There’s something that almost every top seller on Teachers Pay Teachers has in common.
What is it?
Aside from their killer resources, they all have active social media accounts. Social media is an incredible tool, especially when your business is digital—à la your TpT store.
Social media can help build your brand, boost engagement, and ultimately convert followers into buyers.
It’s a resourceful tool for promoting and driving traffic back to your store. Navigating the world of social media can be daunting unless your a social media guru.
But these 9 tips will teach you the foundation of how to promote your teachers pay teachers store on social media.
Business Accounts
There are two major platforms you should be on: Facebook and Pinterest. Many other Teachers Pay Teachers sellers will also use Twitter, Instagram, or even Youtube.
Our experts recommend that you focus on Facebook and Pinterest.
In fact, Pinterest is such a huge topic, we wrote up platform specific tips for how to use Pinterest for your TpT store here.
Regardless of which platforms you choose to use to promote your TpT store, the first step to successfully using social media is to sign up for business accounts on each platform.
Business accounts allow you to track your data and use paid ads if you so choose. This will be invaluable to you because your tracked data will help you optimize your posts for optimal reach and engagement.
Aside from tracking, a business account is professional and keeps your TpT store separate from your personal pages.
Create a Social Media Calendar
A social media calendar will help you plan to post consistently, and consistency is a key strategy of successful social media promotion.
It’s hard to build engagement and traffic to your social media pages when they aren’t active.
Your calendar is a weekly or monthly plan of what you’ll post each day. This can be a mixture of different content. Some days can be dedicated to specific posts like “Teacher Tip Tuesdays” where you post a help tip each Tuesday.
Or, you can mix it up and vary the types of content you post each week.
You should be posting every day, so planning out a schedule will help you stay on track so you aren’t shooting in the dark trying to figure out what to post on the day of.
A social media calendar also allows you to plan out when to post. Each platform has times of the day when your target will be most active or engaged.
Posting during these times can help boost your reach.
Post Multiple Times a Day
In terms of how often to post, you should be posting multiple times a day. This goes hand in hand with your schedule and having an active social media presence.
People want to be following users who are constantly pumping out content.
On Facebook, and Twitter if you use it, aim to post at least 1-2 times each day.
Pinterest is more of a numbers-heavy platform since it’s mostly liking and repinning content. Pin, repin, and like between 10-30 pins each day.
This is where your schedule will come in handy. You can create a plan to anticipate your posts and content.
Automate Posts
Posting on Facebook multiple times a day and repinning content can be time-consuming. And, as an educator, your days are probably already stretched thin as it is.
Some days are more chaotic than others, so posting every day manually isn’t realistic for everyone.
That’s why using a social media post scheduler like Hootsuite or Board Booster will be your best friend. It’s an easy way to pre-schedule posts so that they’re automatically uploaded when specified.
Whenever you have 2 or 3 hours of free time, use your social media calendar and go ahead and schedule your posts for the following week or month.
Then, your content will be automatically posted so you never miss a post even on your busiest days.
Strike a Balance (Between Biz and Personal)
What should you be posting? The content you share should strike a balance between business and personal.
As a TpT seller, people want to know that you’re a real person, so mixing in personal posts are key to building your brand.
Vary the content you post. You should be posting your TpT resources, but you should also be posting personal content and sharing content that is helpful or interesting that is not yours.
This helps audiences begin to trust your brand.
Your content should be interesting and add value. Post classroom tips, share blog posts (either your own or someone else’s), stories from other teachers, or relatable memes on Facebook. Repin helpful hacks and other TpT sellers’ resources among your own.
The goal is to convert customers so you do need to push your resources. When you do post your own resources or products, don’t solely post your product cover photos. Post shots of your products in action or being used in your classroom. Give people a glimpse at what’s inside your resources.
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By balancing your content, you can promote your Teachers Pay Teachers resources effectively without being pushy and over-promotional.
Learn more about the best posts for each platform in our TpT guide.
Hashtags and Keywords
When posting on Instagram and Pinterest, the importance of using appropriate hashtags and keywords cannot be understated.
This is how your target audience will find your content, so using keywords and hashtags strategically is important.
You’ll have trouble converting followers into paying customers if your content isn’t even showing to the right customer demographic, or if those who see your content don’t find it relevant.
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Do some keyword research with KW Finder or another keyword tool, or think about what people would search for if they were trying to find your resource or content. Be really specific with your keywords and make sure they’re relevant to each individual pin.
Instagram lets you use up to 20 hashtags per post, so don’t be shy. Use up that space with targeted hashtags that will attract your target audience. Learn more about Instagram hashtags here.
On Pinterest, use keywords in your post title and the description. This will help your content show up where it matters.
Engage
It’s called social media for a reason. It isn’t enough just to post. You need to engage with your followers.
Follow other users. Comment on their posts. Try to find ways to make your content engaging.
When you’re posting a TpT resource, a great and easy way to do this is to offer a giveaway or promo.
Get tips from top TpT sellers on how to engage effectively with our TpT guide.
Encourage sharing and engagement in exchange for something small like a discount or prize.
Offer a chance to win a free download of one of your popular resources whenever someone shares your post and uses a particular hashtag.
Host a contest in which you invite teachers who follow you to share their funniest teacher moment. This is a fun way to drum up a conversation and participation on your social media pages.
Engagement is what brings people back to your page over and over again.
Use Paid Traffic
The idea of using social media to promote your TpT store is to convert followers into paying customers.
Super salesy social media can turn off lots of people because it just isn’t the right medium for that.
Whereas your social media pages should be balanced and not overly promotional, paid traffic ads is the perfect choice if you want to actually advertise your resources/store.
Paid traffic means you pay for a promoted advertisement. You can choose the audience you want to target it to in hopes that it will generate sales.
This isn’t strictly necessary, but if you’re looking to boost traffic it could be something beneficial to try. The experts we interviewed for our ultimate Teachers Pay Teachers guide mention that they’ve seen boosts from Pinterest in particular.
Track Analytics
This is one of the main reasons you need a business account. Tracking your analytics from each platform will help you optimize your content for better results.
Your data will show you what content people respond best to, and which posts have the highest engagement and click through rates.
This can help you curate more effective posts in the future. It can also emphasize what isn’t working as well so you do more of the former and less of the latter.
Our TpT guide has tons of information on which platforms and types of posts drive the most traffic back to TpT. Get it here.
By integrating your social media with your Teachers Pay Teachers analytics, you’ll also be able to see if a particular platform is driving a lot of traffic back to your store.
Your data is your gold mine of information. It can give you invaluable insight that you can then turn around and use to encourage the results you want to see.
Social media can be an amazing resource for promoting your TpT store, building your brand, and growing engagement.
Hopefully now you have the groundwork to start using social media to drive traffic and generate sales.
Want TpT seller certified tips and tricks for selling on TpT? Check out our Teachers Pay Teachers guide and find out what our TpT sellers swear by.
