Social media is one of your most effective low-cost promotional tools as a small business owner. By using social media marketing to your advantage, you can grow brand awareness, connect with customers, and reach new potential buyers. Each channel has its own strengths and weaknesses, making each one appropriate for different styles of promotion. Before you launch a social media campaign, consider what types of promotions you plan to create and which platform would be the best match.
Use this list as your quick-start guide to each channel’s best practices:
- Best for: Video content (especially live video), sharing curated photo collections, customer service (via FB Messenger), sharing product listings, connecting and reaching broad varied audiences
- Not good for: Reaching younger audiences, including teens
- Best for: Strong visuals, cross-promotion, attracting influencers, giveaways, behind-the-scenes action (through IG Stories), reaching younger audiences
- Not good for: overly promotional content
- Best for: Trend-lovers, on-trend products, visual thinkers, inspirational boards (for your creative process)
- Not good for: Extensive or timely copy
If you're new to social media, instead of attempting to promote your shop via every single channel, start by choosing one that’s a good match for your products and resonates with you and your target consumer. If you're already socially savvy, making sure you're using each network to its full advantage can help to drive visits to your shop.
Facebook for connecting with customers
Facebook is a great place to connect with customers who may already be familiar with your brand and products. Utilise tools like Facebook Live to cut through the clutter and open a dialogue with your customers, and keep them in the loop on what’s happening with your shop. Facebook can be used to spread the word about new products and share sneak peeks into products as they're being developed. Facebook can also be a good place to solicit product development feedback and to share behind-the-scenes glimpses into your business.
If you’re new to Facebook promotions, start in your comfort zone by promoting listings and content to the people whose opinions you value the most: close friends and family. From there, you can branch out to peers and acquaintances and, eventually, a larger audience.
Pinterest for the curator
If you’re a mood board aficionado who loves collecting inspiring images, Pinterest could be the right place for you. Unlike other social platforms which are more about capturing the present moment, Pinterest is used for planning future events. Trend forward business owners approach the site as a place to document inspiration for future collections and to gather inspiration for photo styling using current trends and colour schemes.
Instagram for the visual storyteller
Perhaps you’re highly visual but also incredibly social and interested in what’s happening right now. If so, Instagram could be the ideal marketing channel for you. Because it’s visual and interactive, Instagram is an effective place to share photos of your process, as well as personal elements of your brand.
Show snapshots of works in progress or reveal newly finished items for sale, but don’t stop there. Share a tour of your studio on Instagram Stories so your customers can see where their items get made. You can also use creative hashtags to connect with potential customers and locals. Hashtags are virtual links to others with a common interest.
Don’t see yourself as clearly one social media personality type or another? Try out a few channels until you find the outlet that feels natural to you.
Bonus: Save on Etsy fees when you drive sales to your shop
Share & Save rewards you for the traffic and sales you drive to your own shop. Whether you’re promoting your business on social media or at in-person events, you’ll save on Etsy fees by driving your own sales. When you share your unique link to your shop and make a sale, we’ll take 4% of the order total off your Etsy bill – so you pay less in fees for that order.
We’ve made sharing trackable links super simple so you can save on fees any time you promote your shop. Any URL you share from your Shop Manager or the Etsy seller app formatted like yourshopname.etsy.com counts toward Share & Save.
Here’s a quick look at some of the different types of links you can share:
- Links to your shop. These links take buyers directly to your Shop Home so they can browse all the items you have for sale. You can find the unique link to your shop in the upper right-hand corner of your Shop Dashboard, in your Stats, and on the Share & Save page in your Shop Manager.
- Links to specific listings. You can also save on fees when you share links to specific listings in your shop. This is great for sharing a trending item or a listing that’s on sale, or posting about new inventory. To get a unique link for a specific listing, head to your Listings in Shop Manager and click the gear icon on a listing and choose “Share”.
- Links for a promo code.Let your followers know about any special offers you’re running. You can share a unique link for any of your promo codes with your followers off of Etsy and you’ll save on fees for the eligible orders you receive. On the Sales and discounts page, just select the promo code you want to share and copy the trackable link!
- Links highlighting recent rave reviews. Blow your own trumpet! You can also share glowing reviews with a trackable link back to your shop. This feature is exclusive to the Etsy Seller app, so be sure to download the app ASAP if you haven’t already! You can share reviews from the Home tab of the app or from the "Reviews" section.
- Links for a section of your shop. Encourage buyers to explore a particular theme or category of your listings. It’s easy in the Etsy Seller app – just tap Listings, choose the section you want to share, and copy the URL.
Follow Etsy Success on Instagram and Facebook for more advice and inspiration on running an Etsy shop.
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Words by Etsy Staff
