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The Power Of A Facebook Store

April 8th, 2012

It’s a big announcement, and though you’re reading this here and now, it was first announced on our Facebook page.. Why you may ask? Well this announcement has to do with the power of SHARING and the persuasiveness and advocacy in brand marketing. It was only fair to divulge this first on Facebook.. For those of you who haven’t heard..

Our newly designed and SOCIALLY loaded Facebook store is now out!

The New Design
With the new Timeline for business pages, the area allows for more space, so we had to take advantage of this, and allow for more categories per page view. Add the search ability for easier browsing, as well as a clear layout for custom pages so you’re sure your offerings are clearly visible to help you sell on Facebook. We’re pretty proud of this new look, but this is just a little taste..

The Shopping Experience
In line with our mission to keep customers engaged within your website and brand, the new Facebook store, allows your customers to browse products for sale, share their favorites with friends, and complete a purchase within the Facebook shopping cart. Yes the entire process can be completed without leaving your Facebook page! Using payment gateways like PayPal Payments Pro and Authorize.net, the customer pays and is never directed elsewhere. And now the payment gateway PayPal Express, brings them back to your Facebook page to confirm the transaction. We hope this decreases the number of abandoned carts and gives you a boost in sales.. But wait that’s not all…

The Capitalization of Sharing
Facebook is all about sharing, and now your customer can become your advocate. After a purchase is made, customers can share their excitement with a single click and post their purchase to their own Timeline and share with friends. This is done without authorizing an app, just a simple share button that we’re all used to. Your customers can now become your own marketing tool. Yes this is all about REACH.. If you like the sound of reach and fcommerce advocacy, we’ve got more for you..

More features with the Facebook store include the ability to preview audio before purchase, allowing musicians and artists to showcase their tunes and sell music directly to fans within Facebook. They can sell songs, sell CD’s or even autographed prints! Looking for more? Well how about multiple language support, zoomed picture view, sharing to social platforms like Twitter and Want, and include related products for cross selling.

We mentioned it’s a big release, and we must say, we’re not finished yet! Stay tuned for more exciting releases from Wazala coming very soon!

Promoting Your Facebook Store

March 30th, 2012

Getting the word out about your Facebook store, or offers and specials you’re having is pretty easy! We promise that once you read through this, you’ll know what we mean by EASY!

Link to Your Facebook Store

Once you’ve added the store to Facebook, and positioned the store tab well for fans to see, you can link to your Facebook store from anywhere. This can be a post in Facebook to announce it, or even a newsletter or email you’re sending out. Your Facebook store URL would be as follows: https://www.facebook.com/Wazala/app_147605761926866 – Just replace the page name Wazala, with your own page name as it appears in your own Facebook URL.

Facebook Specific Offers

So let’s say you want to offer your Facebook fans a coupon code to entice them to buy. The Wazala’s social promoter engine, can help you get the word out. Whenever you add something newsworthy to your store, like a coupon code or place a product on sale, Wazala reminds you to post this on Facebook and/or Twitter. It will provide you with suggestions for your post that you can edit to your liking, and with a single click, this post can be posted to your Facebook page without you ever logging into Facebook! Go ahead try it, we know you’d love it and your fans would appreciate the love.

Happy Facebook Selling!

Getting Your Facebook Store Seen

March 23rd, 2012

In our last blog, we outlined some features about the Wazala Facebook store and how easy it is to sell on Facebook directly to your fans. With a few clicks, you’re done and open for Facebook business!
Now that you’ve added the store to your Facebook page, it’s important to make sure that people know it’s there. Positioning the Wazala store app for visibility on your Facebook page is as important as your “Come on in. We’re Open” sign on your brick and mortar store, it’s how people know they can come in and buy.

The tab section of your Facebook page is located under your cover photo, to the right of the About button, (just like our photo above). As a default, the photos tab will be in first position and this is not changeable at the moment, so we recommend placing the store tab next in line, just like we did.

To change the position of your tabs/apps:

Click the arrow on the right hand side of the app section
Place your mouse over the tab you want to change the position of
Click the pencil tool in the right hand corner of the app
Swap the tabs around until you get the order you desire

To change the picture of the tab and wording

Open your Page’s admin panel (top right-hand corner of your page)
From the Manage menu, select Edit Page
Select Apps from the left sidebar
Click Edit Settings under the Wazala app
Type in the Custom Tab Name and click save
Click Change next to Custom Tab Image
On the next screen, click Change next to the existing image
Follow the instructions that appear for uploading a new image

There you have it, your store is positioned well on your Facebook page, and others can’t miss it.

Setting Up Your Facebook Store

March 20th, 2012

Creating a Wazala store is easy, and when you’re done you should add your own store to your Facebook page. Just in case you’re not sure why here are some of the Great features of the Wazala Facebook Store.

Why Wazala to Sell on Facebook?

•    Customers are not directed elsewhere to pay or complete a purchase. The entire process can take place within the Facebook Page.
•    Customers can share what they bought with their friends, without authorizing a Facebook app, giving the store-owner (You), a brand advocate on Facebook.
•    With the Wazala Social Promoter (think of it as your own marketing guru), your news is automatically published out to the social sphere with a single click. Never forget to market out again!
•    Sell both shippable products and secure digital content, even preview audio before a purchase. Great for musicians to sell directly to their fans on Facebook.
•    Any changes you make to your store, like adding products, placing a product on sale, tweaking a description (really anything) will be automatically changed on your Facebook store as well!
•    It’s FREE! And it’s available in the FREE Wazala plan!

How to add your store to your Facebook Page

Now that we covered the why’s, here is how to add the store to your Facebook page and sell on Facebook directly.

Grab your unique Wazala key, and copy it to your clipboard. This can be found under the Facebook section in the “Account” tab, within the Wazala Store Manager.
Login to Facebook, and go to https://apps.facebook.com/wazalastore/. This will take you to the Wazala App page within Facebook.
Once on the Wazala application page in Facebook, you need to authorize the app.
Next you will need to add it to a page. Facebook will ask you to select a page to add it to, especially if you have several pages you admin. Select the page, and you will be automatically directed to your page.
Once on your page will see the Wazala tab within your tab section. Simply click on the tab and a new page will open up. Your next step is to paste your Wazala Store key. Once you do this, your store will appear.

That’s it! A simple copy and paste and you’re selling of Facebook!

NOTE: Like visuals? Checkout our step by step guide here: http://www.wazala.com/start/help/wazala-store-on-facebook/

Promoting Your New Product

March 14th, 2012

Got a new product in your online store? Hooray! New things are always exciting, but the tough part is getting your customers excited as you are. There are many steps you can take to ensure that your product launch is a successful one, and we hope these would help.

Have a Goal in Mind
What are you trying to accomplish? Coming up with a promotional directive is a great way to lay the foundation for your promotional campaign. Do you have a set inventory and wish to reach a certain amount of sales? Maybe your new product open doors to attract a new customer base? Or are you trying to up-sell, or get previous customers to come back for more. Setting an ambitious but realistic goal will help you to hone your promotional tactics and measure the campaign’s success more efficiently. If your goals are usually similar from launch to launch, the results of these campaign can be A/B tested against one another to hopefully give insight on which tactics work best for your products.

Get a Good Mix
Every product launch should involve a familiar mix of tools, such as newsletters, press releases, social media marketing, and even paid advertisements. Making sure to utilize all these venues can help increase your sales. In addition to using your go-to means of communication, you should also try to add something new into the marketing mix, be it a guest blog, a YouTube video, or even a Pinterest post. Try as many new avenues as you can. It can’t hurt, and might prove to be extremely rewarding if utilized effectively.

A Fresh Product Description
No one wants to buy something that sounds boring. So make sure to add some spice to your descriptions, and add cool images that really make the product pop. Checkout our earlier posts on writing killer product descriptions, and showcasing your product pictures well.

Facebook Contests
Facebook contests are a great way to get people involved and excited about a new product. Have people upload photos, videos, or post on your wall. Get creative! The prize doesn’t have to be huge; maybe the winner will get your new product for free. In order to enter the contest, each person should have to like your page, which will gain you fans and raise awareness about your brand and the contest. Offer everyone who enters the contest a discount on your new product, which will in turn give them more incentive to buy.

Feature It
A simple tweak to your website home page to feature your new product can definitely help. Place it on top and make sure to state that it is available for sale. You can also create a new category in your store as “NEW ARRIVALS” and add it there. New and returning customers like to see that you’re constantly adding new goods for sale. This tweak can also help in attracting a new audience, especially if you’re product is unlike anything you usually sell.

These are just a few of the many options available to you when promoting a new product. Just find out what works for you, and run with it!

Happy Selling!

F-Commerce – Selling on Facebook

October 27th, 2011

We all knew it was only a matter of time. Facebook and ecommerce locked eyes, and it was love at first at sight. A whirlwind romance ensued, followed by an Elvis themed Vegas wedding. Not long after a romantic honeymoon spent almost entirely under the sheets, the happy couple welcomed a child, a darling baby they named fcommerce.

Though still in its infancy, fcommerce has the shown potential to change the way we buy things, the way we shop, and the way we use social media. Consumers can now buy things directly from a Facebook page, share their purchase with their friends, and see what their friends are buying. They can take advantage of special Facebook promotions just for fans of products, and even get deals when they “Check In” to retailers physical location. It has positioned itself as a convenient place to buy for 600+ million Facebook users. That’s a lot of potential. But how do you, a seller, utilize this potential effectively? While there’s no one way to the the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, here are a few choice routes to get you on your way.

The biggest advantage for selling on Facebook, is that you’re integrating your store into a thriving community. So use your words. You want your page to be a place people flock to, like a Taco Bell after the bars close. To do this, you need give people incentive to visit and stay on your page. The easiest and least costly way to do this is to put out interesting and amusing content. Post links that you find interesting, that you would want to read. It doesn’t necessarily have to be directly related to your store. You just have to use discretion. That really funny video of babies dancing? Post it. Heartwarming marriage proposal? Post it. Drunk high school girls knife fighting during morning assembly? Probably not. Its okay to be a little edgy, just don’t go roaring off the cliff.

After you’ve gotten the hang of finding interesting links, you should start initiating conversations on your page. Pose a question that you think will open up a debate. The more activity on your page, the better. You could even post a link, then ask a question relevant to that link. For instance, if you posted a link about a cool new tablet computer, you could ask “Do you think it stands a chance against the iPad?” Post your answers below”. Sometimes people will respond, sometimes they won’t; its a numbers game. If they do, keep them engaged by posting follow up questions and acknowledging their points.

Offering promotions and contests exclusively to your Facebook fans is a sure-fire way to draw people to your page. People love free stuff like a fat kid loves cake. If you offer something exclusively to your Facebook fans, your fans will feel like they are in on some sort of secret.

So now your getting some traffic on your Facebook page. How do you convert that traffic into mucho mulah? That’s where Wazala comes in. Wazala has a powerhouse shopping cart widget that you can embed directly into your fan page, allowing you to sell anything from your Wazala store right on Facebook. It looks great, smells great, and is absolutely amazing in bed (or so I’ve heard). Plus, its crazy easy to use, both for the seller and the consumer, so once everyone is hanging out on your page, they will be able to buy your products without issue. Wazala makes you money, and saves you time, so you can get back to your true calling: making it rain at the club!!!!.

To check out an example of the Wazala Facebook store, checkout the demo store here:

http://www.facebook.com/Wazala?sk=app_147605761926866

Selling Your Music Online

September 5th, 2011

If your reading this, you’re probably a musician, a band manager, or something in between, and you want to make money selling music online. This article will give you a few ideas on how to make that happen.
The first thing you have to know about selling your music online is that its VERY COMPETITIVE and you need to be vocally smarter not loader!
Ready to put some BASS into your sales? Read on..

Be Everywhere
Don’t be shy. If you want to actually sell your songs online, your going to have to get your butt out of your cozy cocoon of solitude and become an annoyingly social butterfly. Sign up for every music service, forum and blog in existence. Create awesome profiles with pictures of your band in badass poses. If the regular band profile is a shy, acne ridden nerd sulking in the back of class, your profile should be the popular jock with a heart of gold and perfect SAT scores. Not every profile you make is going to be a home run. Some of them will get no attention whatsoever. The key is to be in front of every pitch, swinging like a freaking madman.

Make It Easy to Find
There’s no point being crazy cool if people have no clue where to go to witness your awesomeness. In order to make your presence known, you should tag your music with specific keywords that are relevant to the music your putting out. Just to give an example, my brother is in a band. I would best describe what him and his band “play” as a highly delicate mix of jazz fusion, electro-acoustic pop, and horrifyingly awful garbage. So if he wanted to make sure that people found his music (I don’t know why he would), he would tag his music with the words “indie, jazz fusion, electro acoustic pop, horrifyingly, awful, garbage. That way, if someone was in the mood to take a dive into the musical equivalent of a dumpster, the incomprehensible heap of noise that his band calls music would be right there to aptly accommodate them. (sorry brother!)

Sell Anywhere
So your a pretty big deal, and easier to find than an senior citizen in miami. Now its time to start printing the money. Wazala and the Benjamins go way back, and we’re always down to arrange an introduction. We make it scary easy to start selling your music online, so that making bank doesn’t make you crazy. Another great feature that makes Wazala so incredibly amazing is that it allows you embed your store everywhere. Your Facebook, your blogs, your tumblr, your website, your mom’s website, it doesn’t matter. Long story short, anywhere you show your “I live to rock” mug, people will be able to buy your “I live to rock” mugs.

Stay Social
Talk with your fans. Engage them. Let them know whats going on with your band. This goes hand in hand in hand with being everywhere. A social media presence online is imperative in spreading the word about your band, as well as retaining fans and keeping them informed. Basically, people expect to hear from you. With Wazala’s social promoter, this is a breeze. The social promoter recommends and publishes messages to your twitter and facebook account, making it much more simple and efficient

Offer Something Different
Don’t be boring. Offer more than just music. Selling your merch is a great way to make extra money and raise awareness about your band. You can sell posters, CD covers, t-shirts, unreleased songs, tickets to shows…..the list goes on and on. You could also sell signed merch for your hardcore supporters. Wazala allows makes selling all these things easy. You can also sell the physical version of your album, in addition to the digital version.

Cut The Middle Man
Cut out the middle man! Make sure that everything you sell is revenue to you! Wazala does not take a transaction fee. Just a minimum subscription, & there is also a free store where you can sell up to five products to start with until you can afford more.

Show Your Best
Make great music. Music that gets a reaction. When it comes down to it, if your music isn’t good, no amount of marketing is going to be able to sell it. Remember you may only get one chance to make an impression on a listener, so you better make it count.

My Product Rocks

August 11th, 2011

Show us what you would sell with Wazala for a chance to win a FREE Wazala large account

Last month’s promo was a big hit. Our winner Shawn Hesketh owner of the Wazala store wp101.wazala.com and the design studio Left Lane, won the Wazala large account, and gifted it to his sister Tiffany who is now building another Wazala store. Happy to see this entrepreneurial family grow with Wazala, we are doing it again!

This time, it’s about what you want to sell. Show us what you would sell with Wazala for a chance to win a Wazala large account free for an entire year! Use it yourself or Gift it to a friend!

Upload a picture, video, link of a product you feel will sell well, to our Facebook wall. Give it an attractive name and explain why you feel it rocks, and would sell well. then share this posts to your friends and family to like, comment and vote.

What kind of product, you ask? Well we want to see what creative product you would sell online using Wazala. From music or a digital download, handmade handcrafts, photos, works of art, it really can be anything you feel will sell well. Be creative and sure it clearly showcases what you would sell in an attractive way. Remember the public is voting, so your product should be appealing to buyers!

Can’t think of anything to sell? Why not share this with someone who might? This contest is open to anyone and everyone with a product they wish to sell online!

Entry process:
Simply visit our Facebook page and post the product to our Wall. It can be a picture, video or link to somewhere, where it is available. Make sure you state what it is, if need be.
Once you do that, share this with your friends on Facebook, to like it, comment on it positively, and voice out that you should win. (use the Share button, below the post you created)

Terms:
You can upload as many pictures as you wish to increase your chances of winning. The Wazala team will choose one lucky winner, taking into consideration any comments and “likes” your picture gets from others in the community, so make sure to spread the word about your picture(s). This promotion will run for a few weeks and the winner will be announced on Facebook, Twitter and our website. Anyone can join. Whether you have a Wazala store, or still thinking of starting an online business you can enter to win. The prize is granted as a new Wazala subscription, and is transferable “once” to a person of your choice. Yes you can enter to win and give it away as a gift!
Happy Winning Everyone!

Managing Your Facebook Page

August 4th, 2011

We recently added a promote page to help you get started on promoting your online store, mentioning proven methods and tools that you can use, such as Facebook. Today we’re going a little deeper on what it takes to create a Facebook Page and get started on attracting fans.

Your Facebook page is not just a page! Think of it as an extension to your website, a mini blog and a forum as well as a showcase all wrapped into one. You may not have the budget to hire a social media firm to take over your Facebook strategy, but that should not stop you from doing it yourself!

First Impressions
Your info page is your landing page and when potential fan visits, they must be intrigued to know more. Review your Info regularly and fill in all the details. A good Facebook page should include a bio, contact info, links to your site, and a well written mission statement.
Tip: create a landing page for your non fans, this can be easily designed using tools like pagemodo.

Visualize
People joined Facebook for the visual engagements. It allowed them to sneak a peek at others, and for businesses this is no different. Update photos regularly, and add videos related to your industry, and when adding wall posts with links, pick a picture that its attractive from the thumbnails they provide.

Engage
Don’t just spread news, ask questions, comment on other pages and keep the conversation going. Take advantage of the Wazala Social Promoter within your Store Manager, give out Facebook coupons and generate some buzz. Great apps in Facebook that are rarely used, but can be valuable are “Discussions” and “Questions” Start a discussion topic and allow others to voice their opinion or ask a question to get some feedback. When posting a link or a story, include a question to entice comments and likes.
Tip: The more comments or likes a posts gets, the more likely it will show up on a fan’s newsfeed.

Manage Expectations
When opening up your page for discussions, you’re more likely to get those negative responses and you should be ready for them. Be smart and know when and what to comment back. You’ll be surprised by what you’d learn. Sure, at times it may be embarrassing, but life it is full of different views and tastes, and remember you can’t please all. You can only stand true to who you are and what you offer.

Give Back
Social media contests, sweepstakes and promotions do well in generating quick traffic to your site. It’s an efficient and low cost tool to get the word out. It may not be the ideal long term acquisition tool, but it does work for the short term. Big brands are taking advantage of that, and if you’re on a tight budget consider doing it yourself, or use and affordable tool like WildFire.

Pay Up
Advertising on Facebook is easy. With the ability to choose your target by location, age and interests as well as testing ads and finally using what works, it gives you the ability brand your name. Set your daily budget and choose to pay only when people click (CPC) or see your ad (CPM). Depending on your business and industry this may end becoming a great success.

Analyze
Facebook may not have the best analytics support, but it does provide insight on your page activity that can help guide you. Keeping up with this on a weekly basis does help you grasp your audience interactions and alerts you if you’re engagement level drops.

Sell Out
fCommerce is relatively a new term, and so far it’s future is unknown, but as long as Facebook is around and your potential customers are using it, having a store and selling on Facebook is an added bonus! It’s all about capturing an impulse buyer, and those are found everywhere. The viral feature of adding Wazala to multiple sites and social profiles is based on impulse buying, so go ahead and add your online store to Facebook.

Win a Wazala Online Store – The winner!

July 3rd, 2011

Winning!
- Charlie Sheen

A few weeks ago we asked all of you to join in and submit a picture of your creative space for a chance to win a Wazala online store for a year.

Our exact words were: “Where do you work out of? A desk in a corner of your home? A little office somewhere? Or even your laptop at a coffee shop? We want to see your personal space. Be it an office, studio, workshop, art gallery, kitchen chemistry lab, digital workstation, recording studio or even your camera! Show us where, how or what you use to create your ideas into wonders of art.”

All you had to do is upload it to our facebook page and promote it so others can like it and comment.. We got a great collection of pictures but at the end you decided who wins a free Wazala account for a year!

Shawn Hesketh owner of the design studio Left Lane, all the way from Houston Texas submitted a picture of his creative space. A very clean looking picture of his office space that got the most like and comments. Ok we have to admit it was on of our favorites as well!

We are happy to welcome Shawn to the Wazala community and looking forward to see what he will be selling online. Congrats!

We’re also looking to start our next promo, have ideas or can think of something cool to give out? Let us know on Twitter or Facebook.

Archive for the ‘facebook’ Category

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