Tutorial | Monetize your Social Media Pages

Having a Facebook Fan Page is one of the easiest ways to add value to a site you intend to sell. If you don’t yet have a Facebook Fan Page, read our tutorial here!

Fans alone will certainly mean traffic, but this wont necessarily translate to $s, until you come to sell the site. Sure, having hundreds of fans is a great asset. It helps you build brand loyalty, communicate with your customers, and reach a large market base with just a few clicks. But how can you directly make money from those fans?

The answer is simple – by implementing a system like Payvment to sell products directly on your Facebook page!

Payvment is an ecommerce solution, allowing you to create an online store directly on Facebook. And best of all, it’s completely free!

Step One: Install Payvment

You first want to make sure that you’re logged in to Facebook using the account that manages your Facebook Fan page. Then click here to visit Payvment’s application page.

Now, click “Install on Facebook”, near the top of the page…

You’ll be asked to allow the application access to your Facebook account. This is standard for all applications, and protects you from unwanted applications accessing your profile. Click “Allow” to continue.

Step Two: Setup Pavyment

Now you need to enter some basic information into Payvment. The first step is to get your Secret Payvment Key. Your screen right now should look like this:

Underneath the “Payvment Secret Key” box, you’ll see a link that will allow you to get your key (near the top arrow in the image above.) Click that link, and it will take you to a login page. Below the username and password box, you’ll see “Need an Account? Get one here”. Click that link, and follow the steps to setup your Payvment account.

You’ll be asked to verify your email address. Payvment will automatically send an email to the address you used during registration, and it will contain a link to verify your account. Click on that link. It will take you back to the login page, where you can log in with your email address and new password.

In the top right corner of the page, you will now see your Pavyment Secret Key.

Using your cursor, select the secret key. Right click, and select “copy”. Now, go back to your Payvment settings page, and click inside the box that says “Payvment Secret Key”. Paste your key in the box.

Enter in your other information, including your PayPal username/email address, the name of your store, and the currency your store will accept. Then, click on “Save” at the bottom.

Step Three: Attach your Facebook Page

You now want to link your Facebook Page to your Storefront. After clicking “Save”, you will have come to a screen like this:

Click on “Attach your Storefront to a Facebook Page” (near the arrow in the image above.) Select your Page from the drop-down list, and click “Add Payvment e-Commerce Storefront”. You’ll be taken to your Facebook Page.

You want to add the “Shop Now” tab to your page, by clicking the “+” sign on the far right, and selecting “Shop Now” like this:

The next screen will have a “Coming Soon” message, and a message box near the bottom. There will be a button that says “Initialize” inside that message box (don’t worry, only you can see that message – all of your fans will only see the “Coming Soon” alert!)

Click the “Initialize” button, and your store will be linked to your page.

Step Four: Turn On Your Store, and Finish Setup

Click “Go to Store Settings” (which has now replaced the “Initialize” button). You’ll see a screen that will allow you to turn on your storefront, just like the image below:

Click “Turn On Store”. Now, when you go to your Facebook Page (which you can do by clicking on “View your Facebook Pages” near the top of your Pavyment Control Panel), you’ll see the “Shop Now” tab. If you click on it, you will see your storefront!

You now want to go through the tabs of your storefront (Shipping, Tax, and Promotions) and fill out as many options as you can. This will set up your shipping rates, tax rates (if applicable) and, if you want to, allow you to setup a discount rate for Fans of your Facebook page.

Step Five: Add Products

We’ll go through the process of adding one product to your online store in this tutorial. The steps are the same to add each future product, so you can just follow them again when you’re ready to add more!

Click the “+ Go Back to Home” button at the top of your settings page, once you’ve completed your shipping, tax, and promotions settings.

Your storefront admin will tell you that you haven’t yet added any products. Click on the link to add your first product, like this:

In the future, you can click “Add New Product”, located above your products list.

You will need to create product categories before you can create any actual products, so let’s do that first. Click on the link to add new categories…

… and enter a category name. For our example, we’re creating a widget store, so our first category will be “XYZ Widgets”. Enter your category in the box, and click “Save”. You can now enter more categories for other products (it is best to do this now, if you have multiple categories) or we can begin adding products if this is your only product category.

Click “Add New Product” at the top (next to the now-highlighted “Store Categories” tab). There will be a long list of details to enter, so let’s go through them here.

Item name : This is, obviously, the name of the item you’re selling. It will be displayed to your customers, so do not use tracking numbers or item numbers here. You also do not want to insert any promotional text (such as “Widget 1 – FREE SHIPPING!”) into this box – your item could be removed if you do.
Item ID : This is where you would insert tracking numbers or item numbers. This is a required field, so if you don’t use item numbers you can just enter the name of your product. Do not include any spaces here, and make sure that each Item ID is unique!
Store Category : Here you will choose a category for this item, from the categories we created above.
Price : This is an important field! You want to enter the price of your item here. Don’t include any currency symbols or other information, you want to enter only dollars and cents – like this : 19.99
Shipping Method : You want to choose the shipping method that applies to this product. If you’ve setup your shipping preferences previously, the “Default” setting should work for you just fine.
Weight : You need to enter the weight of this item for shipping purposes. Only enter numbers in here! For example, if our Whistling Widget weighed 3 lbs, we would enter “3″ in the “weight” field.
Shipping Charge Fall Back : This is what you will charge for shipping if, by chance, the automatic calculation doesn’t work. Again only enter numbers (such as 1.50) in this box.
Enable Additional Qty : If you want your customers to be able to purchase more than one of this item, select this check box. It will allow them to select multiples of your item in the checkout.
Item Description : This should, obviously, be a description of your item. Don’t include shipping rates or terms, or any other store information here – just information about this specific item.
Option Sets : There are four drop-down boxes on the page called “Option Set 1-4″. If your widget comes with options, such as a different color or size, you’ll need to set up the available options. Click on the link below the “Option Set 4″ box to setup your options. You’ll need to setup a name for your reference, a display name, and at least two options for each drop down or text box that you’d like to make available.
Featured Item : If you want to feature this item on your home page, select “Yes” – otherwise, leave this set to “no”.
Enable Sales Tax : If you must charge sales tax on your items, and you have already setup your Tax settings, check this box. It will automatically calculate and apply the proper sales tax.
Start Sales : Most of the time, you will want to leave this set as “Yes, add this to my storefront now.” If you’re not ready to begin selling the item just yet, you can select “No, I’ll do it later.”

Once all of those settings have been completed, click “Save & Continue” (and pat yourself on the back, that was hard work!)

Now you’ll be able to upload an image for your product.

Either browse for the image on your computer, and click “Save & Continue” – or click on “Skip Image Upload” if you don’t have an image available for this item.