Instagram Marketing for E-commerce Brands

Instagram for e-commerce

More than ever, Instagram has become appealing to marketers. It is an excellent platform for brands to form meaningful connections with their audiences, promote products, and engage with existing customers. 

Unlike other social media channels like Facebook and Twitter, getting new followers on Instagram is easier, and they are also worth a lot more. Through it, you are able to promote your products to thousands of your target customers and boost your chances of conversion.

But how can you utilize Instagram to help you build a solid online following, improve brand loyalty, and drive sales?

Here are some ways on how you can massively promote your e-commerce brand through social media:

Switch to a Business Account

With Instagram, you can switch your personal account to a business account. Doing so allows you to leverage the Instagram ads platform and utilize shoppable links. 

It also provides you with information on the number of clicks and impressions your posts gain every week. 

Grow Your Followers

A key to success on Instagram marketing is having a great number of followers. Keep in mind that you should try to get real and engaged followers. Buying followers or using bots is not going to work for you, and will put your account in risk of getting banned or removed by Instagram.

A quick and organic way of growth is using some managed Instagram services like the one offered by AiGrow. In their VIP program, they use an Ai-system to detect your target audience and your activities will be done by an Instagram expert, in an organic and humanoid manner. (try it with a free account)

Schedule your posts

To grow your followers and engagement numbers, you should try to post at the best time. You should also be consistent with your posting and never let your followers forget you.

To make it easy, use an Instagram scheduling tool to schedule your posts/stories days, weeks or even months ahead of time and never miss a day.

Use Tools for Selling 

To improve your sales on the platform, here are a couple of useful tools below:

Make a Clickable Storefront

Selling products becomes a lot easier with selling software tools and e-commerce fulfillment services that convert a link into a clickable storefront, featuring all your products. 

Tools like Yotpo allows you to connect multiple products in a single image. Now, with a bio on your link, it is easier for shoppers to visit your store and use the “buy” button. 

Hashtag Selling

Another way to sell your products on Instagram is through hashtag selling.

For instance, #Inselly is a tool that marks products and buyable items so that it is easier for users to find them and buy them easily on Instagram’s platform. 

Grow Your Engagement Rate

Instagram new  updates indicate that your engagement rate is an important metric of your post’s quality. So you should try to grow your numbers in order to win with the algorithm and get a chance to appear on the explore page.

An easy way to grow your engagement rate is joining engagement PODs. AiGrow has more than 300 engagement PODs for almost every niche. Sign-up a free account and find your POD here.

Use Visually Appealing Photos

To help create brand value, give your users an excellent visual experience by publishing compelling and engaging content in the form of visually appealing images.

Watermark your images with your domain name so that people will not feel that they are being pushed to buy from you. 

By attributing the image with your brand, people would know where to find you online. The image with your watermark will tell users where to go to get more information. 

Then, round off your post with catchy captions. An engaging, strong, and compelling caption will add more value to your post. 

Launch a Campaign

If you are not a big brand with thousands (if not millions) of hashtagged photos on Instagram, then you need to launch a campaign or contest to get your followers excited. That way, you can share brand-related photos that you can curate, aggregate, and display. 

Here are some ways on how to launch an effective campaign:

Pick the Right Hashtags

Since you are combining your content with a hashtag, make it easy for everyone to share photos of your brand by picking a hashtag that balances both simplicity and uniqueness. 

Also, do not use too many words in a single hashtag. Focus on making it memorable and creating an impact on your audience. 

Read our comprehensive guide on ‘13 Ways to Win with Instagram Hashtags’.

Select a Theme

Give your brand a specific theme that you want to capture. If you have a theme that is too broad, then there is a chance that it will all be jumbled up. And you could come up with unrelated photos. 

Meanwhile, if you pick a theme that is too niched, a lot of people will end up not participating because it is too difficult to snap an appropriate photo of that theme. 

Keep it simple, and always look for ways wherein people could easily capture photos of themselves, their friends, and relatives using your products in fun ways. 

Display Your Gallery

If you want to leverage your fan photos, you need to give a place for these images to live online. A lot of brands are launching photo contests on Instagram but do not provide a gallery wherein people could view these submissions.

This could be a huge waste of effort, time, and resources on your part. 

Put Customer Photos on Your E-commerce Site

Many well-thought and respected brands out there have used user-generated content or UGC on their various social media platforms. 

UGC is an excellent way for you to show your audience social proof while sharing compelling brand content. 

Let your customers show off the products that they have bought in your store, and ask their permission to post these pictures in your account. That way, they will be more inspired to buy from you. 

This particular kind of referral marketing strategy will have a positive effect on your sales. 

Ask Influencers for Product Review

Influencer marketing is another popular marketing tactic to increase sales.

When you work with a successful influencer or blogger in your niche, your brand image becomes more powerful. 

Since most of their followers take what they say seriously, and rely on their opinion for product reviews, you could improve your conversions, and attract more revenues for your business. 

Final Thoughts

So there you have it. Those are the ways in which you can build your e-commerce brand and build your following on Instagram.

Keep in mind that a lot of marketers have tried and tested them to achieve their goals. When it all comes down to it, good marketing is all about analyzing, testing, and learning from your efforts each time.

Always take note of these strategies whenever you are starting your Instagram campaign. 

So, do not hold off your marketing efforts any longer. It is time to get started with your efforts now, and then take your brand to the next level.