Are you looking to boost your sales and expand your customer base using social media? Doug dives deep with List Perfectly’s Social Media Coordinator, Bailey, into strategies that can help you leverage platforms like Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and more to grow your reselling business.
The Seller Community Podcast from List Perfectly is the e-commerce resource for the seller community across all platforms and a hub for information on growing your business. Find out more at thesellercommunitypodcast.com, leave a message, or ask a question at anchor.fm/sellercommunitypodcast, or email us at podcast@listperfectly.com.
Links
Seller Community Podcast on Anchor
Doug Smith (snoop.dougie) linktree
Trish Glenn (Super Sale Trish) Instagram
Social Media for Sellers with Bailey
Doug: What’s up, Bailey?
Bailey: Hello! Hello, everyone.
Doug: We’re talking about social media for sellers. This is a great topic. And we’ll talk about our backgrounds a bit, but, and yeah Bailey’s definitely an expert in this topic.
Does a ton for us. She is List Perfectly’s social media coordinator. So Bailey take a couple minutes, introduce yourself. Tell us a little bit about what you do at List Perfectly and then a little bit about your background in social media, how you got here.
Bailey: Sure. Yeah. So I am, like Doug said, I am the social media coordinator here at List Perfectly.
Prior to that, I worked in marketing at another company, but I also interned at List Perfectly back in 2020 as a social media intern. And I went to school with a background in marketing and social media, but I also just enjoy doing it in my day to day life. I have taken the route of content creator slash influencer in my own personal life.
I really enjoy like fashion and stuff. I definitely have been doing some sort of content creation since I was very little. My sister and I used to make YouTube videos back in I think I was like 5th grade. Don’t go searching those up, please. But and then I did YouTube for a little bit.
And I started that in 2017. I don’t really do it much anymore just because I don’t have time. I have two little kids now, but I really enjoy doing Instagram and TikTok for the most part now. And then I also create content for List Perfectly. I do a lot of the scheduling out for social media and engaging with the community through social media as well.
Doug: Okay. Awesome. Awesome background. So what’s funny though? So obviously we are of different age groups, let’s say, and so when I was younger, we used to do the same thing, but film videos and stuff like that, but we used to use big video cameras and VHS tapes. So that was the YouTube back in the day.
Bailey: Yeah.
Doug: So do you have a favorite social platform?
Bailey: Right now it’s probably TikTok. I just, it’s easier to grow on there I think is a big one. I just like the community on there. I started it when I was pregnant with my first. So a lot of my following is a lot of other moms and things like that.
It’s just a great like community, especially when you’re entering motherhood and things like that, just to have support in that area. But I still really like short form content. I know a lot of. The social media platforms are trying to push into more of the long-form content like what YouTube has But I still really enjoy the short-form content
Doug: Awesome. Now, is it true that you started up the momtok trend or was that somebody else?
Bailey: No, it was not me.
Doug: All right, cool given that tiktok may be banned in the u. s Would you still concentrate on there? I think they’re gonna get sold, but what do you think what do you think, Bailey?
Bailey: I’m hoping it doesn’t get banned.
I just really like it I like the community on there. I still use Instagram, of course, too, and I know there’s Instagram Reels, which is very similar to what we do on TikTok, so I Would probably go back to Instagram more. So I, I still really that Instagram does have the photo feature. I still really enjoy planning and curating your feed a lot, but I do really like TikTok.
So I hope they, whether it’s they get bought or they just don’t ban it is my hope. I’m being optimistic.
Doug: Yeah. And I think we’ll just have to see, but like you Said a lot I, over the, past few years, a lot of the other platforms adjusted to the TikTok the TikTok trends, things like that.
You can do a lot of the same things on Instagram. Even YouTube’s really leaned into a lot of what TikTok is doing right.
Bailey: Yeah, like the YouTube shorts. And it’s funny, they all pull from each other in a way like it’s Instagram started doing Instagram reels. And then TikTok started doing like the photo feature where it’s like a slideshow.
And then similar to that is YouTube started doing YouTube shorts. And then TikTok started doing like offering 10 minute Like videos and so they all morph into each other, pull ideas from each other and stuff.
Doug: From your perspective and I know you do sell, but from your perspective, why do you think that social media could be important for sellers?
Bailey: Yeah, similar to what we do in terms of cross-posting here, like what some of what we offer here at List Perfectly is bringing in more eyes to your audience, and social media is a beautiful thing in terms of that, like you can grow a community and those people that follow you or watch your content, You can turn into customers, and I think that just brings a whole new set of opportunities to you to grow your business, get customers coming in, we all, we’re all kind of nosy people, we like to be in each other’s lives a little bit let’s be honest.
I really enjoy watching like day in the life videos behind the scenes. And it’s nice to see that, especially as business owners and seeing that it is possible. And you can relate to people in that way too. You can help, like I said bringing those people in as customers and growing your business in that way too.
Doug: Sure. And I think it’s one of those things that we talk about. It’s like live sales are not for everyone. Some people are intimidated. Social media is not for everyone. It is tough to make the time. A lot of sellers don’t have a lot of extra time. But instead of the, the scattershod across the whole board, recommend, I always recommend that focus on a couple that you like or become familiar with the platforms, but focus on a couple that you like.
And you don’t have to do everything everywhere. If you don’t want to do video, you don’t have to do video. If you’re just more photo friendly. So what do you think about that approach?
Bailey: Yeah, definitely. Like I, I think again, similar to what we tell people is you can get really focus or really knowledgeable on, let’s say like one platform where you’re reselling on and then cross-post it everywhere.
It’s similar like that with social media too, whether you’re. You want to focus on for me, I like to focus mainly on TikTok, but it’s also you can create that sort of content and also repurpose it across other platforms too. So you’re not spending as much time creating, let’s say five different pieces of content for five different platforms.
You’re creating one or two and, alternating When you’re posting it across other platforms too.
Doug: Yeah. And you bring up a great point. Repurposing of content is we do that a lot at List Perfectly. And, taking bigger stuff, chopping it up, using it for different things, for instance, this YouTube will probably turn into a podcast, could become a blog post, we’ll chop it up for social media, and that’s just a really efficient way to do things. But again, going back to what type of content you’re comfortable producing. If you were starting a reselling social media from scratch, what content do you feel would allow growth fastest?
Bailey: I think what people like to see right now is some form of like behind the scenes, whether it’s with like a day in the life or And it’s not, and that type of content is so real and authentic and you’re not really having to sit down and do this big production where you have these mass lightings or like a really good camera to use in order to create that sort of content.
You’re still doing what you do in your day-to-day life. You’re just Filming it so it may take maybe a little bit longer just because you’re setting up a camera and stuff But really all you need is like your phone your maybe a tripod or something to set it on and then just to edit it throughout the day, you might just have to, yeah, exactly.
Set up the camera. So it takes a little bit, but it’s not where you have to be like, Oh, I have to sit down with these big lights and film and talk and everything too. And especially if you’re someone who doesn’t like talking to a camera, you can do it in a way where you just. Put music over it.
You don’t even have to do a voiceover too. And you can just, write it in your caption how you do it. And I just think that relates to a lot of people. And it also might help people who want to get into the same thing as you and just see or even just as a business owner, like what you do as a business owner is so cool and It’s enjoyable to watch.
Doug: Yeah, exactly. Couple points there and there are more questions but couple points there based on what you said is I think you’re exactly right. People love to connect with brands and I think we have this social media stuff which right now is largely free for you to use.
It takes your effort and don’t be intimidated by other people’s stuff. Raw stuff works. You don’t have to be like an expert video editor. You don’t have to, there are a lot of tools out there that are pretty easy to learn, but stuff can be raw. And a lot of times that stuff is more relatable.
And then as Bailey said, we all have most of us have these little smartphones now. These are basically little portable computers, little portable, high-def video cameras, little portable, high-def cameras, little portable, high-def recorders of different types. So that’s about all you need is to get this going.
And then again, look, and we’ll give some examples, but. Look at people that are doing it, learn from them, do what they’re doing be patient and it’s going to take some time to grow and this is this stuff can really help you with your referrals, really connect with your followers, get them to sign up for your referral via your referral link.
But what they want to see is. And that’s the great thing about the seller community is they want to learn from you and they want to see what you’re doing because we all do things differently and we all learn from each other.
Bailey: Yeah, and that real content where it’s pretty like I want to say like unfiltered Yeah, also you’re not pushing products on the people.
It’s not sponsored content You know I think we all like when we see like a hashtag sponsored hashtag ad we like want to scroll past it and everything even if it is something that people really love But you just going about your everyday life is very authentic to people and it brings people in and then they want to hear what you’re doing, what you’re using, what you’re selling.
And it’s a great way especially if you are part of a referral program to eventually get signups through that and make some passive income that way too. Always a great opportunity.
Doug: My background is, I’ve worked in online content and marketing for quite a bit of time and I saw social media come up. So I’ve been involved to a degree from the beginning, but Bailey has, and you can see Bailey and I both on the List Perfectly channels, and I’m more of the point and click type, and frankly, a lot of times, Bailey edits videos of me. I’ll have a few takes in a video. But I think, Bailey, you have a great balance between the two, not necessarily raw but relatable content.
And it’s very polished. You do a great job with that. Bailey, it was very exciting a few weeks ago. I’m going to bring it up to the end, as long as I know. Bailey taught me how to do green-screen videos. So that was great. I probably could have figured it out. But I’m a lot, again, a lot more of the point and click that’s an option.
Those like green screen stuff or backgrounds that can be cool. There’s different ways to do that, but you can also just be point and click. And I think the point is too, is. Learn from others, see what they do, but be yourself, be real, be relatable.
Bailey: Yeah, absolutely. It’s always great to pull inspo from other people, but you don’t want to just knock someone off, what you’re, what they’re doing because then it’s just, it’s not going to feel true to you. And that’s going to correlate in when you’re posting the content too.
Doug: When you’re not creative and or don’t know what to say for social media, what would you suggest to do to create, build social media? So I would say document. Just document stuff and you can go from there. But Bailey, what’s your perspective?
Bailey: I was gonna say pretty much the same thing. We all, when you are doing sales and stuff, you do things like package up your, what you sold and stuff, that’s content right there. You’re already having to do it as a reseller.
You can turn that into content by just doing like a pack with me video or behind the scenes of doing my listings and things like that. It’s, you don’t have to, do these big extravagant, big meetups or events and things like that, or big like vlogs. You can do things that you’re already doing and just set up the camera and it doesn’t even have to be, you could do like the time lapse thing on your phone where it’s a lot shorter and it’s run through faster. But that’s content right there. And it’s stuff that you’re already doing or you have to do with to run your business.
Doug: Definitely. And I think great answer. Believe it or not, sellers want to see what other sellers do, how they do it, all the different things. Cause we’ve all got different stuff. We’ve all got different ways we do it. I’m a small seller, a couple items a week, but I have a little station here. It’s not like a warehouse. Like it’s not like a Crystal Maus warehouse.
I don’t have rooms in my house like Trish or Theresa Cox has her, yeah, I call it the Theresa Cox Evil Villain Layer because she’s got like gobos and logos on the floor and all that, but behind the scenes stuff is, yeah, just how you do stuff. How you package are interesting stories. And from a content perspective people love stories.
People love to relate to stories. And that’s basically what we do on the podcast and the podcast that I have is share people’s stories. People love to hear from others, get different perspectives. And in my opinion, everything has a story, like a sourcing story or something like that.
Bailey: Yeah. Just like you said, you can even turn like a, maybe it’s something sold. You can turn one of your packing videos into how you source that specific item or something too. If you wanted to do like a voiceover of it, where it was a little bit different than what you’ve done in the past…
Doug: This reminds me of, don’t think that you have to go in and you have to do a bunch of money boosting posts or spend a bunch of money doing ads.
You certainly can do that. There’s all kinds of different options there. Places like Facebook. Instagram really have dialed in metrics. If you want to show, if you want to put a post up and show it to people that live in your town, that are a certain gender, that are a certain age range, even interests, even zip codes, you can do that.
You can spend a little money. But what’s interesting here is Becca Hustles, joined the List Perfectly referral program as an affiliate to get signups through social media. So she’s doing some interesting stuff. She runs Google ads and I’m not sure if she’s on Pinterest, but I’ve known some sellers and we’ll get to Pinterest, but I think Pinterest is underrated for sellers. I know some sellers that are doing stuff on there doing social ads, but what advice Bailey, would you have for people that are looking to grow their referrals via social media?
Bailey: I think social media is one that can be a slow start. I think a big thing is similar to what we say with listings is be consistent. Be authentic. Again, be consistent and be relatable. And as you’re Being consistent, especially like on TikTok, I think for a lot of people early on it was to post three to five videos a day.
Now that seems very unreasonable now, but just posting consistently can bring in followers and that type of consistency can lead to followers eventually. Signing up and wanting to use the products that you have linked and that’s another thing too is making sure that you have Your link somewhere too so that it’s easy for people to find.
Doug: And what I love about this, so I’ll give you a little hint. I love about Bailey’s approach to this is that it’s and I love kind of gritty DIY stuff. It’s it’s like a workaround ish. Like you do it in one spot, download it from there. and then can use it across the board. So that’s good.
And I love stuff, stuff like that’s just gritty. You’re trying to figure it out yourself. I definitely have seen both. Some promote their listings, some promote what they do, some promote selling versus sourcing or a mix. And I do know a lot of big they were big sellers, but now they’re big YouTubers, and they don’t sell as much anymore because they make money on YouTube with their sourcing videos.
So like your Kevin the Commonwealth Picker is big Kings of eBay big on TikTok. Does a lot of sourcing stuff. And then you have on the other side, you have somebody like Kat, the nurse flipper, who’s got a great, she’s got a show a YouTube podcast. That’s very big and popular. And so she goes that route, brings sellers in each week, has a live show.
And these sellers all answer questions. And so she does a lot too, but what’s your perspective on this type of balance, Bailey?
Bailey: So honestly, I think that’s the beautiful thing about social media is you get to choose what you want to do with it. Whether you want to show yourself as a reseller and be like the face of your page or whether you want to focus on just sharing the products that you’re selling, like that’s. Up to you and your comfortability and also probably somewhat of what platform you’re using too. But at the end of the day, I think you can really make it your own and what you’re comfortable with.
Doug: All sites, all marketplaces like traffic coming in and that helps them with Google. So it might get a little extra boost in the algorithm, but sending more traffic from different sites, especially big sites to your listings and to your store really helps.
Bailey: Social media is all trial and error, like you really can, it’s endless what you can do with it and what you want to what type of content you want to create and. Everything, again, is trial and error, and you might see, it also depends on your audience, too, and, you might try something, and it doesn’t go well, and you might try something completely different, and it blows up, and that’s exactly what happens. What you know, you probably want to start doing is similar to that style of content.
But I know there’s a running joke on TikTok where it’s you spend all this time shooting or like editing a video and it gets 200 views and 20 likes, and then you Post one where it’s like it took you two seconds to do and that’s the one that like blows up. So that’s a funny thing with social media. It can just be hit or miss, trial and error.
Doug: And I think to some of the trends, look at what’s working, look at what others are doing on social media in your chosen site. But Are there any particular sellers, Bailey, that have stood out to you in the stuff that they do on any of the sites?
Bailey: So yeah, I mean there’s one that’s right around probably my age on, actually there’s a couple. There’s one on YouTube when I did a lot of the engagement for YouTube. She just does like like thrifting vlogs, thrifting videos. I just really liked the way that she edits it. I can, I like her style which turns into me becoming a customer to her too.
Seeing what she has on, I’m pretty sure she’s more of a deep hop seller, but I actually, started watching what, like her videos outside of work and outside of engagement there. And then there’s another one who I think. Her two main ones are Instagram and Tik Tok and she’s a short, more of that short form content and she does a lot of the reseller means to like turning videos into like reseller means and those seem to do pretty successful successfully too, because they’re relatable to a lot of resellers too out there. I enjoy watching the content too.
Doug: Yeah exactly. Yeah, me too. Already mentioned Kat the NurseFlipper, Commonwealth Picker. He’s on TikTok as well. American Arbitrage Katy and Vikki Zilverberg have their weekly show on YouTube.
A lot of sellers seem to be leaning into YouTube and I think there’s more stuff’s gonna go that way. It’s interesting, it’s I do. I have. I like TikTok a lot, too, but I have seen a change over the past several months. They’ve really been leaning into TikTok shops and selling on TikTok, so you’re seeing a lot more kind of almost like commercials on there or people selling.
All the sites want you to spend time with them. I think TikTok in particular what I’ve always liked about TikTok though is the algorithm.
Most of the other sites take a look at what you look at and show you what they think you’re gonna but TikTok shows you it just seems much more relevant and their algorithm can switch just like that. Like in a day.
Bailey: Yeah.
Doug: They show you. I think the way to put it is TikTok shows you more of what you’re looking at. Instead of what you think you’re going to like.
Bailey: Exactly. And I think that’s a big thing with TikTok too, is they do have the following tab, but for the most part, like I know I personally, I am more so in that like for you page tab.
So a lot of the content that I’m watching. Is people that I don’t even necessarily follow, which means if I’m creating content and pushing it out to Tik TOK, my content is probably also going out to people who don’t necessarily follow me, which also brings in the opportunity to grow and gain more followers that way too, because I think a lot more people on Tik TOK utilize that for you page tab, which is something that.
It’s very different from how social media was done originally in the past, Instagram used to be a very Chronological feed where it was all of your follow like who you’re following and it’s still like that now I know sometimes they push out like content like suggested post or sponsored posts and things like that, but For the most part, a lot of social media has been around who you follow, and TikTok was very different in that way.
Doug: And yeah, whether you like it or not, TikTok definitely changed the game, and it’s had a big influence. Shopify, you don’t need a Shopify account to sell on social media. Some of the sites you can sell on themselves you can sell on Instagram, you can sell on Facebook Marketplace.
But a lot of what we’re talking about is building up your brand, putting that awareness out there, sending traffic to your listings, sending traffic to the marketplaces, but again, building up that relatable brand, and then you will see, there’s definitely live selling, whatnot, Poshmark eBay Live, but there are always people too, that’s the interesting thing about these platforms is you can have an intent for a website.
For something online for a marketplace and the audience is going to, to a degree, make it their own. I still know sellers that sell on Instagram and they will do reels or they’ll show stuff. Almost like Whatnot is doing, but it’s on Instagram and they’ll say DM me for prices.
Or there are a lot of people that do live auctions regularly. A lot of t shirt sellers still do that. They will just go live. On the site and sell stuff, DM me for price, DM me for price, PayPal me, et cetera. I know some sneaker sellers that were selling on Facebook way back and they would just stand there, do a Facebook Live and say, all right, what are you interested in? Let us know.
And then Whatnot came along obviously Poshmark Lives. And then eBay Live, in my opinion, eBay’s lagged a little bit in the live arena. I do think that’s still going to be big and keep developing. But one of the things I see across the board is the marketplaces are missing out because a lot of them don’t really engage with the seller community.
And a lot of them obviously don’t have sellers on their teams. How important do you think something like that is, Bailey?
Bailey: No. Yeah. I think always having Sellers on your team is going to be a big thing because we just understand the mind of a seller when you have a seller on your team and everything.
And I think as you were saying, there’s so many different ways to which you can do it. An easy one obviously is just having like your stores linked in, your social media links area, whether it be through Linktree or I know Instagram has it where you can have multiple links.
So whether it’s just like your store like that but similar to what you were saying, like for me, I’m a mom and I love. Buying like thrifted clothes for my kids. I really love the old like 90s style. And everything like that. So I follow a lot of like baby clothes, like resellers and stuff on Instagram and a lot of them actually utilize Instagram for their shopping.
Where they just post the photo of the piece. And sometimes they’ll even have it in just the caption where it’ll be like the buy it now price or the starting bid. And then you can bid it out in the cat or in the comments. And I think they have the one that I. And thinking about personally, she does it where it’s 5 intervals for if you’re going to bid on it and stuff like that.
So there’s so many different ways on which you can do it. And I know like you were saying with lives too, lives are something that have definitely been pushed out. Even more so now because It makes people stay on whatever app that you’re on. So when you’re doing a live, you’re sitting on there much longer than maybe just doing a post really quick and then exiting out, like you’re having to sit on it.
So there’s different ways in which you can do it. And again, like you can definitely Trial and error it too, and just see what you like, what your community is engaging with the most, and go from there.
Doug: Even like what Bailey and I are doing today, this is not for everybody. Some people can’t stand going live. People don’t like to be on camera. There are different ways to do it. You can do it like this, where you’re talking to the camera. It’s a challenge to do a show or something live or even to a degree recorded by yourself. It’s easier to bounce off of somebody else.
But you’ll see a lot of people that do faceless video. They do maybe do something where they just show their hands or the product. Some people do voiceless video. I know that there are some tools, more and more tools coming out that will allow you to or help you do some of these things without doing it live where it’s oh, live and they’re even tools coming out and it’s getting better and it’s going to get crazy.
But AI tools where you can generate right now It’s fairly easy to do a video with a generated AI avatar person that they’ve filmed and then they can make them. And there are supposedly tools out there, I haven’t tried them yet, where you can emulate yourself. But that’s the way it’s going. But I do want to jump in.
It’s a challenge to make content. It takes time. Some people don’t have the time. That’s where you have to decide what you want to do. So on the other hand, though, there are ways to maximize the content you’re putting out. And that’s when we get into like, when we talk about content repurposing.
There are social media gurus that tell you ideally, platforms like different kinds of content. Ideally, you should, to a degree, tailor the content to the platforms. There are others, other people who have a perspective where you do the same stuff everywhere and maybe just stagger it out, do it different times.
And then, like the whole approach that we have, that I have is content repurposing. So you take what’s referred to as a pillar piece of content, and basically you repurpose it for all kinds of different things. And it’s a big. So maybe it’s a long form video that you pull audio from for a podcast video for YouTube, shorter videos for clips, and then maybe a transcript for social clips and maybe for a blog post, something like that.
But it depends on you and the time you have. The type of stuff you want to do and obviously maximizing your effort. And there’s all kinds of tools out there that can help you share things differently or, share things out. But so what is your perspective, Bailey, on whether or not you should post the same content?
Bailey: I definitely feel like I agree a lot with what you’re saying. That’s pretty much what I do on a day to day basis here with List Perfectly is a lot of repurposing content, especially because we do have a smaller team. And again, consistency is probably the most important thing that you can do is just continue to be consistent and push out content.
And so repurposing content is really great. Yeah. You can definitely do it a few different ways, whether it is you just repurpose it all at once across different platforms, because you might not have the same people following you across all platforms, so the type of people who follow you on Instagram or on YouTube may not follow you on TikTok.
So you’re still getting that, that same piece of content out to multiple different eyes, because you have different audiences on there. Or, something, let’s say for example, you’re filming a, let’s say like a haul video of, What you just sourced or whatever maybe if you’re using TikTok, you film it in more of a video style, but maybe you want to post it on your Instagram feed.
So maybe you just want to just take a snap like a photo of just, it all laid out right there and it’s still similar content and you still probably had it all in the same place because you just filmed like a haul or something, but also it’s too. Different pieces of content. One is a photo, one is short form or long form video content.
Doug: Great answer. Thank you for your perspective. That’s going to segue us into the next, I think I’m going to call this section tips from Bailey.
I do want to get from some tips from you. So obviously, like I said, I’m a point-and-click guy. I do have a tripod that I put in certain spots. I do have lights, so I’m going to turn my light on in honor of Bailey for this section. But see how much more I’m illuminated, ladies and gentlemen? So what are some basic tips for let’s say good photos for social media? Do you have any lighting recommendations, angles? Do you need that stuff?
Do you think about that stuff? You’re really good. That’s why you’re our go to for, videos and stuff like that. You’re really good at that stuff, but maybe run us through a video or a carousel photo shoot you’ve done.
Bailey: Yeah. I definitely think lighting plays a huge a huge part in it. You definitely don’t need like studio lights or ring light. Like I’m in front of a window right now. And normally, if I’m filming content, I wouldn’t want the window behind me. I would want it in front of me so that I’m getting that light because if it’s behind me, I’m going to have more of a washed out, almost more of a grainy look to it.
People want to see quality content and everything is visual for the most part on social media. So visual, visuals are key. So having good lighting is going to play into that. But it doesn’t have to be expensive. Like I said window will do just fine. Just that for you.
It gets dark a little bit earlier now, so it’s not always easiest, but just five times during the day where you know that, you can have time to film, I think is a big one. What else?
Let’s see. I have, so similar to Doug, I have this on the back of my phone. This is called an OctoBuddy. They have some other ones. This is just like a little suction cup, so I can literally My phone on to a mirror or a window and it treats it like a tripod as well. You can even do it onto a car. I know some people who have the magnetic cases can also stick their phone onto their car too. So that’s another option.
This is like $10. If you don’t want to spend, $ 40 or whatever on a tripod, these are a great way to start. And it just is, It’s like a little sticker on the back of your phone. And it doesn’t bother me when I’m holding my phone or anything like that. I’m on my phone all day long too. So it doesn’t bother me having it on the back of my phone.
But there’s so many different things like that where it helps just get different angles and things too. I think I, I don’t necessarily think that your space has to be clean and like perfect. I think there was a comment about. I not being able to I can’t do behind the scenes due to the mess my office, garage, second and third bedrooms are that is relatable to people.
That is relatable to people. You don’t have to have everything. If it’s like dirty, okay, but it doesn’t have to be so curated and so just like fancy and everything too, especially as resellers, like we’re, grabbing things from bins, grabbing things from our inventory and stuff.
Like it doesn’t have to be perfect. And I think that’s a big thing is yes, lighting, I think is key, but I don’t think that everything else needs to be like absolutely perfect all the time.
Doug: I look around, I can see I’ve got hangers on the door, that’s where I will photograph. I’m experimenting now, trying different things taking pictures of clothing. And one thing I will say, though, is I do, used to have the rig lights that I would pull out and set up, and it used to be a big hassle. I’d lay out white butcher paper and photo items. And they never seemed lit enough for me.
And now I’ve noticed though, with List Perfectly, when I take a picture of something and remove the background, stuff looks great and it doesn’t need a ton of lighting, I’m going to have a little ring light, but then also obviously on the floor as always, there’s two sleeping dogs there and there’s stuff.
But yeah, you don’t have to worry about, like you said, your background too much. I went out in the garage the other day and took pictures of my bins for, Mastermind, so relatable second bedroom there. And then let’s talk about what tips do you have for writing a caption or hashtag tips or emojis?
Bailey: The nice thing is there’s different websites for like hashtags, even something like an like Instagram, you can just go to the search and do the hashtag the hashtag symbol and then start writing what you want to hashtag. And you will see right underneath it how many posts are in there.
Also just thinking about what your content is about, whether it’s a haul. Obviously doing like a hashtag haul on it. If you as a reseller, hashtag reseller, hashtag reselling life things that correlate to what the content is, but there is ways in which that you can research that.
That doesn’t take a lot of time either. A lot of them will have it right there in the social media platforms, like I just had met. Mention Instagram has it where you can see where the hashtags are and things like that. And similar to that with captions, I wouldn’t say I’m like the most perfect at writing captions or anything.
But I think, just talking about relating your content Right there in the caption to what is actually being shown on screen. But also having it be engaging whether that’s being like asking a question that people can comment and interact with in the comments whether that’s Call to Action if you’re doing a sale or something like, something about sale ends in 24 hours or something like that, where it’s it’s creating some sense of like urgency for people to maybe check it out.
Or this item sold in, under 24 hours or, things like that are exciting and create some sort of like urgency, but also going back to what are, what is your community going to engage with? What are they going to comment? And that’s why I think Things like questions are very interactive and help bring people into your comments, which also pushes your content out to people because the more you’re getting engagement on it, the more people are spending time on your post.
That’s going to It’s the algorithm to continue to push it out to more people, which will create more views and more views. You’re likely to get more followers.
Doug: Exactly. Exactly. And something you put, you touched on there just real quick. I want to make sure we make the point. So let’s say you decide on Instagram. So social media in a lot of ways is like in a lot of ways is like selling. But for instance, selling on eBay, they want you to list regularly. Instagram wants you to post regularly. eBay wants you to engage with your buyers, answer messages, engage with your customers. Instagram, that little algorithm, which is basically the formula that takes different things.
And if they like you and like your stuff, they’ll show you to more people, vice versa. So they like you to comment. So comment regularly on other stuff, go out there post regularly, comment regularly, engage regularly. Maybe do some engagement in DMs, things like that. And but frequency is important in social posting.
And then one thing that’s interesting, and this is a spot I’ve always been a little bit weak in, I think, cause I’ll be like, check it out or hope to see you there. So what tips do you have? They work, but what tips do you have on calls to action in posts?
Bailey: Yeah, I think, I think they’re good to have. I think you got to play around with them and just see how well they do. Or just the wording of things. You don’t want to, Be too salesy with people, but also at the same time, you want to get people to do the action, like the call to action is really what it is. And creating a sense of urgency is a big thing, but also not being too salesy because people just don’t like that.
Being pushed into, yeah, there it is buying something or, things like that. But I think like I said, if you’re, if if you’re doing a sale, like maybe having something about, sale ends in 24 hours that’s not necessarily a shop now, but it’s also creating that urgency of Ooh, if I want to go and look at it, like I want to do during the sale time.
Doug: Sense of urgency works. And definitely, I really like what you said is with a call to action what is it you want them to do? Do you want them to watch something? Do you want them to listen to something like a podcast? Do you want them to check out your holiday sale?
Do you want them to check out your listings? And then one big one quick thing. Tommy posted something about hashtags. One good thing about hashtags, I think, too, that you want to think about, I always like having your own hashtags. I have a two or three that I use for myself for my stuff, but I think about hashtags related to what you sell or what you’re doing.
So let’s say you sell comic books, and you’re selling a Spider-Man comic book. You want to use, To a degree, a Spider-Man hashtag to get exposure to yourself. Think about that, but everybody, thanks so much for tuning in. This has been great. This has been fun. I appreciate it. Again, this is one of my favorite topics.
And Bailey is an expert. She’s our internal expert. She’s our social media coordinator. She does a lot of the social media posting and planning for us. And follow her across the board. You can always follow me. I’m pretty much everywhere as Snoop Dougie.
And thanks so much Bailey for doing this. I really appreciate it. And I do really appreciate and value your perspective. You’ve always got great insights and great knowledge is, upcoming trends in social media. I know we chat back and forth. I’ll be like. Hey, Bailey, have you heard of this weird thing I’m looking at? Hey, Bailey, look at this AI avatar person I created. And then she counters with, let’s do a green screen. But thank you. I appreciate it. And then real quick, everybody just remember focus on if you decide to do this experiment, have fun, be patient, try different things. Remember to post and engage consistently.
Comments, Likes, DMs Posts, Posting Stuff. And then, whatever you do decide to focus on, maybe just focus on a couple, maybe focus on Instagram. Maybe TikTok’s not for you, experiment, try it, things out, but be patient, have fun. You can look into promotions too, Facebook ads, Google ads, things like that.
We didn’t, we might have to do a part two because there’s some stuff we didn’t get to, but I love a link option is, it’s a special thing. Free site called Linktree. And there are some others, but Linktree is what I use. And basically what you can do with that is you get a free page to share all your links.
You’ll see a lot of people will put that in like their Instagram bio and they’ll say, Hey, check the link for all my links in my Instagram bio I’m definitely an advocate of having your own website that’s branded where you can have, that can be your hub for everything. If you are relying on like a Facebook page, there are certain.
Certain limitations, but if you’ve got your own website, you can do whatever you want. I am still a big fan of having a blog. I think it’s great for SEO traffic and then directing traffic to other stuff. And then yeah, think about ads. There’s those options and Pinterest is a great underutilized resource for sellers.
It’s free. But what’s interesting about Pinterest is, Unlike Instagram, you can put a link to something, you can share a listing, and put a link to it on Pinterest, and Pinterest has a very high click through rate, and the audience is mostly active users. Women on social media who are also very active shoppers and purchasers.
Bailey: Yeah, Pinterest is another like search engine. So it’s similar to Google, but obviously has a more visual eye to it. So yeah, that’s a whole nother area to look into and dabble with.
Doug: There you go. And I am also on Pinterest as Snoop Dougie. So I gave my plugs. Bailey, before we go, give your plugs if you want people to come find you and follow you.
Bailey: Oh, I don’t even know what my name is. Sorry, my stuff is not all the same names. On Instagram, it’s BAI. gutierrez, and on TikTok, I think I’m bai. diaries over there, just, it’s like a visual diary, so that’s how I have it over there,
Doug: And when she says bae, it’s B A I.
Bailey: Yes, yep.
Doug: Cool. Alright thanks everybody, we appreciate it. Thanks for watching, thanks for listening. Are you going to come back, Bailey? Should we do a part two?
Bailey: I definitely think we could do a part two. There’s so much to talk about with social media. We didn’t even get to it all. So yeah, I will be happy to come back.
Outro
Trish: Thank you for joining us on The Seller Community Podcast from List Perfectly. You can find us at the Seller Community Podcast.com https://thesellercommunitypodcast.com.
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