If you were to ask five different people “What do you use social media for?” you may get five completely different responses. While many people may lean more towards conventional answers, such as catching up with the latest news, expressing themselves, or using it as a platform for my brand, shopping will become a much more common answer before you know it.
Shoppable social media content makes it easier than ever to present and make a wide range of appealing instant-gratification type purchases. While it’s fairly easy to directly insert shoppable content directly into your preexisting social media feed, it’s up to you to frame it so that your audience will be charmed by your perfectly framed text, images, and video, and “Buy it Now!”
Below are popular platforms that make it relatively simple for brands to set-up and sell their products through social media.
A Facebook shop lets you show and sell products to people right on Facebook. To set up your shop, change your page template to the Shopping template and click Get Started. From there, you just follow the prompts that ask “where do you business” “what do you sell” and the fill in your tax, business banking information, and setting preferences.
Once the shop is set up, you need to add products to it. Go to the Shop tap on your Page (via desktop – it’s not possible from a phone) the click Add Product. Here’s where you add images, a title, product details, and inventory count. Finally, choose your shipping options, return policy and product category (if available).
The final step is tagging products in your shop in your pictures and videos. It only takes four steps to do so.
- Open your photo post or upload your video.
- Click the Tag Products icon.
- In a photo, click the product you want to tag and type in the product’s name. In a video, you can start typing the name of the product.
- Click Publish or Done Tagging depending on the type of post you’re tagging.
Now you’ll be able to promote and sell your products on Facebook.
Perhaps the best reason to invest in shoppable Instagram posts is to present potential customers with an image and story combo that is so engaging and perfectly framed, that viewers will have to own the eye-catching item in your picture.
Here’s how to begin making shoppable Instagram posts:
First off, ensure that your Instagram account is set up as a Business account, you are running the latest version of the Instagram app, and already have an active product catalog linked to your Facebook, Shopify, or BigCommerce store. Once you’ve completed those steps, Instagram may take up to a few days to approve your account to create shoppable posts, but when you get that all-important notification of approval, you’re good to go!
Link your product catalog(s) to your Instagram account by navigating from the Get Started notification, to Products, Continue, picking your product catalog, and tapping Done.
You might be surprised to find out just how easy it is to actually make a shoppable post! Once you’ve developed the perfect post, simply tap the Add Products option below Add People, and the associated products linked to your online store will appear as you type them here. Select the items you want to add to your post, press Done, and you’ve just created a shoppable post on Instagram!
Pinterest and its collection of little white shoppable buttons makes it extremely easy to buy an interesting product without breaking the immersion of browsing someone’s perfectly curated catalog of stunning images.
Here’s how to begin making shoppable Pins:
- Turn your Pinterest account into a business account and link your store’s website to your new profile.
- Upload your image, give it a title, description, and link to a URL as normal, but click the grey shopping tag icon to begin the shopifying process.
- Scroll through your linked product catalog, select the product you want to tag, paste its store URL, and pick an associated product image. Press Done once you’re finished, and your shoppable Pin will go live.
Note that you can add as many products that you want to include in each Pin, and it is as simple as repeating the process above.
Don’t forget that you can edit the exact placement of every white dot in your shoppable Pins by touching the grey shopping tag.
YouTube
Video content reigns supreme and you can actually give people a way to buy your brand’s merchandise through a direct link within the video that your viewers are already watching.
Here’s how to make Merchandise Cards on YouTube:
- Open Video Manager, select a video, and press Edit. From there, click on the tab bar and then on Cards, Add card, Merchandise Cards, and Create.
- Enter your product’s associated URL, and upload an image under 5MB that will appear as the Merchandise Card pops up during your video.
- From here, you can adjust when the Merchandise Card appears, its title, and any associated text (30 characters or less) you wish to display alongside it.
- When everything is set, press Create card, and you’re good to go!
Note that while there is a large list of online stores with compatible URLs, such as Etsy, Zazzle, and Fandango, not all websites can be added to Merchandise Cards.
Optimizing your social media posts should always be a priority. By turning them into shoppable posts, you will directly reach new and current customers and hopefully sell more products.
Have you optimized your social channels to sell products? Let us know in the comments.
