Instagram For E-commerce – A Guide to Building your brand

What if we tell you, you can focus on one social media platform and get it all? Want to advertise your products? Done! Want to promote your brand? Sure! Want to sell your products? Why not! This versatile platform is nothing other than Instagram. So, how do you use Instagram for e-commerce and build a business on it? 

Here is a complete guide on how to do it from start to end! So, let’s get on with it!

Why Should You Focus on Instagram for your E-commerce business?

So what is the hype all about? Why is everyone concerned with marking their footprint on Instagram? Here are some stats that tell you exactly why marketers allocate a huge portion of their marketing resources toward Instagram:

1. 11% of social media users in the US shop on Instagram.
2. 75% of shoppers turn to Instagram monthly to get their products
3. 2 Billion active users on Instagram each month
4. 60% of people report that they discover new products on Instagram
5. 72% of people say they purchased because of something they saw on Instagram

Still, think Instagram is not worth your time and money? Think again!

But if we managed to change your mind, read on to figure out how to use Instagram to expand your business.

8 Ways You Can Grow Your E-commerce Brand on Instagram

Now that we have seen how Instagram can help your brand. It is time to figure out how to get your hands on those benefits. It is easier said than done, but with these 8 strategies, you can make headway. So let us go through it!

1. Optimize your profile

Your profile is the first place your users will end up, which makes it the first place you need to optimize. After all, you cannot chance to mess up your first impression, right?

So here are some pointers that you can follow to make your profile ready for success:

• Choose the right account type: Use an Instagram Business account
• Removing Fake followers: Weed out any fake followers or bots that you might have. Having bots can make your following count look impressive but the engagement gap is not fun.
• Verifying Your Page: Verifying your business page can add a layer of authenticity to your brand. So if you have some extra time on your hands, consider getting this done.
• Plan an aesthetic feed: This is another hack in which you can tilt the first impression in your favor. We are all suckers for beautiful things, so why not make your profile the most attractive thing your user stumbled upon.

An example is the Crumbl feed. If their feed does not make you hungry, then we don’t know what will. Their beautiful product photography and aesthetic backgrounds make their feed so stunning and delectable!

• Link to other social platforms: Add links to your other platforms, websites, and social media pages in your Instagram bio. Add a proper CTA and details on how to make a purchase.
• Optimize profile image: Use a high-quality profile image with the right shape and size in 110 x 110 px.
• Utilize Highlights: Leverage highlights to display information regarding your business. This can be anything from testimonials, refund policy, directions on how to make a purchase, and so on.
• Stay on point with your brand: Whatever post you put out, make sure to adhere to your brand guidelines to maintain consistency. With Predis AI you can automate these parts of your content creation process.

2. Create a Content Plan

Your Profile is now set and ready to go. The next step is to fill it up with amazing product shots, stellar testimonials, and fun memes to complete your social media feed. For that, you need a content plan in place. To get that follow these steps:

• Experiment with different content types: Just because you are an e-commerce brand does not mean you have to focus exclusively on shoppable content. Create a good balance of other formats of content such as Reels, stories, and text-based posts as well.
• Take part in Trends: It pays to take part in Trends. You improve credibility and users love it when brands put out their unique take on the trend.
• Leverage hashtags: Having relevant hashtags in your posts improves the SEO of your content and boosts discoverability. When you use the right hashtags, you can put your business on top of the Explore section and reach a new audience. So spend some time to figure out popular but unsaturated hashtags in your niche and use less than 10 of them per post.
• Show how to use your products: Don’t just assume your users know how to use your products. Go out and create content that shows your product in action.

3. Influencer Marketing

56% of people trust products recommended by Instagram Influencers. This means collaborating with one increases your chances of widening your audience base and improving brand awareness.

But often influencer marketing comes with a steep cost. So, talk to influencers in your niche, find out what are their rates, and find one who is within your budget. 

You do not have to go straight to huge influencers with millions of followers. Sometimes, micro-influencers can bring you more sales because of their targeted audience and better engagement rates.

So, it is always a good idea to take into account various factors such as the following when finalizing an Influencer for your marketing campaign:

• Reach
• Amount per post
• CPM 
• Average likes per post
• Conversion to likes percentage

4. Launch Giveaways & Incentives

Providing incentives to make customers purchase is an age-old technique used by marketers. 

In the era of social media, this practice continues. 

Here is the thing with Instagram, it is tricky to get new followers and build your account. To make this happen, you need to pull out your secret weapon from your arsenal – giveaways and Incentives.

Conduct a giveaway, and give out samples of your best sellers to let your followers know the value of your product. Hook your viewers and turn them into loyal followers of your brand.

Or if you do not want to give away whole products, but are willing to take a price cut, then do Incentives. Give out flash sales and offers where your audience can purchase your products for a discounted price for a limited time.

5. Check out Your Performance

Without constant monitoring, you will not be able to figure out the strategies that work and the ones that do not.

Instagram has made this analysis pretty easy with its in-built dashboard that allows you to monitor the performance of your content.

Apart from the likes and follower count, Instagram also allows you to know the demographic and age group of the people who interact with your content. This allows you to unlock new markets and also check if you are reaching the right set of audience.

6. Research Your Competitors

Most of the time there is no need to reinvent the wheel. Because your competitors have already done the heavy lifting for you and formulated a strategy.

With the right amount of research, you can unlock insights that you had no idea about.

But, how do you get started on researching your competitors? Simple!

• Find influencers in your niche and see their promotions. Have they promoted a product in your category? If yes then that brand is your competitor.
• Check out keywords related to your niche in the hashtags section of Instagram and find posts that are performing well.
• You can also check search engines to identify competitor websites that are ranking for your keyword.

Once you have an idea of who your competitors are, you will be able to identify many tactics that have already worked for their socials. So, now you have a proven blueprint to follow and widen your audience.

7. Run Ads

Like Facebook, Instagram too offers a myriad of ad options for E-commerce Businesses to grow and sell their products. Here are some major ad types that you can use for your brand:

Image Ad:

These kinds of ads appear on the feed of the users with a “Sponsored” tag on top and a clickable CTA at the bottom. You can make these from scratch or boost an existing post, although we suggest you create one optimized for ads.

Video Ad:

Video ads are the most engaging ads and can dynamically deliver more information. These kinds of posts are best when you have a catalog of products to display and an image ad is just not sufficient.

Stories Ad:

These kinds of sponsored ads are placed concurrently between organic stories. These ads also come with a “Sponsored” tag on top and a CTA at the bottom. However, as Instagram stories can easily be skipped, your ads need to be engaging enough to retain the viewer within a few seconds.

Carousel Ad:

This is also a good option for brands that want to display a catalog of products but do not want to make a video.

Carousel posts are another high-engagement post and can accommodate up to 10 images for one post. These posts too are placed in the user’s feed and can have a clickable CTA.

Explore Ad:

Instagram Explore section is a stellar way to gain access to a new audience and widen your brand awareness.

Let us face it, most of us click on that “Search” button on Instagram at least once during a purchasing process. This is either to find out vendors for our products or to see the options present in the market.

As a brand, this is where you need to be if you want your audience to be aware of your offerings and engage with your business.

8. Utilize UGC

If you wish to get more social proof for your product and showcase people endorsing your product, then UGC is the way to go.

User Generated Content (UGC) is the kind of content that is created by the viewers and not the brand. If wielded correctly, this type of content can bring you more business.

For example, the Starbucks Fiasco. When Starbucks gave out cups with the customer’s name wrongly spelled on top of them, viewers should have been irritated. But instead, they shared their cup images and flaunted those wrong spellings. Which led to a huge influx of customers for Starbucks.

And what is more? All they spent to get this marketing done was to buy a Sharie. Genius, right?

Conclusion

Instagram has gone from a mere photo posting platform to a vital part of the purchasing journey of a user. Therefore, E-commerce brands need to have a solid presence on the platform.

But, Rome is not built in a day and a strong Instagram will not be done in a day too. But creating content for the whole month in advance can be done in a day.

Wondering how? With Predis AI is how you get that done.

Predis AI comes with a set of features that can help you automate the end-to-end social media management process. Whether you want to get post ideas, generate one with AI, schedule your content, or maintain a social media content calendar, Predis AI has everything you need.

So, sign up today to get started!

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