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Promote your Etsy shop on Facebook

January 30, 2009 :: 11:58 pm :: Being a Small Business :: 44 comments

Updated on 2/6/09 to include instructions to add the newly updated Etsy Shop application to your personal profile page!

Looking for a way to get some more exposure for my products and Etsy shop, I spent the morning creating a Facebook Page for eleen.etsy.com, complete with an Etsy Mini (a widget that displays a subset of products from my shop).

A Facebook Page is basically a profile page for your business. It’s linked to and administered from your personal Facebook page and is distinct from a Facebook Group in the sense that groups are “meant to be built around a group of people rather than an individual business or brand”, says the author of Facebook for Business: Opportunties and Limitations. Also, you can add applications to Pages but not to Groups. For another helpful comparison of Pages vs. Groups, see this article on Facebook Groups vs. Facebook Pages.

Anyway I didn’t think Facebook Page creation was the most straightforward process in the world so if you’re looking for guidance on building your own, here’s how I went about it.

But first! I present a screenshot of my new Facebook Page to all who are interested:

my eleen.etsy.com page on facebook

Tada!

Okay here goes (these instructions assume you’re logged in to your Facebook account already):

I. Create a Facebook Page for your Etsy shop

1) Go to Facebook Pages and review the description and setup instructions
You can also get there from the Home page by clicking on Advertising (in footer links at bottom of page) > Pages (2nd row of links at top of page). Thanks to Amy’s “Using Facebook to Promote Your Etsy Shop” video on YouTube’s Indie5Collective channel for pointing me in this direction.

Make note of the fact that you cannot change the name of your Facebook Page once you’ve created it. I didn’t catch that and it sucked. You have to delete and create a new page if you need to change your page name. Ah well, better now than later.

2) Go to Create a New Facebook Page, choose your category and enter your shop name
I chose Brand or Product > Online Store > and named my Page “eleen :: good stuff * hand made”.

3) Add the basic information about your shop
I uploaded my shop logo in the Picture section, filled out the Information section and created a few photo albums to start out with.

4) Add your Etsy Mini to the Page
Here’s the fun part! There are two apps that allow you to add your Etsy Mini to Facebook. One is the Etsy Shop app, which adds your Etsy Mini to your personal profile (instructions below). This app is not currently available for adding to Pages.

The My Stuff by Gigya app lets you add your Etsy Mini to your business Page (as well as to your personal profile). This is the step for adding your Etsy Mini to your business Page.

  • Click on the Edit Page link in the top right corner of your page.
  • Scroll to the bottom of the list of default Applications on your page.
  • In the More Applications box, click the Edit (pencil) icon and choose Browse More.
  • Now you’re on the Application Directory page.
  • In the Search Applications field (towards top right of page), search for “My Stuff”.
  • On the results page, click on My Stuff by Gigya.
  • Click on the blue Add to Page button in the right column.
  • Click the Add My Stuff button to confirm that you want to add this app.
  • So here’s where I got confused, because from there I got a blank page.
    • If you have the little Facebook toolbar at the bottom of your browser, you can click on Page Manager > Pages > Edit Page.
    • If you don’t have that, go to your Facebook Home page and in the right column under Applications, click Page Manager > Pages > Edit Page.
  • Now find the My Stuff app that you added to your Applications list, click the pencil icon and select Edit.
  • Open a new browser window and go to Your Etsy. Under Promote in the left column, click Etsy Mini.
  • Build your Etsy Mini. I did 4 columns, 4 rows of thumbnail sized images.
  • Copy the code for the Flash version.
  • Go back to your My Stuff editing window and paste the code into the Add Code box.
  • Click Add to profile and be entranced by the interstitial animation.
  • Go back to your Page (either using the browser back button, or navigating to it from the Page Manager). You should now see your Etsy Mini! Note: If there’s a giant green arrow, click on it to make the Flash load. Also, if for some reason it still doesn’t show, head back to your My Stuff edit page and click the Refresh Profile link.

5) If you have a blog, you can import your entries into the Notes application.
Why not?! Click edit in the Notes section, then under Notes Settings just click “Import a blog”. Instant notes!

6) Add apps as you see fit, drag the content around til you like the order, then Publish the Page
My Stuff was the only app I added to start out with, and I deleted the Video app for now since I have no content for it.

II. Update your Facebook personal profile

7) Add the Etsy Shop application to your personal profile
Etsy provides a handy Facebook app that lets you easily display up to 6 shop items on your personal profile page. You can choose to display it from either your Wall tab or your Boxes tab.

On the Wall tab, the module displays in the left column beneath your Description, Information and Friends boxes:

Etsy Shop app on Facebook

In the Boxes tab, the module displays in a larger format with product names. This is where I’m placing mine.

Etsy Shop app on Facebook

  • From the Etsy Shop application page, click on Go to Application, then Allow access.
  • Complete the form with your Etsy Username, the number of items you want shown (1-6) and whether you want to show items from your own Shop or from your Favorites. Click Add.
  • From the next page, Click Add to Profile. Note: The Favorites from your Facebook friends will not be added your profile page.
  • Choose where you want your Etsy Shop app to show up, either in your Wall and Info tab or your Boxes tab. Click Add.
  • If you’re happy with the placement shown, click Keep.
  • If you’d prefer a larger view of your Etsy Shop, click the pencil icon in the right corner of the box, and choose ‘Move to Boxes tab’.

III. Spread the word!
This I have only just begun to do, but here’s where I plan to start…

8) Link to your own darn page!
Maybe because it’s new and I’m  not used to it, but somehow I find it really hard to get to my own Facebook Page. So now I not only have a browser bookmark to it, I also link to it from several different places.

  • On Facebook, in the Information box underneath your profile photo and descriptioninfo_box
  • On Facebook, in the Posted Items box. From your Facebook Page, click the Share button. Select the Post to Profile tab and Post. Now you’ll have an item posted in your Posted Items box, which displays by default under the Boxes tab of your personal page. I’ve moved this to my Wall tab for (maybe) better visibility.
    posted_items_box
  • In your Etsy Shop Announcement and/or Etsy Profile
    etsy_shop_announcement
  • From your blog (see Step 10)
  • In your email signature… You get the picture!

9) You fan their page, they’ll fan yours
Lots of Etsy sellers are more than willing to be a fan of your page if you become a fan theirs, and you can find lots of threads in the Etsy Forums about Facebook and Facebook pages where sellers list their links in droves. Also, don’t forget to become a fan of your own page. This will add your page to the Info tab of your personal Facebook profile.

pages

10) Use a badge, any badge
Well actually it looks like Facebook only provides one, but it looks like this and is available, along with Facebook’s usage guidelines on Promoting your Facebook Page outside Facebook.

see eleen.com on facebook!

11) Share and share alike
Use the Share button in the right column of your page to beg and plead your friends to become fans of your page and/or ask them to ask their friends to do the same.

12) Listen to the wisdom of those who’ve gone before you
The Pages portion of the Facebook Help Center and the Facebook Pages Insider’s Guide offer plenty of paths to follow to get you (and me) started in on promoting our pages. I’m sure there are countless other fine resources as well. If you’ve had good success with yours, I’d love to hear how you did it!

III. Track and optimize
Once your page has been published for about 48 hours, you’ll get free access to metrics on “user exposure, actions, and behavior relating to your Social Ads and Facebook Page” via Facebook Insights. I haven’t seen this yet since I only just published this morning. 36 more hours! Update: Here are my stats after about 6 days of the page being live. I got work to do!

facebook_insights

Here’s Facebook’s take on which pages will be the most successful:

The Pages with the freshest, most engaging content stand to gain the most from this new product—since each track played, video viewed, review written and event attended can generate News Feed stories that propagate through the social graph. Facebook will accelerate the rate at which unknown entities become popular, and it will also fortify the position of those who are already recognized highly among users. Whether large or small, all artists, businesses, and brands have the potential for exponential distribution through the graph if they can engage users.

So, I can see how you could end up spending a whole lotta time on this. But I can also see how it’d be well worth the effort. We’ll see how it goes!

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eleen :: good stuff * hand made on Facebook