As you probably already know, Instagram is a photo and video-sharing social networking service that has radically changed the way of using social media. It’s used by hundreds of influencers in different ways: taking picture of their day-to-day life, to promote products or even to make important announcements.
Similarly, many businesses use Instagram to sell products online, for reviews and customer satisfaction.
Good news is that everyone can use their Instagram account and start selling, as long as you have a business account.
Everybody can open an Instagram business account. It’s free and it gives you even more helpful insights than a personal account. For example, just to tell you some:
- Audience. This tab shows you the top locations, age range, and gender of your followers.
- Activity. This tab lets you see how many accounts interacted with your profile each day of the previous week.
- Content. This tab lets you see the number of impressions each Post got, so you can really track if things like hashtags are increasing your reach.
Furthermore, if you already have a personal account and want to use it for business, you don’t need to open a new one. This step-by-step guide will show you how to set an account up in less than 5 minutes.
How to use Instagram to sell products
At this point you are ready to use Instagram to sell products. Below I will write an how-to guide, but you can also find more info on the Instagram help centre.
- First of all, you need to get approved for shopping on Instagram. What does it mean? Basically you must give evidence that your business primarily sells physical goods. Without this you cannot use Instagram to sell products.
- Once done you need to enable the ability to feature products. To do so, just go into your profile and tap the setting gear icon. Then tap Shopping > Continue > Select a product catalog to connect to your business profile > Done. If you don’t see the shopping tab in your account settings that means your account is still under review OR it hasn’t been approved for shopping.
- If you’ve successfully completed the previous steps, you can finally start tagging products in Instagram posts. Just select a photo and add a caption, effects and filters like you normally would do. Then tap the products in the photo that you want to tag, enter the name and select it as it appears in the search box. Tap Done and then Share.
Remember, you can tag products also in your Instagram Stories! Here’s an example of the final result.
Successful stories
I wouldn’t write a blog post on how to use Instagram to sell your products if I knew it’s not working.
That’s why I’d like to show you the successful story of Chrissy Weems. She’s the CEO and co-founder of Origami Owl and Willing Beauty. Chrissy uses Instagram to sell beautiful personalised jewellery and miniature charms as part of her marketing strategy. With nearly 97k followers, you can understand how important is to let followers shop directly from a post.
Grow organically
It’s a no brainer that the more exposure your account has, the more people will get to know your business. But in order to gain exposure, Instagram algorithm needs to “see” that there’s a good amount of healthy activity happening on your account. The best way is to grow your account organically, with followers that engage with your post, leaving comments and like.
You can apply different strategies or get help from a growth service, for example. One of the most known (and expensive) is Ampfluence but a lot of people don’t find it a good return in investment. If you’re looking for an Ampfluence alternative, then Nitreo is the way to go! They offer affordable prices and organic followers to grow your account 100% safe and fast.
Also, Growthoid is a fantastic alternative for growing your followers organically. They offer a free trial, many must-have features and priority support with their Premium plan.
In conclusion
You can use Instagram to sell products and should be part of your marketing strategy if you’re already using the platform. As a result, you can increase sales because followers just have to tap on the post instead of visiting your website.
Have you already try the feature? Still not sure? I’d love to know in the comment below 🙂
