider any sales, coupons or promotions that you would like to run in the next few months. Then, plug these dates into your calendar. This will let you see if there are any promotions that overlap.
You want to ensure that your calendar includes different types of content for the best results. This will keep your audience interested.
Example of engagement through social media during the holidays
It is a smart choice to ensure that you have at most one of the following posts per week or every other.
Behind-the-scenes and/or “how it’s made” content. This can be used to showcase products or brand procedures that help build customer interest, trust, and buyer intent without feeling like they’re being pressured into purchasing.Promotional content featuring your products. These posts are more sales-focused. They feature specific products and why they’re great, and encourage customers to purchase.Engagement focused posts, like “Which is better: fried turkeys or roasted?” These posts can link to resources on your site, which can help with relationship-building that leads to longer-term sales.User-generated content and employee-generated content. It should feature your brand’s products at least once. This will make it more effective in terms of sales.
Download our FREE Social Content Calendar for tips and ideas on social media content.
Plan your content one month in advance
You are now ready to fill in your Facebook posts and add them to your calendar.
You probably have some ideas about what you want to share-a promo for one day, a sale lasting a week, or an exclusive offer that is only available to your Facebook friends. To keep your audience interested, you should create different types posts regardless of the posts scheduled.
Don’t be afraid of trying new things, changing the schedule, or changing up your posts once you reach this stage.
You can try another coupon on the next Monday if a coupon isn’t performing well on Monday. Calendars are great because you can see all of it at once. It’s easy to move things around and improve your results without losing everything.
The first step is to create a content calendar. You now need to learn how to optimize your content to increase sales.
Let’s look at some reliable and highly efficient ways to sell more on Facebook in 2022 and beyond.
Create an online storefront
Facebook allows businesses to create a virtual storefront through their platform. Facebook users can view and purchase products from their site.
Shops are a great way to increase your sales on Facebook. They put your products in the forefront.
Having your brand’s name in front of more people can help them buy quickly. It’s also hard to beat Facebook for selling products.
This feature is available on mobile devices, too. Around 80% of Facebook users access the platform via their mobile phones.
One tip: Don’t share Shoppable-tagged posts directly from Instagram to Facebook, encouraging customers to “click to buy.” This Shoppable feature won’t transfer from one platform to another and will at best confuse customers (and at worst frustrate them).
Create a Facebook group centered on your brand
While Facebook Groups are primarily about building relationships, they can also be a key part of driving long-term sales. Because of their exceptional organic reach, groups that are centered around your brand could also be powerful selling tools.
If people join groups that are related to your products and services, it indicates that they have an interest in your brand. They are there to get insider tips and tricks, share their experiences, and possibly receive exclusive access from your brand.
Here’s an example: Hamama sells sprout kit and has a group for their existing customers. Customers can share the stories of their sprouting experiences, their favorite recipes, and their top growing tips. Customers can reach out to customer service for assistance, ask for help and get information about setting up.
The brand will grow in value the more people are invested in it. This makes it more likely for them to buy additional sprouting kits, and possibly even as gifts for others.
Businesses can also use Groups for long-term brand building. They can share coupon codes and beta test offers to promote their products to an engaged audience who’s more likely to buy.
Respond to all messages and comments
Selling is sometimes about getting your products out and promoting them. Sometimes, selling is about helping potential customers.
Customers often ask questions about ads and public posts. They will reach out to Facebook and its sister apps Instagram WhatsApp. You should pay close attention to all messages and comments you receive so that you can answer questions and overcome objections and recommend products.
Facebook has just launched a new feature that allows customers to link their Page to WhatsApp. If you have a WhatsApp account, it’s important to implement this feature as soon as possible.
All your Facebook messages can be managed from one dashboard
Use Social Media to leverage sales-oriented content marketing
When you use content marketing to showcase your products and services, it can be extremely powerful as a selling tool. These posts can be promoted on social media to increase reach and generate more sales.
Here’s an excellent example. Blendtec shares seasonal recipes that require some mixing action regularly. Sometimes they share the recipe in a blog post. Other times they direct the user to a website for a longer version.
The strategy works in any case. It reminds users they need a blender and can encourage them to buy one so they can get into the kitchen.
This is a value-based selling tactic that can have a huge impact on your customers.
Don’t Forget Mobile
A large percentage of Facebook users engage primarily (or entirely) via mobile. More than 80% of Facebook users access the platform almost exclusively from mobile.
Your sales-focused content must be mobile-friendly.
Let’s take a look at the example we saw above, and see how it looks on mobile.
It still looks fantastic. The text of the recipe is cut. Blendtec’s success here was that they used a catchy lead sentence to announce soup season and then share the recipe. With an image that pops up on mobile, users will know exactly what they will get.
Keep in mind that mobile devices will crop your text much quicker than desktop. Therefore, you should make sure to include any attention-grabbing content at the top.
Customer Stories and User-generated Content
This holiday season, your best Facebook selling tool will be user-generated content (UGC). Reviews are trusted 12x more by customers than direct marketing from the brand, and 2/3 of them trust comments posted online by other customers.
Ask users to tag you on Instagram and Facebook posts. When you share something, tag the user and include any positive comments. While images and videos are powerful, testimonials are just as effective.
To increase sales and make it easier to buy, you can always include a link to the product featured.
Host a product-focused giveaway
Giveaways and sweepstakes contests are great ways to get lots of attention for your brand via user shares and conversation. It’s hard to resist a freebie, and contests that are product-focused can help to generate buyer interest as well as brand awareness.
Customers can be told that they could win a gift certificate if they do the following:
Make a wishlist. Share a photo of yourself with one of your products. Come in-store to enter the raffle
These actions can bring your products to their attention. This can help them consider what product they might buy. Sometimes, this is all that’s needed to make an extra sale.
For maximum visibility, you want contests to include a social element. This will allow you to reach both new and existing customers.
Do not forget Facebook Stories
Instagram Stories typically get all of the attention in social media’s vertical, disappearing-after-24-hours content, but Facebook Stories hold their own, too.
Stories can be used to highlight UGC, announcements and new products. Your post can be directed to users so they can view it or you can announce sales. This will bring them back to your website.
Stories are mobile-first, vertical content. A combination of images and shorter videos (5 seconds or less) is a great option. To make your Story stand out, add text and emojis.
Advertise to expand your reach and engage warm audiences
Although all the strategies discussed have used organic (aka free marketing), the truth is that it’s worth at least trying the Facebook Ad pond if you’re looking to sell lots of holiday merchandise.
Facebook Ads are a great way to reach people at all stages of a funnel. But, its greatest strength lies in reaching new audiences. The amazing machine learning capabilities of Facebook will automatically determine who responded to your ad and optimize your campaigns based on that information.
In conclusion
Most people find that once they start using a calendar for scheduling Facebook posts, it is hard to remember life without it. Calendars are great for managing your social media strategy. They allow you to see which promotions match what you’re posting and also make it easy to move things around.
Start saving time and energy with your social media management. Get a free trial of Agorapulse, which will help you plan, track, measure, and measure your social media efforts.
