How to sell on Instagram
Instagram has become a strong sales channel that your eCommerce brand can leverage. Now, with the integration of Instagram and Shopify, your brand has a competitive edge over the others. Instagram along with Shopify works towards giving your customers a true omnichannel experience.
It acts as a true social media partner for all the Shopify store owners giving your customers complete experience and exposure to social media.
Instagram + Shopify Integration
Instagram Shopping feature allows e-commerce brands to engage better with audiences. It helps to create a digital catalogue of its products on Instagram or import it from Shopify.
What is Instagram Shop?
The Instagram shop is a way for businesses to reach out better to their audience. It showcases its products in the form of a catalog and thus helps in increasing conversions.
Instagram Shop is set up via the ‘View Shop’ button
You can think of the ‘View Shop’ button as a landing page where the users can browse all your product.
How to connect Instagram to Shopify?
Instagram Shopping helps to connect the items that you have in the Shopify store to your Instagram business profile so that the audience and customers can see your items on Instagram.
Before you add Instagram Shopping to your brand, ensure that you have a Facebook business page and that your Instagram profile is a Professional Account.
After converting your Instagram profile into a professional account, add Instagram shopping to the Facebook sales channel.
Steps:
- From the Shopify admin screen, click “+” beside the ‘sales channel’
2. Click on **Facebook sales channel** > Overview
Click sell your products on Instagram
3. Click on ‘**Set up to start**’ in the ‘**Instagram Shopping**’ section
Connect Instagram professional account
4. Your brand’s **Facebook account** is to be connected to the Facebook sales channel.
- After reviewing and accepting the terms & conditions, click on “Request Approval”
After going through all these steps, it takes 24-48 hours for Instagram to review it.
Promoting Instagram Shop
- Engage with Stories:
Kay Beauty uses stickers on the story to make it more engaging
Instagram stories are an essential feature of promotion. You can use polls, questions, live videos, adding music, and filters or countdowns to make the stories more engaging for the audience. Although the stories disappear after 24 hours, you can add them to IG Story Highlights to keep them for a long period of time.
2. Boost through posts:
Flipkart posts about the giveaway to encourage more participation
If your business is giving any offers, discounts or sales, make it known to your audience. Audience look at the post and ignore the caption. Thus, make use of it and showcase your products in sales or discounts to your audience. You can also tag them to promote it.
3. Instagram Advertising:
Tagging products in the paid advertisement has better conversions
Instagram ads are available to every user and it appears on the newsfeed of your audience. Promote your product-tagged shoppable posts for extra reach and engagement.
Tag products in IG posts
Instagram Shoppable posts help to direct traffic to the eCommerce site
IG shoppable posts permit brands to tag products in a post. With a few clicks, a customer would be able to go from post to the brand’s “Add to Cart” segment on their Shopify store.
Optimize the posts for product tagging
Just product tagging will not solve the purpose. Therefore optimizing those posts is necessary too. 3 tips for you:
1. Influencer marketing:
Your business can leverage Instagram influencer posting about your products. You can add shopping tags to those posts. A customer trusts influencers’ recommendations more than your brand. Thus, this can organically boost your brand.
2. Create natural posts:
Your business profile must sell the products leveraging social proof which makes the sale a natural extension to adding value to customers. A constant methodology of tagging the products in the posts must be maintained.
3. Activate the ‘Instagram Shop’:
You need to post at least nine posts with product tagging to activate the Instagram Shop on your Instagram business profile. This helps in grouping all the shoppable posts under one place.
Conclusion
Make an ever-lasting mark in the minds of your audience by leveraging customer-generated content (UGC) on Instagram. Reduce friction to final purchase by creating shoppable posts.
By leveraging Instagram stories, and tagging the products on your posts, you can personalize your customer’s shopping experience. Stories aid in driving traffic from your Instagram profile to Shopify products & finally the purchase.