Episode 57 || Social Media for the Holidays

[doug@ebay]

This week’s episode focuses on Social Media for the Holidays. In The Buzz, we cover topics of conversation in the Community, on social media, and the news. In the Main Story you’ll hear from our Social Media Panel at eBay Open 2019, led by eBay’s own Audrey Tracy, featuring Lisa Fruggiero, from Brand Networks, and eBay sellers Alexa Terry Wilde and Holli Pahlen. To have your questions answered on eBay for Business, call us at 888 723-4630 or email us at podcast@ebay.com.

eBay for Business- Episode 57 – Social Media for the Holidays

This week’s episode focuses on Social Media for the Holidays. In The Buzz, we cover topics of conversation in the Community, on social media, and the news. In the Main Story you’ll hear from our Social Media Panel at eBay Open 2019, led by eBay’s own Audrey Tracy, featuring Lisa Fruggiero, from Brand Networks, and eBay sellers Alexa Terry Wilde and Holli Pahlen. To have your questions answered on eBay for Business, call us at 888 723-4630 or email us at podcast@ebay.com.

Links

#ebaypodcast
ebay.com/podcast
ebay.com/sellingonebay
ebay.com/meetups
ebay.com/community
ebay.com/sellercenter
ebay.com/communitychat
ebay.com/sellerprotection
ebay.com/help/home
Applications Now Open for Retail Revival Program in Austin
Seller Performance Standards
ebay.com/sellerprotections
Judi Dench, National Treasure 

Hosts

Griff, Alan Aisbitt, Liz Austin

Guests

Audrey Tracy (eBay Staff), Lisa Fruggiero, (Brand Networks), Alexa Terry Wilde (eBay Seller), Holli Pahlen (eBay Seller)

Transcript

Yeah. Heads up Alan.

Yeah. What's that?

Well, so in the script, there's a word you may not have heard before. Sorry, I didn't mean to spring it on you.

What is it?

Well, it's synecdoche.

Synecdoche?

Yeah. synecdoche. Not Schenectady, New York.

What? That's complicated. I'm sorry.

So I wanted to give you a chance to rehearse it a little bit before we actually launch into the intro. So just repeat after me. synecdoche, synecdoche, synecdoche.

No not select a key.

Synechdo-gee?

Synecdoche, close.

Synecdoche.

There you go.

What's it mean?

Well, I'm going to tell you it's in the script. Don't read ahead. All right, so if you're ready…

I'm Alan.

And I'm Griff and this is the eBay For Business Podcast. Your weekly source for the information and inspiration you need to start, run and, grow a business on the world's most powerful market place.

And this is episode 57.

It's the Heinz of episodes.

What? What?

Well, you know Heinz, the sauce. Heinz 57 no?

I have no idea what you're going on about Griff.

Heinz 57. It comes in a bottle. It's a type of steak sauce. Heinz also makes ketchup. Maybe you heard of that?

I've heard of ketchup, but not Heinz 57.

Well, like I said, it's a steak sauce, but the term Heinz 57 is also what's called a synecdoche of the historical advertising slogan that the Heinz Company employed over a century ago for their Heinz 57 steak sauce.

Synecdoche, you say?

Yeah. That's it.

What for the love of all that is sacred is a synecdoche?

Well, I'm glad you asked Alan. Now sit down and I'll be a fatherly figure and tell you that synecdoche is a figure of speech in which if a word or a phrase that refers to a part of something is substituted to stand in for the whole or vice versa. For example, you didn't know this, and this has nothing to do with the podcast. Heinz 57 is the synecdoche of the historical advertising slogan, 57 varieties of pickles. Oh, never mind.

Pickles?

Yeah.

I thought we were talking about social media. I think you're losing it old man.

You know, perhaps. But anyway, on this the 57th episode of the eBay For Business Podcast, we have a special show Alan.

Like a special sauce.

There you go. Now you found the connection. Exactly! This week our special sauce synecdoche is Social Media For The Holidays. And to address the topic, we'll hear from our old friend and former podcast team member, Audrey Tracy.

Audrey Tracey. She is back!

Don't get excited now. Sort of. She's actually, she's the host of a special segment coming up. So what do you think?

We let our back on the show. She gets her own special segment.

Well you know, maybe if you quit we'll let you back. Right? So should we get started?

Sure thing. Mr. Synecdoche. Oh, what a ridiculous word. Well we'll just move on and do the news.

Okay, Alan, I'm game. What's The Buzz this week?

Well, Griff seller protection is always something that we know is on sellers minds. And with the announcements at eBay Open and details emerging from the Fall Seller Update, wee anticipated that will be seller questions, so we actually set up a community chat with this Seller Protection Team.

That's very proactive. Now remind us about the weekly community chat, Alan.

Sure. We host a weekly community chat with the Community Team each week on Wednesday from one to two Pacific. Sellers can access and participate the chat at ebay.com/communitychat. We often have an open format where sellers can ask us anything, but sometimes we do have special guests as we did with the seller protection team.

You know, especially with something as important as well, the Fall Seller Update and seller protections is great to have experts there in the room. Yeah, it went really well.

The Seller Protection Team, were really happy that they got tons of feedback from sellers and we're going to have them back soon.

And tell us what were the topics under discussion? Well, there's always a concern that protections lean more towards buyers and some sellers think that protections aren't fair to sellers.

It's always important to emphasize a couple of things that not all sellers might think about here and you need to always think, you know I say this all the time? You have to think of yourself as a business on eBay. Now there's a lot of competition on eBay and off and eBay has to be a thoroughly modern platform. It caters to the modern buyer expectation. More buyers mean more buying and that benefits us all. I also want to state that it's really important to keep in mind that when you're selling as a business, business involves profit and loss, so on occasional transactions, you may lose some money, but you just write it off as a loss and you move on. Remember I said this is the other thing I've said for years, and I know I shouldn't be lecturing you, but...

Go on.

It's not the individual transactions. It's the aggregate of your business over time that matters. So you have to keep your eye on the big picture, not just transactional trends.

Exactly. Yeah. I always think of a good analogy is if you have a brick and mortar store, you've got to pay a security guard to be on the door. Right?

In some neighborhoods, yeah.

Yeah, or if you have a brick and mortar store and you sell glass things or vases and people walk away from the cash register and they drop it and it breaks.

Or Judi Dench could walk into your store.

And do what?

Well, she can knock everything over. She's a national treasure. She can get away with it. Did you ever watch that Tracey Ullman episode?

No.

It's hysterical. I'm Judy Dench. I'm a national treasure.

I haven't seen it.

Well back to the topic. For all the information on seller protection, simply go to ebay.com/sellerprotections. What else, Alan? What else is being discussed?

Another hot topic recently on our community is Managed Payments. And the good news is that we're seeing more and more sellers saying that they've opted into Manage Payments.

Well that is good news. And what's the feedback so far?

The most requested features we're seeing, sellers are asking for PayPal to be included as a payout method.

Yeah.

And then also quicker deposits to bank accounts. Obviously we pass that feedback on, right. It's what we do.

Obviously that's what we're here for. We also saw a lot of conversations regarding the Top Rated Seller Program.

Top Rated Seller Program as a conversation? That's interesting. What are they saying?

Yeah. So mainly discussions were around eligibility benefits and how a seller would lose Top Rated status.

Ah, well that's a great opportunity for research. Now the resources are out there and we'll include the link to our seller levels and performance standards page. Which by the way, Alan, I'm finding some sellers don't even know exist. We'll put it in the transcript, but you can also go to seller center at ebay.com/sellercenter and you can search for top rated seller programs and seller standards there and there really is a wealth of information. You'll find it.

I love it. Teaching sellers how to fish Griff instead of giving them the fish.

Well we can't tell them everything. What else is in the news this week Alan?

Yeah, so listeners to the podcast will know that near and dear to my heart and eBay's heart is the Retail Revival Program and we are launching in another city Griff.

Okay. As as a reminder for those before we get to the city, Retail Revival is where we literally go in and work with city governments and businesses to launch and train and support small businesses on eBay or help businesses get started on eBay. And so what's the latest you got Alan on Retail Revival?

The latest city is Austin, Texas. I love that city. A great city. I've been there a couple of times.

I hear they have a great music scene.

They sure do. It's beautiful and fun city. So the Retail Revival application period is now open and it will close on Tuesday, September 24th. Local businesses can learn more and apply at ebayinc.com/austin and eBay will also be a sponsor at Austin's Pecan Street Festival that runs September 21st and 22nd. eBay will be showcasing unique items available on eBay and doing some giveaways.

I love me some pecans.

Me too. Will you be there Alan?

I would love to go. You never know.

Good. Well, I guess that's it for the news this week then.

That's all that fits. Thanks for having me, Griff. It's always a pleasure. Now it's time for our special segment.

This week on the podcast we're focusing on a single topic and joining me in the studio today is our podcast team member and good friend Liz Austin. Welcome Liz.

Hi, Griff.

So Liz, what do you have for us this week?

Well, this week we are going to talk all about social media.

And by social media of course, for those of you who are uninitiated, we mean the online platforms like Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter and Instagram, correct?

That's correct.

Excellent. So Liz, could you set the stage so to speak on what we'll be hearing this week about social media?

Sure thing. So before I start though, those who might not know e-bay Open is our Annual Seller Conference and celebration, which for the last three years has taken place in Las Vegas. Usually during the week of July. At eBay Open, there are workshops, classes and presentations all geared up to help eBay sellers boost their sales as well as streamline their businesses to make them more efficient and profitable.

Efficiency and profitability. Both of those are very good things, especially if you're a seller. And we should also mention that the event eBay Open is always a lot of fun for everyone in attendance.

Absolutely. And there's lots of food and networking and even a great party on the last night of the event. But back to the topic this year at eBay Open, our good friend and colleague Audrey led a panel discussion on the topic of social media on the main stage with three panelists. Lisa, who's the Director Of Brand Networks, which is a Facebook marketing partner and two eBay sellers, Alexa Terry Wilde and Holli Pahlen. The discussion was both illuminating, informative, and helped sellers understand the do's and the don'ts of using social media to grow your business.

Thanks Liz. Now let's listen into that panel discussion.

Hi everybody and welcome to the Grow Your Business On Social Media Workshop. I'm Audrey Tracy.

Yeah!

There it is. Thanks everyone. I'm thrilled to introduce our three panelists. We've got Lisa, the Director Of Brand Network. We've got Alexa and Holly and they both are eBay sellers that use social media really well to grow their business. Could I ask each of you to just say a few words about yourself?

Hi everyone. Lisa Fruggiero. I'm the director of High-growth at Brand Networks. We're a Facebook marketing partner and really all that means is I'm on Facebook all day long to talk to you guys about Facebook today.

Hi everyone. I'm Alexa. I have a brick and mortar store called Antlers and Astronauts. I'm based out of Greensboro, North Carolina. We are a proud participant in eBay's Retail Revival Program in Greensboro and yeah, looking forward to talking to you about social media today.

Hey everyone. I'm Holly. I've been selling on eBay since 200. I know this is a social media class. I've been on social media only I think like two, two and a half years as eBay Princess. And it has really helped me sell some of my items through social media versus just being on eBay solely, so I'm excited to be here.

Thanks for being here. So we picked Alexa because she's really an expert at content and brand marketing and we picked Holli because she's really great at engagement and growing followers. Okay. Let's talk about the agenda. We're going to talk about why small businesses and sellers should be using social media. We're going to ask Holly and Alexa in particular about their social media strategy. We're going to talk about the difference between organic and paid. Then we're going to dive into some organic best practices, some paid best practices. I'm going to talk about eBay's social marketing criteria and I'll translate that into English when we get there. Then we're going to talk about some resources and then we're going to open it up for Q and A. I like to start with this quote because number one, it's from Pierre Omidyar who founded eBay. So it's near and dear to my heart. He was very smart back in the day to realize that the Internet and eventually social media was this new way of bringing people together. And you could almost argue that eBay was one of the first social media platforms in that it was a way to bring people together that had common interests. They could talk, they could transact, and so really social is almost kind of the heart of eBay. So why are we doing this panel? Some of you are probably using social media, but do you have a strategy to drive growth and to drive sales? Let's talk about why that's important for small businesses, particularly sellers on eBay. Okay. I'm going to turn this slide over to Lisa. Talk a little bit more about you do and why we should be where our buyers are.

Yeah, definitely. So I run our ecommerce business at Brand Networks. So I work with small to medium sized businesses, helping them navigate the digital advertising world. It's super complicated and people need help. So my clients are a lot like you where they sell online, they want to grow their business and they want to make more money, right? We all want to make more money. And the number one way, the number one way to do that is to find new customers. The more customers you have, the more money you're going to make. And really, that's where social media and eBay are a perfect combination. So when you think of the customer funnel, top funnel is where social media lives, that's driving brand awareness, increasing your reach. That's where you're finding the new customers and telling your story. Mid Funnel is also social media because that's where you're gonna drive traffic to your eBay store. Create that urgency. And then lower funnel is eBay. So you get someone to your eBay store. Now what? Right? They're going to purchase, they're going to become a customer and that cycle starts all over again. And the best part about social media is it's free. The barrier to entry doesn't exist anymore. It used to be just for big brands and now anyone can do it. So I really encourage you all to to take a look at social media and invest. And I would say the quote or the stat that stands out the most to me here is the 98% of digital consumers are social media users. Your eBay buyer is a digital consumer. They're tech savvy, they're buying online, they're on social. So, so should you. And when you think about your marketing strategy, you know, you guys have a new product release, you're going to post on your website, you're going to post in your eBay store, you're going to send an email out. But are you also posting that on social media? And you know, social media needs to be an extension of your brand and you need to think about it holistically across everything you do. It is not just an afterthought anymore. And today we're gonna be talking about Facebook, Instagram. But I definitely think every channel you should test, you should learn. See what works for your business. But today we're focused on Facebook and Instagram.

That's right. I want to reinforce the point that Lisa just made. When you think about the shopping journey and you think about what the role of social media versus the role of eBay, right? Like think about social as your inspiration, right? I want to get that beautiful dress that I saw on Instagram or I want to get that crazy new apple peeler that I saw on a Facebook video that I couldn't take my eyes off of. That is really where you want to inspire your customers in social media and then you want to link that to your eBay store, right? So, social is where you get inspired. eBay is where you bring them to transact. So what's your social media strategy? I want to ask both Alexa and Holly these questions. I'll start with Alexa. Why are you on social channels? Who's your audience? What are you promoting and how does your brand show up?

As I mentioned, we are a brick and mortar store. We're also present on ecommerce. And so social media for us as a way to sort of bridge that gap between selling in person and selling online. And our social media strategy is pretty straight forward. We believe in the right content at the right time with the right hashtags. Our businesses is pretty multifaceted. We not only sell a physical product, we also sell services we host events in and around the communities. We are utilizing social media to connect with our consumers, our customers in the most effective way possible. So for example, on Instagram our grid is actually sort of telling the story of our brand. Whereas Instagram stories we really utilize to drive traffic either in to our store or to our website, our eBay listings. Facebook we're utilizing to really connect with our GenX customers, Our mailing lists, we're utilizing to kind of connect with our customers that maybe have a nine to five job and can't get on social media during the day. Ultimately what we're trying to do is utilize social media to engage with our existing followers, but then also really appeal to potential customers as well.

And I just want to point out that Alexa is using the kind of native functionality of each channel to its benefit. Right? Stories you can link to a story. Are you linking from stories to your store?

We're not at that stage.

Not yet. Okay. But you're driving traffic to your store through uh, through the stories. And then, um, she met you, you, you said grid, but we call it gallery. I don't know what it's actually called, but when you look at someone's entire Instagram feed, it starts to tell a story. And then lastly, she is using Facebook to reach an audience that she might not reach on Instagram. So it's just a matter of using the right channel to reach the right audience. Okay. Holli, same questions. How are you using social media? Who's your audience? What are you promoting and how does your brand show up?

So mine's a little bit different. I am an eBay seller. I also am involved in real estate. So I like to post about my real estate rentals that I have. And then my income is eBay to kind of fuel my real estate business. Or whatever. But I post stuff about my kids. I post what I'm doing or my real estate things, my eBay items, and then I'll even post about my relationship recently or my lack of relationship recently. Um, but what I like to do to sell my items is I have two different locations that I store my items. Actually three, but like how can I sell these items? I've had these for so long and so I'll pick a couple, you know, items that have been older that I haven't had success selling and I'm like, you know, this item should really get some attention. And so I will put it on my Insta story. I'll do like, I'll put some music on or whatever and I'll feature, just say like one item and then I'll talk about it. And then I will do an actual post on my page saying, you know, this is the item, it's eBay item number, whatever. Or I will link it through my story. So once you get, I believe it's 10,000 followers, you can do the swipe up feature. So once I got that I would do, you know, swipe up and I notice most of the time when I do a feature on an item it will sell that day. And so kind of like, okay, what item do I want to post? I want to sell this today or I might be willing to do a drastic price drop. It's been sitting around for so long and it's like, you know, does anyone want this for this price? Let's just post it with the eBay item number. I like doing it that way versus selling it through just directly through Instagram because then you with eBay you're going to get that seller protection and you're going to get, you know, they can still return it. I do a 30 day return cycle, but you're not going to just maybe sell it directly through your page and you're going to have that seller protection. So that's how I use my page to sell items that I have on eBay that aren't selling, like I'm selling it to basically my followers, like who wants this? But it's worked very well for me to get rid of stuff I've had for embarrassingly like years. Like I've had this for so long, I do not want it anymore. Like does anyone want this? And it usually sells.

So it's kind of a lot of velocity model. Like yeah, let's promote it. Yeah, get some eyeballs on it.

Yes, new eyes like it's not getting seen. It's the price is too high or whatever it may be. And does anyone want to try this out? And you know, they might be selling on other platforms other than eBay. So they're seeing it on my page and they're buying it through eBay.

Let's move on to paid versus organic. Now. these are terms that we use in the social media industry. But let's make sure that sellers understand the difference. This is for Lisa.

Perfect. So when we talk about paid versus organic, we're talking about content. So the biggest difference is organic content is free. Anyone can post a photo or a video on their Facebook, Instagram page. Doesn't cost you a thing. On the paid side, that means you're actually putting money behind your posts. So you're guaranteeing people are seeing it and it's not just going to get lost in the newsfeed. That's the biggest difference. The second difference is audience strategy. So when you're talking about organic, because you're not using money, the only people that are going to see that post are your existing fans. So your strategy should be around like building relationship and building loyalty with your existing customer. You should of course post about your products, your sales, but that's where you should be bringing a human side to your content. So you know, I recommend kind of what Holly was saying is show your staff, like show behind the scenes, show your life. You're on vacation, post a photo, share a quote. What's motivating you? You know, build that relationship with your customers. On the paid side, we use the terms prospecting, re-marketing. When it comes to audience strategy. Prospecting means a net new customer. Finding someone that has never, never heard of your brand. You need to tell your story. So that content might look like your best sellers, right? What put you on the map? What product are you known for? What do you want people to know about your brand that makes you guys different? Re marketing strategy on the paid side, that means people that have liked a Facebook post, they've gone to your website, they've gone to your eBay store but they haven't purchased yet. How do you get them to purchase? How to go to eBay and purchase and that type of content should be around maybe promo codes. Maybe you offer free shipping. It could be a customer testimonial, something that's really going to get someone to go to your website and purchase. The best marketers out there, they do a mix of both organic and paid. If you just do organic, you're really not going to see that growth that we've been talking about. Paid is really that next step in, you know, the marketing process that you should invest in. If you really want to focus on new customers. And we'll get into some paid best practices in just a second, but let's deep dive into organic best practices.

Alexa, if I could ask you to take kind of points one through four, what's your brand story? How do you create those great photos? How are you authentic in social media and how do you keep your copy kind of simple so that you really can tell your story but the attention spans are so short these days. How do you capture that attention span with a great concise story?

A little bit about the brand Antlers and Astronauts as a brick and mortar has only been around for about two years, but it's conception spans almost a decade. So it's sort of a decade in the making and ultimately like our heartbeat, what we're about is kind of the power of storytelling. And we believe that every object has a story. And whether it's new or old, and what we're passionate about is connecting customers with these unique one of a kind items. They're really just like enrich their daily lives. So that's kind of what we're about as a brand. In terms of great photos, this is something that I cannot emphasize enough. So what's awesome about technology these days is that you don't have to have a professional camera to necessarily be producing great content on social media. Um, your smartphone probably has a camera that just as good as some of the professional cameras out there. And um, as long as you have sort of your favorite photo editing app or software kind of at your disposal, there are a lot of really great ones. Color story. After light, LightRoom, Snapseed, VSCO Cam, there are a ton of them. And then I think you also really need to have some understanding of just basic design principles. Things like rule of thirds and balance and proportions and things of that nature. I also really believe in like a varied feed. So rather than producing kind of the same type of imagery over and over again, we really like to have some variation. So maybe one day we're doing a flat lay of a, of a product and, and talking about it and then maybe the next day we're following that up with kind of an overview shot of maybe a corner of the store that we just restyled and re-merchandise. We tend to shy away from text posts. But if that's you're thing too, maybe doing that you know, every two to three days and spacing that out and really you know, inserting some good rich product photography in there as well. And then hopefully ideally you're kind of adhering to some like color story that's true to your brand, keeping that nice and cohesive. And the third point being authentic. I feel like authenticity is kind of like the word of the year in social media for 2019. I am marketing towards a lot of millennials, I have a lot of millennial customers and as a millennial myself, we tend to really be skeptical of like traditional forms of advertising. We turn to social media to really be able to kind of have these like genuine, authentic interactions with these brands and with these individuals. And that's really I think where the power of social media lies. And then keeping texts simple. I heard this really interesting theory on caption writing recently where they recommend actually sitting down and writing out your captions for the week or the month. And then sort of pairing that with the photos that kind of go along with that. That's not going to work for everyone. And it's not necessarily even something that we follow. But what I do think you kind of need to adhere to a couple of principles when you're, you know, writing out captions. Needs to be true to your brand voice. And so it really should read as if, you know, someone was speaking it out loud, you the person behind your brand. And then there should generally be a call to action in your captions. Whether that's double tap, if you agree or you know, what are you up to this weekend? But along with that, keep in mind that you don't have to be on any platform to be selling 100% of the time with social media. It could be as simple as, you know, kind of an in depth caption one day with your call to action followed by something as simple as, you know, a photo the next day with the caption "Saturday night vibes," you know, with an Emoji. And I think there's just a really nice balance. You don't want to overwhelm kind of your followers with these super in depth things every day.

Lisa, If you don't mind talking about points five, six and seven, first of all, define UGC. What does that mean? Give some tips on how to link to their listing or store and then talk about what kind of content sellers should be sharing.

User Generated Content is UGC. And this is another free tip for you all. Not everyone can afford to do a photo shoot with a photographer every time you get new products. So why not ask your customers to help you with your creative? So a lot of my brands, what they'll do is they'll run contests. They'll say, hey customers, share your photos, use this Hashtag. And if I ended up selecting your photo for any of my marketing efforts I'll mail you a gift card or I'll give you 20% off your next order. So it's a great way to get them shopping. And also having your customers help you generate content. The biggest thing is ask for testimonials. Ask for a quote too, and give them guidelines. Say, Hey, no selfies because selfie quality isn't that good. If you're selling clothes, ask for full body shots. So definitely trust your customers cause they're going to trust testimonials when they see that as content linking back to your eBay store. So this is critical because if your main goal is to increase traffic, then you need people to be able to click on something. So if it's a paid ad or if it's a posting, you can do a call to action. Learn more. Shop now is available. If you can't do that, at least do a link to your store. Or a big trick that a lot of my clients use is they'll do "shop the full look". So if they're an accessory brand, they'll have a photo and have a girl with a hat, a purse and shoes and within their posts they'll say, shop the full look now. And say, hey, this red hat's $20 click here and they'll link to the listing. You know, this purse, you know, click here. And just a good way to have more than one link in a post and for people to spend more with you. I also want to jump in real quick because from your listing on eBay, there are some social channels you can directly link to, but oftentimes the image is not great or it doesn't look great, so I actually recommend, and I'm an eBay employee, I probably should endorse our functionality. But I actually think that what Lisa just described is a better user experience when it comes to your fans, right? Because you, you do want to do that full look. You do want to drive, you know, to this item, that item and that item. Versus this one listing that can look a little funky when it's generated from eBay.

And use Bit.ly, so you don't want to do an ugly link that's like three lines long, so Bit.ly, it's free and it just shortens your links for you. There's a ton of them out there. Then lastly, that create unique content. There's also more free apps that I want to talk to you guys about to help you create. Because in our industry you talk about thumb stopping creative, right? Your newsfeed is so busy. What's going to make you stop and actually look at something. Boomerang is free. It's on Instagram and allows you to add motion and create a video. So think about if you're selling a dress and it's flowy, take a video of the dress and show off the flowy feature. Or if it's a purse, show that it's moving. How cute it looks when you're walking. And there's, okay, so Boomerang, there's Layout, another free app. So it creates collages. I love it cause you can show an item in a lifestyle shot and then she'll close ups of it. So if you want to show different parts of the the product, I think that's really great. And it's one picture. Then lastly, Slideshows. So this is actually my favorite format to use on Facebook. It's free within Facebook and what it is, it's takes a bunch of pictures and it creates a video. So my clients use it for new arrivals. So we'll say every Monday you get new arrivals. So take those five pictures of the five new products and um, the slideshow feature allows you to put those five pictures. You can put music, you can add captions. It's just a great way to show off a variety of products in a cool thumb stopping way.

So Lisa just talked about format, but I also want to talk about what types of content. So share your new products, talk about any sort of sales and events that you're happening. Show a little behind the scenes of your business. Going back to that point about being authentic, latch onto cultural or trending moments, you know, National Donut Day and National Taco Day, whatever it is. And then again, user generated content. Okay, we're going to talk now about how to grow a following. Holly, talk about how you got to 25,000 fans on Instagram.

First I joined Instagram because I was a lurker on my personal page. So I was like creeping on so many other seller's pages. I know, never comment. I'm like, I don't want to comment cause then they're going to request me as a friend and I, this was just like my friends and family so I never started it. And so then finally one day I'm like, you know what, I want to start commenting on some of these people's posts. So I just started come up with your business page or you're probably already have one. But I didn't. So I started that and then I would just go to, you know, my favorite resellers pages and I would start commenting or liking the post or I would just start following people. Like if you click on who they're following, it will all come up. And I just started following other resellers. I wanted to learn from them and it's like I was doing things my way for so long, 15 years that they had so many other ideas that I wanted to implement. I just started following people. I started commenting, I kind of became like an obsession and like I should probably put my kids to bed because I'm commenting on Instagram. And I got lucky like Chris with, he was 10 k on the Bay or Daily Refinement. Now I don't know if he's here but he I think tagged me on something or like follow her or something and then that day I got, I don't know, probably several hundred followers just on that day because he did that. Or so if you start commenting on some of the people that have a lot of followers, they'll tag you. Like I've been tagging people here at the event, like if they post something I'll tag them. And I tagged one of my friends Kelly and she was like, I got a a hundred and some followers like right away after you tagged me. So just start becoming involved in the reselling community. You're going to get followers, you're going to get people that want to hear what you say and read your posts. And it's just kind of, I don't know, I, it just started everyday. I just maybe get, some days I'll get, you know, 10 followers. Some days I'll get a hundred. Like it just kind of happens once you start getting involved in the community and make it part of your daily routine. If you're sitting there at lunch just with nothing to do, eating your lunch, just sit there and start liking posts, start commenting on posts or following people. You're going to get those followers on your page and it's going to help you sell your items that you're trying to sell on eBay.

I'm going to ask Alexa to covers points four and five real quick. I think you have an anecdote about someone who tried to buy fans.

Yeah, so I'll just address that point really quickly. But don't buy fans. It's really ultimately your followers on social media. It's about quality over quantity. And if you have 2000 followers that are super engaged, you'd much rather have that than you know, 100,000 followers that really don't care that much about the content that you're posting. But a really good customer of mine, one of the first times she came in the store, I know that she had a pretty substantial social following and I said, what is that all about? And she goes, I bought, you know, I bought followers. But as it turns out, it doesn't actually pay off in the long run because if they're not interested in the content you're producing, there's ultimately no point. And similarly, the follow unfollow game doesn't really work either for the same reason. Yeah. You want really dedicated followers who are actually engaging with your content. And then hashtags. I could talk about hashtags for hours, but here's what I'll say. We actually have a series of about 20 different sets of hashtags that we've come up with for all of the different types of content that we put out onto our feed. You want to have a nice mixture of hashtags that have a short lifespan and a long lifespan. And what I mean by that is you know the Hashtag that maybe has a million posts associated with it balanced with kind of more niche targeted hashtags that are going to be specific to like what you're posting and what your followers are interested in. You should also be doing a couple of things with hashtags. You should have a branded hashtag and if possible that should be in your bio. Throw in a couple more hashtags in your bio. I actually just did that the other day. We revamped our bio a little bit, threw in a couple more hashtags and we've gotten a substantial amount of new followers since that change took place. So and just kind of lastly for any naysayers of Hashtags, because sometimes you think, well is this actually working? I sort of took a look back at my, you know, top five posts that had the most engagement on social media over the last few months. And in those top five looking at the insights of each of them, each post over 80% of the engagement was a result of the hashtags that were used on the posts. It actually works. It just does. It takes a little time on the back end to get those, you know, presets kind of built up. But it's worth it.

Next we're going to talk about how to engage with your followers and it's really quite simple. Alexa, can you talk about how you create content that drives engagement?

I think ultimately, you know, the Instagram algorithm really rewards the whole idea is to keep users on the platform for as long as possible. So the algorithm is going to show you content that based on your previous interactions on the platform, they think we'll keep you on the platform longer. So what that means is that the content that you're actually engaging with, and conversely, you know, as a seller, the content that you are, like if you're posting a picture and then responding to comments from, from your followers, that's ultimately going to reward you because it's going to sort of feed your followers that content more prevalently in their feeds. So it's sort of this back and forth, but you definitely want to be engaging with your followers as much as possible.

And Holly, I know it's difficult for you because you've got so many fans, but how do you carve out a little bit of time to uh, engage with them?

I usually try to do it at night. After I get my kids to bed if I don't fall asleep with them. Or I'll do it like once I get them to school or their camp or whatever. But first I didn't even know how to get into like the DMS. I'm like, wait, where's this? Like I did not know what I was doing. But then once I figured it out and like, okay because your followers are going to show up in your one inbox and then you have your other inbox that's like people that you don't follow. And then I wasn't seeing those. And so once I figured it out, I just tried to respond to as many as I could. I was caught up for quite awhile. I would respond to everything. And now like depending on what you post on, if you post on something that's like very relatable to people, you might get, you know, hundreds of direct messages if you have a certain amount of followers. And it's like, I can't respond to all of these. Like I try so hard, but you just have to carve out that time. Or like that post that I did there, population 151. Like I am from a town of 151 people. So I posted that picture like I'm from here, you know, where are you from? And then you're going to get all those comments and technically you should reply to every single one of those comments or like it or whatever. But I just, I needed to be better. Yeah, making it more time because, um, it definitely, I like to read the comments. I like to help people and answer the questions or you know, they're, they're giving me tips. Like I've learned so much just by joining Instagram from other resellers. I've changed strategies in my business that I've thought, oh my gosh, why did I not do this 10 years ago? Like I would have saved so much time. Just the things you're going to learn from other sellers that are doing the same thing as you. You're going to cut corners on so many different things and you're going to sell more items. You're going to list more items, you're gonna sell more items.

Lisa, if you wouldn't mind talking a little bit about paid best practices.

So you're ready, you're going to invest and what to do. First thing is to add a credit card to your Facebook account. You know, that's how you're gonna pay for it. So make sure your credit card set up. There's this picture here that you can see. So there's actually three ways to do ads. One is look at your organic content that you've posted. Maybe choose a metric and say, hey, the the posts that had the highest click through rate, that's what I'm going to boost. So you can boost directly from your Facebook feed and it says boost you. Click on it. It says, Facebook goes, how much do you want to spend? I'd say at least $5 a day you want to do. So that's how to quickly boost a post. If you want to do automated ads. So this is a pop up directly from your Facebook page that you can see. So there's a blue button that says promote. You can click there or there's an ad center at the top that you can click to get to ads or see where it says get started with automated ads. That's what you should click. Facebook's going to say, "Hey, do you want to run automated ads"? And you're gonna say yes, Click on it. And then it's a wizard that actually takes you through the process. So it's going to ask you a couple of questions about your business and you want to choose that your main goal is to drive traffic to your website. So by just choosing that things with Facebook's going to walk you through, you know, upload photo, create a slideshow and so forth. The third option is through an ad account and that's very more advanced. That's what I do with all my clients. I think that's a whole other panel that we can talk about. Audiences available, custom audiences, lookalikes and interests. So talking, starting with custom, everyone should download a list of all of their customers. So download at least their email may be first and last name. And you can upload that into Facebook. So what you do there is you can do an ad that's targeted to just your customers or you can exclude your customer list. Because you don't need to pay to put content in front of your customers, they're already your customers. So by excluding your customers, you're not spending money targeting them. And then also you take that customer list and you can create lookalikes. So within Facebook, the Audience Section is where you upload that list and you create a look like. So Facebook has this magic potion where they look at the DNA of your existing customers and they find people that look like them. And that's the type of audiences you're going to use for your prospecting effort. Also interests. So I'm just gonna use this example of, of Nike. So let's say you guys sell Nike products on your eBay store. When you're looking at an interest audience, you can choose Nike as an interest, which is really great. You can do competitor con-questing and choose other brands that are similar to Nike, so along with Nike then you choose Adidas and then you Under Armor. You can also choose, you know what other interests relate to Nike. Maybe it's a running shoe, so then you choose running as an interest. Or maybe it's a shoe you can wear for cross fit so you choose cross fit, Yoga and so forth. Interest is a great way to build these like audience personas and then match your creative with that audience. We've talked about photos. Photos are always going to be successful. We talked about what a slideshow is. Carousel, so carousel is the ad that you see in front of you guys here. It's multiple photos in a slideshow where a consumer can click through. And these ads are the best to drive traffic because they're very cliquey and what I love about them is you can show a variety of products. You can tell a story, right, of what a dress looks like on four different types of girls so that people can see themselves in the ad. When also creative, when you think about sizes on your phone, shoot everything in square. One by one looks great on every platform or at least you know if you take a photo then edit on your phone into a square using some of the apps that Alexa talked about. So there's the sizes and then video. So video is so intimidating and I think people always just write it off like, oh, I can't do video. I don't know what to talk about. I don't know what to show. But actually Facebook's making video very easy, they have free tools inside Facebook. One is the video creation tool where it takes a photo and Facebook ads slight movements, so zooms out, zooms in and it looks really cool. You can add graphics and copy and logos. So it takes a photo and turns it into a three to five second clip, which again is that thumb stopping creative. Also let's say you have a three minute video and everyone knows that three minute videos is too long for social. Facebook now has a whole section where you can trim your videos. So you can take a three minute clip and turn it into a 15 second video. It's all done free on Facebook. You can add captions, you can trim it down, you can change the size of it. If you have a horizontal video, you can make it vertical for a story. So again, Facebook has all these really great strong tools to be able to run video, which video is great for awareness and reach. And then lastly, test and learn. So how do you know what works? You have to test it. And Facebook has a tool called Split Testing. I use it for everything that I do. So it's, it's basically where you identify one thing you want to test. I usually test creative. So you choose one audience. So back to audiences. Maybe it's the interest audience you created for Nike and you want to test what creative actually gets more people to click to come to my eBay page. So, um, it could be a photo versus video, it could be um, the same picture but two different copies of what resonates better with somebody, what voice and tone. So it can be anything. So again, test and learn is the way to go across, across space.

Now I'm going to talk about eBay social marketing criteria. So what does eBay social marketing criteria mean? It means how can you increase your chances of showing up in eBay's marketing? As you can imagine, eBay uses sellers listings and photos in their own paid advertisements. And how can you get in on that? Well, the first one is great photos. Be sure to follow all of eBay's best practices on photos. We want white backgrounds, we don't want any marks, logos, text overlays. You really want that gallery image to be the best image cause that's the one we're likely going to pick up on. And one point that's not on the slide is zoom and Hi-Res, right on an eBay listing, you can click on an image and it zooms. We're going to pick that image. If we can't, if your item doesn't zoom, your photo is too low-res and we'll probably move on. Tip number two, inventory levels. When we drive traffic from our advertising, we want to land our customers on a page where they can actually buy something. So if you have multi quantity listings and you're only showing that two are available, and this seller over here is showing that 10 or 15 are available, we're probably gonna go with this one. Because we don't want to create a bad buyer experience where we drive traffic to your item and it's not available. So be sure to keep your multi quantity inventory levels updated. The next tip is clear and concise product info. This means you have a great listing, a very concise listing, but also this applies to Google Shopping. If you want to show up in Google Shopping, just give us the very basics of what your listing is. We don't need any kind of opinion or commentary or rules for how to buy from us. That will get clogged in the system. And then tip number four is free shipping and returns. eBay promotes free shipping and returns as a platform. We think it is a buyer benefit. We know that buyers check both before they purchase. If you offer free shipping and returns, you're more likely to show up in our marketing. The other thing is item location. There's lots of great products from eBay that are come from overseas, but we probably won't market that to the U.S. Audience because we know that the U.S. Audience wants those items quicker, right? We want to be able to promote a seller or an item that can deliver within three to five days versus one to two weeks from a foreign location. So those are tips on how you can show up perhaps in our eBay marketing. Next, Lisa is going to go over some resources and then we'll jump to Q and A.

These are Facebook business. It talks about success stories on Facebook tricks, so definitely follow at Facebook business. Instagram does the same thing that handles at Instagram for business. And just two sources that I check daily just to learn as much as I can about social media is Digiday, so it's digiday.com and then Social Media Examiner, so socialmediaexaminer.com.

Thank you. Okay, let's open up for questions.

I do not have Instagram and I don't have a Facebook business page. So my first step would be to open those and then not really try to promote any product, but get my my name type of thing out there. Right?

Yes.

And then after I have so many followers, then I can start promoting my business?

Well, I'll take that and maybe then you can pile on?

Yeah, yeah.

You're going to want a business account on both Facebook and Instagram because that's going to give you analytics. You're going to understand who's coming to your page, how many clicks you're getting, et Cetera, and it comes to kind of your content mix. Don't be afraid to throw a product out there. My general rule is about 80% kind of what's your expertise? What industry are you in? Like if, let's pretend that you're in fashion. Talk about fashion, talk about what the trends are, kind of 80% of the time and then 20% of the time throw in a link to your store and an item that you want someone to buy. Social media is like friendships and if you go to a cocktail party and your friend only talks about what they're selling at this cocktail party, that's going to be a pretty boring friend. You want it to be a mix of your own personality, your own businesses brand as well as items that you're selling.

I would just add to that, create a routine. Make goals, so do three posts.

Very nice.

And I would create themes. So one of those posts is going to be about a product so you can do product spotlight, new arrival. The second post could be a wild card and you can just talk about your brand and your story and show, you know, a picture of yourself and say, Hey, I'd like to introduce myself, I'm the owner. And then maybe the third post is lifestyle shots where it's actually showing your products within how they're being used. So yeah, three posts. If one post does really well cause a lot of people are clicking on it, then say I'm going to put $25 behind that post for two days and just see if my my reach can expand.

And should I use then for my business page, should I use my eBay store name or Instagram or just my personal name?

Yeah, I think people make the mistake of having 10 different names across every social channel. So I definitely think you need to do the research first to see what should your name be and can you claim that handle on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, whatever other channels you want to do. But I, I would a hundred percent use your eBay name.

Yes, you want to be consistent across all channels. You want your customer to be able to find you on eBay, Instagram, Facebook, whatever other channels you use. So that name should ideally be the same across all of those channels or as close as possible to each other. Okay.

Thank you very much.

Certainly. Thank you. Hi there.

I have a quick question about do you have any recommendations for when your followers become stagnant on Instagram?

I think it goes back to the follow back and some of the stuff that Holly talked about.

I try to follow back, like if you see your new followers look at their page, you know, follow them back. But I've noticed on my page if I'm not posting anything at all, like I might go a week without posting cause I've been dealing with some stuff in my personal life but I didn't post anything. And it'll show on your page like the number of people that have looked at your page and I've noticed it was like way down. It's because I was not posting anything. And when you're consistently posting, you're going to get the followers, you're going to get the comments. But if you just disappear then you're going to notice, oh my gosh, I'm not getting any activity on my page at all. It's because you need to be posting on your story. You need to be doing like regular posts and then you're going to see you're getting followers daily by just doing that. So just carve out that time to make the post and just stay consistent.

I've been doing it twice a day, like 11 and six each day posting.

If you're just like what I was doing lurking and I was just like reading everyone else's, you're not going to get really any followers or anything like that. Like you have to just start becoming involved in the community and you're going to get so many people following you because of what your specializing in and what you are bringing to the community.

Okay.

And don't be afraid to like collaborate with other brands that you admire that may have a more substantial following. Anytime we do a giveaway, we see a huge boost in our engagement and our follower account too.

I even think, just asking questions like who wore it better? Or playing into the conversation of maybe it's fashion week. So you want to talk about that and do a post of that. So yeah, you, no matter what, you're going to get more eyes on the content, so why not ask a question or post something that's exciting and relevant and in today's world.

Okay, thank you.

Thanks. Hi.

I have noticed on some Instagram pages that if you touch their product, it pops up with the name and the price and how can I do that?

Yeah, that is a more advanced strategy because then you have to upload a product feed to your page. You can do it through Facebook and you can do it manually where it's an excel doc that you download from Facebook, you do product name, price, picture and so forth, and then you manually upload it. But it is a more advanced strategy. So I would Google like how to set up a product feed on Facebook or just go on Facebook and start searching.

I think there might be youtube videos?

It would be Instagram shopping, how to tag a product in your posts.

Great. Thank you.

Certainly. Hi there.

Hi, my name is Lois. I belong to a lot of Facebook groups for research, identification of things and selling. So the research ones, you know, it might be like Seth clocks. Well I don't go there that very often, but when I do get one in, those guys will help me out. But I noticed that some of the selling pages that people have, some of them don't go anywhere. They don't have very many followers and lookers, but some of them do. So I just kind of join it and link my eBay and when I post on eBay then I'll go over and post it on Facebook group. And then I'd go back to check to be like, Oh gee, 25 people have just looked in less than five minutes. Yeah, works. But I worked for somebody too and they have a business account so they pay.

So I think what you're saying, and I'm sorry I'm having a hard time hearing you a little bit, so I want to get this right. You are in what I would call like an interest group, like people that buy pottery or people that are into vinyl, let's just say. And so you're selling those items on eBay and you're promoting those items within the Facebook group. Is that, am I getting this right?

Only if it's a selling group. Some of them, some of them are just identification or just to talk about the item, you know, learn about it.

Facebook is a very rich community of seller Facebook groups where sellers help each other either with research or tips on how to sell or you know, how to run business, that sort of thing. I would actually encourage you to do both. Yeah. Be in those selling groups so that you can learn from other sellers, get the research. But if there is a group, like an interest group, like I just said, you know people that like vinyl and you sell vinyl. Don't be afraid to promote your stuff in there unless admin says no, then that's a different story. But I say promote wherever you can. Yeah, yeah. Perfect. Thank you.

Thanks.

We've got to wrap up. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for all the great questions and enjoy eBay Open 2019. Thank you.

Thanks again, Liz for bringing this great panel discussion to the podcast. I was unable to attend it, you know, during eBay Open and we were very busy with recording for the podcast and it's clear from the recording, I really missed out.

You are welcome Griff. And Yeah, I'm afraid you did miss out. A good thing we recorded it, right?

Absolutely. I always learn something from other sellers, so thanks to that too.

Absolutely. There were lots of takeaways there for sellers to consider, particularly as we lead into holiday. There's some great strategies there that will help sellers out. But I think the main message is no matter what your social media marketing strategy is, always remember to keep it real and human. Buyers love product, but they love stories even more. So don't just post links to your listings, wrap them up in your passion and never let your social channels become platforms for your soul voice. Conversations are king on social media. Engage, comment, engage, comment with your followers.

The best advice I've heard all day. Excellent advice Liz. And thanks again to our three panelists. Lisa Fruggiero area Director at Brand Networks and the two eBay sellers who were joining the panel. Alexa Terry Wilde and Holly Pahlen. And don't forget, we'll be recording more great live content at future eBay events like eBay Up Front and Retail Revivals in the coming months and of course eBay Open next year. So stay tuned.

And that's our show for this week Alan. Hey, what did you think about the topic social media?

Yeah, great! I learned a lot about social media and most importantly selling Griff.

You know, I'm sorry if I don't notice this, but are you an active social media user?

I am. I have a couple of different accounts. You can find me on Instagram at Mr.Aisbitt and on Twitter at Alan Aisbitt. And we're going to revisit the topic of social media after the holidays and we'll explore the pros and yes, some of the cons of using social media as a marketing level for your business.

In the meantime, we have more holiday selling topics to explore.

And that's what's up for our next episode, Alan, tell them about it.

Sure thing. On episode 58 we will dive into the perfect holiday listing. With guests eBay seller Monica Gamboa. And eBay Vice President of Seller Experience Harry Temkin. Don't miss it.

And please whatever you do, please, please call us. We, we want to hear from you.

Please, please put a smile on Griff’s face.

It's not that hard.

It's the small things. Call in on (888) 723-4630.

That's right. Call us at (888) 723-4630 anytime of day, anytime of the week…

We will be here. That's right. In a world where you can leave a question or comment, we just might put it on the air.

Please, please, please. Or if you prefer email, you can contact us at podcast@ebay.com. That's podcast@ ebay.com.

Yeah, and seriously, if you're interested in learning the ins and outs of running a business on eBay or maybe you're just starting out and you don't know how to get started on eBay, I really urge you to consider attending a local eBay seller meetup in your area. At seller meetups as I say every week, experienced and novice sellers alike share what they've learned on eBay in a fun atmosphere often with great food and beverages. You can see upcoming meetups that might be in your area on our special eBay community page for meetups at www.ebay.com/meetups. And don't forget to tune into the eBay For Business Live video stream on our Facebook page every Wednesday at 12:30 pacific. Go to facebook.com/ebayforbusiness. And then jump on over to the community for our alive chat with eBay staff from one to two Pacific. You can get set up by going to ebay.com/communitychat.

And that's our show for this week. The the eBay for business podcast is brought to you by the Head Of Community, Brian Burke. I know him. I do too. Special Correspondent Jen Deal. Associative Executive Segment Producer, Doug Smith, Marketing Strategists, Liz Austin. My Esteemed Cohost, Alan. Hey, Editor and chief and Griff. Griff. Yeah.

The eBay For Business Podcast is produced and distributed by Libsyn and podCast411.

Long show.

Glad that's over.

What? Really, oh, come on. I mean, I love doing this.

I'm hungry.

Oh, you're hungry.

I'm really hungry.

It's the end of the day for us.

It is late. For us. It's really, it's almost five o'clock.

It's almost five o'clock.

Is Walker's closed? We can go in and drink whiskey.

We can, yeah, you can sit at the bar.

So I'll sit at the bar. Do you know I've never been into Walkers.

No. Have you not?

I have never set foot into Walkers.

Ah Ha.

I just haven't done it yet.

I've been once or twice. I don't like to mix business and pleasure. I'll drink. I'll drink elsewhere.

Do you mix business and pain? (laughter)

[damth_89]

Thank you!

[dunguyen_39]

Thanks

[tienhu-66]

Thanks so much!

[nhnguye7329]

Thanks for sharing

[thanhcon-77]

Thanks

[covot-60]

Helpful

[mattyt70]

Skip to 10 minutes for the social media talk, talk about Schenectaty for a while, not the NY city though.

[nguytr-11]

thanks very much

[jewelbiz]

Thank you 🙏 

Listened to podcast.  Thinking about it.

I live on Instagram...& on eBay too!

Just checking...

So it’s ok to direct followers from Instagram to eBay but not visa versa?

Thus it’s no ok to direct eBay members to my Instagram page?

Noticed I was called a Trailblazer now I’m called a Guide.  Why the change?

[*fantastic-dolls*]

Facebook will not allow me to advertise ebay items on Facebook....or my Facebook store...Use on facebook is so controlled...

[jen2sha]

Thats interesiting, I’ve been selling on eBay for over 10 years and been of Instagram for about 5 years. I generally use that that platform to talk about my store and reviews of products I also provide a  link. I think I do see some traffic flow, but you must post regularly. But like other sellers it will be nice to see of some of these followers are actually consumers from that platform. Facebook has restriction base on one Seller but as for Instagram they seem to have less restrictions. Any type of exposure is beneficial for any eBay Sellers.