How to Market New Dog Products on Social Media

If you’ve got a competitive new dog product for sale in your pet store, you’ve got to get the word out if you want it to sell.

There are a few ways you can spread the news. For example, you can advertise in local print publications or online, you can send out an email to all your subscribers, and you can put up a banner on your website. But these days, the easiest and most cost-effective way to get attention is to market new dog products on social media.

Not only is social media free to use, it’s highly effective. You have your choice of platforms, but since you’re selling to consumers, your best choices are Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, as these are the most popular platforms and the ones consumers use the most.

But how should you post? Here are some tips:

Images Increase Engagement

It’s a fact: Posts that contain images get more engagement than those that don’t. According to eMarketer, 87% of the most-shared posts on social media were images posts. If you’re on Instagram, posting quality images of your products should be a top priority because Instagram is all about images. Nonetheless, images are effective on all the platforms.

If you have a new product, snap a photo of it in your store and post it to social media with some compelling messaging. If possible, include images of dogs or people enjoying the product. People tend to respond better to original images and designs than stock photography or generic images of a product:

As a pet store, you have a unique opportunity to build your brand and encourage local business by using photos from your store. You can even create a series of image posts for your new product, with images featuring the product itself as well as the product in your store.

Encourage People to Participate

Getting shares and likes are great for obtaining new followers, but the goal is always to get people into your store or on your website buying your products. When you market a new dog product on social media, include call-to-action messaging so your followers know what to do next.

Do you want them to click a link to reserve the product in-store? Maybe you want them to download a coupon. Don’t be afraid to state clearly what action you want them to take:

Your message could be as simple as, “Come into our store this Saturday to get a free sample” or “Learn more about our great prices.”

Naturally, you can also encourage your followers to share, like, and comment. If your store just started stocking a new leash and harness, you can encourage your followers to share pictures of their favorite places to walk their dog. Don’t hesitate to get creative!

Use Hashtags

Hashtags originated on Twitter, but they can now be used on practically every social media platform, even Facebook and LinkedIn. Users can search hashtags to bring up a list of relevant posts, so using them can get posts for you new product in front of more eyeballs.

The trick is finding the right hashtags to use. It’s tempting to go after the most popular ones (for example, #dogs or #dogsofinstagram), but you also risk your posts being buried by the thousands of other posts using those same hashtags. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use them -- just use them sparingly:

When selecting hashtags, make sure they’re relevant to your post. If you’re posting about a new dog product at your store, people will be put off if you add #WorldCup2018 to it. Even if that hashtag is trending, the people searching for it probably aren’t interested in your new odor free bully sticks (at least not at that moment).

Create Your Own Content

According to Smart Insights, nearly 80% of businesses share mostly original content on social media and only a handful of third-party content. Sharing original content can drive higher engagement and get more visitors to your website and into your store.

If you’ve got a new dog product, it’s important to build your own content around it and share it to social media. If you have a product page on your website, for example, this might be a good page to link to in your posts.

You can also write blog posts featuring your new product, record videos of your staff discussing the new product, or create a product comparison chart to show why your new product is superior and why people should buy it from you.

However you market your new dog products on social media, get creative! You know who your customers are, what they like, and what they respond to. Use that information to get people pumped about new products that show up in your store.