From an entertainment social network, the Instagram platform is turning into a tool for promoting businesses. A minimum investment is required to open an Instagram shop, and the return is enormous. The basis is attractive and interesting content. The superstructure is the ability to attract an audience and design the account.
Efficiency and advantages of the Instagram platform
The number of potential buyers on social media is approaching infinity. The main advantage of a store on Instagram over all real and virtual sales platforms is the ability to advertise a product or service in real-time.
There are several other features of the platform that ensure business efficiency:
- Product visualization;
- Reviews of the production process, publication of interesting information about the product, video test drives increase trust in the brand;
- The ability to direct traffic to the owner’s website and other pages;
- Polls in stories provide a real statistical picture of audience perspectives and interests;
- Instant notification of subscribers about sales, promotions, and new offers;
- Placement of partner advertising to increase reach;
- Creation of branded hashtags, tags, and geolocation to increase clicks.
Open sales on the Instagram platform with confidence. There is no risk of losing money – the investment is zero and there is an opportunity to correct shortcomings if sales are not going as desired.
The right choice of niche for an online store
You should promote what the businessman likes and knows about. It’s good to have experience dealing with the intended group of products. Selling the most popular product at the moment is not always the right decision. The competition is too high, and to succeed, you need to be a virtuoso in creating content and designing the page. To start, you need to try to find what users have difficulty buying.
When traveling abroad, you can combine business with pleasure: notice what is not produced in our country, buy a small batch, and “throw a trial ball.” For a more local scale, the same can be done by traveling to a neighboring region of your country.
Before opening an online store, you should find out the demand for what you intend to sell. This can be done in a few seconds by entering words related to the desired product in Yandex Wordstat search. The number of requests will make everything clear.
To start, you can organize a showroom for friends and acquaintances. Many famous brands started this way.
Creating a content plan for a business account on Instagram
A content plan is an excellent support for the quick promotion of a business account. It allows you to avoid haphazardly publishing posts and instead adhere to a strategy in promoting virtual commerce. The plan can be created in an Excel or Word table, where the days of publication, topic, headline, and brief thesis of the future post are outlined. It can be created for any period – from a week to a year or more.
It is very important to distribute texts correctly by types of content and to give selling, informational, and entertaining posts in measured doses.
The main mistake of novice entrepreneurs is to open a store on Instagram and “bombard” subscribers with advertising mixed with selling articles. The audience perceives such promotion negatively, and unsubscribes will not be long in coming.
You need to plan in advance when to mix “sales pitches” with information and entertainment. Such a planned step-by-step instruction will help make the account more interesting and attractive – distribute the types of texts in a percentage ratio.
Here are some ideas for entertaining posts:
- Take a photo or video of the work process from the inside, accompanied by a funny text about the various stages of product preparation;
- Share a curious story related to the product, company, or account owner;
- Create a discussion or poll about a trend or well-known event, express your opinion on them;
- Select interesting statistics or original quotes related to the account’s theme.
For informational posts:
- Brightly and colorfully tell the news about the company, especially information about discounts, promotions, and giveaways;
- Create a rubric on one topic: expert opinion on products sold by the group, interesting facts related to the store’s theme, etc.;
- Talk about participation in exhibitions, conferences, and business plans.
Selling posts should not exceed 70% of all published content.
Registration and adding a business account
Once you have determined which services, goods, or information will be sold through the account, you can proceed with its registration.
The first step is to create a business page on Facebook. Even if you have a personal profile on this social network, the page is created from scratch specifically for certain sales.
The Instagram account is linked to Facebook through the “Switch to Company Profile” button in the menu. The password and login from the Facebook page are entered. The next step is to enter contact information that will be visible to visitors. The account administrator decides which contacts to provide, such as email, phone, address, etc.
Visual design of a profile
There are two main tasks: creating your own style and maintaining a high level of content on the page. Everything else is just tools. You can create your own logo, design your profile in one color scheme, arrange photos in a checkerboard or linear style, shoot everything from one angle, and so on. However, any photo or video must be accompanied by text.
The choice of time for posting sales posts
In April 2018, Facebook revealed an interesting statistic during one of its presentations. It turns out that the average Instagram user logs into the app 26 times a day. There are only 24 hours in a day! If you subtract time for sleep, food, work, and family communication, it means that users visit their profiles every 30 minutes. The same presentation also provided data that registered users spend about one hour online in the social network.
One can conclude that no matter what time a post is published, it will be seen by those who need to see it. It is better to focus on perfecting video and text content rather than analyzing user feed visitation graphs.
Proper use of hashtags
Instagram search is limited to name, location, and hashtag. The last type of search, to attract customers, will not be effective if created randomly, without strategy and plan.
To ensure the audience understands the theme of the post, one high-frequency hashtag is sufficient. For targeted coverage, it is better to use low-frequency ones.
There are several types of #:
- Brand – used for selling clothing, shoes, accessories (#nike).
- Industry – high-frequency ones are useful here (#advertising, #marketing).
- Location – for local audience (#fotoyalta).
Principle of product card placement
There is a commonly accepted structure for card zoning. The product photo is usually located on the right side of the page, while the text is on the left. A properly SEO-optimized card should contain:
- Title – original. Eye-catching and not copied from similar websites.
- Product characteristics – properties, materials, parameters are described step by step. This section should be concise and comprehensive.
- Description – highlights product features and answers potential questions. The text should be grammatically correct, structured, and not exceed 1000 characters.
- Price and discount (if available) – must be indicated. A user is more likely to go to another page than to call to clarify the cost.
Engagement and promotion of a business account on Instagram
The goal and strategy are the main things in promoting a profile. It is necessary to determine what to promote, how to promote it, and how to attract your target audience. To make a profit from an online store, persistent, daily, and often monotonous work is required. And all the available tools on Instagram should be used in this work.
Customer communication
Communication with potential buyers takes place in the direct messages of the service. Often, a customer “leaves” due to the administrator’s inability to correctly answer questions and ask them properly.
There are several “tricks” that, if followed, can turn a potential buyer into a real one:
- Response time. It is desirable to respond to a request instantly. The consumer monitors the market and makes requests to more than one page. Whoever responds first will get the customer. The buyer is not interested in why he is being “ignored”, he needs results.
- Responding with a script to frequently asked questions is a great idea. There is no need to type the text every time. Creating scripts for questions about price, payment methods, contact information, and saving time once is a good idea.
- You need to learn how to ask questions so that the “ball” is always on the client’s side. This does not allow him to leave in English, he is forced to answer. This is how correspondence is tied.
- It is always necessary to try to understand what the client wants exactly. There is no need to answer him briefly. Any question has an underlying meaning, and it needs to be deciphered. The focus should be on sales.
- Every new subscription is an opportunity to introduce yourself and offer a limited-time discount or other bonuses.
Comment processing
More comments – more popular post. You need to encourage your followers not only to like, but also to comment. This can be done through:
- provocative posts;
- comment contests;
- questions about the post;
- requests for feedback.
There should be a response to every comment. It is not necessary to respond to inappropriate comments and clearly ordered criticism. The brand should not be associated with negativity and virtual wars among followers – although this is also a kind of PR.
Advertising mailing
Cold” direct mailings don’t work well on Instagram. It’s not worth imitating Yandex Market – people go there to buy, and to Instagram for communication. It’s better to advertise to those who are already interested. You can hold a contest with a prize fund and send a mailing to those who participated or at least liked. An already “warmed up” audience won’t be annoyed by links to YouTube videos, discount offers, and other advertising “tricks.” Some showrooms send out invitations to presentations (with refreshments and surprises for everyone) – this can also be used as a tactic.
Unique design style of an Instagram store page
A newcomer in the virtual business may certainly adhere to their own concept. However, to achieve a unique style for a store on Instagram, it is impossible to do without an SMM specialist. This investment will pay off with increased sales.
Popular business accounts of stores on Instagram: let’s spy on ideas
It may seem like there is no more boring Instagram account than a grocery store’s feed, but Trader Joe’s has 234 thousand followers. Food products are not like clothing that can be beautifully displayed. However, the brand uses a creative approach to content and engagement is growing. Here’s what they do:
- Show the lifestyle that subscribers dream of and successfully incorporate their product into it;
- Study the habits and lifestyles of their subscribers, offer what is currently in demand (for example, young parents relaxing with a glass of wine when the kids are asleep);
- Mix formats: sales, entertainment, information.
Huntingrony found their niche in finely crafted “cute” dog photos. Few do it better than them. Even without a pet, you want to buy something for them in this store.
The Spanish brand Mam specializes in selling wristwatches. They found their gimmick in minimalist aesthetics. They decorated their showroom in the same style. Minimalism in a surrealistic style makes this account stand out. The page has gathered 180 thousand followers.
Looking for good ideas and making a step-by-step plan to promote a store based on them is also a good idea.
There is nothing easier than opening an online store on Instagram, the main difficulty is making it profitable. Every step must be well thought out and meaningful. Success will certainly accompany those who are willing to gain knowledge about virtual business, work hard, invest their time, use creativity.