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A Multi-Location Marketer’s Guide to Facebook Shops

 

In 2020, Facebook revealed Facebook Shops. Facebook Shops were introduced as the demand for online shopping was at an all-time high amid the pandemic to empower businesses to create a mobile shopping experience for their target audience. While your multi-location business might already have mobile shopping features in place on your websites, Facebook Shops allows you to broaden your reach. With approximately 2.89 billion monthly users on Facebook worldwide, providing your target audience with the option to buy directly from Facebook Shops only makes sense. Throughout this blog, we’ll dive deeper into what Facebook Shops is and what it takes for your multi-location business to leverage it to boost social-media driven sales. 

 

What Are Facebook Shops? 

 

Facebook Shops is a free tool that empowers business page admins to create a virtual storefront that lives on your business’s local Facebook and Instagram pages. With Facebook Shops, customers and potential customers can view your products, share them with others, and even make purchases – all directly from the app, making it a seamless buying process. Customers also can message businesses directly through Facebook Shops’ Messenger integration to ask questions, track deliveries, and learn more about products. 

 

Facebook Shops provide opportunities for brands to test e-commerce, or expand their digital shopping experience to include this major social network. 

 

How To Set Up Facebook Shops for Your Multi-Location Business 

 

There are only a few steps needed for multi-location marketers to set up Facebook Shops. To start, you go to Facebook’s Commerce Manager and click “Get Started.” You will then be able to select how you want consumers to make purchases and add your business information. Next, you’ll be able to add in products and shipping information. The final step is to complete the payout section where your multi-location business must add your company’s bank and tax information. After finishing all three stages, your Facebook Shops should be ready to go! 

 

Facebook Shops allows you to include customization and make the shop feel like your business. For instance, when it comes to products, you can arrange your products into groups or collections. If you’re in the retail industry, you can put your sweaters into one collection and all your shoes or beauty products into another. This makes it easier for consumers to find specific products they’re interested in. You can also adjust the layout and color scheme of your Facebook Shop, adjusting it to meet your brand guidelines or business’s look and feel, as seen in the example below. Once the shop is customized, the next step is promotion! 

 

 

How to Promote Your Facebook Shops 

 

 

1. Promote Shops Through Localized Ad Campaigns

 

 

Facebook Shops are an excellent opportunity for your business to promote its products where consumers are already spending their time. Without promotion, though, your Facebook Shops might not be getting the attention they deserve. One of the most effective ways to promote your local Facebook Shops is through targeted localized ad campaigns. Like other ad campaigns, you can choose your target audience based on their interests, needs, and location. Targeted ads are a great way to build the following around your Facebook Shops when you’re just getting started and will raise their online visibility. 

 

 

2. Promote Shops Through Localized Social Content 

 

 

If your multi-location business wants to promote its Facebook Shops without running ad campaigns, you can also elevate them through promotions and giveaways. For instance, you can post on your local Facebook page that you’re doing a giveaway for customers using your Facebook Shops. Similarly, you can share special deals that are only available through your Facebook Shops. The more high-value engagement (comments and shares) you get on posts about your Facebook Shop, the more eyes the post will receive, ultimately boosting your online sales. 

 

 

3. Promote Shops Through Your Local Facebook Store Pages

 

 

Finally, one of the easiest ways to get more eyes on your Facebook Shops is to increase the number of people interacting with your local Facebook pages.  Seventy-two percent of user engagement and 66 percent of brand-related impressions happen on Facebook location pages, not corporate pages. The data speaks for itself. Ensuring that your multi-location business has a solid local social strategy on Facebook is a must. As the following on your Facebook page grows, so will the number of people seeing your Facebook Shops. For more insight on what it takes to build a winning local social strategy and win more high-value engagements, check out our Localized Social Content Guide

 

 

 

Incorporating Facebook Shops Into Your Localized Marketing Efforts 

 

Now that you understand the basics of Facebook Shops and how you can promote the Shop once it’s up and running, it’s time to get started. Don’t miss out on any more potential sales opportunities. Facebook Shops provides great potential if used correctly and is another way your business can differentiate itself from the competition.

 

As mentioned previously, your business must implement a strong local social strategy to go along with your Facebook Shops to increase visibility. That’s where SOCi comes in. SOCi’s Social Solution enables multi-location businesses to manage and deploy localized content at scale while maintaining brand consistency at both the enterprise and local levels. With SOCi’s Social Solution, your multi-location business can publish to all major networks, including Facebook, and amplify audience engagement with localized shareable content. 

 

While a winning local social strategy is one way to boost your localized marketing strategy, you can’t let other search efforts fall through the cracks. SOCi is the all-in-one platform for your localized marketing needs and the central command for multi-location marketers. For more insight into how SOCi can help you crush your local social goals and dominate the localized marketing game, request a demo today!

 

 

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