Facebook Live Selling and Its Growth in the Ecommerce Business

How do you generate buzz for your products when you are not the only business in town? With an ever-shrinking attention span of consumers, long gone are the days when a product description would suffice. Because now, all eyeballs roll for live videos. Recent data suggests that people engage 6X more with live videos than with pre-recorded ones. 

With 40% of sales of most businesses happening through Facebook Live events, more ecommerce brands are turning to Facebook Live selling. 

Facebook Live is the new game-changer in ecommerce today as it brings back the distracted customer's attention through live video marketing. This practice has already made headway in the Asian markets, with China doing business worth USD 150 billion in sales alone. 

The popularity of live marketing events hosted on Facebook Live is now catching up in the US markets, especially in the post-Covid world, as customers missed the experience of a physical store and engaging directly with sellers and their products. Facebook Live brings that experience to the online world and makes it uniquely worthwhile for both the customer and the seller.   

What Is Facebook Live Selling?

Facebook Live selling allows a seller to organize a sale in real time for its Facebook users. A combination of live-streaming with social commerce, Facebook Live is an interactive way of engaging with viewers and potential customers. Where social media is the new hub to connect with brands, Facebook Live is marketplace 2.0 with scalability, ease of use, and cost-effectiveness. 

Statistically too, it makes complete marketing sense as Facebook Live videos are watched thrice longer compared to ordinary videos. In countries like the U.S., 33% of its internet users are on social media to connect with their favorite brands. 

Take for instance, L’Oreal Malaysia, which hosted a 24 hours live sales campaign using Facebook Live. Different L’Oreal brands got a chance to promote their products for 1.5 hrs while customers used a hashtag to initiate a conversation on their Messenger. These engaged viewers were then guided by L’Oreal’s customer service for information, order placement, and payment process. And as unbelievable as it sounds, L’Oreal managed to reach over 2.6 million people and quadruple their daily average sales. 

What Makes Facebook Live So Effective?

Facebook Live is easy to use and offers additional advantages over other live selling platforms, including:

Live Stream Notifications

Facebook Live has a built-in feature that allows sellers to notify their followers when streaming begins. It automatically increases the outreach possibilities to potential customers.

Better Algorithm

Facebook Live has a competitive advantage over other Facebook marketing methods as it is the most effective way to gain more organic outreach. While businesses have to learn and work with the platform’s algorithm, Facebook Live, at the moment, outperforms other types of Facebook posts like videos, images, and text updates.

Facebook Live can also work around the algorithm through audience engagements. Your relevance and news feeds’ ranking is directly proportional to the number of users liking and sharing your live stream. The more the people like and share, the higher your ranking goes.   

Direct Relation With Buyers

Facebook not only has a broad audience that makes it easy to find potential buyers but also provides an opportunity to build a personal relationship with each individual. Facebook Live strengthens your connection with your customers and brings in a new kind of brand loyalty that is passed around through good old-fashioned word-of-mouth. Ultimately, it reinforces your brand value and trust and makes marketing your items easier.  

Cost-Effective

Facebook Live is all about you and your audience. How well do you connect with them, how well you communicate, and what items do you offer that are beneficial for your customers – that is the gist of its effective use. It requires no additional costs of fancy editing or set design. 

Essential Tools

Hosting a Facebook Live sale is as easy as pulling out your phone. You are already logged on, waiting for your customers to come to you. So why not take your wares to them directly? Go Live! A good smartphone camera will take you to them directly.

Some other tools helpful in managing the live stream are: 

• Laptop: it helps keep track of inventory, preview live broadcasts, and engage with the comments and questions of your viewers.
  
• A backup power source: to prevent any unforeseen interruption and a high-speed internet connection. A suitable Ethernet adapter or a fast Wi-Fi network is all that stands between you and a high-quality video. A Bluetooth microphone also improves the sound quality while allowing you to move around cord-free.
  
• Tripod: may appear accessorial, but it takes the pain away from your hands—no more shaky videos or juggling things with your one free hand. 

Guide to Facebook Live Selling 

The following steps will help make your live stream a success:

Prepare Your Inventory

Being prepared never hurts, especially in a live event. Organize your sale around a theme based on your product line. It could be a limited edition, new releases, one-of-a-kind items, or even a clearance sale. This way, you will be able to work easily during the live stream and keep your audience excited. 

Time It for Success 

Timing is the key to success here. The time of the day and the duration of the live event are calibrated based on your Facebook page analysis. Check your Facebook insights to see what day and time your customers are most likely to be on the platform. Also, make the event public to get maximum views and set up the sale as an “event” on Facebook so that your audience can mark their status.    

Based on the success of your past live events, you can then do a regular live event at the same time and day in the future. 

Promote and Advertise

Advertise and promote the live stream event at least a fortnight before the actual event—your success will depend on it. 

A Facebook Live chat and teaser can be the beginning followed by countdown reminders. An email before and on the day of the event is another intelligent way to ensure a full house.  

Setup and Test Equipment 

Keep the tech equipment (listed above) ready at hand. And a few days before the sale, do a dry run by testing your equipment to foresee potential glitches. 

Make Notes for the Sale Day

Stay organized during the sale by numbering your items for accurately mapping the item to its buyer later. Create tags with item numbers and list your items in an Excel sheet with their tag number and description. Leave an empty column for the buyer’s name and contact info.  

Create notes for reference and hold on to them in a file or a clipboard to make things smoother.  

Communicate and Connect

The hard part is over. Now sit back and relax and engage with your viewers. Begin with a quick hello and acknowledge your viewers before showcasing your products. Your viewers will mirror your positive mindset. Keep providing them context about how far they are into the live stream and what has been done. 

Remember, a live stream is a personalized shopping event, and a major source of fun for the viewers is direct interaction. Call out your viewers by their name and their object of interest in the sale. These little personal touches will ensure you have a legion of fans for future sales.  

Complete Backend Work 

Once the live stream is over, complete the sale's back-end work like sending invoices, emailing links to your e-commerce sites, etc., right away. If you plan to host Facebook Live events regularly, consider investing in a service that helps streamline this backend process. 

Strategies for Success in Facebook Live

The sale may be over and you reported a huge success, but a lot of tasks still remain. Stay organized and get your invoices out as early as possible. Do not ship any item until the payment is received. 

Keep an eye on your Facebook analytics for a post-event analysis. Your first sale could serve as a benchmark, useful in setting goals for future events, reproducing all that worked, and further improving things that did not. 

A few additional tips to remember: 

• Keep it personal and engaging. Think of your viewers as people visiting your real-life shop. Your events can allow regular attendees to become friends and connect during the sale, creating a sense of community and connection with your brand. 
  
• Set clear expectations for your customers. Like, will the item be picked up or shipped? Will there be an extra shipping charge?  
  
• Look at the camera (the green light on your device) and not the screen. 
  
• Go with the flow, even if things go askew. These are learning opportunities to become seasoned pros. Laugh and move on. 
  
• Start small. This way, you can refine the system and process of your sales as you go. Like everything, you will get better with practice. 

Conclusion

Facebook Live is now pushing the boundaries of ecommerce, providing new opportunities for businesses to generate sales, promote their brands, and sell their items without waiting for customers. It maximizes sales in today’s competitive business environment with personalized discounts, coupons, real-time product discovery, live Q&A, and a social buying experience and keeps its customers constantly engaged. 

Jump on the online social selling bandwagon with Growth Natives to create events that boost your profit. Our digital marketing services are all you need to set your business up for success. Contact us now at info@growthnatives.com to know more.