If you’re on Facebook to promote your handmade business, you could be wasting a lot of time doing the wrong things.

In today’s post, I’m going to share with you 5 tips for how to use Facebook without wasting time.

Before we dive into the 5 tips, the biggest takeaway I want you to have when it comes to social media whether it’s Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, blogging, or anything you do online these days – remember, and be aware, that there are thousands of other people doing it too.

What does that mean?

There’s just a lot of competition happening these days. What you’re competing for is for your customer’s attention, ok?

So how do we compete and stand out and grab someone’s attention online?

Here are 5 tips for how.

1. Know Your Customers

You need to get in the habit of posting content that you know your customers will like.

The mistake most people make is posting content that they themselves like, instead of what the other person they’re trying to reach will like.

It’s like if you’re shopping for a gift for someone you love. Are you going to buy them a present that you like, or that they will like? That’s exactly the same concept here.

This is how you can be of service to your audience and followers. Get on the same page that they’re on, instead of trying to get them to get on your page.

So how do you know what kinds of posts your customers like?

Think About Who Your Customers Are

If you make a children’s product, then your customers are probably parents who care about parenting advice, tips or activity ideas.

If you make greeting cards that are focused on Asian culture then you can share content that’s related to Asian culture, like food posts, funny Asian videos, articles about the Asian community, and so on.

It really helps make your marketing easier when you know what overall topic your business falls under.

If you’re confused or you’re not sure you have a topic, then it might be a good idea to revisit the foundations of your business and make some tweaks so that you have a niche.

2. Have a Strategic Plan

Since there’s so much competition now, the bar is raised and you cannot just wing it anymore.

Give yourself a set schedule for posting on Facebook, and really try to do this consistently.

Use Facebook’s Creator Studio scheduler and bulk schedule your posts for Facebook so you know you’ve got 30 days worth of posts that will automatically go out for you. That way you don’t have to worry about doing Facebook every single day.

Let’s face it, there will for sure be some days where you won’t feel like posting at all.

When you think about your Facebook plan, use the 80/20 rule. So that means, for every 10 posts, 8 of them should not be a direct sales post, and 2 of them can be direct sales posts. This is just a general guideline, you can definitely do 70/30 as well.

If you want to take this a step further, you can also give yourself specific themes for each day of the week.

• So maybe Monday is work in progress day where you’re showing a new design you’re making that’s in progress.
• Tuesday can be behind the scenes day
• Wednesday can be a sales post day
• Thursday can be a funny entertaining video just for kicks
• Friday can be a meme
• Saturday can be a more personal post
• Sunday can be another sales post day. You can create whatever kind of schedule you want, based on what kinds of posts you want to share. Just remember to follow that 80/20 rule, and my very first tip I just shared with you about posting content that your audience will like. Don’t make it all about you, make it about your customer first. I know it’s counterintuitive, but that’s how you get people to pay attention to you. It’s just like being at a party, do you want to be that person who’s always talking about themselves, or to be the listener that’s asking questions and making the other person feel good? The latter is how you get people to remember and care about you.

You can create whatever kind of schedule you want, based on what kinds of posts you want to share. Just remember to follow that 80/20 rule and my very first tip I just shared with you about posting content that your audience will like.

Don’t make it all about you, make it about your customer first.

I know it’s counterintuitive, but that’s how you get people to pay attention to you.

It’s just like being at a party; do you want to be that person who’s always talking about themselves or to be the listener that’s asking questions and making the other person feel good?

The latter is how you get people to remember and care about you.

3. Have the Right Expectations

Facebook is a social media platform, it is social.

Use it to cultivate a community – talk to your customers, entertain them, make them feel good when they see your posts. It’s relationship building.

Do you remember the last time you made a new friend? It takes time, right?

It’s a slow process to making sales, so don’t expect your efforts on Facebook to turn into sales right away.

It takes time to build up your following and to build relationships with your followers.

The reason I bring this up is because if you’re not making sales through Facebook yet, it’s not because it isn’t working. You could very well be in the process of building those relationships that will lead to sales later.

If you quit now, all of those relationships you’ve worked so hard to develop will diminish.

Go into your Facebook page stats and check to see which post has gotten the most engagement. It can be over the last 30 days, or 60 days, or 90 days. I want you to analyze what made that post different from the rest of your other posts. Let me know in the comments what that post is!

My bonus tip for you is to do more of that, because it worked, and you want to do more of what works.

4. Video

Video is where it’s at.

All the different social media platforms are pushing videos because people love watching videos.

If you’re freaking out because video makes you really uncomfortable, that’s okay! There are a few ways you can still use video in your Facebook marketing.

You don’t even have to be in or say anything in the video.

The video could be a top-down video of your hands making your product, or showing it off, showing different angles, or how to use it.

It doesn’t have to be long, it can be as short as 20 seconds. Sometimes that’s all you need. It doesn’t have to be a 20-minute video.

Make it easy for yourself to do.

Even if you showed just a few seconds of a part of your creation process, that’s interesting to other people. You can even use your own smartphones to record the video. You don’t need fancy equipment.

If you truly cannot make your own videos, don’t worry, you can share other people’s videos on your Facebook page.

Just remember tip number one, share content that you know your customers will enjoy seeing. So if you’re like a friend of mine who makes animal jewelry, she could just share great viral videos of animals.

5. Get Good at Writing Social Copy

That means the part of your Facebook posts where you have to write a description.

Just like your videos, it doesn’t have to be long. One or two sentences is often good enough.

Write Calls to Action

Actually say explicitly what you want people to do when they see your post.

If you want them to click on a link, actually say, “click on the link to go shop”. If you want people to leave a comment, actually say it, “leave a comment below”.

Don’t expect the other person to know what you want them to do because they can’t read your mind. So be explicit about it.

Encourage Engagement

Asking questions is always a great way to get people to be a part of the conversation happening in your post.

Don’t get too carried away with your questions, though. Ask simple, direct questions, not super thought-provoking or philosophical.

If the question is too hard to answer or takes the person too much time to think about, they won’t spend the time to leave a comment.

Here’s the thing, the more people engage with your posts, whether that’s liking, sharing, or leaving comments, the more of your posts they’ll see in the future.

This is a behavior you’ll want to foster with your following as much as possible.

Finally, when you’re doing direct sales posts that are talking about your product and you want people to buy, get in the habit of writing how your product will benefit your customer.

The fact that your baby clothes are made by organic cotton isn’t going to really mean anything to your customer. However, when you say that your baby clothes will feel super soft and is good for your baby’s skin; that’s the kind of language that appeals to the customer.

If you have any questions about these tips I’ve shared with you today, let me know in the comments.