Social media is your best friend when it comes to promoting your brand and online store. Power up your SMM knowledge with these tips and tricks.
Platforms that were once used purely for entertainment and socializing are now booming websites and apps often used to reach new audiences and sell products.
What follows will teach you some of the basics to be mastered after setting up your dropshipping business. Let’s dive into the wondrous world of SMM!
Getting Started with SMM
First and foremost, it’s essential to understand that running a basic social media marketing campaign for your dropshipping business doesn’t require you to be an SMM guru.
For starters, you can focus on marketing your store on the two most prominent social media platforms - Facebook and Instagram - and move on to other platforms (such as Pinterest) later on. The most important thing is to get your products up on the social media platforms and redirect potential customers to your website, where they can make a purchase.
Advertising on Facebook
As of 2020, there are over 2.7 billion monthly active users on Facebook and approximately 1.82 billion daily active users (AdEspresso). The numbers that really concern you are the 2.14 billion users that you could potentially reach through Facebook's Ads system, and the 78% of consumers that say they have discovered products via Facebook. In short, online businesses - especially small to medium-sized ones - should make the most of this giant social media platform to drive traffic, generate sales, increase brand awareness and encourage user engagement.
Creating a Facebook Business Page
To start running Facebook or Instagram ads for your dropshipping business, begin by creating a Facebook Business Page. Log in to your personal Facebook account and visit facebook.com/pages/creation. Fill in your business details and select a category, preferably "eCommerce Website." Once your page is set up, upload a profile picture and cover photo, and ensure your business information is complete in the "About" section, including your company description, contact details, and website URL.
Next, create a Facebook Business Manager account at business.facebook.com. Enter your business details and link your newly created business page. Complete the setup by adding necessary information in Business Settings, including a payment method. Then, navigate to Ads Manager to create an ad account for your dropshipping store and connect it to your page.
For further assistance, refer to the Facebook Business Help Center.
Adding Facebook Pixel to Your Site
Before creating any ads, we recommend installing the Facebook Pixel on your website. The Facebook pixel is a specific line of code that is placed on your website and allows you to monitor conversions and shows which Facebook users respond to which ads and will help with retargeting those who visit your website.
To set up the Pixel, navigate to your Facebook Ads Manager, select All Tools, click on Pixels, click Create a Pixel, name it, and hit Create (you can choose to name the pixel after your store). If you are using a website builder, it will be fairly easy to take the Pixel ID and paste it on your store via the builder.
Getting Started with Facebook Ads
When you start creating ads with Facebook, you will notice this specific hierarchy:
- Campaigns - focused on a specific advertising objective
- Ad sets - ads classified by audience
- Ads - individual ads displayed to users
When it comes to targeting, there are many options to experiment with, so consider setting up different audience groups and various campaigns. If you haven’t dealt with many customers yet, you can obtain valuable information on your future customer demographics while setting up Facebook ads. To determine your audience, we recommend creating a series of ads using different sets of interests, after which you can narrow down the interests and pay attention to other key traits of your target audience (e.g., age, gender, location, and so on).
Another thing to note is that since Facebook acquired Instagram in 2012, you have the option to control ads for both Facebook and Instagram from your Facebook Ads Manager.
Here’re common types of Facebook ads:
- Image and Video Ads: These ads resemble organic posts, featuring an image or video with a call-to-action button, encouraging specific actions like "shop now" or "contact us."
- Carousel Ads: Similar to image and video ads, carousel ads allow users to slide through multiple images or videos, showcasing up to ten per post with individual links for each.
- Story Ads: These full-screen ads appear between Facebook stories, offering a personalized experience with a CTA button at the bottom.
Using Facebook Ads Manager
When accessing Facebook Ads Manager, navigate through the sections to set your target audience. Use Audience Insights in the Plan section to understand audience traits. For instance, to sell swimwear, explore the Interests section and select "Swimwear" to identify your primary market.
Once you've identified potential interests, save your audience, name it, and store it in the Audience Insights tool for future use.
To create an ad campaign, go to the Campaigns tab, and select Create. Choose your campaign objectives, considering options like "conversions" or "store traffic" for a new dropshipping store. Utilize Campaign Budget Optimization to optimize budget allocation based on performance.
Select a Conversion Event, recommending "View Content" to target users likely to engage with your ads. Choose your audience, either using a saved one or creating a new one. Set your bid strategy to "lowest cost" and select "Link Click (CPC)" under "When you are charged" to optimize for link clicks rather than impressions.
Avoid extremely low budgets like the "$5 ad trend" to ensure effective results.
Remember to adjust campaign end dates or schedules as needed.
When designing your ad, choose "Single Image or Video" if creating from scratch. Upload your files and fill in the main text, website URL, headline text, and CTA button text.
Experiment with offers like "50% off" or "free shipping," which often perform well on Facebook. Direct traffic to product pages rather than the homepage for better conversion rates.
Tracking Success
So, you have just created your first ad - what next? For starters, let the ads run for a few days and then check the results. Your Facebook Ad data will help you create better ads in the future and run successful campaigns.
Facebook provides a considerable number of metrics, let's look at some of the most commonly used:
- Reach - how many people saw your ad in their newsfeed;
- Impressions - how many times your ad showed up in users’ feeds in total;
- Frequency - the average number of times each user has come across your ad;
- Link clicks - number of times someone has clicked on a link included in your ad;
- CTR (click-through rate) - % of times a user saw your ad and clicked a link;
- CPC (cost per click) - what you pay for each link click, on average.
You can check how your ad is performing by going to the Campaigns tab. Facebook will show you results by different breakdowns, such as age, gender, and location.
Creating an Instagram Business Profile
To set up an Instagram Business Profile, it would be best to create a new page with a new business email address rather than your private one. All you need to do is download the Instagram application and sign up with your email - make sure to set it up as a business profile.
Next, make sure your profile includes the following:
- A profile picture
- A bio that best describes your business
- A link to your dropshipping store
Consider that your profile will most likely be the first point of contact a customer has with your brand, so it’s necessary to make a good first impression with the points we mentioned above.
Tracking Performance with Instagram Insights
Like Facebook, Instagram also provides free analytics and metrics to track your ad campaigns’ performance. Inside the app, you will find three types of metrics:
Activity - actions taken by users on your profile.
Content - how well your content is performing (posts, promotions, stories…).
Audience - what type of audience your profile is attracting.
To access these metrics, go to your profile and tap the top right corner, then select "Insights." Like with Facebook ads, it takes experimentation to determine the best parameters.
For Instagram product promotion, start with post promotion. Choose existing posts or upload new ones, then select "Boost" from the bottom right corner. Instagram will prompt you to set goals for:
1. More profile visits
2. More website visits
3. More messages
If you choose "more profile visits," Instagram prompts you to select an audience (automatic or custom), set a budget, and duration. You'll then review your promotion details before finalizing. Changing the budget or duration later may impact ad performance. To track performance of your ads, click "View Results." Alternatively, use story ads on Instagram. They appear between the stories of people you follow and are suitable for capturing the user’s attention while switching between stories
Tips for Creating Effective SMM Content
As our Dropshipping SMM chapter comes to a close, we would like to share some further tips for creating SMM content that effective at promoting your brand:
- Maintain consistency across your posts.
- Pay attention to spelling and grammar when writing captions.
- Develop a schedule for your posts.
- Maintain a balance between organic and paid content.
- Do not buy fake followers.
SMM isn't mastered overnight, but the steps here will kickstart your journey in social media marketing. Don't get discouraged if your initial campaigns fall short of expectations. Experiment with various promotions, audiences, and posts, viewing SMM as an engaging experiment rather than a chore.
Bottom Line
Congratulations! You have completed the Ultimate Dropshipping Guide, and we can now set you free into the world wide web to become an eCommerce sensation. You have all the foundational knowledge you need to start a successful dropshipping business - now it’s time for the implementation. Bookmark this guide and refer back to it as much as you need - we won’t be going anywhere anytime soon. Good luck!