How to Grow Your Business on Instagram Shopping This Holiday Season

When it comes to Instagram, you clearly think of exciting photographs, enticing videos, and creative stories. However, it becomes more interesting if you are already a creator, a famous personality, or a brand interacting with a diverse audience through your account. This gives you an added reach and broader connection. Now, with the advent of Instagram Shopping, brands have a great opportunity to grow their business on Instagram.

Instagram Shopping offers a wealth of chances for small businesses to expand. If you’re still not convinced of its superior qualities, here’s your chance to learn more and test it out.

What makes Instagram Shopping different?

Instagram is a kind of social media platform where visual updates inspire human actions. The best part of Instagram is, it is super easy and convenient to use with so many personal and professional tools – all without paying a single penny.

84% of people now discover products online. The increasing shift of people discovering ideas and things online opens up an opportunity for you to connect your business with Instagram Shopping. It offers you to create shoppable posts on Instagram; you can tag your products in the post, and stories to help people discover your offerings. Not just that, with Instagram Shopping, approved, you also get benefited by the add-on elements: Instagram Shops Tab, Instagram Drops,  Live Shopping, Product Tags, and Checkout on Instagram. These features can act as catalysts in growing your business on Instagram.

You can level up your small business this holiday season with a few tweaks. Just start by showcasing your products on Instagram Shops, among the audience that is already known to you and ignite seamless checkout. Here are some of the important aspects and insider tips to help you get your business on top of the game with Instagram Shopping.

What changed with COVID-19 and how is it important?

The sudden outbreak has caused the world to suffer and restricted people to be at home. However, social media has been helping people to communicate, and most importantly voice their needs and seek help. As a result, young customers are rising and are becoming vocal about the changes that go around them.

Now people just do not shop for necessities but have also started shopping for values and brand statements.  Therefore it is necessary for small and medium businesses to acknowledge the changes happening around the world. There has been a substantial increase in the number of purchases made due to these hashtags to support people’s views and the interest of the public in general.

How you should be promoting small businesses on Instagram Shopping?

Coming exactly to the point, you may be wondering how to grow a small business on Instagram Shopping and it would be a nerve-wracking process. Well, that is not completely true! Being a small business you could also do wonders if you follow the right and actionable strategies. Here are some of the proven tips that could help you lead among your fellow businesses easily.

• Instagram is home to millions of accounts and so it is flooded with a large number of posts from people. To make your account discoverable you should increase your postings.
• The posting should be made every day or in a set number of posts for a week.
• Don’t miss out on trying other surfaces, promote a mix of posting, schedule Instagram posts and stories and often go live.
• Do not underestimate the power of hashtags and don’t use them as stuffing. Hashtags like #sustainable #zerowaste #handmade actually take the show.
• Use just 2-3 meaningful hashtags that relate to your product or story.
• It is not at all necessary to use the hashtags in your captions or stories, you can also use them in the “comments” section.
• Adding a location may help you find the local audiences who follow your work or are in the same/allied business.
• Using polls in stories can help you increase customer engagement.
• Last but not least, collaborating with related people can also help you. Like a local band, artist, or supply store, may also find your work and can collaborate to promote your work together.

How to create engaging posts on Instagram?

Instagram fosters human connections and so as a creator or independent business you should not squander your connections by posting something that’s not real or right. Different surfaces have different vibes, so different posts would work to schedule Instagram posts and stories. During the festive season, it is necessary to engage connections with festival-specific posts and interactive design to allure all groups of audiences and ignite purchases.

While using Instagram shopping, you should aim for a series-based post, or a “making of” post to engage people in your product’s back story. As a small and medium business, you should never post scrappy content just for the sake of followers. This will help you increase your brand’s awareness. Having an optimum budget to spend, you should make wise decisions regarding – spending money just on postings or ads. Keep it real and simple as much as possible.

Do shoppable posts on Instagram have an effect on product distribution?

Shoppable posts on Instagram make it easy for people to discover the products. As a creator, you get a chance to tell the story behind your product through Instagram posts and stories. While doing so, you can seamlessly and naturally create it into a shoppable post with tags. This helps a diverse range of connections to know about the product. 

However, the audience is not just limited to buying; but it can take a large number of actions on these posts. They can like it, comment on it, DM about it, or can tag or share it with their connections. You can – before the actual launch – get insights about how the people want the product to be. So when you actually launch the product, people are more driven towards buying it as it creates a notion of “having a stake” in the product. So using shoppable posts even if it converts less, doesn’t actually affect the distribution of products.

Why should you leverage checkout on Instagram for your business?

Earlier when anyone would see a product somewhere online, they had to remember its name, then google it to get more details about it, and then they would visit the website to purchase it. The above route is painstaking and long, to curb this – Checkout on Instagram made it easier to make the purchases right at the discovery place.

People generally have infinite choices but they want tailored experiences. Checkout on Instagram keeps every action of the connections into a single sales funnel. It reduces the friction to purchase. Moreover, the shipping and payment details are prefilled soon after someone makes their first purchase from your brand. Checkout on Instagram works on – discover – Learn More – Buy

Checkout on Instagram is currently available to all US businesses. Connect your stores today.

What exciting Instagram Shopping packs for you?

Apart from shoppable posts and in-app checkout, Instagram has some fascinating features to help you to showcase your products better and charm your connections at large.

Live Shopping: It powers real interactions. It is not just showing the products to them but enabling people to buy it then and there. This works best for beauty businesses.

Shopping for Creators: People tend to follow personalities, respect them, and get inspired by them. You as a creator can schedule Instagram posts and stories, tag products in them, and can power easy checkout.

Product Launches: Small product collections can also be put to the launch. SMBs can partner with similar types of businesses; and through live launches, a large number of audiences from both sides can be notified of the launch.

Shopping in Reels: Shopping in Reels offers an innovative way to share your products, get discovered, and reach new audiences with short videos that entertain and inspire people at large.

Stories: Stories are a narrative form of a post. They are the series that can be put forward one by one. Stories tell about behind the scenes of a product/service and they are not bound by number or time.

With these features, you can outgrow and build a brand on Instagram.

Some Last Minute Insider Tips for SMBs to Excel this Festive Season 2021.

Here are some goodies for your new business to thrive and move in the right direction -to grow your business on Instagram.

• Use meaningful hashtags only. Minimum 2-3 and maximum 6-10 hashtags are good.
• If you feel the hashtags are posing a hindrance to your posts, use them in tiny size in a corner.
• To increase followers organically, post original content.
• Reflect your shop’s story because people, in general, are not aware of it and they are always interested to know more.
• Posting occasionally and frequently is the life and breath of Instagram. So, engage as much as possible on your profile.
• Put up offers and giveaways during holidays and festivals and give your shop a makeover.

When it comes to trying hands-on Instagram Shopping, putting some of the most beneficial tactics into action is a must to reap benefits. Getting your products in front of more people and providing them with an excellent shopping experience will provide you with a competitive advantage. Holiday shoppers are expected to spend more money online in 2021 than they did in previous years. Thus, it is a golden opportunity for you to build a brand on Instagram.

With Facebook Business Partners, you can flourish your business There is an easier way to let your business flourish on Instagram Shopping with Facebook Business Partners. They offer solutions like Facebook and Instagram Shopping app and Social Commerce by CedCommerce to make your storefront ready in just a few clicks. So, what are you waiting for? Let’s get started! Take advantage of the busiest shopping season by connecting with us today.