Instagram is a very important network for brands, with 200 million users visiting at least one business profile every day.
Since 2017, it became possible for brands on Instagram to change their profiles into virtual storefronts.
According to statistics, 70% of people use Instagram to discover products, while more than 130 million users click on a shopping post at least once per month.
So, if you are selling your products online, the best decision you can make is to use Instagram Shopping.
In just a few simple steps, you can set up Instagram Shopping and provide a simplified and enjoyable experience for your customers.
What is Instagram Shopping?
Instagram Shopping is a new feature, finally available to everyone across the globe.
It allows you to tag products in posts, stories, and also in the Explore tab.
Why should you be using Instagram Shopping?
Shopping Tags enable businesses to promote products from their catalog in Stories and in-feed, to give people more information about their products and draw their attention.
It is also possible to promote products in post captions and in their bios with Product Mentions for those businesses that use the checkout on Instagram.
Instagram Shopping simplifies things in a way that there is no need for your customers to go from your Instagram account to your website.
Instead, they can choose and buy products straight from the app. It gets easier for them to discover and shop your products just by being on Instagram.
How to set up Instagram shopping?
Activating Instagram Shop is easier than you might think. Here we present to you a quick and simple guide on how to get started:
- Make sure that you meet the expectations
Before setting up an Instagram Shop, you have to make sure that your business proves acceptable and satisfy three criteria:
- Instagram Shopping has to be available in your country. Check the list and make a confirmation. Exclusively physical products can be sold.
- In case that your profile is still set up as a personal, you have to change it into a business profile. Don’t worry, it is super easy.
- Your Instagram profile has to be connected to a Facebook Page. This will allow setting up your product catalog on Facebook, as well. Find out how to arrange the connected Facebook Page.
2. Make your product catalog on Facebook
As you create your product catalog, you’ll be in a position to tag your products in your Instagram posts and Stories. Also, you can set up a shop on your Facebook Page.
When labeling your products, ensure that you add a description, so that users can distinguish what precisely has been tagged in the photo.
3. Get approval for Instagram Shopping
After you create your catalog and establish that your business meets the criteria, you can submit your account for review.
Click on Settings, choose Business, Sign Up for Instagram Shopping, and finally hit submit. Keep in mind that review and approval may take a couple of days
4. Activate Shopping in the Instagram App
After you get approved, a new option under Settings and Business will appear, named Shopping. Click on it and activate shopping in the Instagram app.
5. Create your first shoppable Instagram post
Now is the time to make some sales! Start with uploading a photo, the same way you would do for a regular post. Then choose the items you want to tag. It is possible to tag up to five products per post.
6. Write the name of the products you are about to tag.
The names have to match with the names in your product catalog. Pick them when they pop up in the search box.
It is also possible to tag up to five products in video posts. A tray will pop up and there you can pick the products.
Tactics that will help you sell on Instagram with examples
The first thing you need to do is to optimize your Instagram business profile.
As more people are using Instagram instead of Google to search for brands, the Instagram business profile becomes faster on the new homepage. Therefore, you should organize and beautify your Instagram feed as you would do while creating your website.
Your Instagram business profile should consist of the following:
- A profile photo: Make your brand recognizable – choose a photo that will represent your brand, just like a logo, and become easily identified.
- Well-made biography: An excellent description will draw users’ attention, so make sure you tell them precisely what you have to offer.
- Link to your shop: The only clickable link you can attach to your Instagram page is the URL section of your bio, so don’t skip using it! It will help you to track visits to your website from Instagram. Also, it is a perfect place to drive traffic from your individual posts and stories.
Your Instagram business profile is usually the first way of interaction with your brand, so make sure you leave a good impression and catch people’s attention so that they easily decide to follow your business. The aesthetics of your profile will guarantee new and devoted followers that will easily decide to invest in your products.
Examples of Instagram Shopping brands
1. Teva
In 1984, Teva made the sport sandal category with a lot of millennials recalling the brand as the “dad-sandal” of their youth. Nonetheless, those millennials and other generations started wearing these casual sandals not just for comfort but also for fashion.
Teva presents their products on Instagram posts through professional photography and user-generated content (UGC) submitted by Teva-wearing fans who use the hashtag #strapinfreedom.
With their Instagram posts, Teva shows their customers that their sandals are designed for everyone which makes them one of the best brand Instagram accounts.
2. Tiffany & Co
Tiffany & Co uses Instagram to push the limits of their already famous brand. Their signature “Tiffany Blue” makes the brand consistent and imaginative, free to experiment with new things.
They use modern marketing tactics such as their Instagram Live series to sell their products.
By using visuals and storytelling, they push their customers deeper into the world of Tiffany & Co. These tactics have made Tiffany & Co’s posts produce 11 times more interactions than the average watch & jewelry brand.
3. Glossier
Glossier is a beauty brand that tends not to be too pompous and posh, rather modest and humanistic, which gained them popularity on Instagram. Following them is like you are following a close friend, who posts memes and with whom you can share messages.
They started with a community, and afterward, they created products and shared them on Instagram.
This tactic made it easier to become a part of the platform’s community and convert those beauty enthusiasts into brand ambassadors. Glossier regularly reposts user-generated content, to allow their fans to share more often and therefore emphasize community engagement.
4. GoPro
On Instagram, GoPro tells stories through their unique products. They constantly post photos and videos taken by GoPro’s cameras and actual customers.
The aim is to show how to use their product in real life, which ultimately leads to good salles.
GoPro is an inspirational platform that has opened regional handles featuring localized content and customers in over 10 markets to enlarge the content. This smart move resulted in nearly 15 million followers.
Instagram Shopping gets personalized
Instagram is setting up shopping features within its app to help people explore and consider potential purchases before clicking to check the merchant’s website.
Instagram Explore is becoming a personalized Shopping channel of items it finds you’ll want the most.
Furthermore, it is expanding its Shopping tags for Instagram Stories to all users in the world.
Also, it is permitting brands in 46 countries to add the shopping bag icon to Stories so that users can click on it to buy what they saw.
The new features get more appealing to the users and conduct them to see more ads. Just the idea that Instagram can do the selling for free through Stories and Explore, could lead them to buy Instagram ads eagerly, to enhance their reach, and speed up the conversion channel.
The app can enormously increase the revenue with 25 million businesses on Instagram, but only 2 million advertisers.
The best ways of making revenue on Instagram Shopping
After taking into consideration your authentic brand of Instagram content, your audience, and your dedication, you can make revenue in the following ways:
- Choose the brands on sponsored posts
- Become an affiliate and sell other people’s products
- Startup your own online store
- Sell your photos online
The good thing in making revenue is that one thing doesn’t exclude another, you can combine them as a part of your strategy.
Make partnership with brands as an influencer
The term “influencer” is getting more and more popular nowadays. An influencer can be anyone who shares great things online and is in the process of making an online reputation.
Influencers’ opinions are respected they are usually trendsetters and tastemakers.
To keep up with the popularity, many brands affiliate with influencers on sponsored posts, and as a result, influencers promote their products.
As an influencer, it can be difficult to estimate your revenue and to preserve untouched integrity, but if you cannot count on your Instagram marketing income, there is always a possibility to choose the brands you want to work with, the same way the brands can be picky about the Instagrammers they want to affiliate with.
Greatest influencers earn thousands of dollars per sponsored post. However, it takes a lot of effort and time to achieve these results.
Once you achieve them, you can attain them, just make sure you keep up with your expectation when you choose this path.
The essential element is the audience that believes in the influencer’s choice to point out the quality of a product. You have to know your audience, their needs, and interests. By knowing that, you can easily conclude which brands will suit them best. If you are using an Instagram business account, use your Instagram Analytics report to find out more about your audience.
If you are constructing a notable online appearance, there are high chances that big brands will turn to you. In the meantime, you can search for brands that will fit your online profile.
How to make a contact? Speak to them directly, on Instagram, or their website, and be ready to make a deal. Also, if you want to be discovered by a big brand, you can put yourself on an influencer marketplace. Keep in mind that you have to justify the trust of your current audience, don’t run the risk of losing it.
You should always note through an Instagram hashtag that it’s a sponsored post.
Use something simple, like #sponsored or #ad. By typing #sponsored on Instagram, you can find out how sponsored posts look like and how Instagrammers incorporate brands in their story.
Instagram also has a “Paid Partnership with” tag that efficiently recognizes sponsored posts, and there is a high chance that the brands will ask you to use them to reveal your relation with them.
Become an affiliate and sell other people’s products
Unlike influencers, whose main aim is to spread awareness, affiliates work for an exchange in commission when making sales for the partnering brand. There are a lot of affiliate programs that can help you to master how to sell other people’s products and get a cut.
Making money for affiliates goes through a trackable link or a promo code. By using those features, they realize what sales came straight from your posts.
It is important to add a caption in each post that will inform people that they can buy the product via the link in your bio. That means you will have to join a landing page with your affiliate link.
If you want to expand your business, affiliate marketing is a promising tactic, even though it seems hard at first. You can strengthen your online presence by including a website and other marketing or social media channels.
Start your own online store
Working with other brands is not the only way of selling out and making money.
Making products towards a targeted audience means the growth of the brand, manifested in services, digital items, or physical goods.
When you are selling your own products, you are creating your own strategy, without including messages from other brands in posting. Furthermore, you can develop your own brand on the products you sell.
Here are some ways how to sell your products:
- A print-on-demand service can help you to create your own T-shirts, coffee mugs, etc., to make some sort of logo and become recognized.
- Your biography can provide information for making direct contact with your customers or sell through photography.
- E-books, design templates, or courses can help you to make a digital selling.
- An Instagram account or even a book can be a way of launching your genuine products.
To provide buying directly from the app, you can add tags and stickers to your Instagram stories and posts. Besides, you will have to activate an Instagram business account, a Facebook page, and an approved Facebook shop.
Sell your photos online
For Instagram Shopping, photos are the key – they can be licensed, printed, and sold in numerous strategies.
You can list your photos in marketplaces, such as 500px or Twenty20, where they can be licensed by different brands and publishers.
You can sell your photos as prints and put them on various products. Services such as Printful and Teelaunch allow you to put your photos on posters, coffee mugs, etc., while your only concern is making sales.
When you get the demand, your task is to act and give your audience the chance, the one that will pay off, to buy the photography from you.
Conclusion:
Without any doubt, Instagram is transforming the app into an online and modernized shopping experience.
Being aware of that, the time has come to explore new and accessible features and tools.
If you are a creator or a brand, there are various strategies that will help you make sales and attract new audiences. Keep up with the modern world and use Instagram shopping for making sales!
You’re just a few steps away from opening your Instagram storefront.
Need help with your Instagram shop?
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