How to Use Instagram to Grow Ecommerce Sales
Ecommerce
Feb 14
Instagram sees engagement from over one billion active users every month, offering brands a unique opportunity to interact with potential customers right where they are. Instagram’s visual-heavy platform can be harnessed to boost ecommerce sales driven by social engagement. These five methods can help your business develop an Instagram strategy that increases conversions, drives sales and creates loyal customers.
Create a Business Account
If your business is still relying on a personal Instagram account to drive ecommerce, it’s your first priority to make the switch to a business account. Instagram’s business accounts have access to advanced features such as Instagram Insights, promoted posts, and the ability to include contact information.
To switch, log in to your Instagram account and go to settings. Tap “Switch to Business Profile.” Here, Instagram will prompt you to connect to your business Facebook page, choose a category for your business, and fill in your contact details. You’ll be able to start running ads and obtaining audience insights immediately.
Curate Your Instagram Aesthetic
Instagram is a visual medium, and it’s important that each image or video shared is artfully crafted individually and displays a cohesive visual theme for your business account.
Drive ecommerce sales by portraying your products in their best light, in ways that appeal to your customers. Curate an artistic vision for your brand by including posts and images that aren’t quite so promotional as well. An aspirational photo or conversational post can encourage customer engagement with the brand.
Tag Products Within the Instagram Post
The ability to tag products within an Instagram post is a major benefit of converting to a business account. With product tagging enabled, your customers have a direct path to purchasing the featured product on your own website or via Facebook’s Catalog.
To use Instagram Shopping, you must first connect your business profile to a Facebook Catalog. Products that have been added to the Catalog can then be tagged in an Instagram post, up to five per single image or video.
Research and Target Hashtags
Similar to keyword targeting for search engine optimization, Instagram hashtags allow your content to appear in searches by potential customers on the platform. Researching these keywords takes a familiar path towards identifying the topics your customers are searching for and targeting trending social media hashtags.
Utilize Instagram Advertising
Instagram offers its business accounts a number of ways to advertise to potential customers. Within the Ads Manager, your business profile can set up, run, and track campaigns using the same targeting tools offered on Facebook.
Instagram ads appear directly in user feeds, either as an Instagram Story, a photo, or a video up to 60 seconds in length. A highly integrated Collection Ad can combine video and images to allow potential customers to browse your product catalog from within their Instagram feeds.
Whether your business invests in Instagram advertising or takes an organic approach to driving traffic, it’s clear consumers enjoy being inspired by brands within their Instagram feeds. You can help your customers complete their purchases by using Instagram’s business account tools for driving ecommerce sales.