I relaunched my folksy shop last week and now concentrating on a seaside theme, so far I’ve had no sales and while i recognise its early days I also realise I fall down on my lack of knowledge on social media and promoting myself… I have set up both a facebook group for my crafts and also a page which in all honesty I dont understand 
… are ads something that are worth paying for to reach that wider audience? what more can I do?? Any advice would be gratefully recieved…
Have you had a look on the Folksy blog for social media tips? There’s also an article about Facebook adverts too.
Facebook themselves also have a help/knowledge section to help you understand the difference between Pages and Groups (click on “Using Facebook” tab and scroll to see Groups and Pages):
https://www.facebook.com/help/?ref=contextual
I usually do a couple of promotional adverts a year on Facebook and although you reach a lot more people, I’m not altogether sure it results in direct sales. I find having a Facebook business page very useful and I post on there a couple of times every day. Most of my sales used to come via Facebook but since they changed the way they do things a few weeks ago, hardly any of my views come from there now. However I have a very loyal band of followers of my own business page and so that is the way I share my new products.
I have a business facebook page and post new items but the reach has greatly reduced these last few weeks. I have used paid for ads but to be honest never had a sale from them. Have you tried Folksy Shop Group on facebook, I get a lot more views from there.
thanks, will read through those pages mentioned and no i didnt know about the facebook page for folksy shops so i have requested to join… helpful advice, thank you
I tried a facebook add last year and as others have said got more views, but no interaction- so this actually had a negative affect on my facebook reach. So total waste of money.
I built my facebook following slowly and do have some really loyal customers there, but recently they have been telling me they are not seeing my postings. Really frustrating.
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I do a post boost for British Crafters and have never yet (touch wood) done one without it resulting in bookings. I think you have to play around with your audience selection though as I have tried a few combinations and some work better than others. You can run them simultaneously too and then see which results in clicks through to your shop and which doesn’t. I also have experimented with times of the week and times of the day. You can also pause and restart it to suit. FB is a tricky being but if you can get it to work for you then it still does and can capture an audience.
I had a post this week that got shared 320 times and reached 32K people!!
Helen
Loving your seaside theme and lots of good advice from others about your specific question but will add my twopennorth that yes I do a promotion, maybe 3 a year but no more and Very restricted on spend, A fiver if I can get away from it. I do have an increase in interaction afterwards for a good month as it keeps Facebook happy and the important thing is to keep Mr FB happy.
If you don’t mind an off-topic ? Wonder why you are throwing in free postage. Are you aware that that means you are paying Folksy fees on the total amount whereas fees are not charged on the postage element .
Joy xx
I rarely do FB ads, and only low cost ones when I do.
However I remember chatting to a neighbouring stallholder last year and she says she does 2 adverts a year - one in advance of Christmas and I think the other was pre-summer. She makes personalised family plaques. She pays a lot - in the region of £100 each, but says she gets over-run with orders from them and regards them as much better value than attending 2 or 3 fairs
Maybe it depends what you sell and how good you are at writing ads