How Brands Use Instagram to Increase Sales

Have you ever wanted to increase sales for your business? Look no further than what’s already on your phone Instagram! With 130 million people tapping shopping links on Instagram posts each month, this is an amazing way to increase sales for your business.

This blog will give you the top 5 things to do to help increase sales using Instagram.

1. Make Your Instagram Into a Store.

Instagram is a great app to start up a shop whether you’re a big or small company. Instagram shop was released in March of 2019. This new feature gave business a free store to sell their products to customers. Most companies already had an Instagram page at this time, and had a following as well. Instagram shop allowed companies to provide an online store to their followers right away.

How to Make Your Page Into a Store.

1. Check if your store is eligible.

You have to make sure that the type of shop you are wanting to open is within guidelines of instagram, and make sure that you are selling in a supported market. Some information about that can be found here.

2. Make your Instagram page into a business/creator profile.

Once you have made the profile switch you will now be able to provide information for your customers. This can be your business hours, link to your website, phone number, and with Instagram shop they can view your shop with one click.

3. Link your shop to other social media platforms.

Linking your shop to other platforms is a very helpful way to spread the content and products you are posting. By doing this, there is a great chance of increasing sales. Instagram has roughly 2 billion users where as Facebook has 2.91 billion, so by linking your shop there you’re reaching a much larger demographic.

4. Upload your product catalog.

Instagram shop requires a catalog for people to browse through. This can be a simple step if your business is already up and running before going on Instagram. If not, you will have to make a catalog personally, or hire someone to make one for you. Here is more information about that.

5. Review and start selling!

Finally you have made it to the end, but this last step is very important. After doing the previous steps make sure you review your page and the products you are selling; one mistake can cost you your shop. Once you have done that you are free to start selling your products, and increasing sales for your business.

2. Tag the product in the post.

Instagram offers many features to sell products directly through the app. The top way is to tag the product you are selling right on the picture that is being posted. These tags can also be on Instagram story’s, reels, lives, and videos.

Sales tags are very helpful for the customer because it provides a brief description about the product. Right at the click of a button a customer can know what the product is, the price, and even have the option to buy it right on Instagram. By having products tagged in a post studies say 72% of users are more likely to purchase products directly through the app. According to a survey done by Meta 87% of Instagram users looked for more information after viewing a tagged post.

3. Endorsements from Influencers.

There are many different influencers on Instagram, but one stands alone: Christiano Ronaldo. He is the most followed person on Instagram with a staggering 400 million followers. A paid endorsement with him can cost a company anywhere from $600,000-$1 million, and even reported for one post, he collected $1.6 million. Paying someone this amount of money just for one post is a lot, but influencers like him have followers all around the world. To get an endorsement from him or anyone at his level can be a big advantage for you business overall. Having an endorsement really benefits the company more than the person who is posting the brand deal. When businesses make a deal with an influencer its based off the amount of units sold; so as the influencer sells more product, their percentage of the profit increases.

4. Host a Contest on Your Instagram.

Instagram did a study and found out that out of all their users 90% of them follow a business/brand. These statistics prove that having a contest would be a very easy way to promote and increase sales for your business. Hosting a contest and having a hashtag to go with it is a very good way to gain brand awareness. If your company has good brand awareness then customers start becoming more loyal to the brand. Having a contest shows your customers that the business cares about them, and want to reward their loyal customers. One of the more well know contests ran on Instagram was Starbucks White Cup Contest.

Starbucks’ White Cup Contest ran in April 2014, in which customers were able to buy a white cup, create a design on it and then post it to Instagram for a chance to win. Starbucks got over 4,000 entries in just three weeks. Every post about it had the hashtag #WhiteCupContest, giving it more exposure. This contest did increase sales for Starbucks because customers had to buy the cup in order to design it. The contest also caused praise for Starbuck because the cups they were selling were reusable and environmentally friendly.

5. Maximize Instagrams Features.

The last way to increase sales for your business is simply just knowing how to effectively use Instagrams features. Knowing how to use Instagram will help boost your business tremendously.

Make sure to post regularly

Posting regularly shows your customers that you are an active brand and keeps the customers engaged with your content. Consistently posting content can help increase sales as well. When you have a new product coming out, you can advertise it in advance and then once it’s released, post a link giving customers the opportunity to buy immediately.

Be creative with hashtags

Using trendy and creative hashtags can keep your posts at the top of your followers feeds. Being at the top of these feeds gives your products more visibility, which is another way to increase your business sales.

Invest in Instagram ads

Investing in Instagram ads can help you reach a new or larger audience. Businesses can plan out when to buy ads to benefit them the most. Buying ads is very profitable for companies that are starting out and trying to increase their sales. When posting ads companies can target a specific audience to generate brand awareness.