on Facebook for the first time, it
makes sense to pay to boost posts
to the same audience you are
serving ads to, said Lynn Swita-nowski of Creative Business Consulting Group in Boston. You’ll
want to boost posts that highlight
the arrival of new products or
pets for sale at your store, or a few
older posts that were widely liked
or obtained a high level of organic
responses.
This is because before you try
to sell on Facebook, you should
take steps to convey your store’s
personality. Communicate what’s
special about you and your business, highlighting yourself, your
expertise, your activities and that
you are in the store much of the
time. Add posts about your staff,
your causes and your customers.
Remember, customers are motivated to shop at establishments
where they feel they know someone, ideally the owner, and Facebook is a great way to help folks
get to know you. If you have been
doing this with your own friends
and fans, they will be receptive to
ads and posts that sell. The new
audiences that you are paying to
reach need “warming up.”
VIDEOS CAN WORK WONDERS
Posting videos to Facebook can
do even more to establish what’s
cool about your store, and videos
have the added benefit of helping
to give your posts a more promi-
nent position. Post videos of stuff
that happens in the store, includ-
ing pets that your customers bring
in. Record and report the number
of likes each earns. Start this win-
ter with dogs coming in wearing
jackets; when spring comes, you
can start all over again without
the jackets. Hold costume con-
tests later in the year. There was a
controversy this year when it was
revealed that Facebook was exag-
gerating its reports of the amount
of time users were spending
viewing videos. However, retail-
ers report that Facebook videos
work for them.
Facebook Live is a new feature that allows you to stream
live video from your smart-phone. Check your connection
first, and use Wi-Fi if possible.
You could use Live to broadcast
a brief video of a group of pets
at the store at the same time, or a
presentation by a vendor. Users
who follow you will be notified
when you go live with an airing.
Capture a larger audience for the
most appealing subjects, such as
in-store adoptions, by making a
series of announcements that you
are planning the broadcast. Once
you have done this, ask for feedback and make the experience
as interactive as possible. With
Facebook Live, users can retrieve
videos later.
FOCUS ON FACEBOOK
AND INSTAGRAM
There is a dizzying array of platforms and apps a retailer can
choose from, but many retailers
will find it sufficient to focus on
Facebook. If you are going to
work with one additional platform, pick the Instagram mobile
app, advises Crystal Vilkaitis of
Crystal Media in Carlsbad, Calif. Instagram recently created a
business profile, which can include basic information about
your store. Instagram is popular,
and it is owned by Facebook,
so you can bet that it’ll become
a great tool for small business
owners.
BY DAVID LUMMIS
As discussed in the previous installment of this column, now in its second decade,
“natural” is still booming as a
pet market trend, especially on
the pet food side of the aisle.
During 2016, natural-themed
pet food will rack up sales of
more than $8 billion, accounting
for 26 percent of total U.S. retail
pet food sales and growing at
more than double the rate of the
market as a whole. At the same
time, as with human foods, the
term “natural” can be fuzzy,
and as natural brands have
proliferated, the stand-alone
appeal of natural has begun to
diminish. In response, marketers
are constantly seeking to clarify
and differentiate with related
product claims and formulations
aiming to up the natural ante.
As a result, today’s natural
pet food market is more
segmented than ever before,
with manifold variations fueling
its vigor. According to Packaged
Facts’ November 2015 National
Pet Owner Survey, Made in the
USA tops the list of natural-
The Many, Evolving Faces of Natural Pet Food
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MARKET OUTLOOK
BY BARRY BERMAN
As Facebook grows ever larger and more business- es use it, pet retailers need
to up their game to make social
media a more effective business
tool, and make both part of a
cohesive overall strategy for advertising and communications.
Some retailers use email and social media to communicate with
existing customers but use traditional media to try to attract new
customers to the store. Given
that Facebook started by creating networks of people already
connected to you, this is an easy
pattern to fall into, but it’s not
the most effective division of
resources.
Ask yourself to what extent
your goal is to maintain aware-
ness of your business to support
everyday traffic and overall sales
objectives against how much
you want to focus on supporting
events and promotions. Many
retailers use social media only to
promote events and sales, but it’s
better if you can do both.
HIGHLY TARGETED ADS
The No. 1 thing retailers should
be doing on social media but aren’t is adding paid ads to their
current presence on Facebook.
Ads on Facebook can be targeted
at specific audiences beyond your
usual followers. For example, you
can target by town, ZIP code or
distance from your location, and
you also can target by keywords
used. For instance, you can deter-
mine that all users within 15 miles
of your store who mention raw
dog food or grain-free dog food
or dog groomers will see your
ad. If you are having an event at
which 10 percent of the proceeds
are going to a local rescue, you
could target all dog owners with-
in 10 miles—the possible permu-
tations are vast.
It makes sense to advertise on
Facebook both to increase aware-
ness of your business and to pro-
mote events. To help evaluate the
effectiveness of these steps, if you
include an offer on social media,
find a way to measure it against
other means of communicating it,
either with a code or by making
the offer distinct from others.
Because many in your new
targeted audience are seeing you
Is Your Social Media
Performance Worthy?
Make your online presence work for you with smart, efficient strategies.
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COUNTER POINTS
BARRY BERMAN
is president and
co-founder of
NEXPET co-op
for independent
retailers and GRANDMA MAE’S
COUNTRY NATURALS pet food
company. Contact him at barry@
nexpet.com.