Free Effective Promotion of Ecommerce Store on Instagram

Today you’d have to look hard for mobile without an Instagram icon. Statistics forecast that a lot of companies would soon move a lion’s share of the transaction onto this social media. So, what makes e-commerce and Instagram a perfect couple? This social platform boasts a wide (1 billion of monthly active users is a very serious figure) and steadily growing audience, high engagement rate and visual feast of all kinds of eye-candies complete with social proofing, which is great for a tempting demonstration of goods. These factors alone would make any e-commerce marketer happy.

That’s not all, far from it. Why else marrying Instagram and your e-store is a ready recipe for success?

• 80% of users state they follow at least one business on Instagram
• Over 60% of users have heard about a product and service through the platform
• Approximately 30% of users have purchased a product they discovered on Instagram
• More than 120 million users visited a website, called, emailed or messaged a company that they discovered on Instagram.

However, to make good use of all those yummy advantages, you need to put in some efforts in terms of time, creativity and careful planning. Simply said, you are in need of Instagram marketing strategy, and a good one at that. To get you started, we’ve decided to attack the problem from all sides and provided a set of recommendations, which would benefit both newbies and experienced Instagram users.

Today brands on average note engagement rate 10x higher on Instagram than they do on Facebook and 70% of users look up a brand on Instagram. Which means you need to start working on a branding strategy preferably before your launch, not after. That’s why we’ve also created a very special Social Media Kit, a set of useful designs for Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and FB, which can be easily edited in Adobe Photoshop even by non-tech-savvy folks.

1. Attractive bio

Almost everybody who visits your Instagram takes a peek at your bio. While guided there by natural curiosity, it offers you the chance to use valuable digital real estate, so don’t waste it. First of all, use your wording carefully (remember that notorious attention span!) but do tell people what’s important and put a clear CTA there. Your customers should be straight away able to identify what your offers are, who you are, and how to get to your store.

Spell out what makes your USP unique to them, your readers, as the TA. To economize don’t use just text, employ hashtags (more on them later) and emojis which can personalize words and act as perfect text dividers.

Another very underutilized resource is your personality. If you have a particular skill, profession, hobby, achievements or interest, don’t be shy and mention them. True, it might be only a couple of words, such as ‘holistic lifestyle’ or ‘tin figurines collector’ but it does offer a chance of creating a rapport with a potential visitor, so why lose it?

Another tricky thing about the bio is that it’s the only gateway to your store. Which might be a problem if you use that link to direct customers to your latest arrival on your shelves.

2. Hashtags

While first used on Twitter, now hashtagging can become a very efficient form of marketing on Instagram. Don’t just populate your posts with every hashtag you can think of, be a planner and a strategist. To help you build up visibility and grow the number of followers, try using the next Instagram hashtags tips.

Be specific

To engage your TA to try to be as specific as possible. Targeted hashtags mean a higher probability of engagement and useful keywords make for a perfect descriptor of product photos or videos.

Use specialized tools

When crafting a marketing strategy for anything, the research is always a wise idea. Today there’re several great tools and generators which can help you discover the best hashtags for your niche. Use them and smile with pleasure as the number of your subscribers and their activity shoot up into through the roof. Well, maybe not that high, but a considerable increase is a given.

Branded tags

Branded hashtags are the most efficient when you launch a product, contest, or sponsored event.

Typos are lethal

Any mistakes can instantly sour that awfully important first impression, but when it comes to the hashtags a typo can turn them into a waste of valuable space. So check, double check and triple check.

To sum it up to make your hashtags easy to discover, memorable and readable.

3. Create posts

It’s probably not a bad idea for everyone, even for seasoned ‘Grammers to create a second, private account. There you can post anything that you’re unsure about, play there around with new features, practice various tips and tricks and on the whole employ it as a practice ground.

Maintaining an interesting and lucrative Instagram account can gobble your time like a vacuum cleaner. Be rational and take advantage of many services and tools that are available for freeing you from planning your posts, monitoring your comments, etc.

Today people get used to the bots and appreciate its efficiency, but on the other hand, nothing can beat humans interacting with other humans. That’s why you simply must include posts that you create manually. They add flavor, put a ‘face’ on your brand and make you appear humane and alive. Nobody likes to be treated just like an object of advertising, being pushed and nudged only towards shopping cart and that’s why photos of your product from unusual angles, streaming videos, podcasts, etc. can sometimes win the day.

Your followers are all targeted, meaning they share the same expectations concerning the nature and voice of posts. Instagram provides for you almost enough means to be laser precise and craft all posts in one look and feel. To eliminate that nasty ‘almost’, we created for you Social Media Kit, a set of templates for Instagram and other social media platforms. With it, you can simply replace images and headers in FULL accordance with your branding and concepts of your TA.

And of course, there is that next item in our list that offers a chance to outshine just about anyone…

4. It’s story time!

Did you know, that about HALF of all companies that are active on Instagram make use of the Instagram Stories feature? Well, it’s true and it means that you can do it too. The concept can be pretty confusing if you’d never done it before, but worry not, arm yourself with the following suggestions.

You need to remember that your content has to be consistent.

That includes stories, so while crafting one keep in mind all elements of your branding.

Whatever you showcasing, be it a product or a service, present it in a creative way.

Use available visuals as a weapon to conquer your audience by demonstrating your company culture or simply sharing some life hacks that can be done using your product. Or go for an educational angle and provide some tips and how-tos.

Never underestimate the appeal of ‘behind the scenes’.

There’s some facet in all of us, that just loves a peek behind the curtains and see what the public isn’t usually shown. Even if that’s you simply cleaning your working place at the end of the day. If you do it AND tell funny stories about employing your product it could become a captivating show.

Use stories to create live tutorials.

Even something as basic as providing tips and advice on to how to use the product to realize its full potential or care for something to ensure the longest lifecycle can be made into a fun journey if accompanied with some humor or fun trivia.

Use stickers when appropriate.

Hats, specs, slogans, and emojis can jazz up your story and make it more informal. How to judge whether it’s appropriate or not? Stickers can increase the interactivity, help you gather audience input, reinforce the tone of your messaging and deliver strongly stylized content. Which means it can be an effective tool for a promo campaign or when introducing a new product line. Otherwise just trust your intuition.

5. Adding videos

Videos already rule the e-commerce world and thanks to the increasing speed of daily life it will soon reign almost supreme concerning the content popularity. It’s the only format that allows you to tell a lot about a product or a service in an engaging format which has the highest chance to be watched from the first second to the last.

You can show your wares from virtually any angle and in any situation, that would let you point out quickly all the advantages and make it fun. If you manage to make it catchy and worthy of rewatching, it would mean sharing. Which translates in an increase in brand awareness and plain ‘word of mouth’ ads for you.

Enough with the theory, let’s come to the tips from the pros about making your videos perfect.

Make a dynamic video.

Instagrammers are famous for the speed of scrolling, which means videos must be very compelling from the first second. We recommend starting your video with a movement. Slow openings just won’t cut it, make it bright and make kinetic.

Use captions.

By default Instagram audio is muted, so incorporate some text and don’t limit yourself to using just captions. Dynamic text effects can help you to deliver the message just with a few lines if you position them at the right portion of the video. And make them, yes you got it, fun.

Showcase your product.

For a short duration of video solving a common problem with your product is probably one of the most winning subjects. Try to intrigue them with an approach of unusual application of a product or a service and create an emotional bond with them, showing them a unique way to use a product, pointing out that you understand and care about their problems.

Remember about the branding.

Try to align used colors and the mood of video with your brand.

Use drones.

Besides allowing you to use the most flattering angles, they can help you to achieve some wow-effects.

6. Carousels

Instagram offers a chance to use carousel ads, allowing you to include up to 10 photos and/or videos in a single post. Wonderful opportunity for any e-commerce company and especially for drop shippers.

Showcase several products at once.

Use a mixture of photos and videos, present new arrivals as a product line, pack them into a thematic collection, offer all sorts of bundles and cross-selling scenarios. All without irritating your followers with a multitude of similar posts.

Several pictures of one product.

Show a product from all kinds of angles or against different backgrounds. It’s a great alternative to the video if you need to draw attention to some detail of a product.

Before and after.

Approach ‘Before and after’ is still around for a reason and Instagram carousel is a perfect venue of demonstrating the ways in which your product can benefit your clients’ lives. Just select appropriate photos and videos, place them in the correct order, write an interesting caption and you have a fairy-tale-like story of transformation or whodunit, where the culprit is the problem.

Share your brand’s values.

Transparency and authenticity are two very trendy words right now. If you can demonstrate your eco-friendliness with a carousel of photos with happy employees, working in a perfect environment, hurray. It could mean the world to the people concerned with ‘green’ issues.

Add reviews.

We’re sure that you know it all about the importance of reviews and testimonials. Just take a bunch from your site (perfect if they’re photo reviews) and make a carousel with them to increase the visibility and generate interest.

Afterword

To get serious clout on Instagram and to take a slice of its advantages pie, you need to have an actionable strategy and all the help you can get. After all, if you look in the mirror you’d see only one of you, which can’t be a whole team of pros and experts. However, doers always win, even if not with a single try, so no time like the present to start experimenting with our tips.

Our Social Media Kit will act as a helper and will let you concentrate on more creative and interesting aspects, so have fun trying, good luck with finding the advice that fits you like a glove and happy marketing on the whole!