Instagram Shop Tips For Everyone With An E-commerce Store

I love Instagram, especially their Instagram Shop feature (for obvious reasons)!

The launch of Instagram Shop shifted the focus from endlessly scrolling on the app to shopping for our favorite products. And for e-commerce store owners, it opened more opportunities to make their brand visible to 500 million users using the platform daily.

But let’s be honest, creating an Instagram Shop and putting in some minimum effort will not be enough to get the desired results. As an e-commerce store owner, you will need to put in some best practices and tips to work for the platform to work for you.

Here, I have listed some of the best Instagram Shop Tips that will help you showcase your brand to interest buyers and convert them into loyal customers.

So, read till the end to know the best practices and tips to generate quality sales from your Instagram Shop. 🚀

11 Best Instagram Shop Tips for 2023 (+ Examples)

1. Optimize Your Store’s Profile
2. Make Use of the Instagram Product Catalog
3. Try Different Formats For Your Instagram Store
4. Make Good Use Of Product Tags
5. Convert Tagged Stories Into Instagram Highlights
6. Run Ads With Product Tags
7. Have a Clear Hashtag Strategy
8. Expand On User-generate Content
9. Boost Your Influencer Marketing Efforts
10. Run Promotional Offers
11. Measure, Analyze, & Rework

1. Optimize Your Store’s Profile

Make the first impression of your store an impressive one. There are four essential elements in your Instagram page that you must completely optimize: Your profile picture, name and username, bio, and website link.

Consider these elements a greeting to any user who lands on your Instagram page. It is like saying hello and welcoming them into your store visually. Try to make this section fun and engaging. Here is a good example of an optimized store profile.

 

Image source: Nike 

2. Make Use of the Instagram Product Catalog

As the name suggests, Instagram’s product catalog lets you create a catalog of your products within the app. This allows you to showcase your products with detailed information about your product, including images, descriptions, pricing, and other relevant details.

Adding an Instagram product catalog helps create a unique shoppers experience as a particular potential customer can review their interested product within the app without navigating elsewhere. This feature helps to create an uninterrupted buying experience.

👉You Can Learn Here: How to set up an Instagram Product Catalog

3. Try Different Formats For Your Instagram Store

Instagram offers a ton of ways to promote your content in different formats. While they are trying and testing new formats like VR reality and AR filters stories. They offer a handful of formats for you to display your brand creatively.

• Instagram stories
• Instagram posts
• Instagram Live and IGTV
• Instagram Reel (the most popular one)

It is highly recommended that you try different formats to understand the types of posts that bring you the maximum engagement, and once you have understood what your audience like, you can build upon it.

4. Make Good Use Of Product Tags

Instagram Shop offers this interesting product tag feature to sellers on the platform to direct potential buyers to a product page or the targeted section within the app. You can tag the products in your stories, normal posts, carousel posts, and even reels to capture the shopper’s attention and build curiosity to know more about the product.

You can add up to 20 product tags and shops in a photo feed, but it is good to use 5 tags to make it look clean and minimal. Using this feature is an excellent opportunity to:

• Increase the visibility of your product among interested buyers.
• Help the shoppers to learn more about the product then and there when the interest to buy the product kicks in.
• Make good use of the resource you have created, and put it to the best use.

Image source: Instagram

5. Convert Tagged Stories Into Instagram Highlights

This point is an extension of the point I covered above. You should consider using product tags, but if you use these features on Instagram stories, converting them into Instagram highlights is wise.

As you already know, Instagram stories disappear after 24 hours, and there are chances that some interested buyers might miss out on your story when you post it. Or your new followers might not get a hold of the older stories.

So to keep them engaged, convert your product tagged stories into highlights to give them easy access.

6. Run Ads With Product Tags

By now, you might know product tags play a key role in increasing conversions. Another way product tags can benefit your brand is with advertisements (ads).

You can easily convert tagged product posts into sponsored posts that will help you maximize your reach. Using the product tag, interested shoppers can directly land on the main page and start shopping.

Image source: Instagram

7. Have a Clear Hashtag Strategy

Hashtag is one of the foundation elements of Instagram. They are key for shoppers to find you and also for you to know what your shoppers are searching for to discover brands like yours online.

Instagram allows you to add up to 30 hashtags, but as per a study by Sociallnsider, brands using 27-30 hashtags don’t see a higher engagement. Using the correct number of relevant hashtags is a must to succeed with your approach.

You must have a clear hashtag strategy to attract an interested audience to your store.

8. Expand On User-Generate Content

Nothing can reap the benefits like UGC. User Generated Content (aka UGC) is the most loved content on the internet. Users love to see how other authentic buyers have benefited from your product. This type of content is the most valuable that comes without any cost.

Brands like Starbucks, Airbnb, Coca-cola, Adobe, and more use this type of format from time to time to keep their platform engagement high.

 

9. Boost Your Influencer Marketing Efforts

If you are actively using Instagram, and it is one of the main channels to drive sales, you can’t miss out on influencer marketing. It is the most popular type of content circulating in the digital space.

One of the key reasons this type of content works in the social arena is the amount of trust the audience has in the influencer. Almost 50% of millennials follow and trust influencers when it comes to product recommendations. There are  mainly four types of influencers that you can target: Mega influencer (1M+ followers), Macro influencer (100k – 1M followers), Micro influencer (10k – 100k followers), and Nano influencer (<10k).

Whenever you opt for influencer marketing, have a clear idea of your budget and the goal of your particular campaign. Based on this, you will be able to figure out the influencer you should target and plan your creative strategy accordingly.

10. Run Promotional Offers

Running offers is a great way to attract more and more shoppers to your store. You can run contests, host giveaways, and other interesting deals to encourage the users to participate in the activities you host. This is a classic technique to increase your sales and improve customer retention from time to time.

11. Measure, Analyze, & Rework

You must constantly analyze the performance of a particular campaign to measure its effectiveness. It helps you to know if you are moving ahead with the right content and strategy to create the needed engagement.

You can conduct this analysis weekly or monthly and keep track of likes, comments, number of followers, store visits, and more. Instagram provides a complete report of all activities and offers extra information to build your strategy around it.

Wrapping Up Instagram Shop Tips

Instagram Shop is on a growth trajectory, and as I said earlier, you must make extra efforts and implement the best practices to generate the desired results. Experts to Follow on Threads, the Instagram app to gather and discuss on the ecommerce topics your are interested in.

As you implement the above-mentioned Instagram shop tips, you can definitely leverage the platform to its maximum benefit. I recommend you go ahead and implement these tips today.

✨ If you are a Magento 2 store owner, here is a powerful way to engage with your shoppers. ✨

You can use our Magento 2 Instagram Feed extension and display your Instagram page on your site. This extension helps your store in the following ways:

• It helps to showcase on Instagram efforts to shoppers on your website
• It can significantly increase your Instagram followers and help you keep interacting with them
• It helps you stay up-to-date and trendy

Explore our extension in detail here: Magento 2 Instagram Feed.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Is Instagram Shop successful?
Ans: Yes, Instagram Shop is a successful platform. 41% of marketers use Instagram shopping features exclusively without any website.

2. What percentage does Instagram Shop take?
Ans: The Instragram Shop charges around 5% per shipment.

3. Is Instagram Shop good for small businesses?
Ans: Yes, Instagram Shop is perfect for any size of business. Any business size can use it to its advantage with proper strategy and implementation.