Since its inception in 2010, Instagram has maintained a steady growth and over time, has given rise to significant Instagram shopping among users of the platform, especially women. Statistics shows that there are over 800 million monthly active users. There are also over 500 million daily active users of the platform. This makes it a great place to grow your business.

Further research shows that approximately 57 percent of Instagram users access the platform on daily basis. The engagement rate is said to be 15 times higher than what is recorded on Twitter and Facebook. A lot of businesses are quickly moving in on the numerous benefits offered by this rapid growth on Instagram and presently, at least 90 percent of the well-known top brands maintain an Instagram account.

How to Create Shoppable Instagram Posts

With Instagram shopping feature, the platform administrators have shown that they understand the fact that shopping is something that happens everywhere, including social media platforms. This is one of the reasons why it rolled out one of its unique features – shoppable Instagram posts. With this feature which is available in certain countries, businesses are offered the opportunity to tag their products, either from their eCommerce website, from its inventory, or both.

The steps to create shoppable Instagram posts are simple to understand and follow. They include the following:

  • Connect your catalog, either from your website, Facebook business page or inventory. Give time for review and approval of your catalog.
  • Create the post you intend to make shoppable. Add the necessary images, captions, filters, effects and other edits as required.
  • Finally, you tag the products by clicking on “Tag Products” and selecting the needed products and clicking on “Done” to complete the process.

If done properly, potential customers can see the product name, price, and description with just a tap. This further increases the chance of customers clicking on the Instagram shop now button on your page. You should also note that you must sell physical products in order to use the shoppable Instagram posts feature. You can easily transition from a personal account to a business account and start making sales.

Always make sure that you give as much detailed description as possible in your posts. For example, let them know if the product is available, if it is on sale and the like. To further improve conversion rates, you can include an image of the item being used in real life. Create that sense of urgency and you might just make a potential customer pause to take a look at your product.

How to Create Shoppable Instagram Stories

Shoppable Instagram stories is another feature of Instagram that is geared towards helping businesses boost their daily interaction with potential customers. Instagram stories allow you to share daily moments through videos and photos that disappear after 24 hours, except they are saved. In a typical month, approximately 50% of all businesses create tons of Instagram stories and over time, there has been a significant rise in Instagram shopping in stories.

The steps to create shoppable Instagram stories are simple to understand. They are as follows:

  • Open the Instagram stories camera and settle for the option of taking a photo, making a video or using already existing one in your camera roll.
  • Tap the shoppable stickers button and select “product stickers.”
  • Choose a product from your catalog, tap on the sticker to change the color and move it to any part of the picture you want it to appear.
  • Your shoppable Instagram story is created.

Being that you only get to tag one product at a time in Instagram stories, it is important you understand how to add swipe up to shop on Instagram story. This way, your potential customers will be able to view other products you have on sale and you know what this means – increased chances of making more sales.

In order to make the most of creating shoppable Instagram stories, you should make sure of the relevance of your stories to your advertised products. It is also important that you create stories that are not just concise but as short as possible as Internet users generally don’t have that patience for longer posts.

Statistics have shown that Instagram stories containing product demos performed better than those without demos. Understanding how to add shopping link to Instagram story will also improve the shopping experience of your potential customers.

Conclusion

Once you have a community of loyal customers and you always provide engaging content using shoppable Instagram posts and Instagram stories, you can rightly say you are using this platform to leverage your business. With the steps above, you will surely be able to grow your Instagram business account organically, just don’t stop experimenting until you get something that works great for your business.