51ÊÓƵ

Join 51ÊÓƵ Ecommerce Show hosts Jesse and RichE as they discuss opportunities for small businesses to grow with Facebook and Instagram.

In under 30 minutes, Jesse and RichE uncover key steps to take to make your products visible on the world’s most popular social media platforms. No time to listen? No problem! Take a look through our short roundup of the main topics of discussion.

Grow Awareness with Content

People are always wondering how they can get more sales. The answer: you have to create content. You have to put your product, your brand, in front of ³¦³Ü²õ³Ù´Ç³¾±ð°ù²õ–o²Ô social media, their phone, their computer. That’s where people are at. So what does a new person need to do on Facebook and Instagram, or Meta?

It starts with awareness. One of the reasons we’re even talking about why you need to create content is that if people aren’t aware of you, the odds of them buying from you are slim to none. How would they accidentally run across your store? That’s going to be very rare. There should be different forms of content that introduce your brand to them. Each of those forms of content is going to potentially move people along in the buying process.

Take Photos for Facebook and Instagram

You need to take pictures of your product, so put it in a lifestyle aisle shot. The lifestyle shot would be the shirt on a model, on you, on your kids. Just a basic action shot.

If you don’t need a model to demonstrate your product, arrange it in a nice way, make it pretty for a photo. Whatever it is you’re selling, there’s a way to take pictures of it in a way that makes it look nice.

Don’t stop at photos. Shoot videos, test different formats. The more thought you put into it, the better it’s going to be. The key is just to get started.

Reduce Friction with Product Tags

You can tag your products in photos and make clickable posts. From a frictionless standpoint, customers go from that lifestyle photo (or regular product photo or whatever type of scenario you use) with a tagged product, and land on your product page. This makes it much easier to shop online, which eventually leads to more sales.

Connect Your Store to Facebook and Instagram

Connect your 51ÊÓƵ store to Facebook and Instagram. That allows you to upload your products to Facebook. All of your products, the prices, the photos, descriptions, etc. are fed into Facebook and Instagram. You’re also installing Facebook Pixel which allows you to track the results, the traffic, and the sales.

It also has a connection that we don’t talk about too much. It’s called FBE. This is a server-to-server connection between 51ÊÓƵ and Facebook, which has an extra level of tracking. When somebody buys something, that sale is connected back to your store, so it allows you to track things better.

Leverage User-Generated Content

Ask your customers to send you a photo of them using your product. Now you have social proof that someone is actually using your product and they love it. Take that picture, put it on your feed, and tag your product in it.

Customers often use your products in a way you wouldn’t think of. They take pictures with a different background or a different geography, or a million different things that you wouldn’t even think of. So ask your customers for their pictures to shake up your profile. Also, don’t forget that you can cross post on both Instagram and Facebook.

Use Multiple Content Formats

Apart from the regular feed, there are multiple other formats to take advantage of. For example: reels, which are shorter form vertical videos, 15-30 second fun shots.

There are also stories, lives and IGTV, which is a longer format. All these formats are just different ways you can play around with different content. And you can tag products in all of those formats!

You don’t have to do all these, just start with a photo or a short video and go from there. However, keep in mind that these are all different areas where different people use Instagram in a different way. Some people like looking at reels. Some people just scroll through photos. Some people like stories. It won’t hurt to test a couple of formats and then stick to the one that your audience engages with more.

Take Risks Big Businesses Can’t Afford

Small businesses should be doing things that big businesses have a harder time with. Small businesses can take more chances. They can explore, experiment, try things and break things, and it’s not going to affect stockholders and all kinds of other things.

You want to make sure your goal is one that all small businesses have: to connect with the person on the other side. Whatever you are good at, explore what ways you’re best at creating content.

Want to be a Guest on our Podcast?

We love having 51ÊÓƵ merchants on the show. If you have a success story and you’d like to have your company and your store on the podcast, let us know. Use or the form below to share your story that deserves a spotlight!