Show Notes
1. Plan it – this doesn’t have to be formal or long, but before you post. Determine a purpose for your post. I would categorize them:
Promotional – you are straight up selling something. Buy this, call me to buy, get a quote, buy online
Social Proof – This builds trust for people who will visit or follow you. Reviews from customers, pics of your apparel at events, shaking hands with the mayor, pics of your t-shirts at a soccer game, pics of a Family Reunion
Content Sharing – pics of your work, videos of your machine running
Story Telling – tell a success story, share a customers story, share a story of success
2. Ask for Engagement
A great tip is to ask people to comment, share and engage with your posts. Ask questions “Which shirt do you like better the red or blue?” “Help me pick art A or B” Engagement increases how frequent and how many people social media platforms will share to.
3. Include photos and links
Photos and video are huge in social. It’s always what gets the best engagement and offers the best chance for success.
4. Brief but interesting and engaging
There are plenty of reasons to have a REALLY LONG post on facebook, but the most successful posts are often short. 1-3 sentences, something people can read in literally 1 second and decide to engage or not. Think about your posts, write down ideas. Its fine to post on the fly, but if you have to write down a lists of posts and how you would word them.
5. Make it feel real and relevant
Posts should feel authentic and full of life. They should represent the personality of you or your business. Poor quality pictures, poorly written text or posts that seem disingenuous won’t go far nor be worth your time.
After you have crafted the perfect post… make it live. Then in a week or so, go to your Facebook Business page and look at the Insights. This will let you know how the post did. How many people liked, shared, clicked, watch video etc. In the beginning, this could be disheartening…. especially when you get 5 views and 1 like. However, don’t let it get you down, time will make things better as long as you are creating quality content.
Finally, one way to increase post engagement and gain followers is via the BOOST. Facebook will ask if you want to boost the post. You can then choose who you want to receive the boost (followers, followers and their friends, etc) Don’t dump a ton of money into boosts, but when you have a post you are really excited about and could drive some business to you, put a $20 into it and see how it works for you.
Just like anything else practice makes perfect.
Transcript
Welcome to the Custom Apparel Startups podcast, your best source for information, news, tips and tricks to get you off the ground running, and earn success with your custom apparel decorating business. So, get ready to soak up some knowledge!
Now, here are your hosts, Mark and Marc!
Mark S: Hey, everyone, and welcome to episode 79 of the Custom Apparel Startups podcast! My name is Mark Stephenson, from ColDesi.
Marc V: And this is Marc Vila, from Colman and Company. Today, we are going to talk about constructing the perfect Facebook post, and then boosting it.
Mark S: Yeah. This is going to be a great episode, so I definitely want you to listen closely. Marc Vila is our inhouse pro on Facebook ads. He runs all of that stuff for Colman and Company. I dabble a little bit, at ColDesi. So, I think you’ll get a lot out of the post.
But before we start, I want to try like an old Ronco radio promotion. Today’s podcast is brought to you by the Patch Kit!
Marc V: This is one of the reasons that you have to watch the video.
Mark S: Definitely, because imagine that I’m holding up a beautiful patch, a perfectly embroidered and designed patch. If you don’t know the Patch Kit, it is a very inexpensive product from Colman and Company, that you can use any embroidery machine to create beautiful iron or heat-pressed-on patches.
Marc V: Yeah. I spent Monday, or Friday, whatever day it was. I think Friday afternoon, I spent an hour or two kind of dabbling in the design, trying to figure out what to do there. Then, I spent some time yesterday, actually just sewing them out, cutting them out, taking some pictures, so we can share. You might even see some stuff on Facebook, with some videos on that.
Since we’re promoting it, I love that kit! The Patch Kit is so cool. I think it might be my favorite product, just in and of itself.
Mark S: It was invented by somebody two offices down. Michael [inaudible 00:02:14] is the inventor of the Patch Kit. Really, it’s a collection of supplies and the right heat knife to create great patches. It’s cool.
Marc V: The challenge that he ran into was that he would get, all of the time, people asking him, and he had no clue how to make patches. Nobody really did. Everyone knew you needed a serger machine and merrowing, and all of these things people were talking about, trying to figure out what do you need?
Merrowing and serging and a sewing machine and an embroidery machine.
Mark S: Or an order for like 200 of them.
Marc V: Yeah. So a lot of folks, they even went to some shops and watched some patches being made at a place down the road. They were like “Oh, that’s way too complicated!” Michael said “There’s got to be a better way.”
So basically, you sew out on this material on any embroidery machine you can sew on. You don’t need a special hoop, you don’t need a special backing, you don’t need special needles, you don’t need any special machines. You don’t need anything special.
You just need a machine that can embroider, even if it’s just something from Walmart. That should be able to work just fine.
Mark S: You can do it.
Marc V: You sew out your patch, and then you use a hot knife, and you cut it out. Our new receptionist here, Candace – if you call, you might hear her on the phone – we were doing this, and she walked by. “What is that? What are you guys doing?”
Stephanie says “We’re making patches.” Stephanie, being a very interactive and animated person, says “Come on! Cut one! Cut one!” She’s like “No, I can’t do that.”
She sits down and she cuts one like 95% perfect, the first time. It’s easy. So anyway, if you embroider, you should check it out. It’s a lot of fun, too.
Mark S: Back to our regularly scheduled program!
Marc V: Now that we’ve done the commercial break.
Mark S: This is really important. We talk to people about posting on Facebook all of the time, for their business. And the Custom Apparel Startups group gets some great posts in it. We look at peoples’ Facebook pages, their business pages that they set up, and you see what people post, and it’s not always great.
Then, you hear nothing but [inaudible 00:04:19] on some of these pages, because maybe like you, you’re kind of locked up, because you don’t really know how to take advantage of Facebook to promote your business.
Marc V: What’s great about it is there’s a bit of a formula, to get the right post down. I’m sure you follow a lot of pages, and a lot of different groups, and you see a lot of different ads on Facebook. Many of them, there’s ranges of how they look, in regards to quality, the wording.
Do they seem to be rambling a lot? Is it a shaky video, or is it really well-produced? But in and of itself, all of those can be very successful.
I follow some little DIY groups on different things, and most of the videos on this one that I can think of are always, like it’s a cell phone video, and the lighting’s not that great, and all of these things. But every time I see the posts, the words are right, and it doesn’t matter to me that the video is not perfect, or the wording is not perfect.
But they’ve got the formula right. They’ve got tens of thousands of people that follow the page, so obviously they do. And it doesn’t appear to me that the people that run it have become masters of Facebook. They just kind of found a formula that works.
Mark S: They found a formula that works, and they do it. It’s good enough, that it catches your attention, and it causes you to engage. That’s what you’re looking for.
Marc V: Yes. It’s not about being perfect, and hiring an ad agency all of the time. It’s about following a formula. So, we’re going to put together a formula today.
Mark S: Yeah. And actually, I would say it’s never about hiring an ad agency.
Marc V: Yeah, okay!
Mark S: Really, you’ve got to be a big honking company, to really need a Facebook ad agency. Your cell phone and a little time and concentration are going to be enough, I promise.
Marc V: Yes. And really, back to some other episodes we’ve talked about, the time to hire an agency to do things like this for you would be when you need the hours back. Oftentimes, a lot of folks listening to this podcast are trying to figure out how to grow their business, and sometimes, what you’ve got is some time, and you could put it into this.
It doesn’t take a lot, which is awesome. You can do this in minutes a day.
Mark S: I agree.
Marc V: In the time you take chatting with somebody at the grocery store for a few minutes, you could avoid that – just say hi to them and bye, and then you’ve gotten enough time, now.
Mark S: Or just be rude, unless you’re in the South!
Let’s kind of set this up, and why even be involved on Facebook? What’s that about?
Marc V: We’ve talked about it before, if you’ve listened, but here’s just a few simple things.
For one, Facebook is free to do this. It’s 100% free. Anybody can do it. Almost everybody is on it. When you just look at the sheer numbers of people they have, it’s everywhere. Everyone’s got it.
Also, the user experience on Facebook is designed to be personable, friendly, trusting. They constantly are trying to do things and change things in the user experience, to make that. Their whole mantra is like it’s a place for friends. It’s a place you’re supposed to go, and you hang out virtually with people, and you interact with them, virtually.
Everyone is there, and it’s just very easy to do.
Mark S: If you look at Facebook goals, it’s kind of like yours. For your business, what you want is you want people to notice what you’re doing, to spend as much time interacting with you as possible. And then, eventually, to buy something from you.
Facebook wants the same thing. They want you to love going onto Facebook. They want you to notice what’s happening on Facebook. They want you to spend more time on Facebook. And then, they want you to buy some stuff! Right? It’s exactly the same.
Marc V: Right. Or knowing that when they create that environment, they facilitate a place where businesses like yours might end up spending some money, to further reach that. That’s what it’s all about.
When Facebook runs into situations where the users are not happy, you notice that they quickly make changes, which is why you always see changes happening on Facebook. They’re constantly changing that user experience.
The point being, currently, Facebook is a great place to reach people for free, and you can do it without a lot of effort, and without a lot of knowledge. You can get started, and then you can perfect this.
Mark S: It’s also someplace, like you made the note here, you can share things without being 100% promotional. I like that idea. You’ll see, over at the Westshore campus of ColDesi, sometimes I’ll just grab my phone, because it’s really interesting to watch the guys in back prep embroidery machines or DTG printers.
I’ll just go shoot it, because I think it’s cool! I’m not really concentrating on being like “Oh! Ten of you are going to buy an embroidery machine, because I put how they repair it or prep it, on Facebook!”
What I’m trying to do is kind of just share with you what happens, what it takes, to get you interested, so you’ll want to learn more.
Marc V: Yes. And part of it is building trust. I mentioned here about people have trust, when they go on Facebook. And I can prove that very simply.
What people do is, they’re looking at making a purchase, going to a good restaurant. You’ll see this all of the time. A friend of mine posted “What’s the best lobster roll in Boston?” Or something like that. And he gets recommendations.
Why? Because he knows his friends are on there, he trusts his friends, and he gets it.
Mark S: Because God forbid, you should get the second best lobster roll! A complete waste of the trip!
Marc V: Knowing this, this guy appreciates it. He would be really bothered! But people do that kind of thing.
Other things you do is you’re thinking about buying something from a store, a local store, a local boutique, an AC repair company, whatever it might be. A lot of people will go on Facebook and search for them. Do they have a page? Are people commenting on it? Things like that.
It’s a place where people have a level of trust, because it’s an open forum, meaning everyone is equal, and free to comment. If you are a business, you are free to comment on somebody. If you are just a regular person, you’re free to comment and share.
So, it’s like an even playing field. People feel trusted there. It’s a great place to be, and we should figure out how to construct some posts that will actually help your business grow.
Mark S: I agree. And once you get this – and we’re not talking about, there’s no calculus involved. There’s no white board back here, where we’re going to be putting up some symbols, that nobody knows what they are.
It’s really just a few basic rules, and a little thought process beforehand. After you get these down, you’re not going to think about them again. It’s just going to be the way you do things, the way you write, or the way you set up your post, or the way you shoot your video. This is just what’s going to happen, eventually.
Marc V: Yeah, and it’s all simple. So, let’s get right into it!
The first thing that I wrote was that you need to have a plan for your posts. I don’t mean you need to necessarily have a fully written out, fully thought-out plan, and a calendar of when you’re going to post things.
Those are all things you can do, but that’s not necessary at all.
Mark S: We’re talking about more like a purpose, like what’s your goal for the post?
Marc V: Yes, a purpose, what it should be. Why are you going to share this?
Mark S: You did kind of put out four bullets. So, let’s go through these.
One is promotional, and we’ll talk about that. The next is social proof. There is content sharing, and then storytelling.
I’m looking forward to getting to the last one, but let’s talk to the first one.
Marc V: Okay, sure, promotional. What is a promotional post? A promotional post is that you’re going to take a picture of a new hat that you’ve got in stock, that you’re going to start embroidering on. Of a new brand of t-shirt that you’re selling, of a new design that you’ve created, and you’re going to sell.
You’re going to say “Hey, folks! Just made ten of these bags. They’re for sale now. The first two people that buy one are also going to get a handkerchief for free!” Whatever. It’s a promotional post. It’s just straight up.
You like that?
Mark S: I do! It’s not bad, but I have another one. We talked about the Patch Kit, from Colman and Company, earlier. Marc just finished a video, a short little promotional video that he’s going to be posting as an ad on Facebook.
So, you would do the same thing with a post, as Marc did with the ad. You’re deciding that it’s promotional, and you’re building the content, to get them to write you a check, send you a credit card, place an order.
Marc V: Yeah. Take a picture or a video, describe what it is, and say “Buy this, please!” That’s promotional.
Mark S: You could do that!
Marc V: And you could literally just say that. Next is social proof. We’ve discussed this before. Social proof is trust in the community around you, focused on you.
So, when people see these things, they actually trust you more. This would mean that if you get a new customer that you’ve brought on board, and they keep telling you how happy they are with the garments you’ve produced for them, that “Hey, can I come by your shop, or can I just take a quick selfie with you? And you could tell me how happy you are, maybe a short little video?”
It’s basically a review, in a way. Especially if you make custom baby clothes for the Mayor’s new baby, you post “I just made stuff for the Mayor!” These are social proofs.
Mark S: And his girlfriend!
Marc V: Yes!
Mark S: I had a great example, but the girlfriend thing just kind of threw me. I don’t know where that came from.
The idea is that you are building up trust in the community, not just by participating in things, but by participating in groups and commenting on other peoples’ posts, and really participating in the community, but by providing that information that you are trusted, in a Facebook post.
For example, ColDesi, we occasionally – we have a lot of happy customers, and occasionally, one will agree to do a success story with us. Right? They’ll shoot a little video, or they’ll fill out a little easy form that they can fill out.
And we will turn that into a Facebook post. “Hey, look how successful this person can be! This person is just like you. You can be successful, too!”
There’s some trust there. You see that ad, you identify somebody that’s like you. If you’ve got a baseball team for customers, and you take a picture of them wearing their shirts, and somebody from a baseball team is looking for that, they’re going to say “That’s me! Those shirts look great! They’re happy, I’m going to be happy.”
That’s social proof.
Marc V: Exactly. Other people like it, and you will, too. We’ve talked about this in persuasion podcasts in the past, basically just saying that people like to kind of move along with the crowd. If they feel that you have a lot of happy customers, they will probably be happy, as well.
Mark S: They want to be one. Right.
Marc V: Content sharing, do you want to cover that one?
Mark S: Yeah. Content sharing and storytelling can be very close. It can be “a day in the life.” Content sharing might be you take a video of one of your folks doing some vinyl shirts, heat pressing vinyl shirts. You take a little video of that, and you say “This is what the process is like. If you would order a shirt from us, this is what it takes to create a shirt.”
“We do the design, and then Bob heat presses it. Then, Mary folds it, and we put it in this box, and we send it out to you.”
That’s a good example of a video of content sharing. We had somebody that did that with a ProSpangle machine, which is so much fun to watch. They’re a lot of fun, and spangly, too, and the [inaudible 00:16:36] machine. Bling is particularly good for this.
You may have seen – I post tons of videos of the DTG printer, printing amazing shirts, because it’s really cool to watch. That’s just content. I’m going to put that out there. I’m going to describe it very well, and what Facebook is going to do is it’s going to see that you’re providing a lot of content related to making t-shirts in your area.
If someone is looking for someone to make t-shirts in your area, they’re going to recognize that you have valuable content that they’re going to want to see, so they’ll show it to them.
Marc V: A great thing about content is it can also just be text, too. That’s acceptable. You could say “Hey, I just found a brand of shirt that a bunch of my customers were asking for. They were asking for something that was softer, better when you’re outside in the sun in the summertime. I was having a challenge finding the right one. It’s the perfect style! Tell me, what colors would you like to see in my collection?”
It could be things like that, too. The content you can be sharing can be words, it can be images, it can be video. Image and video typically does very well, so I would recommend those first. Take a picture of those shirts.
The last is storytelling. I know you wanted to get to this one, so I want you to run with it.
Mark S: I really like this idea of sharing a customer’s story, and a story of success. Like I said, it kind of overlaps with the content part. Telling a story of your customer, from the moment they walk in the door, to the moment they leave with a finished product, is a great thing to put into a Facebook post.
Telling your story; “Hey, I’ve had a lot of people ask about how Marc and I came to start a podcast.” So, let me do a post about “Hey, this is how we got started!”
“How did Pantograms become ColDesi?” It’s a story. People want to know. Why am I picking up the phone? Why am I doing this?
There are a lot of stories related to customers, related to yourself, related to if you’ve got a family business. You’ll see a couple of great videos with Marc’s daughter, Ella, doing stuff here in the shop, like it’s so easy that she is heat pressing, or she’s making something.
That’s not a “Buy the Patch Kit.” That is more like, “I’m just telling you this great story about what’s happening.”
Marc V: Yeah. First of all, it feels great to tell a good story. If you go on Facebook right now, you will probably not be able to scroll five swipes, without running into some sort of a storytelling.
You see a video, and it’s a story about this guy who, at 20 years old, he found out that he had cancer, and then he beat it, and he came back, and he started up his own coffee roasting company, and now he has a coffee -.
You hear, you see, these stories are just all over. People love a great story. It’s proven that people love a great story, because of Netflix, Hulu, cable movies, Hollywood.
Mark S: I follow a couple of Facebook pages that do nothing but show me stories. It’s a little video background, and text over the top. It just tells you a story.
Marc V: So, tell some stories, no matter what it might be. Just get some ideas of “What’s a story I can share? I really want to tell a story about how I went from a home embroidery machine to a commercial embroidery machine.” Or “I went from a Cricut cutter to having a DTG printer and a commercial cutter.” Whatever it is.
Mark S: It could be a story like you said, where “I used to use this t-shirt, and now I’ve found this amazing shirt. Let me tell you about why I love it.” You’re telling a story, and you’re building some social proof, and the whole thing.
Marc V: To finish this, an important thing to think about, and the difference between somebody who is really good at this and somebody who just does it, is that they are able to put themselves in the shoes of the person who is going to watch the story, read the post, read the content, see the pictures, see the promotion.
You’ve got to be able to – is this story interesting? It’s interesting to you. That’s fine. But put it into the perspective of the people who are going to be reading it. Is this interesting to them? And if not, then you need to share why it’s interesting to you, and it should be interesting to them.
So, do a good job at telling stories. Practice taking pictures. Practice offering promotions. Do all of it. But always, sit back and think about the perspective of the audience that’s going to be viewing it.
Mark S: Yeah. It’s not what you want to do. It’s what your audience would want you to do, so your potential customers would want you to do.
Marc V: It’s just perfect, when that meshes together. And as you practice and you do this more, you’re going to find that. For example, the patches. I love to do it. I think it’s fun and cool, to go from a blank piece to this cool patch. I’m like “It did this!” And it’s fun to do it.
Then, we take pictures of it and share it, and people like to see it. Then, people ask questions. “How does that work? Show me more!” When you do it more and more, eventually you’re going to find things that you love to do, that your audience loves to see, and you get to share.
Then, at that point in time, the social posts aren’t really about work. It’s just fun!
Mark S: You made a great example. You talked about Stephanie calling Amber in, to do her first patch.
Marc V: Candace, but yes.
Mark S: Right! Candace in, to do her first patch. So imagine if you were back there with your phone camera, and you had a video of Candace doing her first patch. And she did it easy! She made a little bit of a mistake, but what a great story to tell!
You just told it. It’s very engaging. People would want to see that video. You’re not saying “Buy a Patch Kit.” You’re kind of saying “Look! This is the story about what happens, and how easy it is. By the way, if you want to read more about it -.” Right?
Marc V: Exactly. Then, we’ll go into some of the next things. Plan it, was number one.
Number two we have here, is asking for engagement.
Mark S: Yes. Also called a call to action, or a CTA, in marketing-speak.
Marc V: Yeah. Sometimes, specifically even in this, when we’re asking for engagement, we’re also asking for specific social engagement, too.
Mark S: Absolutely.
Marc V: We mentioned how Facebook is about a user experience. They want the people who go on there to like doing things on Facebook. That includes liking posts, commenting on posts, sharing posts.
A reason that Facebook oftentimes will push things to the top – have you seen a post on Facebook, that’s been there for days? Oftentimes, it’s some sort of political or religious or ethical debate that’s been happening, with 90 people commenting.
The reason that happens is because Facebook knows that this is friends having a conversation online, and they really like that. Likes and shares and comments are very important, because Facebook gives credit to that, as “This is a really good piece of content.”
Mark S: That’s how they tell that people might want to see it. If you have a good post, like we did a question about what color vinyl we should -.
Marc V: Oh, yeah. We were putting a new package together.
Mark S: For the package. We were putting a new Cut and Press package together, with Triton Vinyl. What we were looking was some input on what colors to put in it. We were having the conversation here in the office, about “Hey, what colors do you think we should have? Let’s just ask people.”
So, you put “This is our dilemma. Comment below. Which one of these colors do you like, or what should we include?”
Marc V: Yeah. “What hat style do you think I should bring in, as a nice addition to my collection?” “What’s your favorite type of coat to wear, when the fall starts? Do you prefer windbreakers or hoodies or sweaters, or none at all?”
Find out these things. For one, you get to do a little research for yourself, to help you make decisions. Two, you get that engagement. What you’re doing is you are facilitating and helping to drive it, by asking for it.
When you see posts from, especially when they’re the spammy type of picture posts, like “Like for this,” “Like or comment for this,” those were the original hacks to get – and Facebook has kind of figured that out, and they’re just like “We’re just not interested in that.”
You don’t see that anymore. You can still post that, but you’re not going to get credit. But what you’re doing is the proper way to do it. Facebook likes if you say “Hey, like this post if you really think this is a good shirt I should bring into my line.” “Comment on this artwork that I’m doing. Should I focus more on pastel colors or vibrant neons?”
Mark S: “Which one of these two t-shirts or jackets or caps should I bring in? What color thread do you like? Which vinyl would be your favorite on a cheerleader outfit?”
Marc V: Yeah. These are things that, this is okay. The whole “Like for a prayer,” “Share for whatever,” those type of posts you see, they’ve fizzled away, because Facebook doesn’t want that kind of a hack. They want it to be an organic, real thing.
You can facilitate something that’s organic, but you have to ask for it. If you just post two pictures of shirts, and you say “These are two shirts I’m thinking about bringing on board,” you might get some people that would say “Choose the blue,” “Choose the grey.”
But if you specifically say at the end “Can you guys help me pick?”
Mark S: Yeah, comment.
Marc V: Comment, whatever it might be.
Mark S: I like that, and the last thing I’ll say about asking for engagement is that there are other kinds of engagement. You can really ask people to follow you on Facebook, to like your page. You can ask people to share this post.
There’s been studies done. I wish I had the numbers. But if you ask people to share the post, more people will share your post, just because you asked.
Marc V: Yes. Here’s just the rule in business, across the board. If you ask people to do things, more of them are going to do it, than if you didn’t ask.
Mark S: A lot of them will do it.
Marc V: That’s true for sales. We talk about sales all of the time.
Mark S: Increasing your sales.
Marc V: Yeah. You want more sales? What do you do? You just kind of walk around the neighborhood businesses local to you, and just say “Hey, can I make t-shirts for you guys?” And some of them are going to say yes, just because you asked.
Mark S: I like that a lot.
Marc V: It’s the whole Gretzky “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take” type of philosophy. I don’t even know if he actually said that, but it’s a quote that’s everywhere. So anyway, ask!
Mark S: And it works on YouTube, it works on Instagram, it works on everywhere. Any social platform, all of these things still apply.
Marc V: So next, include photos and links.
Mark S: Absolutely. I would say it goes videos, photos where you can load up a pack of photos, and likes. So, if you can do a video, do a video. If you can’t do a video, do a photo. And always put the link to where you want people – that’s your call to action, to the specific place that you want people to go to.
It may be that you just want people to go to your Facebook page, and do something there, like “Get a coupon on my Facebook page.” It may be that you want them to go to the home page of your website, because what you’re really trying to do is just introduce your company.
Or maybe you’ve got something on special. You want to put a picture of it, and a link to where they can buy that thing.
Marc V: Yep, or sign up for an email list that you’re starting to create, or whatever it might be. So, whenever possible, which is not necessarily always, but whenever possible, include a link for somebody to go somewhere.
Now, this is a little bit counterintuitive to the Facebook kind of user experience, because Facebook does want you to stay. That’s why it’s important to not always try to push people away from Facebook, but when it’s relevant to the post.
So, you’re advertising that you have a new shirt design. You sell t-shirt designs. You don’t do custom stuff, but you sell designs that you sell like fashion. Plenty of our customers do that type of thing. You have a new design, you put it up there. A very appropriate time to link out.
If you’re trying to build up an email list, because you want to send people coupons and specials and promos, and stuff like that, a great time to link people out to an email signup form.
Not always necessarily to put at the bottom of every single one of your posts, just because “If I put it there, I should have a link to my website.” Not necessary. Just use some basic thought behind it. It doesn’t have to be complicated.
Mark S: And just so you know, if you’re going to have a link, don’t make people work, to find what you want them to see. That’s why I mentioned to make a link specifically to the page that you want to go to.
I’ve seen a lot of Facebook advertising just recently, in the apparel business, where someone will advertise a shirt, a particular design, but the link takes you to the home page, and the shirt’s not there.
Marc V: Now I have to find it.
Mark S: Now, I’m going to the home page, and I’m digging around. So, if you are going to do these things, when you design your post, go ahead and have somebody else take a look at it, and make sure it makes sense. Make sure the link follows, and that everything works properly.
Marc V: The argument typically behind this is that “Well, I want to send somebody to my home page, because I want them to see all of my designs. If they kind of have to find that one, they’re going to see more. Maybe they’ll buy more.”
Mark S: No.
Marc V: Sending somebody to your home page is great for awareness and branding, meaning that I just want people to know who I am. I’m not looking for them to necessarily buy something right now.
Mark S: “I sell science fiction shirts.” “I sell sci-fi TV show shirts. If you’re interested in sci-fi TV show shirts, go to my website, scifitvshowshirts.com.” But if you’re advertising a specific shirt or a new design, then it makes more sense to send them to the buy page for that specific shirt.
Marc V: Exactly.
Mark S: Just make sure it makes sense.
Marc V: It’s less resistant to somebody who is interested in that, on purpose. And if they want to buzz around on your site, there’s links to go there. They’re going to do it, anyway.
Next, be brief, but interesting and engaging. This is what we call copywriting. The words you’re going to use are so important on Facebook. They are, for one, in the chronological order of how things come. If you’re posting an image with links and comments, the way that it goes is if your description text is on top, your image or video is below that.
Then, you have your “Like, Comment, Share, Frowny Face, Cry Face,” all that stuff, and then the comments are underneath that. So, that’s how the flow of it goes, whether it’s advertising or regular posts. The flow is pretty much always the same.
The words are the first thing that pop up. Also, what people do is they will look at a video of an embroidery machine going, a DTG printer printing, a Digital HeatFX, whatever they’re doing. They’re watching the video.
Then typically, they’re “Wait. What’s this about?” And they look back. The video kind of catches the attention. Sometimes, the words do.
Mark S: They see a great picture, and they want to know what’s happening.
Marc V: See a picture, pause, look up, “Oh, this place sells t-shirts,” continue on reading. Compared to, we need to make sure that when we post, that we are very clear that we do not sell t-shirts. We sell equipment and supplies.
Early mistakes we would do is we would show a bunch of pictures of t-shirts. Then all of a sudden, we get a bunch of inquiries, “Can you guys make shirts for me?”
Mark S: It still happens about .5% of the time.
Marc V: Which is every day.
Mark S: We still get people “Where do I order your shirts?”
Marc V: So, it’s got to be brief, but interesting and engaging. In the copywriting portion, again, you need to be in the shoes of the person who is going to be reading it. You need to practice this.
Some people are going to be really good at it right away, just like some people are really good at picking up an instrument and learning it quickly. Others of you are going to have to take some time.
I had a great conversation with a friend of mine recently. We were talking about copywriting.
Mark S: These are the friends that we had. They talk about marketing stuff.
Marc V: They do writing, but they write articles and novels and fiction and poetry. They just write all the time. I write for business. They don’t write for business, but we were talking about that. We were kind of going through the concept of how you can have five sentences that say the same thing.
But one of them, it brings out emotion. It instills feeling, it instills excitement. You want to get to that fifth sentence. Others just seem trite, boring, irrelevant.
Mark S: They just had to write something.
Marc V: Yeah. And even though they are so close, it’s the difference of the order you put the sentences in, what word you use to start it with.
Mark S: Don’t let this hang you up, but if you have time, do a little research on – just type in “How do I copywrite a good Facebook post?”
Marc V: Yeah. There’s a million articles.
Mark S: I’ll give you a couple of examples just recently. This could relate to your age, how long you’ve been writing, if you’ve done writing at all, and if you write on a regular basis. I talked to one person that works here the other day, and she asked me to review an email.
The email was very good, but it was also very formal. It was full of the right words and big words, and it was very detailed. It felt like somebody was writing a business email, and did not know the person they were writing to, at all. It was kind of like that. It was good, but it was a little old-fashioned.
Marc V: And not personal, I can tell.
Mark S: On the other side, you’ll see Facebook posts that, I’m in my 50s, and I don’t even understand the language that they’re using. Right? It’s completely casual, it’s all slang. And this could be business, too.
Maybe it’s a 20-something that’s writing, who most of their writing experience, since they left school, is on their phones. So, they really don’t have the same kind of innate rules and vocabulary of the other person that I was talking to.
What you’ve got to do is be conversational. That’s really what people want. But be conversational down that middle road.
Marc V: And to your audience.
Mark S: Absolutely.
Marc V: “Southern Belle Hats and Dresses” is the name of it, and you sell to southern women. And let’s just be very stereotypical, that they love to cook, they love to gossip and talk with their friends, they love to go to events outside, and have picnics. Whatever it might be.
You use a certain language; “Y’all are going to love these t-shirts!” Perfectly fine, because that’s your audience. Understand that, compared to writing extremely formal “I’ve create some great garments that I think all of you are going to really enjoy.”
Mark S: Or for IBM. “I do all of the apparel for IBM. I actually embroider their names on the inside of the blue suit.”
Marc V: So, know your audience. Make it engaging. Think about who is going to be reading it. Brief, but engaging, meaning that it’s short, but the few sentences that you say actually mean something.
It’s really hard to go into it, but just as an example, with the Patch Kit, I did a post yesterday, which I would consider just a content post. I took a picture of the patches that I made. “Fun with embroidery patches,” or “Fun making embroidery patches.”
Very, very brief, and engaging, too. “Oh, you made embroidery patches. Let me see them!” That’s immediately the response to that. “Let me see the embroidery,” especially to our community of people who make embroidery patches.
They see somebody who makes patches. A lot of people know it’s a challenge, or have never done it. They want to see what it is. Brief, but engaging. I also included a link out, because I know people are going to ask “How did you do that?” So, I included the link to the Patch Kit.
It wasn’t “Buy it now! Here’s a coupon,” really trying to hardcore sell it. I was sharing something. I spoke to the audience. Very brief, but engaging. And I included the link, because it made sense, because I knew people were going to want to know how I did it. There you go.
Mark S: Absolutely.
Marc V: So, next. Go ahead, Mark. You have the next one on the list, here.
Mark S: We are at make it feel real and relevant? Or did we already do that?
Marc V: No, that’s next.
Mark S: I think we’ve talked about that, and we talk about this in a lot of posts. When you create a Facebook page in the first place, on your website, it’s best if you instill it with your personality. And the same goes for making it feel real and relevant in a Facebook post itself.
If you are a stay-at-home mom that got into creating cheerleading clothing, because she’s got three girls that have been in cheer, and she decided to do it herself. Then, real and relevant is – think a videotape of your kids coming home after cheerleading practice.
Say “Look at these shirts that I made! Don’t the girls look cute? Here’s how I did it.”
Marc V: It feels real. It feels relevant.
Mark S: Yeah. It’s personal.
Marc V: It’s personal. It’s about the topic. The same is true if you have a brand or a business that you’re trying to build up. If you have an apparel line you’re building up, or you make corporate wear, it’s got to be real and relevant to that, too.
Maybe the post would be pictures of the team that they took, after they got their brand new shirts. It might be a video of you delivering it to them, and saying hi to the CEO. “Hey, do you mind? I’m videotaping this real quick. I just want to see the look on your face, when you see what I made for you!”
All of these things, they feel real, they feel relevant. And you’ll notice that today, if you go on Facebook, as I’m sure you do, you go on Facebook, and you scroll through. What are a lot of things you see?
You see these images of a man or a woman holding up their phone, “Hey, I was just in the parking lot, and I wanted to talk to you guys about this new Keto diet video, that I sell.” It’s very typical to see those things nowadays.
It feels like this is a real person. It feels relevant, because maybe you’re into dieting and fitness, and things like that. And it was engaging, because the person just said “Hey, I want to tell you about this new diet thing I’m selling.”
Mark S: You know, that actually, I think, works better now than these big really produced videos. I’ve got a friend of mine who, she runs a woodworking school here in Tampa. She asked me to talk to her about social, and things like that.
And completely unable to do a quick little casual video, like to just shoot a little video. We’ll spend a day editing a two-minute video, to get it just perfect, and have the music and the right graphics, and things like that. That’s great, if you’re customers expect that kind of thing.
But much more engaging, like I said, if you’re in your shop, and there are people all around you, making shirts. Pick up the phone. Shoot the people making shirts. It’s a casual video. It’s going to be more engaging than something’s that more formal.
Marc V: Yeah, and there’s definitely a balance for that. I see these ads all of the time, for this embroidery company up in New York, where they offer like a promo offer, that they’re offering whatever many; you buy 20 shirts, and they’re $20 apiece. Or custom polos, whatever their promo is that they’re running.
It’s a produced ad, but still has an authentic feel. All it is, is you see the embroidery machine running. Then, you see some people folding up some boxes. Then, you see a couple of people smiling, wearing the shirts.
It’s produced. The quality was good, the audio was good. But it just feels real and authentic.
In our industry, we have to remember that our industry is very similar to a lot of these small business-based industries. Right? And it’s important for your customers to connect with you.
Mark S: I agree.
Marc V: But you’re going to have to determine what this is. If you sell to people online only, and you’ve never met a single customer, and you run an e-commerce store where you sell t-shirts or caps, it’s going to be important for you.
The videos don’t have to be of you talking, ever. It can only be your brand. And nobody knows who owns it, who runs it. That’s fine, too. You’ve got to find that zone.
But it’s got to feel real, and it’s got to feel relevant.
Mark S: I do tip a lot more toward, if you’re the owner of a company, even if it’s a big company – when Mark Zuckerberg posts a video on Facebook, everybody watches it, because it’s very personal. He’s just talking. It’s not teleprompters and news conference.
And a lot of the great CEOs do this. They will just get on a video, and talk to you about what’s going on and what’s happening. Very effective.
Marc V: Yeah, so find the zone that works for you. Make sure it’s real. Make sure your audience is going to like it. And if the posts aren’t being reacted to – let’s just say you normally post a lot of things that are without you in it. Then, you start adding yourself into it, and the post engagement goes down.
Okay, well, the audience I’ve built likes that produced.
Mark S: My hair really does look bad.
Marc V: Or it might be the other way around. You might be producing all of these cool videos. Then all of a sudden, you do one video where it’s just you in front of your printer, printing some shirts, and it does twice as good. Well, there you go!
Mark S: So, what we’re going to do is if you hang out with us for maybe another 10 or 15 minutes, Marc Vila is going to tell you where and how to look for those things, and tell where to go to see those. That’s exciting!
Marc V: Wow! Let me tell you this, though. There’s this video of Mark Zuckerberg, and he did a Facebook Live. I believe it was for Independence Day. He’s in his backyard, hanging out with a couple of buddies, and they are grilling, barbecuing.
He was on for like an hour, and he was just talking about what he was doing. Somebody took this video and they chopped it up to how many times he said the words “meats, smoking meats, sweet baby rays, grilled, big green egg,” and they chopped it up to all of that.
So, it was like eight minutes of him just saying “Smoking meats! Sweet baby rays! Sweet baby rays! Big green egg.” It really made me laugh. I watched it a few times.
Mark S: That’s funny. Not a great example, but yeah!
Marc V: It’s a great example for that person, because they create comedic videos. So, they found something that was engaging, and I shared it to thousands of people just now!
Mark S: Okay. So, what we’ve talked about is that you are going to create some engaging content, whether it’s video.
Well, first, you’re going to pick a purpose for your post. You’re going to create some engaging content, based on the rules that we set out. It’s going to have kind of a heading. There’s going to be a body section.
There’s going to be some kind of a call to action, whether it’s “like this, go here, buy this, friend me, answer this question.” And you’re going to make it real and relevant.
After you’re done, and you’ve done this a few times, then you’re ready to move on to what happens when you’ve created the perfect Facebook post. What’s next?
Marc V: The analytics, okay? You should preferably be doing this from a Facebook business page. If you’re doing it from your personal page, great. Get a business page, too, because it’s going to allow you to do more things.
Mark S: It’s still free.
Marc V: And it’s still free, yep. They have a thing called Insights. You go to your business page, and there’s a little button up there, you click on Insights. When you click on Insights, you get all cool graphs and charts and numbers and stats, and percent of growth.
Mark S: They’re easy to read. Facebook is good at that.
Marc V: Very easy to read, yeah. If you want to dive deep, you could dive deep. But they make a nice little dashboard. I’m holding my hands up, for the folks just listening.
Mark S: Which looks like a big dashboard, when you hold your hands up like that. It’s like “I caught a fish this big!”
Marc V: Anyway, it fits basically right in your single screen, for your phone or for your desktop or iPad or whatever. And it will tell you, are the people liking your page going up or going down? Are you losing or gaining followers?
Then, you can scroll down a little further, and you can see it post by post. They have like little meters, almost, like red and green, I think. And actually, the meter is over, so what you can really do is scroll, and then you see one where it’s pegged, and that meter is like an addition of all of the things; the likes, the shares, the comments, the engagement, all of that stuff. It all adds up to points.
So, you look at this. “Look how high that scored!” So, you click on it. “What did I do? Well, this was this, that was that. What did I write? I wonder. Alright.” Then, you start thinking about it.
“It was a picture of the soccer team that just won the championship, so maybe they just shared it.” You start thinking about it. “Alright, let me find another one. Wait, no. Here’s another picture, but this is a picture of a group of a landscaping company I did garments for. Okay.”
Then, you go to another one, and you’re like “Another picture of a group. When I post pictures of groups…”
Mark S: Of my customers, especially.
Marc V: “Of my customers, it really seems to engage well. I’m going to do that more often.”
Mark S: Yeah. It’s really simple, because once you’re in Insights, you’re looking at the post engagement. You can just scroll, and you can see the lines very easily. So, you can identify all of your best posts very easily, and then do just what Marc said.
Pick the best one, click on it, and try to figure out what’s good about that. And then, look for the next one.
Marc V: Common things. Look for common things. If you can find like three or four, this is great, because you’re a human being, and human beings are really good at pattern recognition. It’s a talent of our frontal cortex, that we can actually find patterns in things.
So, what you do is you look at these posts. If you want to do screen shots and look at them side by side, print them, however you’ve got to do it. Sit there and say “What’s the pattern here?” Try to find a pattern.
Is it words you use? Is it the link? Is it the time of the day? Whatever it is, try to find a pattern. Try to find a couple of them. And you will. It’s a find the hidden picture puzzle, like you did when you were a kid.
It’s like “Find it!” You’re going to find it, and then it’s going to pop out, and you’re going to say “This is what it is!” Sometimes, it’s simple; it’s always team pictures. Other times, it’s going to be more complicated, like “Well, it’s actually just when I post on Friday nights.”
Mark S: That’s true.
Marc V: And the time might not ever make a difference. It’s going to be different for everybody. Look at the analytics. You don’t have to be a marketing guru or anything, to figure this out. Literally, you take the steps.
You go to your Insights. You look down at your posts. Find the ones that have the highest engagement, whatever it is. Even if it’s eight, and all of your other things – like, you get eight shares, and everything else is one.
Mark S: That’s a big deal. It’s 800%.
Marc V: You’re a really small growing page. But it’s eight! Yeah! “I’m going to take that eight, and I’m going to perfect that eight. And next week, I’m going to hopefully get it to 12.” And you build your audience.
Anyway, look at your analytics. Take the steps. Just try to look, replicate. And if the replication didn’t work, then you didn’t find the right pattern. Try something different. You’ll do it.
It’s one of these things that you can literally spend ten minutes on in the morning, while you’re having coffee, looking at this stuff. If you look at it enough, if you look at it every day, every week, however long, you’re going to get these Eureka moments, because you’re going to get used to it.
Mark S: I will say, though, this is also the point where you realize, like one of my favorite books, the last sentence is “Everything in this book may be wrong.” So, this is where you may find that that’s true for us.
You may have listened to this whole podcast and done everything right, but the one post that everybody loves is just a post of you mowing your grass. Anything is possible.
You may be listening to this in six months, or a year from now, or two years from now or something like that, and even though these basic rules should still apply, you should open yourself up to not everything being correct, and still being successful.
Marc V: Yes. Social is a constant changing atmosphere. Facebook is not anything what it was three years ago.
Mark S: Yeah. A year.
Marc V: It’s a thousand times different, and what you can and can’t share is going to change, and how you reach your audience is. It used to be very easy. You get a bunch of people to like your page, and then you make a post, and everyone saw it.
Then, businesses figured out how to do it. They started flooding it with this, and everyone’s feeds was all business stuff. And they started un-liking everything. Facebook was like “Bad user experience. Let’s dwindle down the amount of times that the business pages get shown up.”
So, now you’ve got to work a little harder to get there. Maybe Facebook might change the link thing. Maybe our tip on the links, maybe Facebook is going to change that. Maybe they’re going to say “No links.”
Maybe they’re going to say “If you want somebody to buy a product, you have to click them here, and they can access a view of it in Facebook.” Who knows what they’re going to do? So tomorrow, this might not be 100% right.
But I want you to really understand the theory behind this.
Mark S: It will be 90% right.
Marc V: Yeah. It’s just the theory. Once you understand this, it works for everything else.
Mark S: Talk a little bit about, now, so I’ve kind of gotten used to doing good posts. I know they’re good, because people respond to them. Facebook is always suggesting that I boost my posts. It’s really hard to know when to hit that blue button, and when not to.
Marc V: I’ve gone back and forth on this. Sometimes, I’ve thought “Write a post, put $20 in, and see what it does.” That’s a fair enough experiment. You could waste $20, but it’s a fair enough experiment.
But the better way to do it would be you do all of this first. You start looking at the analytics, and you’re seeing what’s happening organically. You find this formula of the picture, maybe the time of day, whatever it might be.
You find this formula that seems to work right. Then, that’s what you boost, because it’s your highest likelihood that you’re going to do well. Right? If you’re a fisherman, and you know how to do this, and you’ve been doing it a lot, you kind of know where the fishing holes are, you go to. You kind of know the times of the day.
So, you know you could take your boat out any time and throw a line, and catch dinner. But you know if you spend the time to find the right hole and time of the day and bait, and all of that stuff, then you invite your friends, two or three buddies, to come with you.
You take them to that spot at that time. Everyone catches fish, and you’re out grilling fish together. That’s the party. Not you come home and it’s duds. So, yeah. You could take your friends out on the boat any time of the day and have fun with them, and come back and then go to the grocery store, and buy dinner.
Mark S: Once again, a good analogy. I like that.
Marc V: And you could do that with Facebook. You could throw the $20 out there if you want to, and just boost it, and see what happens.
Mark S: But you know, here’s what’s going to happen. Somebody is going to do two posts based on what we said, kind of. Then, they’re going to boost them. They’re going to waste $40, and they’re going to say “Those guys don’t know what they’re talking about. I’m never doing this Facebook thing again.”
Marc V: First of all, they didn’t listen to a single word we said.
Mark S: Right! So, don’t do that!
Marc V: Yeah. If you want to throw the $20, and you go into it knowing “This is probably going to fail, but I’m going to try to learn something,” that’s fine. Go ahead. Start at 20 posts, over the course of a few weeks. Look at all of those.
Try to figure something that’s in common. Try to replicate it. If you can replicate once or twice, and get those same nice high numbers on the scale on your Insights, then now you know you’ve got a formula that seems to work for your audience.
Then, you hit the boost button. I just say $20. It’s the number they start you at. Statistically, there’s a reason why they put $20 in there, so stick with it. Whatever they recommend.
They are going to try to upsell you at the end. “Hey, for $20 more –.” Don’t do that yet. You’re testing waters.
They’re going to ask you “Who do you want to share it with?” It’s very self-explanatory, but they’re going to say “People who like your page.” Obvious, right? They like your page, they’re going to get to see it.
“People who like your page and their friends.” I think that’s not typically good for our industry, as much.
Mark S: Right, because you may want to start an embroidery business, or be in it, but your neighbor doesn’t care.
Marc V: Yes. But in your business, if it’s you sell custom t-shirts, or you sell like fashion designs, and they’re all about cigars and you sell cigar t-shirts, I definitely would post that to them and their friends, because I’m pretty sure that people who like cigars also are friends with people, so they have people to smoke cigars with. It’s a social thing.
Mark S: Good one.
Marc V: So, if you think your customers’ friends, you choose the option that says “People who like my page and their friends.” Then, there’s going to be a third one, which normally you kind of have to get into the custom audience thing. You have to get into advertising for that, a little bit. They’ll let you tinker with it, a bit.
Mark S: That’s if you want to. If you do cigar fishing shirts, and you want to advertise to people that smoke cigars and go fishing.
Marc V: Yeah. I wonder if that’s bad for fishing, or not. Will you catch less fish, if you smoke cigars?
Mark S: No clue. I don’t do either one.
Marc V: If somebody knows that, please post it to the Custom Apparel Startups page. But anyway, I’d say start with one of the first two; “People who like your page.” Also, the other thing is if you’ve got 19 people who like your page, you can directly message those 19 people. You don’t need to pay Facebook for that.
But as your numbers start to increase, and that’s why I really like the “People who like my page and their friends,” and “All of my friends and people who like their page.” And Facebook will usually have something that says like “And other people like them.” They’ll have some things like that.
Choose the one that’s going to get new people. That’s going to be your best bet, for if you’re boosting a post. Now, if you’re boosting a post that you make custom t-shirts, or you make custom baby bags and you make one at a time, and then you sell it, like they’re high-end. You make one, you sell it for $100.
Those are great to boost to the people who like your page. They’re people who are likely to buy it. I hope you guys are kind of getting the concept of this.
Mark S: I will say about boosting, boosting is you’re paying Facebook to show your post to other people. So, I kind of look at it as a training ground for advertising, because you have a lot more tools available, if you actually create a Facebook ad. A lot more advanced tracking tools.
You can just monitor, and get better, and create audiences. You can go further with an ad account, or creating an advertisement, than you can a boost. So, boost some. Get good at boosting. Then, start looking at a Business Manager account.
Marc V: And I typically recommend the boost post should be something that, there’s a specific reason you would be willing to pay $20 for this. So, it’s to sell a certain amount of items.
Mark S: That’s true.
Marc V: There’s various things that people in marketing do. There’s a concept of make a product, and then offer it to people to buy, and continually find the people who will buy it.
The other concept is that you start building an audience of people who like you and follow you. And then, you sell to them. So, if you make really cool and funny t-shirts and caps, and you kind of have a brand thing going on, and it’s about comedy or a certain lifestyle, I would spend $20 to get a lot more people to like and share my page.
Because when I do throw an item out for sale, I’ve got a lot of people who would be willing to buy it. I’m wiling to pay $20, just to get the likes, compared to if I’m trying to actually sell a product.
Mark S: Right. As long as that is – you know, we looked at planning it, and figuring out what your goal is for the post. So, as long as you’re very specific about that, and it does what you want it to do, I agree.
Marc V: And then, was it worth the $20?
Mark S: And how are you going to tell?
Marc V: Yeah. That’s the thing. You’ve got to pick a goal. We’ve talked about this in advertising. I’ll give you just a simple example for it. I want to get more people to like my page. I’m willing to spend $20 to invest, to attempt to get this to happen.
So, I’ve created a post, based on historical data of other posts that I’ve made, that I really feel is going to be engaging, and more people are going to like my page. So, I’m going to create the post. I’m going to put in an image.
At the bottom of it, I’m going to say “Please like and share my page.” So, we’ve got all of the structure that we’ve put down, at the beginning. I’ve put the $20 in this. But how am I going to determine if I’m going to do this again?
The way I’m going to determine if I’m going to do it again is I’ll say “I’m going to be willing to pay 50 cents for every new like, because I really feel that that’s worth it for this audience, because it’s building exponentially.”
So, I know if I get 40 people to like it, for this $20, I’ve noticed a trend that when 40 people like my page, I don’t do anything, and I have 60 people who liked it the next day, because they shared with other people. Now I know that that $20 turns into 60 new likes.
I know if I have 60 people, and I put something up for sale, I going to sell five of them.
Mark S: It’s kind of a neat little circle there, because people usually ask, that aren’t into Facebook marketing yet, “Why would I care if somebody likes my page? I’ve got 1,000 people that like it, and nothing happens.”
What you can do is, just like when you boost that post, you can market your products to the people that like your page. So, if you’re going to spend $20 to get more people to like your page, then the goal is the page likes. But the end result is the next time you do an advertisement to buy something, or you want them to take another action, then you have a bigger pool to market.
Marc V: Yes. You boost a post, and people who like my page, you’ve increased the audience there. Now, all of these will not necessarily work for you individually. You’ve got to find the right zone for you. But I think this right here needs to be taken up in theory, of how a really good post works.
Then, you should experiment with doing a little bit of boosting, spending a little bit of money at it, especially if you’ve never spent money on marketing before. It’s perfectly fine, if it fails the first four or five times, because you’ve got to take this as a learning experience.
If you’re only planning to boost once, and if it doesn’t work, you’re never going to do it again, just don’t boost the first time.
Mark S: I agree. If you only have $20 to spend, don’t spend it.
Marc V: Yes. But get some time into it. I thought this was a pretty nice podcast.
Mark S: I like it. I think a lot of people are going to listen to it, or at least the first six minutes. That’s what we find. That’s why we’re going to start to put the pitch upfront.
Marc V: People listen to the last six minutes, I was finding. And Mark’s been really, the energy is low today, because Mark was up all last night. I did a card trick the last episode.
Mark S: I still can’t figure it out.
Marc V: And he couldn’t figure it out. He just admitted it to me, this morning. You should have watched the video. You could have seen that.
Mark S: Up-close magic. Might be a new specialty. Facebook and up-close magic.
Marc V: That’s for listening! I think we’ve had a great time, and I think we’ve wrapped up what we needed to cover today.
Mark S: Cool! So, what we would like you to do is – I’m going to break a lot of rules we talked about, right now. The first thing I want you to do is go buy the Patch Kit. It’s a gas. You’ll love it. You’ll love it, and you may even make some money with it.
The second thing is make sure that you subscribe to the CAS podcast, through the venue of your choice, whether it’s iTunes or Stitcher. Subscribe to it, and leave us a nice comment, if you feel motivated to do that.
The last thing is, don’t forget that we’ve got two new courses on the Custom Apparel Startups Facebook page. It’s How to Start a Custom T-shirt Business, and graphics training for creating custom t-shirt designs. It’s so valuable!
Marc V: It’s probably one of the most exciting courses that we’ve put together. It’s a little bit of money. It’s not for free, but it costs us a lot to make. It costs us a lot of time and money, and editing, and building out a learning management system.
It’s an actual online course. It was a big project, over months. So, that one’s not for free. But it’s not that much money, and it’s the first course that we’ve been able to find in existence, that is specifically for t-shirt design on a piece of graphics software that doesn’t cost you any money.
And if you’ve got a Digital HeatFX or a DTG direct-to-garment printer, the software that comes with that actually has this graphics software interface built into it. So, if you are struggling with graphics, and you want to learn.
If you’re struggling with graphics, and you actually don’t want to take any time to learn, just stop doing graphics, and pay somebody. But if you actually want to learn, and you want to do it, take a course. It’s not that much money at all, and it’s well worth it.
I think it’s 26 lectures, and a bunch of it is how-to’s. And I think there’s three, if I recall, start to finish, from idea to making a finished design.
Mark S: How to make this design, yeah.
Marc V: You actually go through theory, history, what all of the buttons do, and then hands-on.
Mark S: And it’s for t-shirts, so you’re not learning how to do like a photo background for photo-touching wedding photos.
Marc V: Exactly, which is what’s going to happen when you try to go online. “Let me try to find some free Corel training online.” You go online and you find a ton of irrelevant videos that taught you a lot of great things, but nothing that’s going to work for your t-shirt business.
Mark S: So, here we go. You’re going to buy the Patch Kit, you’re going to subscribe and comment and love us on the podcasting software of your choice, and you’re going to visit CustomApparelStartups.com. Pick one of the two courses that we’re offering, that fits with you, and get those [inaudible 01:04:36].
Marc V: Talking about the Patch Kit, I just want to finish with this. What happens is that some people buy the Patch Kit, and they realize “Wow! This was easy and really cool. I loved what I made.” They send us some pictures of it.
They offer it to their customers, and they sell a bunch of patches. Then, they come back, and they buy a bunch of the materials again, and that’s great. Other people buy the Patch Kit, and they don’t follow any of the instructions. The patches look terrible.
They send us pictures, and complain, because the patches look terrible. Then, we explain to them that “I clearly see you skipped this part of the instruction.” Then, they get discouraged, and they feel like it was a waste of their time.
So, this is what you do. There’s 5,000 videos on the Patch Kit, including animations of how to cut the patches. So, if you’re going to get the Patch Kit, first of all, you go online. You pick the Patch Kit that you like. There’s like from $50 to a few hundred bucks, depending on what you want.
You buy the Patch Kit that you want. Then, you watch one or more of the videos, including start-to-finish webinars that are only like an hour long. There’s very comprehensive stuff. Or you can watch the short ones.
Mark S: And this is not a difficult process.
Marc V: Yeah. I mean, the hour-long ones are very, very detailed. There’s eight-minute ones that tell everything. Or if you don’t like videos, there’s written instructions. Follow them.
Then, find a customer that you currently sell to, that you think that they would buy patches. Now, who is going to buy patches? First of all, people actually just like patches. They’re fun. The Patch Kit lets them be iron-on.
So, you just give them some of these. “What do I do with these?” Put them on a backpack, put them on a tote bag, pin them to a wall. People love them. You go to Michael’s or Disney or Busch Gardens, there’s patches for sale. People just like them. It’s a fun thing.
So, you find a good customer, you make a good patch, you get it done right. You find a good customer, and the next time you bring them some clothes, you give them two patches for free. “What’s this?” “Patches.” “What am I going to do with them?” “I don’t know.”
“I sell them.” “How much are they?” Well, people ask us how much do I sell my patches for. “What would you pay for a patch?” It’s different for your area. How much time did it take you?
Anyway, you give it out. And it works the same as we’ve talked about with giving hats or koozies. You’re going to leave, and “A bunch of my employees want some of those patches, now. How much are they?” “Ten bucks apiece.” “Alright. We’ll take 50.”
Mark S: This has got to be the last thing, because we have to [inaudible 01:06:55]. I’ve got a tip. If you are an embroiderer, and you struggle with embroidering on caps for any reason, the Patch Kit is what you need, along with a hat heat press.
Because you can embroider a patch. It’s flat. And then, you can put it on a hat heat press, and you can press it right onto the cap.
Marc V: We also sell the hook and loop Velcro for the Patch Kit, as well. That’s a new product. You stick it to the patch of the cap, and then you sew or heat-apply on the loop on one side, the hook on the other side.
Then, we have removeable patches. That’s a fun thing, too. That could be a hat thing.
Mark S: Alright, we’ll talk about this forever.
Marc V: I was really inspired!
Mark S: This was great! This has been Mark Stephenson, from ColDesi.
Marc V: And Marc Vila, from Colman and Company.
Mark S: You guys have a great business!
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