How can e-commerce owners succeed on Instagram?

With more than a billion active users worldwide, Instagram is a social media sensation that is growing by the day. Its popularity has transformed it from a simple photo-sharing app into a powerful marketing tool for businesses of all shapes and sizes. E-commerce businesses, especially in recent years, have benefited greatly from Instagram, and in this article, we will give you all the information that e-commerce owners need to succeed on the platform.

Begins

The first thing you need to do on Instagram is set up a business profile. If you do not know how a business profile on Instagram differs from the average profile, consider the following:

A business profile allows owners to access analytics for appraising followers’ information, access, emotion, and more.
A business profile can be used to add call-to-action and other interactive elements that allow Instagram followers to connect with promotional positions.
Business profile supports third-party mergers.

So if your business does not have an Instagram profile yet, it’s time you thought about switching. The process of switching from a normal install profile to a business profile is simple and it only takes you a few minutes to switch.

What’s next?

Instagram Shop is a feature that you can use to integrate all your products with the business profile you have transferred. After activating the feature, your product catalog can be displayed to your target audience within Instagram itself. Instagram recently added a feature called Checkout, which allows people to buy products without leaving Instagram. Therefore, by combining these features, your e-commerce business will be somewhat successful.

Take a look at all the benefits of the Instagram Shopping feature:

Your audience does not need to leave Instagram: this is the biggest advantage of the Instagram Store e-commerce business. The majority of social media users these days do not need to visit various websites to see the products they want to buy. They want to get all the information on the platform they are using.

If Instagram users like the products you have to offer, they will naturally tend to visit your site. Instagram ensures that people who visit your site are more likely to buy, and as a result, generate high-quality traffic to your site.

Allow product tagging through posts: If you want to stand out and be relevant in front of your target audience, you have to regularly post your business profile on Instagram. With the Instagram Shopping feature, you can tag products across all your posts.

Once you have optimized the hashtags for these posts, they have a great opportunity to appear in front of your target audience on the Shopping Search tab, another recently launched Instagram feature. The Shopping Search tab is usually viewed by Instagram users who are already interested in making a purchase.

Direct Product Promotion: Before the advent of the Instagram store, it would be a bit difficult for e-commerce businesses to generate translations from the platform. Of course, it was still a popular platform for strengthening customer relationships, but when it came to transformation, it was declining. The reason for this was that Instagram allowed only one link in the biological connection. Therefore, every post that was a product or brand promotion should have received the following types of calls – see Bio-Link.

However, there are things spicy by the Instagram store. Now, businesses can show their products directly, and that too by using different post formats (photos, videos, stories) without any adverse effect on the user experience. Thanks to the Instagram store, tagging products through your notes will be as easy as tagging other peopling.

Launch your ecommerce Store Instagram Store

Now that you know all the benefits that can be gained from the Instagram Shop feature, you will naturally be interested to know how to start an Instagram shop for your e-commerce store. This will take some time to complete, including integrating certain moving parts and obtaining Instagram approval to acquire and activate it. But don’t worry, the hassle is minimal and ultimately worth it!

The first thing you need to do to start your Instagram shop is a Facebook shop, which is the source for all the information quoted by Instagram to successfully create your Instagram shop. If you do not have a Facebook shop, here’s how you can set it up:

Solo Facebook Store: The first option you can explore is to start a solo Facebook shop. However, this has the potential to complicate things, because you have to create a product catalog from the beginning and deal with inventory management on multiple fronts.

Facebook’s e-commerce management system has also come under heavy criticism for not offering some of the features that are standard offerings on specific Facebook platforms. However, it all boils down to your preferences. If creating a Facebook shop on your own is useful to you, there is no reason why you should not go ahead with it. However, if managing separate inventory and order seems problematic, there is a second option to explore.

Sync your e-commerce store with Facebook: If your e-commerce store is on a platform like Shoplift, Big Commerce, or Magneto, you’re in luck. You can integrate your entire product catalog in minutes and the best thing about this option is automated inventory tracking.

If simplicity is your thing, we recommend choosing this option (Shoplift or Big Commerce dashboard) as you can manage all your orders in one place. This allows you to focus more on increasing sales and in return you get more Likes on Facebook page.

Start your Instagram store

Once your Facebook store is up and running, you need to follow these steps to successfully launch your Instagram store:

Update your Instagram app: If you are using an older version of the Instagram app, you will not have access to the Shop feature. So the first thing you need to do is update the app to the latest version.
Connect your Instagram and Facebook pages: Once your Instagram app is up to date, link your business pages via Facebook and Instagram. Access the ‘Connected Accounts’ option in your Instagram settings to successfully link pages.
Add Instagram as a sales channel: You can set up Instagram as one of the few sales channels in your e-commerce store. For example, if you have a Shopify store, go to the dashboard and select Instagram in the Add Sales Channel box, which you can access by clicking the plus icon.
Wait for approval: In this case, Instagram is tasked with conducting a review process, which will take a few days to complete. Once it is completed, Instagram will notify you and you will be all set to start using the various Instagram shopping features.
Confirm the Facebook Store to add: The final step is to confirm the Facebook Store that you want to sync with your Instagram business profile. You can do this by opening the ‘Business Settings’ option and going to the ‘Shopping’ tab.

Now, your Instagram store is finally up and running and you can see the ‘Tag Products’ option when you want to create a new post. Click on it and tag the desired product.

Complete your Instagram shopping promotion

Creating an Instagram store alone is not enough. Now that it works, you need to focus on Instagram marketing to spread the word. Here are some tips to help make your Instagram store more visible to your target audience:

Run ads: You can run your shop notes as ads on Instagram and you can do that through the Facebook Ad Manager. Posts must have the correct tags, descriptive hashtags, and high-quality images. Failure to optimize posts often leads to failure, so remember to optimize as many posts as you can.
Create hashtags on the site for your posts: You can’t expect success on Instagram without hashtags. To create and use Nike hashtags throughout your shopping spree. Find out what your competitors are doing on Instagram and get inspired!
Use Product Stickers: You can also create shopping using the Instagram Story feature. It includes product stickers in four designs and you can edit the text and color of the stickers.
Tag products in previous posts: If you have previous posts that include products, be sure to revisit and tag them. This ensures that even if an Instagram user sees an old post, shopping for products is not a problem.