Instagram shopping has launched, is your business ready?
Instagram Shopping launched recently in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United Kingdom. The feature was trialled in the US in November 2016 and was made widely available last year, allowing businesses to tag images with product and pricing details, completely changing the social shopping experience and creating a huge opportunity for the 25 million business profiles currently on Instagram.
What is Instagram Shopping?
Instagram Shopping allows business profiles to tag their products in posts, allowing consumers to explore and shop your best products with a single tap.
With shopping on Instagram, you can choose photos you’d like to feature, tag up to five products per image or up to twenty products per carousel, add filters or captions and you’re done.
When someone taps a tag on your post, they’ll see:
- An image of the product
- A product description
- The price
- A link that takes them directly to your website where they can purchase the product.
The feature has already been incorporated by Shopify and Big Commerce, allowing consumers to add to cart and complete checkout without leaving Instagram creating a seamless shopping experience.
But does it increase conversions? Stores that have implemented Instagram Shopping have seen:
- Natori: Increased Instagram traffic by 1,416%.
- Magnolia Boutique: 20% increase in Instagram revenue.
- SpearmintLOVE: Instagram traffic grew by 13%.
- Native Union: Instagram traffic was a 2,666% increase.
The feature is currently only available in organic posts and can’t be promoted, however this is highly likely to become available in the future.
Why Instagram Shopping will have a significant impact
Ecommerce has completely changed the way we shop, in-fact we’re never not shopping and companies that don’t consider all of their channels and how they interact with each other are being left behind.
Social or Discoverable Shopping such as Instagram Shopping, Buyable Pins on Pinterest and Amazon Spark threatens to completely change the shopping experience and it’s not only when marketing to millennials. 96% of Americans have made an online purchase with 80% purchasing online in the past month. Australians spent more than $10 billion online in 2017 with a 52% increase in mobile shopping purchases.
Technology has shortened the customer decision journey — awareness, consideration, intent, purchase and loyalty, to be potentially completed in a matter of seconds from the comfort of our own homes. Companies that compress and accelerate this process will derive a significant advantage over competitors. While this marketing framework has traditionally been viewed as a funnel, today’s buying process is no longer linear with omni channel marketing. Providing a seamless experience for consumers across any channel that they choose is now a necessity rather than an optional strategy. Bringing the shopping experience to where your consumers are is the logical next step in strengthening this advantage.
Instagram Shopping allows awareness, consideration and purchase to happen within a single platform in a matter of a few clicks and most importantly, it puts the process in front of where your customers are spending most of their time. With the ease of transaction, I’m willing to bet there will be more than a few impulse purchases made on Instagram after a few drinks have been consumed.
Will this change the face of online shopping? When the topic of Instagram Shopping came up in conversation with a friend last week, she remarked, “Oh didn’t you have Instagram Shopping yet in Australia? I don’t even visit websites to shop for things anymore”
How can your business take advantage of this new feature?
To capitalise on this new Instagram feature, growing your organic following is more important than ever and to do so you need to focus on the 3 key aspects of a successful Instagram strategy — consistency, content and engagement. Before moving to any tactics to help acquire followers such as paid advertising, giveaways or influencer campaigns, ensure your own profile is up to scratch so you retain as many people as possible within your own community.
- Post consistently — Every 2–3 days as a minimum. Have a strategy so people know what to expect from your brand.
- Share a variety of content — Use a mix of in context product shots, behind the scenes content, videos, stories live video to keep things fresh. While it may be tempting to show traditional catalogue style images of products, these won’t resonate with consumers.
- Engage with your followers — Instagram is a place to connect with your followers, not market at them. It’s an engagement rather than an advertising opportunity
How to setup Instagram Shopping
Before you start:
- Ensure you have the latest version of the Instagram app
- Your account must be a business profile
- You must be an admin of the Page or Business Manager account
- Have a shop on Facebook or product catalog within Business Manager
Once you’re set up:
- Go to your profile
- Tap Get Started at the top of your profile
- Tap Products
- Tap Continue
- Select a product catalog to connect to your business profile
- Tap Done
Summary
Instagram Shopping is an enormous marketing opportunity for businesses to highlight their products in front of customers in an authentic manner. With Instagram lacking the ability to use links in posts, its eCommerce potential has been difficult to measure and largely untapped, until now.
Want to bring your Instagram feed to life? Contact us to find out how we help global brands create thumb stopping visual content
Originally published at www.creativelysquared.com.
