Tagging products in Instagram enables your social media followers to buy your products directly through the social media platform. It has been successfully trialled in the US, and has been rolled out to other countries around the world. If you have or are growing a sizeable following on Instagram, which many businesses now are, it can provide you with another beneficial sales channel.
The More than 1 billion people use Instagram every month and 63% of these users log in every day. 200 million of those daily visitors will visit at least one business. Since Facebook’s acquisition of the photo sharing website, the two platforms have increased the ways in which users can combine their social presences, and this is no different for Instagram Shopping.
Before you can tag products on Instagram, you first need to register for the Instagram Shopping platform. Your business must operate in one of the supported markets, sell physical goods, and meet Instagrams commerce policies. It must also be linked to a Facebook page.
- Link your Instagram account to your Facebook catalogue. You can do this manually, or have a third party do it for you, which is especially useful if you have a large catalogue of items that you want to sell.
- Log into the Instagram app, head to your profile settings, click Business and then Instagram Shopping. Follow the steps to submit your account for review. The review process can take a couple of weeks, but it is usually complete within a few days. Once the review is complete, you will receive notification from Instagram.
- Tag products on Instagram. When creating a post, you will be able to tap “Tag Products” in order to tag a product from your catalogue. Each post or video can include tags for up to five products, while stories can include a single product sticker.
- Go back and edit old stories and posts, in order to add tags to existing content. This could be an effective way of better monetizing popular posts, and improving your existing Instagram conversion rates, because it minimises the number of clicks a potential buyer must make before they can complete the purchase of one of your products.
- Go to your profile and click the Insights tab to be presented with a list of posts, stories, and promotions. You can view weekly interactions, the reach that your post has achieved, and the number of impressions it has received. You can also click through to gain additional insights on your audience.
- Update your Facebook catalogue to ensure that you have access to your latest products. Add new products as they launch, and remove those that are no longer available from your Facebook catalogue, and this will keep your Instagram shopping products up to date as well.
Tagging products in Instagram could prove very beneficial for your ecommerce business. Instagram is an incredibly popular platform, but converting impressions to sales has proven difficult for a lot of businesses. Previously, you have had to convince your audience to view your update, click a link to visit an external page, and then convert them on that page. Following these changes, however, a critical and off-putting step will be removed from the process. Your Instagram visitors will be able to click directly on the products that you are promoting, so you should see an increase in impulse buys.
As ever, ensure that your product images and videos are good quality. They don’t necessarily need to be professional resolution. In fact, a less professional and more candid storytelling technique can work better in some instances, but be aware that your business will be flagged as such on Instagram in order to have passed the verification checks.
Instagram is especially popular with young adults, but with 1 billion users, it is obviously pervading into the lives of all generations and all demographics. If you aren’t yet using it to sell products, you should give it serious consideration, especially with the continued backing of Facebook. New features will continue to arrive, many of them going under the radar but offering a chance to bring in new customers and make new sales. Tagging products is just another step.
