The social media giant Instagram has been growing its space for long and now it has become a great traffic source for eCommerce business. According to stats, around 80% of the sales engagement comes from Instagram. And more than 200 million Instagram users like to engage with their preferred brands. Indeed, it’s great news for business owners who want to grow their eCommerce business using Instagram.
From a small store to large conglomerates, nowadays, most of the business owners are using Instagram to promote their products and services. So that they can earn more revenue for their business. Do you also want to promote your business using Instagram? If yes, then you need to first create your Instagram eCommerce store:
Create Your Instagram Business Account
Though you can promote your products by posting engaging videos and photos. However, it won’t help you to gain direct engagement on your money site. Since you can’t add clickable links on your posts unless you have a business account on Instagram. For creating an Instagram business account, go to your profile page. In the settings, you have the option to sign up for a business account. From there, you can switch your normal account to a business account. Or you can also create a new business account.
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Set Up Your Business Profile
Now that you have created a business account on Instagram, you need to set up your business profile. Where you can add the information about your eCommerce store like store address, contact number, opening hours, and link to your website, etc. After adding all the information and details, your Instagram business account is ready to be used.
With a professional business account, you can have access to business features and Instagram insights. Using Instagram insights, you can learn about audiences’ interests and impressions of your posts. Based on which you can improve your Instagram marketing strategies to gain favorable results for your business.
Instagram Shopping Feature
Instagram is hell-bent on growing its reach to the eCommerce business. There has also been a rumor that Instagram is working on its own stand-alone shopping application, which may come out in the future. Until then, you can make use of Instagram shopping to sell your products.
Instagram shopping is an amazing storefront feature of Instagram which lets you showcase your products. With this, you can directly promote your brand products through featured posts and stories. While people can also check your products using the search and explore tab. It’ll also give a shop tab on your profile pages so that users can directly check your products on Instagram.
You can also tag your products in your posts, in the same way as people tag their friends in photos and stories. And it will show a mini shopping bag symbol in your image. By tapping on that, users would get redirected to the product description page where they can directly purchase anything.
Following the above-shows ways, you can create your eCommerce shopping store on Instagram. However, if you want to grow your business reach on Instagram, you need to utilize its amazing shopping features to gain more customers for your business.
Note: Currently, this feature is only available to some of the selected countries (selected markets).
Here are shown some steps following which you can achieve that:
Creative Shopping Feed Posts
Instagram lets you add up to 5 product tags in your feed posts. If you have a business account on Instagram and fulfill all the Facebook’s criteria, then you are okay to set up your Instagram shopping. You just need to add product tags to the posted content. And make sure that tagged products are relevant to your feed posts. With every feed post, you can showcase products in front of your audience.
But before that, you need to connect your Instagram business profile with Facebook catalog. For doing, so you have two options:
- Using a catalog manager, you can create your own catalog, or you can also use the existing one.
- If creating a catalog seems daunting, you can also take help from the certified Facebook partners.
Note: To add shoppable product tags and stickers, you need to select an eCommerce catalog.
Now you are ready to tag your products on your posts. With this, the shopping process will become easier for your customers. And it will also help you to increase engagement on your feed. Surely, it can be a very effective way to elevate your feed and sales at the same time.
Try Out Instagram Stories
Other than the feed posts, you can also use Instagram stories to drive sales for your business. Surely, you can use swipe up links to redirect your users directly to your business page. But now, you have another option, using which you can add product stickers on your Instagram stories. This way, you can also tag your products in stories so that you could be able to gain more organic reach for your business. This feature has been a great boost for the startup, who want to grow their eCommerce business using Instagram shopping.
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Tag Your Carousel Posts
Just 5 product tags aren’t enough. Then why not try carousel posts on Instagram, where you can add up to 20 product tags. In a carousel post, you can create a slide-show of a combination of featured images. While you can creatively use its pattern, to add your product’s tags on it.
Tapping on added shoppable products’ tags will show the catalog of the product and its price. Whenever you add shoppable tag products on your posts, it will show in the shopping feed on your profile page. Clicking on the shopping bag icon, people can directly check your tagged products from the feed and can also shop from there.
Note: By any chance, if the post has a shoppable product is deleted or unpublished from Instagram. It will automatically remove all the other product tags from that post.
Augmented Reality Shopping
Don’t you think it’s just great that you can now sell your products through Instagram? But it’s not over yet, Instagram always comes up with new features to surprise us all. Yes! You might be amazed to know that Instagram is adding another layer to its shopping feature with augmented reality.
With the AR filter, now Instagram users can get the virtual experience of trying that product. Initially, Instagram is testing the beta version of the AR filter with some of the brands like NARS cosmetics. Right now, this feature isn’t available to all. But in the future, this can turn out to be a great way of enhancing the shopping experience of users on Instagram.
Look Out for Influencers
It turns out that partnering with Instagram influencers can really help you to gain more customers. Working with influencers is just like having an extra weapon in your marketing arsenal. With growing competition, it hasn’t been any easier for brands to grow their business reach organically on Instagram.
Unlike the posts and ads from the brands, sponsored posts from influencers can give an invasive effect. Since influencers have a better connection with the audience, they can help you out to find a more approachable audience through Instagram. In case you are looking up for the right Instagram influencers for your brand. You can utilize tools like Agorapulse, Gramboard, Hootsuite, Socinator, etc to learn about influencers actively engaging with your target Instagram audience.
Now that you have found some Instagram influencers, you can also promote your content through branded content. Instagram allows you to be in a paid partnership with influencers. Earlier, this feature was only available on Facebook. And recently, this feature has been included on Instagram.
What is Branded Content on Instagram?
Instagram defines it as content posted by the creator or influencer, which features to promote the brand for an exchange of value. In simple words, the creator gets paid by brands to use their content as ads for their brand promotion. That’s why branded content posts show the tag -“Paid partnership with (brand name)”. If there is a creator who posts engaging content about the same niche as yours, then you should get their approval to use their posts as ads. That way, you could be able to increase your organic reach on Instagram.
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Parting Words
These are the strategies that you can utilize to raise your own eCommerce store using Instagram. It’s a sure platform to discover more about your creative capabilities and also to gain better exposure for your business.
However, it won’t be any easy to gain engagement on your posted stuff. Since every day, millions of people post videos and photos on Instagram. In that case, you need to utilize different features of Instagram, which can help you to create more business opportunities and attract more users to your brand products.
Don’t you think that the above-shown strategies can help you to raise your eCommerce business on Instagram? Or you might want to add a few more things on that. If you had something to tell, please share that in the comments below.
This article is written by Sumit Ghosh. Sumit is a renowned performance marketer and a product fanatic from Bangalore. He is a prominent speaker in masterminds and events in the performance marketing space. Sumit is the Founder of Socioboard, which owns products like PowerAdSpy, Socinator, Gramboard, DominatorHouse, and mobile apps in social media automation space which have millions of users. Follow him: Twitter | Facebook | Instagram.