Facebook Live Selling - Beat the Algorithm
10 min read
Facebook Live Shopping: What is it & How to Use it to Drive Sales?
What is Facebook Live Shopping?
Facebook live shopping is a real-time interactive way to sell products while directly connecting with viewers and attracting new potential customers. It redefines traditional eCommerce with its scalability, ease of use, and cost-effectiveness, making it the most promising marketing strategy available today.
A few years ago, selling a product or service online simply meant crafting a basic text description and adding a few photos to a website. Sure, it's still around, but not as effective as it once was. Meanwhile, Facebook Live sales have pushed the boundaries of eCommerce, opening up new opportunities for merchants and entrepreneurs to generate sales, promote their brands, and sell their items without having to wait for customers.
It took online selling to a whole new level, and if you aren't using Facebook Live as part of your social media marketing, you’re missing out on a major business opportunity.
Banner Image by Facebook
Why Use Facebook Live?
Since the COVID-19 outbreak, customers have been growing increasingly open to making purchases through live stream selling. In fact, online shopping and social video usage have skyrocketed over the year and will likely continue in the post-quarantine world.
Many factors make live selling on Facebook both easy and effective. However, let’s delve a little more into the subject at this point.
Provides Live Stream Notifications
Facebook Live has a built-in feature that allows merchants to notify their followers through Messenger or Facebook Notification when streaming. This presents more chances of reaching out to potential customers, unlike other live selling platforms that depend on website traffic to acquire viewers.
Facebook Live Helps Beat the Algorithm
One of the essential things you can do as a business owner is to learn your platform's algorithm. In the case of Facebook, live video streaming is the most effective way to gain more organic reach. It currently outperforms other types of Facebook posts, like videos, images, and text updates.
Audience engagements also maximize your Facebook Live video’s relevance. This means the more people who like and share your live stream, the higher you'll rank in your followers’ news feeds. But, while the algorithm helps maintain relevance, providing high-quality material increases your chances of being found in the long run.
Direct Connection with Buyers
Facebook’s broad audience reach makes it easy to find your potential buyers. And Facebook live sales strengthen your connection with your viewers in a fresh, more personal, and straightforward fashion. They can simply engage with you, ask questions, and purchase your products up front.
Additionally, a strong online reputation establishes your authority in the industry and allows you to express your brand personality while also establishing trust. This makes marketing your items a lot easier.
Cost-efficient
The cost-effectiveness of broadcasting live sales on Facebook makes it a low-cost and straightforward tactic. Unlike YouTube videos, it can be done on a mobile phone or laptop—no fancy editing or set design. Instead, it comes down to how well you connect with your audience, communicate live with them, and offer quality items that benefit your followers.
Brief History of Facebook Live Selling
While Facebook Live Selling is still a relatively new trend in the West, it has already gained traction in Asian and Southeast Asian markets. The global COVID-19 pandemic is what has pushed the scales for mainstream acceptance. It has prompted businesses to find new ways not only to sell but also to attract customers.
Live Selling on Facebook is more than just a product showcase. Sellers promote their live broadcast in advance, prepare sales tags and product lists, and sometimes hold a pre-broadcast test or meeting. Only when everything is ready can they start the live stream.
In the actual broadcast, sellers begin to showcase their products and answer questions. Customers can purchase or reserve orders by entering codes into the chatbox. Meanwhile, payment and shipping are arranged privately.
Facebook Live Selling Features
Facebook continues to shape the future of eCommerce by innovating features on its platform, such as Facebook Live Shopping. It’s a new avenue for businesses to host live-streamed shopping events, promote their products, and engage with online shoppers, all in real-time.
With this new feature, you can set up a Live Shopping playlist and tag products from your Facebook Commerce Shop or catalogue before going live. This way, online shoppers can easily view the products, add them to their carts, and purchase. Or you can go live and demonstrate your products in real-world situations while viewers ask questions about sizing and fit or buy them directly during the live stream.
Users will be able to tune into your Facebook Live Shopping event through your Facebook page or by visiting the Shop tab. Just last May 28, 2021, through July 16, 2021, Facebook partnered with 8 major beauty and fashion brands to host the "Live Shopping Fridays" series to promote its Live Shopping feature.
Although this new feature has already been launched, it is yet to be available to all pages, and it may take some time to reach all users.
How to Use Facebook’s Live Shopping Feature
Go live on desktop
Creating your video
Step #1: Go to your business Facebook page and navigate to the Create section. Here, you will click the “Live” option to take you to the Live Producer tool.
Step #2: On the top of the page, there’s a menu bar with the “Live Shopping” tab. When you go into this, the first thing you should do is to toggle on “Enable Live Shopping”.
Step #3: Navigate to the lower section of the page to see the Add Products or Links section, and click “Products from Shop”.
Step #4: Once you click on it, all the existing products you have will be pre-loaded. Here, you can select a collection of your products to share in your live video. Click “Save” once they’re all set.
Note: It’ll be better if you already have products uploaded on your Facebook shop ready to click before going live.
Step #5: On the left section of the page, go under “Post” and type in your Video Title. All you have to do is click “Go Live” when you’re ready.
Feature your products
Step #6: Once live, click the “Feature” button under Products and Links to start showcasing your products to your viewers. It might take a while for it to load, though, so give it a few seconds.
Once this is done, viewers can already see “Tap to View Products”. It’s a clickable link that viewers can access as they watch. Here’s what it’ll look like on the viewers from mobile:
Step #7: If you want to change the featured product, click “Stop Featuring”, then click “Feature” under the desired product to showcase.
Step #8: Once you’re all done with the live stream, click “End Live Video” in the red text block at the bottom of your screen. You may publish the live video to your Page's timeline so viewers may come back to the video for future reference or see it for the first time.
Add New Products Manually Before Going Live
For those without an existing Facebook shop or catalogue, adding products before your live session is another option to develop your Facebook Live Shopping campaigns.
Step#1: Go to the “Live Shopping” tab and navigate to the Add Products or Links section. Select “New Products” to add new products to display live.
Step #2: Here, you may include the stock photos and add the title, price, and a brief description of each product here. When finished, click “Save”.
Repeat Steps 1 and 2 if you wish to add more products.
Step #3: Items you upload may be subject to review, with a message stating that "This product is under review". This process only takes a few seconds to complete.
Once approved, you can start live selling your products. Viewers may now watch as you go live and purchase products directly through Messenger.
Adding Links for Promotion
Adding links is a great method to promote your website, discounts, and deals. Tip: make sure the URL begins with either http:// or https:// when adding a link.
Step #1: Go back to the “Live Shopping” tab and navigate to the Add Products or Links section. Click “Add Link”.
Step #2: Simply attach the URL and add a product description to provide more information. “Save: once you’re done adding the product link.
Step #3: See the left section of the page and find the “Feature Link”. Go there and click on “Show”.
In the actual live video, a “Paper Clip” icon will appear on the lower right corner of the screen, which will direct buyers to the link you attached.
Facebook Live Selling Best Practices
While live selling on Facebook has limitless potential, knowing key strategies and best practices is crucial if you want to get the most out of this tool. Let's delve a little deeper into this...
Prepare Before you Go Live
Research your market, select the items you want to feature in your broadcast and make a list of them. Test your equipment, camera angles, volume, background noise and make sure you check your internet connection. The last thing you want is to encounter glitches in front of hundreds of potential buyers on screen.
Get Creative
Facebook live sales allow you to be more creative and express your brand and yourself more freely. Keep your audience interested and involved - you can host a game for them, demonstrate the use of your items and ask them what they think.
You can also survey your customers in real-time to determine what brands they prefer and what items they would like to see in your store.
Plan your live stream flow
Outline the main points you want to cover and consider the best way to transition from one item to another. You don't have to write a formal script, but if you have a rough idea of what you want to discuss, the conversation will flow more effortlessly.
Connect authentically
Hard sales turn viewers off, so keep it real and natural. Engage with customers, tell stories, ask questions, and give real-time shoutouts as they make purchases.
Give 100% to Customer Service
Nothing is better than a business with good customer service. During live streams, a representative should be there to address order concerns, send thank-you notes for the purchase, and provide shipment updates. They should also be able to handle any refunds and let your customers know when your next Facebook stream selling will be.
Maximize Viewership
Build anticipation as much as you can. Promote your Facebook Live ahead of time and find out where your audience is located to determine when it’s best to broadcast. Encourage viewers to like your Page, so they know when you go live, and leverage posting live videos in groups.
Get the Best Brand Representative
When it comes to Facebook Live sales, having a suitable host makes all the difference. Look for someone friendly, flexible, and well-versed in the things you're selling. If you're going to do it yourself, think about the product presentation style you want to use.
Facebook Live Selling Rules
While nearly anyone can start selling products on Facebook live sales, there are several rules to follow regarding the types of products and services that can be offered for sale on Facebook.
Types of items you CAN’T sell on Facebook
It might seem like a lot, but sellers are responsible for complying with Community Guidelines, especially if you wish to succeed in your Facebook live stream selling. Otherwise, you risk losing listings and other content, having product tags rejected, and losing access to Facebook altogether.
Keeping in mind that you connect with individuals rather than just selling a product or promoting a brand makes it easier to comply. And in reality, your good engagements with your viewers is what helps you stand out in the market.
Since we're on the subject of engagements, let's expand on that. Sure, the products you sell already meet the Community Guidelines, but there are still things you should know about marketing during live selling on Facebook.
How NOT to market on Facebook Live Sales
Issues and Limitations
Despite the fact that live selling on Facebook brings significant advantages for many businesses in the new age of eCommerce, there are still specific issues and restrictions to what it can do that pose a challenge to businesses.
Let’s go over some of the most common issues that Facebook merchants have to deal with during their live streams...
Old Setup
Unreliable chat box
Facebook deletes the old ones from the chat box to make room for new comments, but reservations are also made via comments alone. As a result, the seller is sometimes unaware if another buyer has already reserved the item.
Fake buyers
Scammers or fake buyers may show an interest in things during a live event, but they will not actually buy them. Because it's difficult to tell whether the accounts participating in the chat are real or fake, incidents like this are inevitable.
Managing questions and messages
While you get to answer viewers’ questions in real-time, this may sometimes be quite taxing when done without a strategy, especially when dealing with many people. This can be managed effectively by having someone ready to monitor queries so that you can respond to them either in real-time in the comments section or during the actual broadcast.
New Setup
No inventory management
There are no automation features in terms of product inventory on Facebook live selling. This means that online sellers need to have at least a small team to do inventory management - people who would monitor orders and note the order details.
Limited display and interaction capabilities
Facebook Live used to only support 720p HD, which is not full HD. But just recently, after user feedback, Facebook increased the maximum resolution to 12901080. Their peak bit rate has increased from 2500 to 4000 Kbps.
Aside from that, Facebook content is mostly discoverable within the platform itself alone, limiting its reach outside the network, while its maximum video length is only 90 minutes.
Disrupted buyer experience
Since buying the product requires users to click on the link, this can present problems with continuity of the live video, especially if the users want to review the product details before buying them.
Who We Are?
We are agileHorde Technologies, an award-winning Mobile and Web Apps/E-commerce development company based in India, USA, Philippines. We develop apps that help businesses engage customers effectively.
If you want to find out more, or are looking to outsource development of a tailored application, please reach us at info@agilehorde.com or agileHorde Top Mobile App and Web App Development Company
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