Selling on Instagram? here are some tips to exchange those likes for dollars

Instagram has become a powerful tool to sell your products & find new customers. With more than one billion monthly active users & 500 million people using Instagram Stories every day, we can see a great opportunity in this platform to expand our businesses.

But if you do not know how to do it, no worries, we are here to give you some tips to improve your visibility & numbers in this social network.

Have you heard about Instagram Shopping? It is an Instagram tool that allows you to link your webshop with your Instagram profile. So, you can connect better with your customers by posting your products & receiving immediate feedback. But to do that, firstly, you will need to follow some steps. Then you will need a bit of creativity to connect with your customers to offer your products without giving the sensation you are pushing them to buy.

Let’s review how to set up your Instagram Shopping & how to start selling there!

Setting up Instagram Shopping in my Account

Firstly, we need to make sure everything is set up correctly, & then we just have to create content. So before posting, check if your business meets these requirements:

● Your account is set up as a business profile instead of a personal one.

● Your store sells products included in Instagram's commerce policies

● Your business profile is associated with a Facebook catalog in the Business Manager Platform.

If these have this covered, you will be ready to start selling your products on Instagram.

Selling on Instagram

There are different ways to sell your products on Instagram. Here we show you three: Via Posts, Instastories & Reels.

Instagram Posts

You have many options in the posts to sell your products using the Shopping Product Tags without looking desperate. But, how can I create valuable content to make my followers click to the buy button? Well, here you will find some options to make the most effective Shopping Posts.

Have you checked the quality of your pictures?

We know that not everyone has the chance to hire a photographer to do the pictures for their products every time they want to create content. But luckily for you, the technology has evolved enough to let us take semi-professional photos from a smartphone.

These pictures can be simple & still look elaborated. For example, you can show your products in a plain background but well-positioned & make an incredible picture. If you want to get inspired, check @nablacosmeticsm.

As you can see, they use a plain background to show their lipsticks and still look beautiful.

Have you heard about user-generated content?

If you have seen that your customers tag you on their posts, & they look good, USE THEM!!! User-generated content is a great option to get more content without spending more money on photo shoots or if you want to diversify your posts.

Take a look at the @KylieCosmetics account to see how they are doing it.

Tagging your products will also allow you to appear in the Search Shop feed that looks like this:

Using this option would increase your engagement because it is a post made by your happy customers. Authentic recommendations are really difficult to get, so if you have the chance to use this type of content, use it!

Hashtags?

Even though you may think Instagram hashtags are overrated, you can use them to connect with your desired target market. So, people who haven’t seen your brand can discover your content in their feed.

We need to highlight that if you post a Shoppable Post with hashtags, your post will appear with a shopping bag icon on the top right corner, letting the possible customers know that your product is available.

If you already selected the correct hashtags that work well for your brand, use them on your posts, but put them in the caption because it would make them more visible, & you would start connecting with a new audience.

Do you have an influencers strategy?

Instagram influencers can be used as brand ambassadors for your business, sharing your products to their audience for money, exposure, or free products.

But if you are a startup with a reduced budget & do not want to spend tons of money with big influencers, don’t worry! There are different kinds of influencers you can use & still get amazing results. For example, micro-influencers from 5 000 to 20 000 followers can help you engage with a reduced but efficient audience for lower rates or just free products.

Stories

With more than 500 million users using them, the Instastories have become an incredible way to get more visibility, engage with your followers, & sell your products. So, here you would find some options to share stories with your customers.

Use videos for your products

More than 20% of the users who have watched stories with a follow-up link have done it. So, why if you use videos in your Instagram stories to engage with your customers? 

You can show them how to use your products, real testimonies, or a Q&A video to connect on a deeper level with your audience. But if you are worried because these videos can be useless to reach your goals, what if you use product stickers or swipe-up links in your videos to promote the sale? Remember that you can only use the swipe-up link if you have more than 10 000 followers.

Use stickers  

Did you know that you can tag your product on the Instastory to direct your views into a product section? If not, what are you waiting to use? 

With this option, you can tag your product & when your customers click on the sticker they can be redirected to a product page to see more information about the product to buy.

Reels

The reels have become popular, as videos are more attractive for the internet audience. You can create a 30 seconds video with text explaining your product or its use, upload it into the Instagram feed, & share it on the stories. You can also tag your products to redirect views to your product page. Amazing right?

Well, these are the three organic ways we find efficient to sell your products via Instagram Shop. It is important to highlight that you need to be cautious with the content you post, the quality of the content is crucial to succeeding in your strategy. Also, you should be respectful to your audience, & please don’t forget to take advantage of the video, this tool is really powerful. 

What do you think about these tools? Have you used them before? Let us know in the comments!