The Ultimate Facebook Marketing Guide for E-Commerce Stores

Competition is fierce in the ever-growing e-commerce industry. According to research conducted by 99firms, there are now over 24 million websites that sell products online. You can get the upper hand on the competition, however, by including Facebook in your marketing strategy.

Build a Facebook Page

Facebook marketing requires the use of a Page. As per the social media network’s terms and conditions, all businesses must use a Page — and e-commerce stores are no exception. You can only use a profile to represent yourself. Facebook offers Pages as a way for businesses to represent, as well as market, themselves.

You can build a Page for your e-commerce store by logging in to your personal profile and clicking the grid-patterned menu button in the top-right corner. Under the “Create” options, click “Page.” Facebook will then ask for some basic information about your business, such as its name, category and a description.

For the category, choose “E-commerce Website.” For the description, mention your e-commerce store’s name and what it sells in 255 characters or less. Clicking the “Create Page” button will make your Page live. You can further customize your Page by accessing it while logged in to your personal profile.

Edit Contact Information

Don’t forget to edit the contact information on your Page. If a Facebook user wants to learn more about your e-commerce store, he or she may search for its contact information. Maybe a user wants to know what forms of payments your e-commerce store accepts, or perhaps a user wants to know if your e-commerce store has a specific product in stock. Fortunately, you can provide users with your e-commerce store’s contact information by editing your Page.

Clicking the “About” button on your Page will bring up several customizable sections, including a contact information section. In this section, you can enter your e-commerce store’s web address, phone number and email address.

Add a Custom Logo and Cover Photo

While Facebook doesn’t require them, you should add a custom logo and cover photo to your Page. A logo is essentially your Page’s profile photo. It’s displayed next to your e-commerce store’s name on your Page. It’s also displayed alongside any posts and comments that you publish. Whether you publish a post or on your Page or respond to another brand’s post on their Page, Facebook users will see your logo.

A cover photo, on the other hand, is a large banner-shaped image that serves as the main graphic for your Page. It’s displayed at the very top of your Page, above your logo and all other content. You can add a custom logo and cover photo to your Page by clicking the placeholder sections on your Page.

If your e-commerce store already has a logo, you should typically use it for your Page’s logo. Using the same logo for your Page will ensure brand consistency. For the cover photo on your Page, you can use any image that’s relevant to your e-commerce store, such as a product collection. Just make sure it’s at least 400 pixels wide and at least 150 pixels tall.

Share Product Links

After building a Page, you can use it to share links to your e-commerce store’s products. Like profiles, Pages support posts. You can publish posts on your Page containing text, images, videos or links. These posts will be displayed on your Page in reverse chronological order, and Facebook may display them in the personalized content feeds of relevant users in this same order as well.

Sharing product links in posts will drive users from Facebook to your e-commerce store. You can enter a brief description of a product along with its URL. Users who see this post may click the link to visit your e-commerce store and buy the promoted product.

Share Informational Content

In addition to product links, you should share informational content on your Page. Informational content consists of any post that’s educational and not directly promotional. If you only share product links, users may stop following your Page. Sharing a combination of product links and information content, conversely, will encourage them to continue following your Page.

Some digital marketing experts recommend following the 80/20 rule when sharing content on social media. The 80/20 rule states that 80 percent of all content businesses share on social media should be educational and non-promotional, compared to 20 percent for promotional content.

Set Up a Shop

There are other ways to promote your e-commerce store’s products on Facebook besides linking to them in posts; you can set up a Shop. A Shop is a storefront that’s connected to your Page. It allows Facebook users to buy your e-commerce store’s products without leaving the social media network.

With a Shop, you’ll essentially have a separate platform on which to sell products. You can still sell products directly on your e-commerce store, but you’ll also be able to sell them on your Page. For more information on how to set up a Shop, visit facebook.com/business/help/268860861184453?id=1077620002609475.

Consider Facebook Ads

You may want to consider Facebook Ads for additional exposure. It’s the social media network’s paid advertising service. According to Facebook, its advertising service is capable of reaching 2.14 billion users per month. Using it, you can pay to reach more users on Facebook with custom ads.

Facebook Ads support several formats, including image, video, carousel and collection. You can upload and customize creatives in these formats to use in your advertising campaigns. Facebook Ads offers two pricing options: cost per click (CPC) and cost per mile (CPM). The former pricing option means you’ll only pay when a user clicks your ad, whereas the latter pricing option means you’ll pay for every 1,000 views your ad generates. CPC is the default pricing option for Facebook Ads, but you can switch to CPM.

Whether you use organic or paid methods, Facebook marketing can help your e-commerce store beat its competitors. Customers may find your e-commerce store through the social media network. And if you have a Shop set up, they may buy products on your Page.