How to take advantage of your catalogue on Facebook

After many years, the founder of the social network par excellence decided to open it to monetization. His plan was clear: he did not think to charge for its use, or even take out a premium plan. Revenues were to come from advertising. 

It seems that Zuckerberg was not wrong, as we see the evolution is really impressive. In 2009, it was able togenerate a revenue of $ 764 million. The figure is good but the progression is impressive: in 2017 it was already very near 40million K and 2018, no matter controversy, seems to be even better. 

At the stroke of a pen, Facebook has sent to limbo the urban myth that said that social networks do not sell. In fact, Facebook Ads currently accounts for 98% of the company's revenues. 

This has led it to explore all possible formats within its property which, as you know, include Whatsapp and Instagram. In the first, fads are falling, and in the second, ads through its popular Stories are being developed and other, more direct forms of sale as Instagram Shopping with products labelling (labelling that could already be done on Facebook). 

In order to avoid being repetitive, you had better take a look at the process on this previous post which we have published recently. Just access your Facebook Business Administrator and follow the steps. 

The only point which may be a bit more complicated, or at least tedious, is to create the feed (a file that collects the listing and the characteristics of the products that we will put up on sale). 

As in Oleoshop we know that it can be a point of some friction, we have worked on an automation that will allow you to generate a product feed for Facebook which you can integrate into your Facebook account. This process can be done only once or schedule a removal that happens regularly to keep the feed updated with the latest news.

We will begin by the end this time, at least for the most recent. 

Very recently, we told you exactly about the virtues of Instagram Shopping. Of course, I do know that we are talking about Facebook, but if you have not read the previous post, I will tell you that it is precisely this catalogue of Facebook which is used to configure the labelling of products on Instagram. 

We will not go through to the virtues of this new functionality of the images network too much, but we are not too wrong saying that being able to buy directly from Instagram posts will be one of the social media strategies aimed to sale which is going to work most in the coming months. It will be almost mandatory. 

Another format that does not make the best of it is Canvas: a full screen viewing intended directly to mobile devices. The idea could not be better taking into account that increasingly mobile gains more weight in brands´ social media strategy. 

You can choose to display a template with a featured image and a grid with different products from your online store that are within your Facebook catalogue. 

Retargeting surprises no one already. However, it is amply demonstrated that it is still one of the strategies that work better in terms of conversion. 

Facebook knows this and, therefore it offers the possibility to create dynamic ads to impact users with those products from the catalogue they have already shown a previous interest. 

To do this, obviously you will need a couple of things: the own catalogue updated with the products you want to sell and a pixel to track visits and collect cookies. 

This is the most obvious advantage. When uploading your products to Facebook, you will enjoy the possibility of having the online store integrated within your company page. 

The truth is that Facebook does not allow payments directly on its platform, so it will send you reference traffic to your eCommerce. Smart thinking, this is almost better because it allows you to have bigger control over the purchasing process.