A Detailed Guide on How to Start Selling on Instagram
Instagram is one of the largest social networks where millions of people of different ages, income and social status spend a sizable amount of time. It is used by almost one-eighth of the world population monthly. This social medium has grown rapidly since its introduction, and there is no sign of it slowing down any time soon. In 2020, Instagram will celebrate its 10-year anniversary. For the first decade after its inception, Instagram has managed to become one of the most popular social media platforms on the planet, helping many users earn their living.
The latest statistics show truly astonishing numbers:
- 200 million Instagram users view at least one business profile daily.
- 62% of users claim they became more interested in the brands’ products after viewing their Stories.
- 11% of Instagram users buy products via social media.
- 81% of users always look for information about the products on Instagram before making a purchase.
- Every month, 130 million Instagram users click on the posts dedicated to selling goods.
In this article, you'll learn how to increase your sales on Instagram and start earning more. Follow these five simple steps and sell on Instagram like a pro.
Step 1 - Create a business account on Instagram
There’s no secret that you need a business account to start selling. Even regular users often connect a business profile - this way, you can get statistics on your posts, stories, engagement data, as well as running ads to promote your account.
Moreover, you can also specify your line of business, making it easier for customers to reach your profile and make a purchase..
Unfortunately, Instagram does not allow its users to add links to posts, allowing a user to share only one link in your bio section. However, by converting a regular profile into a business account, you can add links to your stories and direct your audience to a specific product, service or landing page.
Stories have proven to be more prominent than regular posts and they are gradually gaining force. Therefore, it is quite more effective to advertise your products and services via Stories.
Step 2 - Use a hashtag as a catalyst.
Advertisers always seek a way to get more consumers in a shorter period of time. The main barrier of their success is the lack of knowledge of how they can do it.
One of the results of such ignorance is underestimating hashtags as a powerful tool for customer acquisition.
A business account enables you to see the number of non-followers who have seen your post and how many impressions you received via hashtag. By using hashtags wisely, you can increase your ideas and followers.
Hashtag research is an effective way to increase the number of followers and the right way to nudge your customers towards purchase. And that's a fairly simple process: just search for words related to your topic and check how many accounts are using the same hashtag. By adding that hashtag to your post, you can increase its availability.
Step 3 - Launch an ad on Instagram
Facebook Ads Manager gives you access to truly effective Facebook tools for managing your audience, launching promotions and increasing brand awareness. This way, you can promote your ads among a significant number of users while spending relatively less money. You can create a remarketing list at the ad manager later and to continue your advertising campaign on Instagram and Facebook simultaneously.
You can also use the wizard tool to create and launch your own tailored advertising campaigns. Having a certain budget allocated for the ad campaigns is a sound idea, because the right campaign will get your money back along with new customers. On the other hand, you should resist the urge to simply click the "Promote" button to start promoting your Instagram post. Paying for ads of a single post without proper planning almost surely will be a waste of money, as you won’t get an access to the audience with no way to track people who have shown interest in your advertised publication.
Step 4 - Use Instagram checkout to sell physical products
Shopping Tags is the fastest way of selling on Instagram. However, you can use Instagram checkout only if you sell physical products. If you sell services, you won't be able to use it.
The posts with Shopping Tags are similar to regular posts, with an added feature of a pop-up displaying the price for a product once a user clicks on the post.
Once the user clicks on the pop-up tag, they're taken to the product page with its description. From there, they can go directly to the landing page of your business.
The use of Shopping Tag on your Instagram is possible only if your account meets all the requirements for this feature, with some being quite challenging like having a registered trademark, or being located in one of the countries where the Shopping Tag feature is available. In this case, the alternative would be using free services with similar features. For instance, UniLink provides you with a multi-link that you can add to the bio section of your Instagram account, enabling you to attach products from your website to your Instagram posts.
Step 5 - Use influencer marketing
Influencer marketing is one of the most popular techniques used by both new and long-standing brands.
This marketing technique tends to be more effective for promoting physical products rather than services. That is because when an opinion leader uses products directly or indirectly in their video, your product is promoted to the entire new audience. This also increases the user credibility to your products.
There are lots of professional influencers on Instagram with a huge number of subscribers and with experience in advertising products. It will cost you relatively little to use the influence of these individuals to promote your products.
