How to sell online on Facebook? Which options do I have?
Miguel Nicolás
06/06/2018
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There are more and more options for selling online. We are going to tell you how to sell on Facebook and what resources you have. Discover it and sell more!
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For sure, selling on Facebook is a skill. It can be a quite complex strategy by itself and with different nuances. In today's post, we are going to show you how to sell online on Facebook and we will give you the options available.
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Pros and cons of Facebook as a sales channel
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The idea is that this article will help you to take stock of this social network from the point of view of sale, that you understand its advantages and limitations in order to take advantage of it. ?
On the positive side we have:- Scope. It is not a secret that, among all social networks, Facebook still leads the number of monthly users. The latest data shows 2.234 million monthly active users.
- Diversification of platforms. Instagram is also found in its ecosystem. It leads growth among social networks based on images and Whatsapp that begins to open up to the monetization by firms.
- Advanced advertising/commercial platform. We cannot make a comparison between Facebook and its competition. They have been ahead in that sense for years offering more interesting choices from the point of view of sale.
- Segmentation possibilities. Facebook knows our tastes and interests better than anyone. Google works so well, but at the moment, it cannot reach such an intimate knowledge of the user.
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In terms of the negative aspects:
- User´s predisposition. For better or worse social networks are not the most appropriate environment to sell yet, or at least the most aligned with purchase intention. We log in Facebook to see the updates of our friends, but we do not have the purpose of buying as in other channels such as SEO or SEM on search engines.
- It is difficult to sell organic. Especially because its algorithm clearly strengthen the visibility of contacts updates before those of companies. According to them, it is done by relevance, but there is also an evident interest in making corporate accounts to use the payment methods.
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Options to sell on Facebook
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Here we go with the review of the alternatives we have to strategically explode our Facebook and Instagram accounts (Currently, Whatsapp for companies is more a customer service platform).
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#1 - Driving traffic to our eCommerce
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This has always been the first choice. Creating a great community that is very well defined in terms of segmentation helps us try to use this channel as a very interesting source of referral traffic.
This may not have a direct cost, but keeping a careful profile, aligned with the brand´s strategy, its tone of communication and providing value (this is not about getting crazy sharing links of products) requires time and knowledge in order to use the resources that we provide properly.
In addition, we already said that, depending on Facebook´s algorithm is not a good deal because we are too limited. -
#2 – Start your own store on Facebook
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Well, it is another alternative, although it is half done. I mean, you can embed a store with your catalogue of products within your own Facebook profile page, but unless you are resident in the United States, there is no option of paying directly in your store. Therefore, the products have to be redirected to an eCommerce out of Facebook.
Nowadays, a store on Facebook is light-years behind of what is having an eCommerce on a specific platform for websites. They are much more limited in terms of options, hey have very few customization options, are opaque to search engines as they are within Facebook domain (so, no SEO)... -
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Seen thus, is more a way to capture that sell, but the mere factof having your listing of products uploaded to its platformopens up some possibilities that we discuss now.
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#3 – Products labelling
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This is one of those interesting options that combines organic virtues with the alternatives given by having our products uploaded to Facebook.
We can label products as we would do with people, the difference is that in this case the price will be displayed and will be linked to our online store sales page.
This, which has been available for over a year on Facebook, was launched on its photo platform with Instagram Shopping recently. We must agree this is a success because it offers us the possibility of including up to 30 of our items in a picture, allowing us to add context and lifestyle to a simple photo of product. -
#4 – Messenger and chat bots
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Surely you already know about it, Facebook Marketplace arrived in Spain a short time ago in order to try to face off against other P2P marketplaces.
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By definition, this is far from representing a professional e-commerce, but an opening may occur at any time. In fact, there is the possibility of using it as a company but... for sure, only in the United States.By taking a look at its page we clearly see that they will work on certain areas which they feel strong in: automotive, home rental, home services and Facebook pages with built-in store. Surely it is only a matter of time to see them in other countries.
Obviously, we would have to talk about the advertising platform, which is the only one that faces off against Google and takes some market share (look out with Amazon that is coming strong to claim its slice of the cake). The point is that this is such a deep issue that we already devoted a full series of posts on how to advertise on Facebook Ads. We recommend you read it if you want to sell here. -
What about you? Do you sell on Facebook? What is your strategy? Share them with us!
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Images | Facebook, Fotolia and Due Home.