Top Three Benefits & Features of a Facebook Catalog

As the years go by, the digital age of humanity has become more and more ingrained into our lives. This has affected us as a society in many impactful ways. However, no other aspect of human society has been impacted harder than business and industry. Almost every retail or sales-focused business needs to be online in 2022 in order to succeed. Social media platforms such as Facebook have been major contributors to online commerce and marketing since they took the world by storm in the 2000s. In 2022, Facebook has become one of the primary platforms for businesses to conduct their online presence. If a business does not have their own website, they are most likely present on Facebook. One groundbreaking feature that Facebook introduced for businesses looking to sell or promote their products online is the Facebook Catalog. In this article, we will be reviewing some benefits and features of the Facebook Catalog that you can use to take advantage of Facebook’s powerful online presence as a OperateBeyond customer.

What is a Facebook Catalog?

The Facebook Catalog is a feature that allows businesses to organize their inventory and promote that inventory through Facebook’s digital marketing channels. It is essentially a tool that business owners can utilize to display their products through Facebook’s various features. The catalog itself does not display anything to customers. The catalog is essentially its own product feed that feeds directly onto Facebook’s ad platform, business pages, and Shop display. 

1. Automatically integrate your inventory onto the catalog
   OperateBeyond customers who are on the Digital Essentials package (or better) have access to our built-in Facebook Catalog Integration. While many small businesses are forced to manually add each product, one at a time, OperateBeyond customers are able to automatically integrate their inventory from their backend onto the Facebook Catalog. The catalog is set to update every hour, so every change you make on the OperateBeyond backend will be updated on the Facebook Catalog within the next hour. This saves dealerships tons of time, as you will never have to manually update your products on Facebook. Integrating your backend inventory onto the Facebook Catalog opens up a lot of possibilities for how you can display your products using Facebook’s digital platform. 
2. Use the catalog to make dynamic ads
   One of the most useful features of the catalog is to create Dynamic Carousel Ads to be displayed over Facebook and its respective platforms. Instead of individually choosing each product to promote, you can take advantage of your integrated Facebook Catalog to promote all of your products, or even just specific products. These ads update along with your inventory as you make updates to it, so they are a great way to get your inventory out there with very little maintenance. Creating dynamic ads using the Facebook Catalog will not only help you display your products on Facebook, but it also directly shows those products to people who may have never known about your business otherwise.
   
   What if you want to promote a specific listing type instead of all listings? Facebook has a solution for that called Product Sets. A product set is a series of filters that in combination, narrow down your inventory to display specific listings. This allows far more freedom with how you promote your products on Facebook. Overall, the Catalog is a very powerful tool that can allow you to not only promote your inventory, but also organize your inventory and target accordingly. The best way to filter your products by type is to create a title filter that contains the keyword for which type you would like to promote.
   
3. Create a shop

What if you want a more interactive process for your digital storefront, as opposed to the one-sided nature of a dynamic advertisement? The Facebook Shop is your most likely answer. The Facebook Shop is a feature of Facebook Pages that allows you to display your products to anyone who visits your page, instead of only people who the dynamic ads are serving to. This will enhance the appearance of your Facebook Page, while also giving customers a chance to browse your inventory on their own without even having to leave Facebook. Disclaimer: If you would like to create a Facebook Shop, your catalog must be a “Product Catalog”, and not a “Vehicle Catalog”. While the Facebook Shop requires a bit of setup to activate, it is undeniably beneficial to display your inventory to customers before they even visit your site. 

It’s important to note that starting on January 30th, 2023, Facebook Marketplace is eliminating the ability for dealerships to post their inventory. BUT that doesn’t mean you lose an opportunity to sell on Facebook! It just means we have to get creative by utilizing Facebook’s “Product Catalog” and a personal Facebook account to publish your listings with custom integration with OperateBeyond. To learn about installing FB Catalog with OperateBeyond, email us today at sales@trailercentral.com.