How to set up your Instagram Store

Everyone has Instagram.

It currently has over 1 billion users or in other words, a 7th of the world is connected through the platform. A reach this big has never been possible before. With all this incredible reach the platform can provide, businesses and entrepreneurs are desperately trying to cram every bit of advertisement and make every dime of profit they can off the platform, and with good reason. If you can figure out how to make use of such a phenomenon, you yourself can launch you and your business into stardom.

Getting a leg into this movement is essential, and with a bit of help, getting started is fairly simple.

Firstly, you're going to want to set up a business profile on Instagram. You’re going to need to have set up a standard account for your business (not one with your personal name, rather with your company name, logo, contact info in bio etc.) Once you have this, you can click on the icon at the top left of your dashboard, enter settings and scroll down until you see “Switch to Business profile” and click that.

The remaining sites require you to have a platform for your business already, such as a website or app, that way you have something to link your product back to. If you don't have a digital platform for your business, read this article on why you should, and visit www.santpix.com for an easy and professional website.

Once you’ve got that covered, you’re ready to use the “tag product” feature. Similarly to how you can tag a person in a photo you took with them, you can now tag pictures with your business’s products in it. Rather than the tag taking you to a person's Instagram page, you can have it set up so when the user clicks on the picture of your products, they have direct access to your website where they can buy instantly.

If you already have your company's site set up, and an account set to business mode, you now need to create a Facebook page for your business.

Here is where you are going to set up your business catalogue. Click the icon in the top left and search until you see “business catalogue.” Here, you manage all the details of your business such as listing your products, listing your business partners, and your providers.

(Also make sure you are selling physical products for this, not services.)

Once all these steps are completed, Instagram will review your business account for approval.

Congratulations! You now have all the tools to begin. But where do you go from here?

Running a successful Instagram store:

Tagging products and linking them to your site works with "stickers". You post a picture or story to your companies Instagram page, then apply a sticker onto where your product is in the photo.

When the user taps your photo, the sticker will take them to your website where they can immediately buy the product they just saw.

As you can imagine, the pictures you take with your product are very important. The more alluring and professional your picture is, the more likely people will go to your website and show interest in it.

Make sure your camera is high quality and your taking photos with good lighting. Your product should always in the very center, and in pristine condition.

Collaborating with an internet influencer for a sponsorship is another great way to get more people to tap that sticker. When customers see there favorite content creator holding a product, the sense of trust and familiarity they have for the figure will lead them to feel the same about your product as well. Many influencers don't charge much either. Typically an influencer with 100,000 followers will charge around $1,000 dollars. Influencers with upwards 1 million followers can be round the $10,000 range, but that isn't necessary.

Another great way to build anticipation for your product is by teasing it. Use the countdown sticker to have a clock count down to the exact release of your product, that way, you'll have people buying your product the moment it releases.

The time to expand is now

Selling on Instagram isn't easy, but its certainly easier and provide more reach than brick and mortar establishments. If you are still in need of a company website, (which you need before you do ANY of these other steps,) contact us at www.santpix.com to expand your reach now!