Thoughts on Fanchimp for Automated, Targeted Facebook Marketing

I'm always on the lookout for new ways to promote my products online. The other day I discovered a new venue for online sales (more on that next time). I read about the new place on the Fanchimp blog, which prompted me to explore the Fanchimp website to learn what the service is all about.

Essentially, Fanchimp connects a storefront (like Etsy) with social media (like Facebook). You choose the products you wish to promote, Fanchimp suggests related news stories, and those two types of content are published to your Facebook page at optimum times.

Fanchimp has a disclaimer on its page that this will not be very successful if you don't have a lot of fans. So it's important to have an audience to blast content to before trying.

This could be why my experiment fails. Marion's Mittens only has 45 likes on its Facebook page. (Care to help us out? If you like mittens and sales, visit our page and click Like!)

Here are some first impressions.

Likes:

1. Fanchimp is smarter than me when it comes to knowing the best times to post content. Apparently it's mostly at night; I'm an early bird.
2. Works with a number of platforms including Etsy and eBay.
3. They don't require a credit card to sign up a start a free trial. This is awesome!

Dislikes:

1. There weren't really any news stories that I thought were relevant to mittens or knitting. I might do better searching on my own.
2. Fanchimp wants to publish content more frequently than I'm comfortable with. Four posts a day? Maybe if you're a megabrand, but not a small grandma/granddaughter mitten shop.
3. At $9.99 a month Fanchimp would cost significantly more than my current marketing expenses. Again, better for a more established company with a (slightly) bigger budget.

Fanchimp offers a 30-day free trial. I made it through one day before turning the service off. The frequent posts (which you can dial back by manually canceling some) and irrelevant stories don't work for me. 

I can see where the service would be valuable for someone with a less niche product, like jewelry or fashion accessories. This is a brand I will keep an eye on and maybe test again in the future if my circumstances change!

Looking for more information about online marketing? Sign up for our mailing list! We email once or twice a month with tips, product alerts, sales, and more.