10 Ninja FB/ Meta & IG Account Tactics Every Resale Business Needs To Know & Do

1. Take control of your accounts.

Make sure you as the owner of the business are the owner of your account and confirm your primary email associated with your account.  

If you submit for an account review you should receive an email confirmation and often times if you don’t it’s because you set your account up with a different email, a staff member set it up, or someone you hired.  

We have worked with stores to recover old FB pages and get manual reviews on IG where we have had to track down people who worked for them a long time ago.  

Make sure that you know what email your IG and FB accounts are linked with, you know all the passwords and you are the primary on your SM accounts.  

Don’t assume that you are. Check it out now.  

2. What to do when your IG Account or FB Ads or FB account has been temporarily shut down.

Submit for a manual review.

Submit color copies of your;

• Driver’s License
• Articles of Incorporation
• State Resale License
• Business License/Official Tax ID
• Copies of your contract with your 3rd Party Authentication. If you use authentication software on an as-needed basis, provide the name of the third-party authentication software that you use.
• Write a letter that states you are an authentic resale business just like The Real Real. You only sell authentic items and you are part of an organization that fights back against the sale of fakes. You are a resale store in good standing just like The Real Real, consigners or suppliers bring you their personally owned items and you resell them in your store. You are not affiliated with the brands you sell, you are a Reseller for your Consignors or Suppliers if you’re a buy outright model.

You are not infringing on any trademarks or patents you are totally a legitimate resale store. All ads and graphics on your FB or IG feeds are your own copyrighted graphics that you created and any images of merchandise you have permission to use from the owner of that item who has consigned it with you, however, you will go through your account to remove any images with any items for sale.

What you’re doing is reinforcing that you’re a legitimate business, you’re a real person. It’s important to use color-coded images of your paperwork as it provides an added layer of legitimacy.

Be personable. Mention that you’re a small business, you’ve been in business for XX number of years, you’re family-owned owned and your business is growing. You depend upon FB Ads to continue to grow your business or you depend upon IG or Meta feed to continue to communicate with your customers.

3. When your account comes back up online – go through your IG feed and archive old images and posts with brand hashtags and mentions.

Also, archive posts that don’t have your trademark on them. Some luxury accounts are putting the brands in their IG bio and Meta/ FB bios that’s one of those gray areas. I personally wouldn’t do it. Just why risk it? AI is getting more and more sophisticated now, just don’t do it.

4. Use only stock photography in your Ads and don’t mention any brands.

If you’re including any items from your store – make them in the background, not the foreground. Remember AI now is getting more sophisticated. By now you should know not to use hashtags or mentions, but even now… if you’re featuring items of luxury – be sure they are part of an overall image, in other words – don’t use the same single item image that you use for your website. Don’t show any item on a plain white background luxury or not luxury. Just don’t do it.

5. Know that you’re in one of those gray area industries.

You just have to know that. You’re an entrepreneur, you’re one of those push-the-envelopes kinds of people. I get it. I totally am. This is an area where you just don’t want to push the envelope. You’re dealing with pre-programmed bots rarely humans, we know that FB isn’t small business friendly they are even less resale friendly.

6. Use more colored backgrounds in your ads and scant verbiage.

Canva has a lot of great ad templates and templates for retail stores. Use those. Change the colors for your branding.

7. Every single graphic needs to have your copyright on it with a message “This is an original piece of artwork.”

You can add that to the bottom in like a light gray color and it can be in a size 7 -9 font. Make sure that every single person who posts on SM puts this on. Don’t assume oh this is an off-brand or this one is fine… if you get in the habit of having your staff put it on all graphics you will be good.  

8. Use more blanket words in your ads and graphics.

Words like luxury brands, your favorite C word which I love to use to describe Coach and Chanel and Celine… it totally grabs peoples’ attention, and the same with your favorite F Word for Fendi.  

9.Use your SM to drive traffic to your website and have a Register to win every month pick a new winner.

We have found that Register to win a $50 – $100 gift card each month is a good hook. You can also do a sought-after item like a new Lily Pulitzer coffee mug, travel wine tote, or Lululemon NWT gym bag, or a Kate Spade handbag. Things that are attractive and click-worthy. Would you sign up to win that item?  

10. Audit your SM accounts every month or bi-weekly to start with.  

Double-check that your team is putting in the copyright and the “This is an original piece of artwork,” phrase. Check that all graphics are appropriate and archive or delete any that you find questionable. This is also a good time to see what content is getting good results and instruct your team to post more of that content.  

Interested in the shorter video version? Click here.

For the complete training video, tap here. Note: To access, you must join the Consignment Marketing FB Group.