Although much of the advice involving Instagram accounts focuses on follower counts and growing popularity, an Instagram shop is increasingly popular and important to use the platform to make sales. Instagram shopping is no longer reliant on links embedded in your bio; instead, your products can be sold directly on the app, with payment methods and preferences already at the ready for your customers.
How do you successfully sell on the platform?
Selling on the ‘Gram requires attention and intention, but first: let’s take a closer look at the value of selling on this particular app, and why making sure that your product collection is available through it is beneficial to your overall sales goals.
Why Instagram is a Powerful Sales Platform
Why does a social media site stand out amongst standard ecommerce platforms? Ultimately, the answer lies in the amount of active users on the app, and the potential of reaching an audience of that size. Instagram boasts over 1 billion active users monthly, which delivers a massive potential customer base to anyone posting product images and relevant content to the app, in the hopes of hyping up product details and ultimately making sales.
The highly visual nature of the platform makes it perfect for showcasing products and delivering a product launch with some degree of excitement and success. From carousel posts to Stories, the app is here to stay, and its updates regarding shopping features lends a tremendous hand to business on the app.
Built-in features like shoppable posts and Instagram Checkout facilitate seamless buying, and users are primed to discover and purchase products directly through the platform. People often provide special offers and are able to show featured products in one place, rather than separating marketing, informational information, and physical products.
Step 1: Optimize Your Instagram Business Profile
An Instagram business profile does not and should not look the same as your standard personal profile. Potential customers are looking to your business profile as a window into who you are and how you operate, so it is important to make sure your profile is optimized to make it easy to find you, and to make sure that your services or product catalog are effectively tied to your accounts.
To successfully optimize your profile, make sure to choose the right username, develop a compelling bio, include contact information and calls to action, and create a high-quality image, all of which will be discussed in greater detail below.
Choose a Clear, Recognizable Username
Instagram shopping is fairly common, so making sure that your profile is easy to find is paramount. When you create your username, make sure you use your precise business name, or a variation that is both easy to find and easy to remember. Special characters and numbers might be an easier option if your preferred username is taken, but your Instagram shop is more likely to prosper if you avoid odd characters or numbers that make your username hard to search–or hard to find.
Write a Compelling Bio
When you create your bio, make sure you take the time to clearly and succinctly describe your business, what it offers, and what your unique value proposition ultimately is. Creating the perfect Instagram bio makes shoppable posts more effective, as prospective and returning customers are more likely to stick around.
Relevant keywords in your bio makes it easier to discover, and improved discoverability is subsequently bolstered by emojis, vertical spacing, and organized formatting, all of which make your bio visually appealing and easy to read.
Add Contact Information and Call-to-Action Buttons
Creating your Instagram bio is not all product descriptions and content plans; you also need to make sure that you have enough contact information and calls to action to keep in contact with your audience and encourage movement on their part. Your website, email, and phone number should all be listed (as applicable).
CTA buttons like “shop now” and “book” can help encourage action, while making your audience feel as though you are convenient and considerate of their needs. A direct link to your shop or product catalog can also simplify browsing and help existing and potential followers more readily peruse what you have to offer.
Use a High-Quality, Recognizable Profile Picture
A crisp, clear image of your logo or a branded image are going to help lend an air of quality to your brand. Quality content starts with your audience’s introduction to who you are, which means starting off with high-quality images and clean intros.
Quality alone is not enough; your logo or image should also look crisp and appealing when it is displayed as a small icon. The same images and logos should be used as profile pictures on other social platforms to maintain consistency. Consider your profile picture or logo a discovery tool; if there is any doubt as to who you are, your image or logo can demonstrate a clear link.
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Step 2: Create Visually Appealing, Shoppable Content
Whether you are developing video content or photo ads, everything you create and post should be visually appealing and shoppable. Instagram marketing strategy has come to rely on shoppable links, and it offers powerful tools to make sure that those links are readily available. To successfully develop content that is both appealing and easily purchased, develop a consistent aesthetic, use shoppable posts and product tags, and incorporate content that is not overtly sales-minded.
Develop a Consistent Visual Aesthetic
Instagram relies heavily on aesthetics to build cohesion and recommend one brand over another. Make sure that your aesthetics are consistent. From the overall tone of your posts, to the way products in posts are organized, to the colors you use across your social media platforms, make sure that your aesthetics are consistent.
Maintain the same general tone and color palette across all of your posts to make sure your feed has a cohesive, recognizable feel. High-resolution images and videos will better showcase your products and position them in the best light than quick snapshots and grainy or blurry images.
Utilize Shoppable Posts and Product Tags
Instagram shopping features have changed as the platform has grown, but virtually all business types can utilize the app as a shopping avenue or a partner platform to support growth. To effectively utilize shoppable posts and product tags, tag products directly in your posts. This means that followers will be able to shop with only a few clicks.
Ensure all tags are accurate and link to the correct product pages; after all, no one wants to click on products in posts, only to be taken to the wrong item or service. Finally, use clear and enticing captions to highly key product features and benefits, including relevant hashtags and descriptors.
Incorporate Lifestyle and User-Generated Content
Social media offers a unique approach to marketing, in that it allows the visual medium to offer a window into the goings-on of the company behind closed doors. Show your products being used in real-life scenarios; this will help users envision themselves using those products, themselves.
By sharing user-generated content, you can provide social proof and build trust with your audience. Why would a general user, after all, take the time to highlight a product if they did not truly love it?
Mix up the format of your content with images, videos, carousels, and Reels, in order to maintain the interest of your audience. While tone and aesthetics should remain the same, the precise format of the visual content can (and should) change.
Step 3: Leverage Instagram Stories and Reels
Instagram Stories and Reels are both great additions to help deliver product demonstrations, product videos, and even a digital product catalog. You can leverage these formats by showcasing products and promotions, creating engaging and shoppable Reels, and utilizing the Shoppable feature in the app. Ideas to improve your algorithm performance include the following:
Use Stories to Showcase Products and Promotions
Use Stories to showcase your products and promotions in interesting and compelling ways. Sharing sneak peeks of new arrivals, offering a peek into limited-time deals, and highlighting your bestsellers with specific shopping tags can all be useful to increase engagement and, by proxy, sales.
Interactive features like polls and questions can be used on Stories to gather feedback and increase the likelihood of seeing engagement. Your content strategy is unlikely to succeed if it does not also lean on positive customer service reviews and testimonials. These types of content build credibility, and should be peppered throughout content unrelated to the immediate topic of sales.
Create Engaging, Shoppable Reels
Short, entertaining videos are perfect to showcase in Reels to show your products in action. These can be silly, involving popular sounds and songs, or more serious, with clear demonstrations of a product’s use. Popular music, trends, and sound effects can all increase viewership, so make sure you are supporting content interactions via trendy content.
Shoppable tags can also be added to your Reels to drive product discovery and spur purchases. These tags can be inserted into more entertaining content or overtly sales-pitched content, in order to drive traffic to a product page or site.
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Further Reading: How to Use Instagram Reels for Business: The Definitive Guide
Utilize Instagram’s Shopping Features in Stories and Reels
Tag products in your Stories and Reels to make them instantly shoppable to all of your followers and profile visitors. The Swipe Up feature–specifically created for accounts with 10k or more followers–can also be used to link directly to product pages. This can be especially useful if a great deal of content on your product pages cannot be featured in the shorter-form nature of Instagram captions and descriptions.
Shoppable Story highlights are a great way to maintain shoppable links without constantly bogging down your feed of content with shoppable links. These links can be saved to a highlight, and referenced for any incoming questions about available products or services.
Step 4: Engage with Your Audience and Build Community
Few would argue that customer reviews act as the lifeblood of any good business, but compelling customer reviews may not be likely if your audience does not feel connected to and supported by your brand. By engaging with your audience members and future and current customers, you can help build community and nurture brand loyalty. This can be achieved by answering Instagram DMs and comments, encouraging user interaction and feedback, and collaborating with influencers and other brands.
Respond to Comments and DMs
User comments and questions are important, as they demonstrate how to develop answers to address to customers. Actively monitor and reply to those comments and questions to increase education and encourage loyalty. Provide timely, helpful responses to direct messages and inquiries to show customers you can be trusted and relied upon.
Friendly, on-brand tones of voice will help build rapport and trust, as well. It can be tempting to use complicated jargon in order to sound a certain way, but friendly tones are likely to go over best with all audiences.
Encourage User Interaction and Feedback
User interaction and feedback can come in a host of ways on Instagram / Facebook, but there are some simple ways to encourage customer testimonials and encourage interaction. Asking questions, running polls, hosting giveaways, and more can help create opportunities for users to share their thoughts and regularly engage with your content.
Encourage happy customers to tag you in their posts, or share their experiences with your products on your page and theirs. Contents and giveaways can incentivize engagement and user-generated content to support a regular mill of follower activity.
Collaborate with Influencers and Other Brands
Partner with influencers within your niche to expand your reach, gain credibility, and turn followers into customers. Complementary brands can be partners for giveaways, product bundles, or even just content creation. By engaging with other businesses and influencers through liking, commenting, and sharing their content, you can further your reach and increase trust in one fell swoop.
Further Reading: How to Find Out If An Instagram Influencer Has Fake Followers or Not
Step 5: Utilize Instagram Ads for Targeted Reach
I have highlighted techniques that keep you in the driver’s seat so far, but Instagram ads are useful for targeted reach, and can be an effective tool in your overall arsenal for Instagram marketing. Ads can show up to your existing followers, but are designed specifically to increase the scope of your reach. To make sure ads perform as desired, set clear goals and your target audience, choose the correct format, and optimize your work.
Set Clear Goals and Target Audience
Your target audience and goals need to be clear, regardless of how many dedicated followers you already have. Define your objectives as you make goals. Are you interested in website traffic, product sales, or lead generation? Set the metrics by which you will be able to measure success or setbacks.
Identify the target audience for whom you are writing or creating using demographics, interests, and behaviors. Instagram’s targeting options can be useful here, as they allow users to reach the right audience members with ads and support the development of an engaged audience. This is important, as an active audience is far more likely to make purchases, create content, and more if they match your preferred demographics.
Choose the Right Ad Format
Different ad formats will trigger different responses in your audience, and will perform in different ways. Experiment with the formats Instagram has to offer: single image, carousel, video, or Stories. All of these formats have their own unique drawbacks and advantages, but be sure to select the format that best showcases your products and aligns with the goals you have set.
Make sure your ad creative is high-quality, eye-catching, and on brand. As you experiment and learn what your audiences respond best to, you can maintain consistency and normalcy across all formats to deliver an aesthetically cohesive series of ads to support your Instagram shop.
Further Reading: How to Create Instagram Ads that Convert: 7 Cost-Effective Ways
Optimize Your Ad Copy and Call-to-Action
Ad copy should always include some type of call to action, and Instagram ads are no different. Write clear, concise ad copy that highlights the key features and benefits of your products. Demonstrate how those key features are used, and how they might relate to different audience members. Use action-oriented language and create a sense of urgency to continuously support sales and growth.
Relevant, compelling Calls-to-Action can encourage users to take your desired action and support the aforementioned sense of urgency. A call to action can be clear and obvious (“Reach out to us today!”) or more subtle in their delivery (“Consider speaking to a ____ today.”).
Step 6: Provide Exceptional Customer Service
Customer service is an important part of Instagram shopping, as it can make or break your audience’s interest in your products on an ongoing basis. By responding to customer inquiries promptly, sharing resources and product information, and going above and beyond, you can support brand loyalty.
Respond to Customer Inquiries Promptly
Customer inquiries are important, so make sure you are closely monitoring all of your DMs, comments, and tagged posts. Not all customer inquiries require a veritable army of specialists and special information; plenty of customer inquiries can be redirected to existing content. Others will require you to look into their accounts or go over any issues that may arise with existing sales.
No matter the origin of the inquiry, provide swift, helpful responses to demonstrate how much you value your customers’ needs. A friendly, empathetic tone can help ease any rising tensions. Strive to resolve issues quickly and professionally.
Share Helpful Resources and Product Information
Helpful resources and product information can also support brand loyalty and foster trust with your audience. Story Highlights and posts that address common customer questions and concerns is a great place to start. Many customers immediately turn to Highlights when they are looking at a new brand, so make sure you are not neglecting this area of your profile.
Product care instructions, sizing guides, and FAQs can proactively assist customers, and can be included in Highlights or links in bio. Links can also be placed to refer customers directly to your return policy, shipping information, and customer support channels. All of this is useful and suggests a note of transparency, further supporting the notion of trust.
Go Above and Beyond to Delight Customers
Surprising customers with personalized notes, small gifts, and exclusive discounts can go a long way. These small, thoughtful gifts can encourage customer loyalty and make customers feel as though they are truly seen or valued.
Repost and celebrate any user-generated content that arises, to demonstrate your appreciation for your customers, while at the same time showing evidence of customer satisfaction. From there, you can continuously gather feedback and use that feedback to improve your products and customer experience.
FUrther Reading: How to Do A Giveaway On Instagram in 12 Easy Steps
Step 7: Track, Analyze, and Refine Your Strategy
Congratulations! You have reached the final step in selling on Instagram. In step 7, you are going to look at the different ways your Instagram shopping has grown or stalled, to determine where you may need to make changes or shore up existing, well-functioning systems. Track, analyze, and refine your strategy by setting up Shopping insights, utilizing third-party analytics tools, and continuously test and refine your approach.
Set Up Instagram Shopping Insights
Instagram has a built-in Shopping Insight tool you can use to track key metrics, such as product views, clicks, and sales. Use these insights to monitor your best-performing product posts and the categories from which they come to inform your future content creation. If you notice a lot of engagement coming from one particular product or category, focus your attention and energy there, or consider altering your lower-performing products.
Identify any pain points you might have in your sales funnel, and optimize those according to best practices within your industry. Pain points can change according to industry, and even time of year, so make sure you are regularly looking into your insights and metrics.
Utilize Third-Party Analytics Tools
Third-party analytics tools are popular tools like Hootsuite, Sprout Social, or Iconosquare, and often offer more robust Instagram analytics insights. Third-party tools typically track metrics like engagement rate, follower growth, and click-through rates, in order to have a clear grasp on your marketing campaigns and content strategy.
As you evaluate your insights, make sure you also analyze your audience demographics, behavior patterns, and active times. All of these can also contribute to finding the best products to focus on, and the audience demographics most likely to suit your needs.
Further Reading: Instagram Insights: 10 Things to Learn from Them to Improve Your Marketing
Continuously Test and Refine Your Tactics
An evaluation of analytics is incomplete if you do not regularly review those analytics and continually shift what needs to be shifted. Analytics will tell you what is and what is not working, so make sure you test different content formats, ad targeting, and sales strategies. By testing and evaluating those experiments against your standard social posts, you can determine where your weak spots are and change your approach accordingly.
Stay up-to-date with Instagram’s latest features and best practices to stay ahead of the curve.
Next Steps
Whether you have not yet created your own Instagram account, or you are years into using the app for your business, do not underestimate the power of Instagram as a platform for shopping and ecommerce. Create goals and preferences for your Instagram profile, and develop a color palette and aesthetic you can be proud of for months or years to come.
As you continue to develop your brand’s aesthetic, focus on customer service efforts and engagement. By focusing on these, you can improve the reach of your work and ensure that as many audience members as possible are being exposed to your products or services.
Instagram can be used in a host of different ways; for some, an Instagram shop is the way to go, while others function best tagging links in Stories. As you develop your own relationship with Instagram shopping, make sure you look into the different ways to measure insights, including Instagram itself and third-party apps who can help inform your Instagram strategy and refine it.
Have you implemented any of these ideas in your own Instagram strategy? Let me know in the comments!
Hero photo by Brooke Lark on Unsplash
Thanks for all the great tips. Wonderful article.
Glad you found value!