I don’t need to tell you that you need to be posting on social media to grow your online craft business… but how do you actually know if your posts are working to grow your biz?
I’ve got you #handmadehero because I’ve learned the hard (and slow) way how to make social media work for my handmade business and actually INCREASE my sales.
Here we go!
Get started with posting consistently
Step one to making sure your posts are actually getting seen is to post consistently.
By consistently, I mean EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.
Don’t over complicate this. Creating content doesn’t have to be time consuming if you do it correctly and have a strategy in place.
Blogging and creating videos are great for engagement and I recommend you do those both at least once a week.
For the other days, the easiest type of content to create is graphics/photos with an engaging caption.
Here’s an example:
What I love about Facebook and Instagram is that you can schedule all your posts to go out so you don’t have to be posting them “live”.
I (or someone on my team) will sit down once a month and schedule out all our posts. It’s a huge time saver in the long run!
And this brings me to my next point…
Know what to post
If you’re having trouble knowing what to post…. stop and LISTEN to your ideal customers.
If you don’t have your own audience yet then go to your competitors audience. Join their Facebook groups and check out their Instagram to see what their followers are saying.
How are your ideal customers feeling? What do they need from you and how can you support them?
I get content ideas by just observing what my audience is saying on social and by literally asking what they want.
Now from there, post what feels right to you. Show up as yourself on your accounts because people love to follow and buy from real people.
Don’t be afraid to share about your life and your value.
Once you have a posting strategy in place, start posting!!
The next step to growing your business is to start finding out which posts are drawing you in customers and which ones aren’t.
How to know what to do more of (or less of)
My little secret here is to use the “insights” on your social media accounts.
With each Facebook business page, you get free access to the “creator studio”. In there you can see all your past posts as well schedule out future posts.
Go to this area of your business page and you’ll also be able to see how your posts are performing.
Check out the posts that are getting more engagement (likes, comments, shares). Try to figure out what people really liked about it and then post more like that.
Also notice the ones that aren’t doing well.
Maybe in the caption you didn’t have a call to action or the content wasn’t speaking to your ideal customers interests.
If you’re having a hard time figuring out what wasn’t working well for your post, share it with me in my Facebook group and I’m happy to help you!
To be able to see your insights on Instagram, you must turn your personal account into a business account.
Two things to note here:
First, I don’t recommend having a personal account and a business account. That is too much work and you can still share personal things on your business account.
Second, when you make this transition, your engagement will drop at first but then it will increase again if you’re using the tips in this post.
When you have the business account, you can see your post insights just like with Facebook.
Here’s some of my best quick and actionable tips
-ALWAYS respond to comments on your posts. The more interacting there is the more the algorithms will show your post.
-Like and comment on your own posts to kick start the engagement.
-If someone shares your post, go over to it and thank them.
-When people like your posts on your business page, invite them to like your page if they haven’t already.
Now if you’re still feeling like you don’t know what to post, I’ve got you covered! I have 24 social media graphic templates PLUS captions available for you to download for FREE! They’re perfect for any handmade business!
* NOTE: These are Canva templates especially created by my team for you, #handmadehero. You’ll need a Canva account to use these templates. Canva is free.
