Instagram is one of the most used social platforms in the world, and if you plan on marketing digitally, it’s a must that you have an Instagram presence. Creating a legitimate following to convert or retain customers takes commitment, creativity, and understanding of the Instagram community and knowledge of how to leverage Instagram tools.
In this post, we will talk about Instagram shopping and how you can create your own shop.
What is Instagram Shopping?
It is a set of features that allow people to easily shop your brand’s photos and videos all across Instagram.
Everything starts with your shop! This is your storefront on Instagram. Your shop is a place to sell and share your brand story, where people can browse products and explore collections.
What can you do with Instagram Shopping?
Instagram Shopping allows you to create an online store that customers can access on your Instagram profile or Facebook Page, as well as through stories and ads.
You choose the products you want to feature from your catalog and customize the look and feel of your shop. Customers can browse collections, save products and place an order – either on your website or without leaving the app.
How to set up your Instagram Shop?
1. Make sure selling on Instagram is right for your business.
- Review Instagram’s Commerce and Eligibility Requirements to make sure you sell eligible products and comply with our policies, like Instagram’s commerce policies, terms of use, community guidelines and more.
- Make sure your business has its own website domain. Your shop must contain product listings that are available for direct purchase from your business’s website, and you must represent the store or website associated with the domain provided.
- Check out to see if you are in a supported market
- Confirm that your Instagram profile is a business or creator account. Then, connect it to your Facebook page.
- If you don’t have one already, set up a Business Manager account to set up your shop in Commerce Manager. Business Manager lets you manage your ad accounts, your pages and the people who might be working on them.
- Pick a tool to start onboarding. You can choose to onboard onto Instagram Shopping by setting up your shop in Commerce Manager or a supported platform. Or, you can get started directly within the Instagram app.
- Make sure to fill out your shop details in the Commerce Manager.
2. Tagging
Tagging products in feed posts, stories and Instagram Lives make it easier for customers to discover and purchase your products through your content. It’s important to use shopping tags in all of your content. You can tag up to 5 products per post. Make it easy to see, don’t
overcrowd your content with overlapping tags. Remember don’t allow tagged content to expire from your profile. Also, turn on your auto-highlight in Stories.
Once you have your shop up and running, try arranging your products into collections. This is a great way to curate your products with an editorial point-of-view, and group them into organized, easy-to-browse themes. For this, you will have to locate your shop in the Commerce Manager and select Edit to get started. Then, choose how you want to display your collection, then select “Create New Collection.” After doing this, you can name your collection and select the product from your catalog that you would like to be included. You can customize your collection by adding a description and image. Finally, publish your collection and share it with the world.
3. Finding New Customers
Getting your shop in front of potential customers is crucial- and there are easy ways to do it right through the Instagram app. Use shopping tags to help people discover and purchase your products. Make it fun for your customers to browse your products by creating holiday collections. Promote shoppable content to new and existing customers with ads and product tags.
4. Additional Features
Product Detail Pages provide all relevant info on items from your product catalog, like pricing and descriptions. They also pull in content where the product is tagged on Instagram and drive people to your website to complete a transaction.
For people in the US, Instagram lets people make purchases directly in-app. Checkout is currently available to eligible US business and creator accounts.
Product Launches – Businesses with checkout on Instagram can announce an upcoming exclusive drop, so people can preview details and set reminders to buy as soon as it’s available (U.S. only)
It’s always a good idea to check up on the Instagram business blog. The blog offers a lot of tips and strategies for getting the most out of Instagram as a business or organization and it’s updated on a regular basis.
Need help with your Instagram business? We can help! We will help you set up, so you can focus on your business!
