If you sell on Facebook this is one of the most important posts you will read this month.

Facebook just updated their seller Terms last week and as part of the updated agreement, Facebook is (supposedly) offering transparency in Product Ranking. Let me point out that I have little-to-no trust in social media companies since our bogus YouTube termination in 2019 that resulted in a ton of money spent on a lawyer and nothing but form-letter replies from YouTube. It was devastating, frustrating and exceptionally costly for our company who was 100% innocent. You can learn all about the YouTube Chaos here. Anyways, ever since this occurred I came to realize that sellers have 0 control over their own social media accounts and basically no way to seek help from these juggernaut companies. Looking back; it makes sense I guess because the account is FREEEEEEEE and now that I am older and wiser I have come to conclude that everything FREEEEEEE is owned by someone else; it’s not truly FREE because someone, somewhere, still pays for it…. So technically they own it. But my YouTube nightmare isn’t part of this blog post; I just want you to understand that just because a social media giant SAYS something doesn’t mean it’s true and it doesn’t mean they even DO what they say. With that being said, here’s how FB *claims* they rank products:

In no particular order:

SEARCH ACCURACY - This is a no-brainer. If someone is looking to buy a Calvin Klein Womens Sweater, Facebook wants to make sure the results for their search match what they searched for. Duh. Tip: MAKE SURE YOU FILL OUT ALL OF THE ITEMS DETAILS!! If you don’t include info like size, color, brand, etc, you are going to miss out on ranking for Search

ENGAGEMENT - This one is super, mega important, especially if you are a new seller. Engagement means how many people interact with the listing. FB wants to refer people to listings that others have found interesting. With this in mind, if you are a new seller with 15 total listings and no following chances are you’re not going to get many views from Search until you build up your viewership / following / listing quantity. I can absolutely, positively assure you that the more listings you have the more views you will get. I have often compared it to fishing: if you have a single fishing pole you have a single worm in the water. You might catch something but you absolutely will not catch as many fish as the guy next to you with 50 poles and a crab pot in the water. We know for sure that the professional-fisher-dude is eating good tonight.

LISTING QUALITY - Facebook wants to make sure their game is stepping up. They don’t want to be a garage sale version of eBay (<---would that be Bonanza? Maybe).  FB is now looking for overall Quality. This means good photos, reasonable pricing (nobody wants to buy a pack of toothpicks for $450 unless they’re made of gold), good Descriptions, etc. So, if you want to be ranked on FB you will want to eliminate the shirt-on-the-floor-with-foot-in-the-corner-of-the-photo pics. Write a quality description that upsells the item.  (Learn more about using Description Buzz Words, Listing Description Features vs Benefits and How to Structure Your Listing for Maximum Sales)

SELLER QUALITY - Good sellers with happy buyers will have listings ranked higher than sellers with no feedback or overall decent-but-not-good feedback.

END-TO-END PRICE - This is interesting. Facebook is now looking at the items price you listed in addition to the ending price the buyer has to pay to get the item. For example, if you list a tank top for $11, but shipping and other fees come to $30 total, FB would consider this to be a sub-par listing and it would mean you ultimately will not have your listings ranked well.  (Also Read: Dangers of UNDER PRICING Online Listings)

OTHER STUFF

The four main bullet points mentioned above are the most important (engagement, seller quality, listing quality and end price) but there are a few more things that are worth mentioning:

DEMOGRAPHICS - Demographics are basically WHO your target audience is. Here at BigBrandWholesale.com our customer base is 60%+ women, ages 22 - 45 who live inside the USA. Your demographics will likely be different than ours. Regardless, Facebook wants to show your listings to people who fit your demographics.

GEOGRAPHICS - Where the person is located. If your product is heavy winter parka coats that are designed for ice fishing it likely wouldn’t make sense to heavily promote these coats to citizens of Hawaii or Arizona.

IN CLOSING

If you want to sell the most on Facebook, make sure your listings are thorough and well-made. Take nice photos from multiple angles. Deal with customers quickly and provide them with great service. List as much as possible, but based on the FB algorithm, it seems you are better off sticking to a specific niche (womens clothing, mens clothing, kids stuff, home goods, etc). 

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