Social Media Special - Facebook

Here's another Social Media Special!

This time we're going to take a look at Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/

Everyone has heard of Facebook, but some of you might not be using it yet, or may only be using it for personal use rather than business use. So today we're going to look at how Facebook can be used to promote your Etsy shop.

Facebook Basics:

First of all, here's a few Facebook Basics, for those of you who don't use it at all yet...

• You can use Facebook to share stories, photos and videos - both your own and you can share other people's too. You can also use facebook to join and communicate with 'groups' of people who have the same interests as you, you can follow business pages of business you like, you can play games, chat in Facebook messages, and more.
• To use Facebook you need to set up a Facebook account (anyone over the age of 13 can do so).
• PRIVACY SETTINGS: You should think carefully about the amount of information you put on there and check your privacy settings too. For example, if you tend to use your birth town as a password for your online bank account, then don't put your birth town on Facebook - you don't want to make it easy for people to gather your personal information and use it to hack into other accounts. This doesn't need to scare you off, it's just good to keep it in mind when you are filling out your details. You can change the privacy settings for each update if you want some to be public and some to only be seen by your friends, or specific friends only, etc. You can read more about privacy settings here: https://www.facebook.com/help/325807937506242/
• You can become 'friends' with your real-life friends and family, so you can see the photos and updates they post, and they can see yours. 
• People can interact with the photos and updates you post, by 'liking' them (or other emotions e.g. 'loving'), or by commenting below them - you can then reply to their comment too.
• To use Facebook as your business (your Etsy shop) you need to set up a page. You have to already have a Facebook account before you can set up a page. Once you have a page, then people can 'like' it, and they will see photos and updates you post in there (though they won't always see everything you post, we'll talk more about this in a minute). They will be able to interact by commenting on / sharing your posts. They will also be able to message your page. You can add other things too, like a shop where you can list your items but then they have to click through to Etsy to purchase it.

There is lots more you can learn about Facebook settings and uses and I'm not going to cover it all here today. See the 'getting started' page of the Facebook Help Centre to find out more: https://www.facebook.com/help/364458366957655/

Using Facebook For Business:

Here's a few ideas on how Facebook can help your business...

Your Facebook Page: As mentioned above, you can set up a page for your business. 

• You can post updates one there (photos, videos, or just snippets about your day). Try a mix of updates about new products, behind the scenes, and about you / your shop. 
• You could try finding some hashtags to join in with on certain days, like #motivationmonday or #throwbackthursday - see more here: https://thrivehive.com/39-daily-hashtags-for-small-business-marketing/
• Pay to 'boost' your posts or advertise to reach more people - and you can set the target audience these are being shown to so that it matches your target audience (see our post about finding your target market here:  https://dorsetteam.blogspot.co.uk/2018/04/business-building-finding-your-target.html)
• Not all the people who've 'liked' your page will see all your posts. If they haven't recently visited your page or liked one of your updates then your new one won't be shown to them, or it will be quite far down in their facebook feed, so they probably won't scroll down far enough to see it. Encourage people to comment on your updates by asking questions - the more interaction your post has the higher it will appear in feeds.
• You can set up a Facebook shop, as mentioned above. For how to do that see here: https://www.facebook.com/business/help/912190892201033
• You can also add events you are attending, for example if you will be at the Dorset Team Fairs you can show these events on your shop page. Here's how to do that: https://www.facebook.com/help/802612399854497

Your Facebook Group: Some business will also set up a Facebook Group for other people to join. 

• This can be set so it's not as public as your Facebook Page - you can then use it to share special offers or coupon codes with people in your group - so this could be loyal customers, or customers who have spent over a certain amount etc.
• People might be more likely to interact in a group - they might not want to comment on a public photo on your public page, but in a group there are less people to see the comment. 
• You can pin posts to the top of a group so that people see the important information.
• You could try creating polls to get more feedback - this works on pages and in groups but again you might get more responses in a less public setting.

Join Groups: You can also join groups to help you network your business.

• Join groups to help with your Etsy shop, for example the Dorset Team Members group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1514236692123255/ so you can ask for help if your are stuck on something, but also to share successes, news, etc with other shop owners who will understand your joy!
• Join groups where people go if they are looking for handmade items to buy, or where you can share your giveaways, news, latest products etc. For example there's the group 'Handmade Craft Network UK' with over 38,000 members: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1578560309058402/ 
• You will find lots more groups to join if your search Facebook. When you search something (e.g. 'unicorn') you then need to scroll down to the 'groups' section, and click 'see all'. This will show you the groups it has found on that topic:

That's all we're going to look at for Facebook today. Let us know if you have any questions. Don't forget you can also 'like' the Dorset Team page here: https://www.facebook.com/dorsetteam/

If you missed our other Social Media Special posts you can see them here:

Social Media Special on Twitter: https://dorsetteam.blogspot.co.uk/2018/03/social-media-special-twitter.html

Social Media Special on Instagram: https://dorsetteam.blogspot.co.uk/2018/04/social-media-special-instagram.html

Social Media Special - Twitter

We are starting some new blog post topics here at the Dorset Team blog. The first Wednesday of each month will be a Social Media Special post - focusing on a different social media each week, and ideas on how to use them!

Our first feature is about Twitter:  https://twitter.com/

How many of you use Twitter? Do you know that we run a Dorset Team Twitter Chat each week?

For those of you who are new to Twitter...

Some Twitter Basics:

• It's a constantly updating feed of small snippets (or 'tweets') of news or chat - maximum 280 characters long (the limit used to be 140 characters and was increased in Nov 2017)
• Hashtags play a large part of tweets - helping you find new people to follow, keep up with trending topics, and join in with Twitter chats
• Twitter chats are scheduled time slots, usually an hour long, when people use the same hashtag to chat together and share each others tweets - it's a great chance to network
• Tweets can be easily re-tweeted - shared to someone else's twitter profile. So don't share anything on twitter that you wouldn't want other people to possibly share on their feeds
• You can add photos, videos, html links, and more to your tweets
• You can search twitter to find people or hashtags - if you want to try it out then go and search #DorsetTeam to see what the team has been sharing lately!

You can see a twitter starting guide here to find out more details: https://help.twitter.com/en/twitter-guide

Your tweets can be business like - sharing new products, behind the scenes, special offers etc, or they can be chatty - what you've been up to, what the weather is like, a recent purchase you are excited about. Reply to other people's tweets and it might turn into a conversation - other people can read it too while you are tweeting, so more people might join in and reply too (you can also send people private messages, as long as they follow you on Twitter).

If you are new to Twitter, or if you haven't used it as much as you should, then jump on and say something right now! Make sure you follow some people and get interacting too. Make sure you include the #DorsetTeam hashtag so we can see your tweet!

Our Twitter hour is Tuesday from 7.30pm - 8.30pm. The Dorset Team Twitter profile (https://twitter.com/DorsetTeam) will post questions to get the chat started, and you can join in as much or as little as you want. Come and say 'hi' next Tuesday!

Next month on the first Wednesday we will be talking about Instagram. If you missed our blog post last week about the March Meet The Maker Instagram challenge then check it out here: https://dorsetteam.blogspot.com/2018/02/march-meet-maker.html 

Next week we will be sharing another new blog topic, check back on Wednesday!

Be An Expert - Keeping Track - Recording Reach

Do you regularly look at your reach for your shop, checking your Etsy and social media stats? If not, you should!

Here's 'five shop stats you should be tracking' from the Etsy Seller Handbook: https://www.etsy.com/uk/seller-handbook/article/five-shop-stats-you-should-be-tracking/22398388701 which explains how to look at a few stats and why.

Here's some more information on Etsy stats of you aren't familiar with looking at them: https://www.etsy.com/uk/help/article/541

Social media can be a bit trickier to track. You can use a paid system like Hootsuite (https://hootsuite.com/en-gb/products/social-media-analytics) to help look at everything, or you could individually look at stats on each social media account yourself. For example, on Instagram you can switch to having a business profile, rather than a personal one, and then you can see 'insights' into how well your posts are doing (see more information on this here: https://www.facebook.com/business/help/788388387972460).

You can create yourself a spreadsheet to input some information - think about including how many times you posted on that social media in a month, and whether your follower numbers went up or down. Record which posts performed best so you can start to see a pattern of what kind of images and links your customers like to see. Think about which hashtags worked well too. And when you look back and see a social media post performed well, check out that date under 'specific dates' in your Etsy stats - did you see a spike in people visiting your shop from that channel? Did it result in favourites / sales? 

Team Member Chibi Chi Designs has shared a social media planner which could help, with space to include your social media fans / followers at the beginning and end of each month. Check it out here: http://chibichidesign.blogspot.co.uk/2016/12/getting-to-grips-with-social-media.html

Make sure those social media posts are converting - by keeping track of them you can see which channels and which style of posts are worth spending your time on!

Total Shop Review - Social Media

Well, it's week 4 - the final week - of our Total Shop Review, and we're looking at "Social Media". Ten years ago, most of us had never heard of Facebook. The likes of Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest were just a twinkle in some entrepreneur's eye! Wow, how that's changed!

With so many options out there, have you ever wondered which one works best for you and why? In this ever changing world of Social Media, we'd love to hear your comments and success stories. And why not take 2 minutes to answer a few questions on this Etsy quiz to, it may help you to decide which Social Media options would work best for you and your personality type? https://www.etsy.com/uk/seller-handbook/article/whats-your-social-media-personality-type/22260567946

Don't forget you can also find our Dorset Team accounts on Social Media including our Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and Youtube pages.

Member's posts can be found by searching #DorsetTeam

Merry Christmas from the Dorset Team!

Merry Christmas everyone, we hope that you all have a fantastic Christmas. The social media team are taking a well earned break over Christmas but we will be back with lots of new exciting things in the New Year!

#DorsetTeamTips - How to increase traffic to your shop

Our #DorsetTeamTips for this week are about how to increase the traffic to your shop:

1. Use social media such as pinterest, twitter, facebook and instagram to share your items with a link to your listing.

2. If you have a blog, backlinks (links to your shop) are a great way of boosting SEO for your shop

3. Remember to include your shop website address on your business cards and email signature

4. Work on your tags and titles to ensure a good SEO ranking (Where your shop shows up in search engine results)

Do you have a top tip that you could share? Please use the hashtag #DorsetTeamTips to share your tips on the best way to increase traffic to your shop.  The best ones will be retweeted/shared by our Dorset Team social media accounts. Please also be sure to read other members top tips, you might learn something new!