How to Monetize Social Media

Why Social Media?

Social media today:

Getting Started

Person looking at laptop screen while taking notes

To take advantage of the plethora of ways to grow your business using social media, it is crucial that your brand:

  1. Has social media accounts with complete, up-to-date and relevant information
  2. Posts regularly on these channels, with content specific to each channel because you will likely have customers who follow multiple of your social channels and don’t want repeat content
  3. Posts original and interesting content that is unique to your brand

Selling on Social Media

Why should you sell on social channels? Selling products on social media can increase brand awareness, bring new audiences to your products and integrate your company in a community of people who can interact with your brand. Uploading products to your social media channels will complement your marketing tactics because you can directly link products available for purchase. Moreover, using these social channels effectively and to their full potential let’s your customers connect with your brand on a personal and local level.

How to sell on Facebook, Instagram & Pinterest

Person scrolling through Facebook on a laptop

Selling with Facebook Shop

What you need: Facebook Business Page + the shop tab you can easily add
Two options for selling on Facebook Shop:

  1. Directly link product details and a payment processor
  2. Use a third-party eCommerce site that can extend your selling options to your blog, website and social channels

Cost: The Facebook Business Page shop section is free to use, and Facebook will not take any share of your profit.

Android phone with Instagram login screen open

Selling with Instagram Shop

What you need: Instagram Business Profile
Two ways to sell on Instagram:

  1. Running ad campaigns: Promoting your brand is easy because Instagram’s algorithm serves your ad to an appropriate audience.
  2. Instagram Stories: tucked into users’ Stories, both video and photo ads can deliver a personal touch

Cost: Cost is dependant upon various factors, including how much you want to spend, how long you want your ad to run and where you want your ad to be seen.

Person on laptop in a studio smiling

Selling with Pinterest Shop

What you need: Pinterest Business Page
Buyable Pins: You are eligible for Buyable Pins if you use an eCommerce platform such as Shopify, Demandware and BigCommerce

Rich Pins: Rich Pins can be added to your account as app, product, recipe and article pins. Information about product pins includes images, availability, location and real-time pricing all pulled from your eCommerce website

  1. Install Yoast SEO plugin in WordPress. Squarespace already has all necessary metadata to enable Rich Pins.
  2. Navigate to Rich Pin Validator to apply for Rich Pins

Noteworthy features of social shops

Facebook allows you to organize your products by collections. Users can also message your business about the products listed. Facebook provides Insights about how many messages, views and how much you have earned on each product listed. One added benefit is that your shop items can appear in Facebook’s Marketplace. Stripe and PayPal can be linked to your shop to make sure customers never leave Facebook when purchasing from the shop.

Instagram’s Shop now call-to-action button for sponsored posts allows users to simply click and be directed to the product online. Within Stories, the See More function lets users to swipe up to explore products mentioned. Within your feed, you can also tag the products in your photos. Instagram loads the product pages in the app, so you don’t have to worry about losing a customer traveling to a browser after clicking on a product.

Tips for Facebook and Instagram Shops

Product listings must include the following in order to drive success:

Make sure that your Facebook Business Page is verified. Instagram currently does not have a self-selected verification process, but there are call-to-action buttons available to put on your business’s profile, including ‘buy tickets,’ ‘make reservations,’ and ‘book appointments.’

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