If you know how to sell on Instagramthis social network can be a real one source of income also for your business. In fact, Instagram is not just breathtaking landscapes and selfies in front of the mirror.
By scrolling through your personal feed, you can realize the myriad of opportunities that this social network offers to your business.
Brands take advantage of the marketing features Instagram offers and have quickly recognized the platform as a great medium for grow your business.
Converting your followers into real customers is not an impossible mission, on the contrary. It’s the same platform that gives you everything you need to get started.
With the right marketing strategyyou will be able to promote your products and services, enhance your brand and increase sales.
If this intrigues and interests you, in this article you will find everything you need to know on how to use Instagram to market your business.
What is the advantage of selling on Instagram?
Instagram is now a huge online community with unlimited marketing potential, capable of generating 58 times more engagement than Facebook and 120 times more than Twitter. An interesting fact for your business, don’t you think?
With its 700 million users, the platform is continually growing and offers many advantages for those who decide to use it as a sales channel for their products and services, therefore to do Instagram Marketing.
First of all, the possibility of targeting your audience based on Facebook data.
For those who don’t know, in fact, the two social networks belong to the same ecosystem and, therefore, all programming activities, setting and creating ads are carried out via Facebook, making everything simpler and more immediate.
Furthermore, you can easily integrate Shopify to sell your products instantly, using less time and resources than other online marketing channels and consequently obtaining better results in terms of ROI.
With these prospects, perhaps it’s time for you to give Instagram a chance too.
Everything you need to sell on Instagram
If you publish the right imagesyour potential customers will start to follow you, become interested in your products or services and prefer them over others.
People look to social media for references, for visual proof of a brand’s reliability.
So the moral of the story is this: Instagram helps convert passive buyers into trusting customers.
If you are new to this world, don’t worry. Now we will see, step by step, everything you need to know start selling or For increase your sales on Instagram.
Let’s get started.
1. Create your business account
When creating an Instagram account, make sure to create a Company Profilewhich will allow you to use more tools to promote your brand.
To convert a “basic” profile into a business profile, go to your profile and press the three bars in the top right. Then, click on “Settings” and select “Switch to company profile”.
Once this is done, Instagram advises you to connect the profile with the Facebook page of your company.
Once you’ve created your Instagram account, add details about your business, including your name, username, profile photo, website URL, and a short bio.
Make sure you include your contact information so your followers can get in touch with you.
If you want to know in detail all the steps to create your business profile on Instagram, read the article on how Advertise posts on Instagram. You will find all the information you need.
But now let’s move on to the next phase.
2. Promote yourself with marketing strategies
As with all other channels, it is important to focus on one for Instagram too long-term strategy.
Precisely for this reason, it is important to create an editorial calendar that allows you to organize all your content and when it should be published.
Keep in mind that this will serve as a guide, not a rule. In fact, you will also have to take into account live and user-generated content.
Remember: the purpose of social media is to be social.
In addition to the organic contentHowever, it is important to have a strategy for the paid content.
In fact, even with Instagram, it is possible to create advertisements, using the same platform you use for your Facebook Ads and selecting Instagram as positioning.
Instagram ads look the same as normal posts and, therefore, are not visually “intrusive”.
And then, don’t forget the Instagram Stories.
With this feature you have the freedom to post content that will automatically disappear after 24 hours. This short duration engages people and makes them curious. In fact, Stories are the ones that are viewed the most.
At the same time, it allows you to share information more authentically, building a relationship with your audience.
Use Instagram shopping
Instagram Shopping is a feature that was created to allow companies to create an immersive showcase that allows users to explore an entire catalog with just one click.
Through this functionality you can insert a link for each product present in a particular post, redirecting the visitor directly to the shop.
Without this innovation, the user, after seeing a product, had to click the link in the bio and search for it within the e-commerce site.
With Instagram Shopping, however, just click on the product to find yourself in the shop e convert the follower into a buyer.
But there’s more!
Instagram Shopping is available on both regular posts and Instagram Stories, an even hungrier market.
3. Take advantage of hashtags
Instagram feeds change quickly and your content could quickly disappear. The hashtag they are the only way to counter this trend.
For those who don’t know, hashtags are the keywords that users use to search for content relevant to them.
Each post can be “described” with a maximum of 30 hashtags.
But how can you choose the best performing ones?
There are applications created specifically to search for the most popular and trending hashtags. Popularity, however, often doesn’t pay. Use something generic like #fashion it means your image will still be lost in a sea of content. It is therefore advisable to also use something more specific to your sector.
Another interesting idea is to create a custom hashtag that groups all your content and makes it easily searchable.
Finally, I recommend posting the tags in a comment after posting the photo. This way the tags won’t overshadow the message of your caption.
4. Make connections instant
To avoid losing the people who saw your post, add a CTA that invites them to perform a specific action and adds the link that takes them where you want.
Examples of simple and effective CTAs are:
- “click the link in our bio”
- “see our Instagram story for more details.”
- “Swipe up”
- “leave a comment below”
- “Leave me a like if you agree!”
You can use a CTA to get more engagement or direct your users to your e-commerce site.
In addition to the caption, you can insert links within stories and, as mentioned before, thanks to Instagram Shopping, within posts containing the products you sell.
Every direct invitation to people allows you to increase your conversion rates and sales.
5. Create engagement with potential customers
Instagram is a fantastic way for your small business to engage your audienceshow them what you’re doing and build strong relationships.
Before you start sharing your photos, think about the message that you want to communicate to your customers.
Instagram allows you to communicate company values through images so make sure they evoke a consistent tone and message.
Another way to stimulate users is to create dedicated promotions only to followers.
You could, for example, give a small gift to the first 20 customers who like your photo or post a story featuring your product.
Finally, it matters monitor comments that they leave below your photos and show them that you care about what they have to say. Reply to comments, try to follow them and involve them by carrying on the conversation and making them participate.
6. Analyze and optimize
Whoever stops is lost and you can’t afford it.
Your constant goal must be to continuously attract new customers and the only way to do this is to continue optimizing the performance of your Instagram profile.
As? Taking the time to analyze successes and failures, research your audience and replicate content that works.
In the myriad of data available, I advise you to pay attention essentially to these:
- REACH: The actual number of people who saw your post. It is indicated in numbers.
- COVERAGE: the number of people who saw the post divided by the number of followers. It is indicated as a percentage
- AVERAGE COVERAGE RATE PER POST: The average reach rate of ALL your posts published in a certain period of time
- IMPRESSION: The number of times a post appears on a screen. If a person saw your post three times, it will be counted as 1 reach and 3 impressions
- ENGAGEMENT RATE: the engagement rate is the sum of all your Likes, comments and saves (saved posts) divided by the number of followers
- ENGAGEMENT ON REACH: the sum of all your Likes, comments and saves (saved posts) divided by the Reach of your post (not followers)
My advice however is to contact an expert who can help you navigate metrics and data or who can take care of them for you to free up your time.
Even though it may seem like a game, marketing on Instagram is a strategic procedure and serious work that today can really help you make a difference with your business.
Conclusion
Instagram is big social commerce platform if you know how to exploit it in the right way.
Using a business account and Instagram Shopping is obviously the first thing to do to start selling on Instagram.
However, they are not the only two things to implement in your strategy to generate more leads and conversions.
Links, hashtags and data analysis are essential elements and this is why I wanted to talk to you about them in this post.
If you haven’t started selling on Instagram yet, now is the time to give it a try, perhaps using the tips you just read.
Don’t wait any longer, you might already be late!