Instagram has become a social media juggernaut. It is no longer just for vacationers. It's now appealing to all kinds of influencers, advertisers, and brands. Instagram has become more than just a social media app that shares photos and videos — it’s evolved into an e-commerce platform. Suddenly, selling products on Instagram became ridiculously lucrative.
Considering that they have more than 1 billion monthly active users — 90% of which follow at least one business account — it’s easy to see why. Both of these factors combined mean many businesses — big AND small — have the opportunity to show off their product to a massive audience.
While selling on Instagram might sound enticing, it’s easier said than done. Before your product is up on the platform, there are many things you need to take care of. And even more so to maintain your business’ presence.
Does it all sound daunting to you? Don’t worry; we got you covered! We’ve prepared this detailed, step-by-step guide on Instagram shopping to make your Instagram selling journey easy.
From setting up your account, all the way to creating engaging content to help maintain and increase your business’ presence, you’ll learn all about it from this article.
Without further ado, let’s dig in.
Instagram has become a hotbed for e-commerce transactions. With millions of active users scrolling through feeds on a daily basis, there’s a good chance you’ll catch your target audience hanging around, waiting to be sold to. With Instagram Shopping, there are no in-store queues to wait in, no shipping fees to pay, and no risks of human error. Gone are the days of waiting for a customer to come into a brick-and-mortar store.
Need more convincing? Let’s take a look at the numbers.
As you can see, not only can Instagram help businesses reach their audience easier, the audience themselves also actively look for new products. Furthermore, Instagram’s high conversion rate will only help the chances of up-and-coming companies to succeed even more.
The future of retail is online and now social platforms like Instagram can be a major part of that. With so many consumers on Instagram, there’s a good chance they’re learning about your brand, as well as learning about how to buy from you. It makes sense why brands are using Instagram to drive proven results for Instagram shopping.
For example, you can easily turn your Instagram account into a store in order to promote products to followers. All you need is your phone. With today's technology, it's simple to share your products with the masses. Add in all the shopping functionality that Instagram has, features like Reels, and direct messaging, it's no wonder that brands are flocking to this social media site for marketing purposes.
Business profiles on Instagram offer many free features to help you connect your brand with potential customers. Instagram Insights gives you an in-depth look at your followers and content, with information like:
And so much more, all so you can find out how to market your business better and create solid connections with your audience.
Shoppable Instagram posts are the cornerstone of every brand’s Instagram success story. You can bring your products directly into your feed with shoppable tags, thus increasing engagement and conversions.
You can also add product tags when you post photos of them. You do it in the same way as when you’re tagging other people, except this time, you’re adding a tag for your products. This way, shoppers can easily click on your product tags if they want to buy your products.
You'll find the white shopping bag icon in the corner of an image to identify Instagram shopping posts. Photos and stories will look regular to viewers, so they will not be too disruptive.
The Instagram Shopping feature allows you to tag products in your Instagram feed or picture and link them directly to your website. To do so, simply tap on the product in the photo, then locate the tagged products in your catalog. Moreover, buyers won't have to leave the Instagram app to buy from a shoppable post.
You can tag products in stories like you would with standard Instagram product tags in posts. It sounds small, but it's a big way for e-commerce brands to communicate with their customers about their newest arrivals and items they want to show off.
With the addition of clickable links, verified businesses can direct followers to specific landing pages directly from their Stories.
If there were ever a simple way to enable social media payment, Instagram checkout would be it. Shopify's Instagram Checkout allows you to include the functionality of checkouts on your Instagram feed.
You can use their Facebook channel integration to set up checkouts on Instagram and Facebook if you’re a Shopify merchant. Shop Pay will automatically show for customers, providing a faster and easier way if they want to checkout.
Through Reels, you can share short videos about your products and brands. Instagram users love scrolling through reels, and if your Reels are good enough, you can reach new buyers through reels. Instagram reel ideas:
These are the various ways in which you can post products on Instagram. Once you have all the products lined up for the first time, you need to organize your Instagram profile.
Do you already have products to sell? Great! But if you don't, you first need to find a niche for your Instagram business. Instagram is a social media platform with a heavy focus on visual things.
According to Instagram, people come to the platform to be inspired and find things they care about. So it'll be easier to sell products that are either visually appealing or aesthetically pleasing. You can sell:
Pick a specific niche that suits your style and interest. This way, you’ll be able to sell your products easier because you’re selling them to a tailored audience.
There are two ways to get an Instagram business account. You can either convert your personal Instagram page to a business account or make a new Instagram profile and use it as your Instagram business profile.
Here is how you can convert your personal account to a business one:
Afterwards, you can choose to connect your business account to a Facebook Page associated with your business. However, this step is optional. But if you do it, it will make it easier to use all of the features available for businesses across the Facebook family of apps.
Once you have set up your business page on Instagram, it is time to start listing your products. But first, you need to complete these final steps to make your page look trustworthy:
Building your Instagram brand is much more than just simply uploading product photos. Content plays a significant role in the world of social media, and it's how you turn followers into customers.
Create a variety of content that meets your goals and makes sense for the platform. To help you create appealing content that encourages engagement, here are some general guidelines your brand should follow.
If you're considering using Instagram in your business marketing strategy, you must create an Instagram content plan.
While planning content for Instagram, it is better to have a content calendar. Nothing works like consistency on Instagram. This will also ensure that you don't lose track of your goals and what you want to accomplish with your posting schedule.
Here are a few ways to get you started on making a content calendar:
At the end of every week, you can take notes from insights and tweak your content plans accordingly to see growth and sales.
When it comes to Instagram marketing, always aim for quality over quantity. While it’s essential to build a brand identity and post consistently, you should put more thought into your captions, hashtags, and content.
This is because the more your content stands out consistently, the higher the chances of building a loyal customer base that brings in sales. Finding the sweet spot between engaging with customers and selling products is tricky.
With 3.5 billion images being shared on Instagram every day, you have to quickly grab people’s attention. There are a few types of content that you can create to achieve this, which are:
With your first post, you need to push the boundaries beyond professional shots of your product and highlight what makes your brand different.
To help get that distinctive look on your account, here are a few tips to get you started:
The next obvious step in the process is to start posting your products on the Instagram app. If you have a store on Facebook, you can easily add it to your Instagram account so your followers can buy directly from your posts.
To add a store tab, follow these steps:
In the beginning, it would be easier for buyers to find the products. But as you expand your business, you need to keep the profile organized.
The highlights feature of Instagram comes in handy when sorting the Instagram page. Use highlights under the bio to help customers navigate the Instagram page better.
Your Instagram feed is crucial to highlight your products, content, and services. Most of us don't like looking through walls of text to find what we want, so you should use this opportunity to draw people's attention to what's essential.
How does your favorite retail store make you feel? Think about the colors you see, the feel of the space, and what your favorite brands are. Now, take a look at your favorite brands' Instagram accounts. Do they have a specific look and feel?
Look at the Instagram feed of Bodements. It is a clothing store based in Paris and Mumbai that curates vintage fashion worldwide. Their feed screams class — helping them reflect their brand message perfectly.
If you wish to stand out from your competitors, you also need to create a signature feel about your brand. Do this successfully, and people will recognize your brand instantly.
Influencers are the new models. Ranging from teenage bloggers to Instagram dogs, plenty of people from all walks of life are making a name for themselves. And it’s no wonder why they’ve become so popular.
Compared to traditional forms of marketing, influencer marketing is cheap, but more importantly, it works.
Influencer marketing has become a favorite tactic of marketers looking to reach consumers who prefer to hear about products from people they follow and trust.
Influencers, such as fitness bloggers, YouTube stars, and Instagram models, make for excellent brand ambassadors since their followers are already incredibly engaged with them.
The best campaigns are authentic and create exciting moments for fans that impact their purchasing behavior.
However, choosing an influencer that suits your brand can be challenging. But don’t worry; you can start by looking at influencers with many followers who seemingly have expertise in your industry.
Next, you can take a look at how engaged their audience is. For example, if this influencer you shortlisted has 100,000 followers but only 14 likes and no comments on their content, you should steer clear of them.
Once you’ve whittled them down, you might find that influencers with fewer followers (micro-influencers) have better engagement rates than the larger ones. Higher engagement could mean you get more results, especially if they’re in your niche.
This is why micro-influencers can be an excellent addition to your Instagram sales strategy.
Nowadays, customers want to know how authentic you are before buying from you. Instagram shoppable posts can help you open an online Instagram business, but you need to leverage user-generated content (UGC) to earn customer trust.
UGC can promote authenticity. People often shy away from buying on Instagram, but you can earn new customers if you provide the necessary proof of User-generated content. Consumers are 2.4 times more likely to view user-generated content as authentic compared to content created by brands.
Modern consumers always look for information about a brand before interacting with it. In fact, According to Nielsen's latest Global Trust in Advertising report, a whopping 92 percent of consumers trust recommendations from people they know, and 70 percent trust online consumer opinions.
To secure loyalty and earn repeat business, marketers must ensure that the content they’re creating aligns with their brand story and identity.
When evaluating if a purchase is right for them, nearly 80% of people say that UGC is the ultimate deciding factor. With this level of importance, businesses can’t afford to overlook the use of UGC on their website and social media platforms.
Brands see overwhelmingly positive results from UGC, from encouraging customers to post about their product experiences to curating user-generated content to highlight key buying points.
With so many retailers on Instagram, you need to advertise. Investing in Instagram ads gives you the opportunity to reach a larger and more targeted audience than ever before. You can control where the ad will show up, how long it will run, and how much you’re willing to pay. When choosing a advertising objective, you may want to base your decision on what will help you achieve your business goal.
For example, is it more important for you to have people notice your brand or to have as many as possible use your product? Choose an objective that will best suit the needs of your company and then, from there, choose which channel or channel combination may work best. There are many different types of ads on Instagram.
1. Photo ads are the most powerful among them, as they can easily take a simple photo and convert it into a compelling ad. It is the easiest type.
2. Video ads are also popular. They have a duration of up to 120 seconds and can be landscape or square-shaped.
3.Stories ads are videos or images made available to 500 million+ people daily. These ads are limited to 10 seconds of content and are only available through Instagram.
4. Carousel ads are a set of 2-10 photos or videos that the user can swipe through in a single ad. Collection ads let customers browse and discover collections on your product line.
Running your own Instagram ad campaign isn’t that difficult, but it can be intimidating to many small business owners and influencers who haven’t done it before.
Fortunately, it’s not as hard as you think! The easiest way to run ads is by promoting posts you’ve shared on Instagram. Here’s how you can do it:
Did you know that one can run Instagram story ads and reels ads? So, other than the Instagram photo ads, you will have different types of ads to exploit.
Like we mentioned before, Instagram just released advertising in stories. This feature gives you an additional medium to reach even more people.
The immersive ads are full-screen and use targeting technology to show your ad to the right people. It's not surprising that Instagram story ads are the most effective— they pop up in between stories you follow.
Do you want to create exciting Instagram story ads but don't know where to start? With Offeo's Instagram Story maker, you can make winning ads.
Our professional-looking templates make your job easier, so you can create short and exciting story ads within minutes. But you can also customize it accordingly.
Here is how you can make fun and engaging Instagram stories with Offeo.
TIP: Use stories with product links. When adding a link to Instagram stories, you'll notice a small arrow and "See More" text appear at the bottom of your images. Since this small text may go unnoticed, you can add text directing users to "Swipe Up" (or something similar) for added visibility. With more than 500 million daily active users, you should try your best to capitalize on it.
The pound sign or hashtag organizes content by topic and can be a great discovery tool for finding new and relevant audiences. For example, #FashionTips or #giveaway. It's also a searchable keyword, which can help you reach new and relevant audiences.
Some best practices when using hashtags are using hashtags relevant to your niche and topic—the more specific, the better.
Your Instagram bio is the perfect spot for a clickable link to your online store on your Instagram profile. Whenever your new followers happen upon you on Instagram, they’ll be able to discover your website easily. Add a link to your online store in the URL section of the bio page—and ensure that it appears at all times.
Whenever you want to post about a product, make sure the link in your bio is about it. This way, followers won’t have to search for it manually, and will also see your other content in the bio. This will also provide a sense of authenticity and trust in your profile. Use emojis to space out the text and add personality. It helps! You can also add a little description about your skills or role as a business owner. For maximum business success, include a call-to-action.
Instagram is a great place to sell your products, but never forget that you are not the only one there. You should do what you do best and stay true to your brand's content strategy. Include shoppable tags on those photos that naturally fit your account.
If you have an Instagram Shop set up, you can start a Instagram Shopping through Live stream . This is a broadcast where you can sell products to your followers interactively. It's like a TV shopping channel, but on your phone! Live Shopping lets you make a sale and showcase products, all while interacting with your followers.
You can even connect with other brands and creators. Instagram Live Shopping stream is an opportunity for you to interact with customers in real time. Brands or creators can sell products over a live broadcast on Instagram. It's just like TV shopping, but more interactive and available on your phone. the only demerit is you have to be a business based in US to be able to use this feature.
You do not need the approval to sell on Instagram through posts, Instagram direct messages, and comments. However, if you want to sell on Instagram with shoppable posts, you'll need an online store. To get Instagram’s approval and start selling on their platform, you must connect your Instagram account to your online store.
With the help of Direct Messages (DMs), you can still receive orders from Instagram followers and fulfill them manually. Here’s how:
Selling on Instagram can be a challenge, and it's important to figure out what methods work best for your business. These tips will make the process a whole lot easier by eliminating a lot of the guesswork for you.
If you want to create videos and animations for your Instagram shopping and sell physical goods, check out our Offeo commercial maker to create advertisements that can be shared on Instagram and other social media platforms too.
It is easy to use and does not require any professional to do it, you can do that yourself and customize our ready made templates accordingly. You can also use your own images and videos and edit it accordingly. The perfect solution for ecommerce brands who want to try Instagram shopping. Go ahead and give it a try!!
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