Gone are the days when Instagram used to be the younger, immature sister of Facebook living under its shadows, where people would filter pictures of their ramen. Now, businesses have embraced Instagram with open arms, making it one of their main revenue-generating platforms. Today, Instagram consists of over 2 million advertisers and 25 million business profiles! You can get 50 free Instagram followers instantly with Getinsta app.
From major brands to the local ones, businesses around the world are driving results with Instagram. As per a recent report, 75% of Instagram users take action, such as visiting a website or making a purchase, right after looking at Instagram ads. So, if you haven’t already begun optimizing your Instagram for sales, you may be missing out on a golden opportunity.
Have we piqued your curiosity? Here are seven brilliant tips to help you learn how to sell on Instagram.
1. Optimize your Instagram business profile
The Instagram business profile is turning out to be the new homepage as more and more consumers are relying on Instagram rather than Google to search for brands. This means you should be investing as much time and effort as curating an aesthetically designed Instagram feed as you would spend creating your website.
Your Instagram business profile should include:
- Profile photo: Pick a photo that is on-brand (like a logo) and makes your brand easy to identify.
- Well-crafted bio: Your Instagram bio is incredibly significant. It should incorporate a clear description of your business that calls out to your audience. Let them know exactly what you have to offer.
- Link to your shop: The URL section of your profile bio is the only clickable link you can include to your Instagram page, so make sure you’re using it! This is an excellent place to drive traffic from your individual posts and stories.
Love Crochet is a great example of a well-crafted business profile:
Their profile comes with a beautifully designed and consistent aesthetic as well as an appealing bio and branded profile photo.
2. Create Instagram stories with product links
Instagram Stories are garnering immense popularity, and the feature has more than 500 million daily active users, which is the double of what Snapchat has. So, it’s no wonder businesses continue to look for newer and creative ways they can sell using this feature.
Instagram Stories offer the perfect opportunity for brands to engage with audiences on a more frequent and personal basis. Many brands use Instagram Stories to catch their products in action, promote special offers, or highlight new items.
In 2017, Instagram enabled users who had 10,000 followers or more with the capacity to include links to Instagram Stories, which was great news for retail brands and publishers. This has emerged as a great Instagram trend right now and can assist you to grow your email list, sell products, drive traffic, and more.
When including a link to Instagram Stories, you’ll find a small arrow, and “See More” text appears at the bottom of your image. Since this small text may go unnoticed, you can incorporate text directing users to “Swipe Up” (or something similar) for generating more visibility. You can also avail of the assignment assistance or assignment help on such social media topics.
The Instagram algorithm now considers all the interactions you receive on your Instagram Stories as well, like replies and shares. The more a consumer interacts with your Instagram Stories, the more likely your posts will appear in their feed.
3. Offer Instagram-only promotions
Who doesn’t love a good sale, right? Instagram is the perfect platform to promote a sale, a new product launch, or discount code exclusively to your followers. You can either incorporate your promo information in a caption or in Instagram Stories, inviting users to click the link in your bio to make the most of the offer.
If you’ve initiated an Instagram-exclusive promotion, you can create a small teaser on other social networks to drive considerable traffic to your Instagram business profile. Promoting exclusive Instagram-only promotions (for instance, a special discount code for your followers) will allow your audiences to follow your Instagram account.
4. Use relevant hashtags
If you really want your brand to get noticed on Instagram and reach a large base of audiences, then you have to master the art of using the hashtag.
Hashtags can be your greatest weapon to wield for putting your brand in front of potentially millions of people. However, it’s vital to not include too many hashtags in your posts. That way, your posts come across as spammy.
It’s always better to focus on a couple of targeted, highly trafficked hashtags. This will elevate the chances of your posts reaching out to the right people. After all, you’re not targeting just about anyone – rather you’re targeting your specific audience. By carefully picking your hashtags, you’ll make sure that the people finding your posts are in your target demographic.
One simple hack to find relevant hashtags is to see which ones are being used by the influencers in your niche. Keep in mind that many of these hashtags may have thousands of posts. If you opt for these hashtags, there’s a high chance your post will end up getting buried under the pile. Try to find hashtags that are frequently used by influencers and garner a lot of attention, but also keep an eye for hashtags that might be used too much.
For instance, the hashtag #travel currently has over 400 million posts.
5. Invest in Instagram ads
Advertising on Instagram will allow you to attract a new and targeted audience. It’s a worthwhile investment, particularly if your brand or business is fairly new.
You can chalk out strategies for your Instagram ads in such a way that you reach the consumers who are most likely to be interested in your brand. That’s exactly what InflowStyle did with their Instagram ads.
The fashion-forward activewear brand initiated an advertising campaign on Instagram that targeted women aged between 25 to 34 in America. InflowStyle’s ads involved lifestyle photos with light tones and a ‘Shop Now’ button that took users to a product page on their website.
During this campaign, InflowStyle gathered a five-fold increase in sales. Their cost per conversion also dropped by 80%, while their return on ad spends increased by six-fold.
The lesson to be taken from this is that devising a successful strategy on Instagram can be a catalyst for your business. For a prolonged time, the issue with Instagram marketing was that you couldn’t insert clickable links in your post. Hence, brands had to direct their fans to the link in their bio instead and continuously update that link.
6. Show your projects in action
Even though high-quality images of your products may attract people’s attention, they may not always be sufficient to drive sales alone.
If you want your Instagram content to have a solid impact, share your experience in real-time. Narrate a story through your Instagram content using stunning videos and pictures that catch your products in action.
For instance, if you’re selling a specific ingredient, you can post photos of dishes that can be prepared with the ingredient. Add the recipe in the caption, and possibly describe the perfect occasion to enjoy the delicacy.
Alternatively, if you’re selling clothes, you can highlight people wearing clothes in different contexts. Incorporate a caption that highlights the experience of wearing clothes.
GoPro, for instance, does a stupendous job of capturing their product in action. All of their Instagram posts are photos and videos captured using their camera.
7. Aim to be relatable at all cost
Humour goes a long way in attracting the right set of audience. To improve sales, try to incorporate relatable humor and witty puns into your Instagram posts. The ulterior objective is to alter people’s perception of your brand. And you already know the ways in which positive brand perception can impact its sales!
The Honest Company interacts with their Instagram followers by frequently posting funny, relatable quotes for parents and requests their followers to give them free Instagram likes. You can find in the screenshot below how many of their fans respond to their humor, and talk about how relatable it is.
The brand also posts fan-submitted photos with witty captions.
If humorous content doesn’t go with your brand image, you can harp on thought-provoking and inspiring – both of which are recipes for shareability. Instagram is a remarkable platform for aspirational posts that are extremely relatable and appeal to a large group of people.
Conclusion
Understanding how to sell on Instagram will take a considerable amount of time in order to determine what methods work best for your business. While selling on Instagram can be a little intimidating initially, it’s a lot convenient than it seems. Once you learn the ropes, you’ll be off to the great prospects of your business, drawing in tons of new people who might turn out to be your next consumers.