Instagram has over a billion active users, this is quite a significant figure, and you even get overwhelmed to know that about 500 million users engage with the Instagram app daily. Guess what? These big numbers provide more significant opportunities for ecommerce entrepreneurs to grow their business.
Did you know that about 80% of active Instagram users follow at least one business account? Let’s bring it down, that’s a whopping 640 million users engaging with businesses, both large and small.
Instagram understands that they offer one of the best marketing opportunities to entrepreneurs, so they are bent on adding new features to enhance the cohesion between brands and Instagram.
- Is It Possible To Sell On Instagram?
- What Is Instagram Shopping?
- Selling On Instagram Posts
- Does Your Country Allow It?
- Link Your Instagram With Facebook
- Sign Up For Instagram Business Account
- Upload A Usual Image
- Tag Your Particular Products
- Select The Products To Tag
- Selling On Instagram Stories
- Updates To Instagram Shopping
- Tagging Products On Instagram
- What To Consider While Using Instagram Shopping
- Measuring Results
- Optimizing Instagram Shopping Campaigns
- Social Proofs
- Test It If You Are Unsure
- Don’t Be Scared To Mix It Up
- Upsell Is Key
- Use Hashtags
Is It Possible To Sell On Instagram?
Yes, it’s possible to sell through posts and stories by tagging your products and redirecting your audience to your product pages where they can make purchases. If you would like to understand how Instagram works, and possibly sell on it, then you shouldn’t miss this post. You don’t only sell on Instagram but also improves your brand’s visibility and reputation.
What Is Instagram Shopping?
Instagram Shopping is a feature that enables ecommerce business owners to create a storefront for users to explore their top products with just a tap. It allows businesses to highlight certain posts and tag the products available.
This feature simplifies selling for brands by letting them underline the products that have been incorporated into their business Instagram account. A typical scenario where Instagram Shopping doesn’t exist, the user journey will flow thus:
- A user sees a brand and follows their Instagram account
- He finds a post by the brand, develops interest, and leaves a comment or an image to show interest
- The user has to visit the brand’s website to see if they can find the product they saw on the brand’s Instagram post.
The user might not spot the particular product they have in mind when they get your website, and might not buy in the end. Now, this makes it hard to improve conversion.
A look at the effect of Instagram Shopping below shows how it revolutionizes things to suit ecommerce brands:
- A user follows a brand’s business account
- The user picks interest on a product on the brand’s post, and simply taps to check if such products have been tagged
- If their choice of product has been tagged, the user simply clicks and gets redirected to the brand’s website and the exact product page.
You can see that Instagram Shopping makes it easier for those into ecommerce business to increase their conversions. Not just that, Instagram Shopping is available on Instagram Stories and Posts, and you need to know the difference between these contents.
Selling On Instagram Posts
Instagram Shopping is available for Instagram Posts, and here’s how it works. If you own a store with Ali2Woo, then you stand a better chance to get started without hassle.
1. Does Your Country Allow It?
You need to ascertain if your country is eligible for this feature. If your country is not eligible, you may have to overlook it for now and wait till it’s available in your country.
2. Link Your Instagram With Facebook
If your country enables this feature, then you should link your Facebook with your Instagram account.
3. Sign Up For Instagram Business Account
After connecting your Facebook page to your Instagram account, you need to upgrade your account to a Business Account.
4. Upload A Usual Image
Just as always, make an upload.
5. Tag Your Particular Products
If your country is Instagram Shopping enabled, you will see “Tag Products,” select and tap on a portion of your image just like you are tagging people.
6. Select The Products To Tag
When tapping to tag products, you will see a search bar to input the names of the products you want to tag.
That’s it for adding an Instagram Shopping ready post.
Do well to know that you have a limit to the number of product tags in each post. As such, creating Instagram contents that highlight a few products is necessary, or you may go for carousel posts to take more products.
Selling On Instagram Stories
Instagram Shopping feature isn’t for posts only; it works for stories too. With this feature, users can purchase from their choice of brands while interacting with their stories.
With the millions of active Instagram users who interact with stories daily, your ecommerce brand stands a better chance of improving conversions. Instagram’s survey has it that users often interact with stories to stay updated with the favorite brands.
How does Instagram Shopping work for Instagram Stories?
Just like Instagram Posts discussed above, these are necessary:
- You must be in a country where Instagram Shopping is allowed
- A working Facebook sales channel linked to your Ali2Woo store
- A business account (Instagram)
- Instagram sales channel installed on your Ali2Woo store
- Tick the boxes and create a story
- Create contents and add tags
Updates To Instagram Shopping
Lately, Instagram added new features to Instagram Shopping, making it easier to save products and shop. For Instagram businesses, the new updates entail:
- A tab for shopping explore in the app
- A new profile shop tab
- Shop from videos
Businesses can discuss directly with their customers, and these customers can purchase without a hassle and much clicks, thanks to these new features.
Tagging Products On Instagram
To get the best of Instagram Shopping, you must be strategic with your activities. Now, here are some tips to work with while tagging your products.
- Don’t just sell a product, upsell an experience
- Go for quality images that display your products clearly
- Tag the products that are only in the image
- Use Carousel to tag various products
- Share customer images to strengthen your brand’s credibility
What To Consider While Using Instagram Shopping
Measuring Results
Whether you’re a beginner or an expert in the industry, it’s vital to measure your campaign success to know when to make adjustments. When it comes to Instagram Shopping, you might not know how to measure your results. But guess what? Instagram is on a mission to roll out analytics tools to help marketers gauge their campaign success.
Optimizing Instagram Shopping Campaigns
Just like we have discussed, Instagram Shopping is an amazing feature you can’t resist as a marketer. The best results are obtained when campaigns are optimized.
Social Proofs
Human beings, who are your potential buyers are often seeking validation from other buyers. Whenever a potential buyer is skeptical about making a purchase, seeing the reviews, testimonials, and engagement of others make the take a quick decision. To get the best engagement from your audience, you should optimize, and that’s when you enjoy the complete benefits of Instagram Shopping.
Test It If You Are Unsure
Entrepreneurs cannot get enough of Instagram, but it doesn’t guarantee perfect business success. When you’re targeting a broad audience, you must be creative with your content to beat competition and achieve this goal.
However, if you’re unsure about an idea, you may have to test it out. Worst case scenario, you wouldn’t make a sale.
Don’t Be Scared To Mix It Up
Most of the brands that scale flex their creativity, and if you can find a way to offer your audience what they haven’t really seen, you’re sure to win their loyalty.
With Instagram Shopping, you need to get more creative, mix things and find out what works even better.
Upsell Is Key
Instagram Shopping requires you find many strategies that work best for you, and one of these is Upsell trick. Try to upsell in the contents you post on your account; this helps to increase conversion.
If you sell shoes, why not find some socks and pants that go with these shoes and recommend them while modeling your products? Tag them to look appealing, and this could boost your conversion.
Use Hashtags
Instagram will always do with hashtags, as they are ideal for helping an engaged audience to find what interests them.
Suffice it to be that hashtags will direct more eyeballs to your contents that are shoppable, and this can help you convert more visitors.
Are you looking for more ways to promote your Instagram account? Do you want to run Instagram dropshipping campaign and get a lot of sales, please check one more article about it.
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