Shoppable Posts for Instagram ❤ Your ‘How-To’ Guide!
#1. Understanding Shoppable Posts
Shopping on Instagram is an exciting new social commerce feature that allows you to add shoppable tags to Instagram posts. If you are a brand or business with a physical product, Shopping on Instagram elevates your feed by promoting your products to potentially reach millions of daily Instagram users.
When someone views an Instagram advertising post that contains a shoppable tag, they will initially see a shopping bag displayed in the corner of the image. By hovering over the image, shoppable tags will appear, sharing the name and price of a product.
If a consumer likes what they see, they can click on the shoppable tag and be shown extra product information as well as a Visit website button. When clicked, the button takes users directly to the product’s page or checkout page on the businesses eCommerce website. This enables products to be purchased quickly and easily while consumers explore their Instagram feeds.
By showcasing your products with Instagram marketing on your feed, you are creating an immediate shopping experience for your followers.
#2. Setting Up Shoppable Posts
There are a couple of stages to setting up Shopping on Instagram;
In order to be approved for Shopping on Instagram, you need to first create a Facebook business page.
Once your Facebook account has been set up, connect the page to your Instagram account. Log into your Facebook account and open your Facebook business page. Select Settings > Instagram. Then click Log In to connect to Instagram and sync the two accounts.
You will then need to create a catalogue of your products on Facebook. All products that you wish to advertise on Instagram with shoppable tags will need to be added to the catalogue. This catalogue can be uploaded through Facebook Business Manager and Facebook Catalogue Manager. To create a Facebook catalogue, make sure you are using the Facebook shop template on your Facebook business page under settings. When completed, save your settings and then start uploading your product images, adding a product name, price and description to entice consumers.
#3. Connecting Shoppable Catalogue on Instagram
Once you have connected the Facebook and Instagram pages, you will have to wait for approval to start using Shopping on Instagram. You can then start creating social commerce shoppable posts.
Follow these simple steps:
Open your Instagram app.
Select Get Started > Business Settings > Shopping.
Select the Facebook catalogue you have created.
Click Done.
#4. Creating Shoppable Posts on Instagram
To add shoppable tags to a post, either create a new post or select an existing one:
Click on the image where you would like to add a tag.
Enter the name of the product until it appears in the search box, just as you would tag a person into a post.
Once you have finished tagging, select Done.
Preview the post to check you are happy with it.
Click Share.
#5. Top tips for successful Instagram marketing
How to create Instagram posts that will convert into sales:
Try using shoppable tags on both single image and carousel posts to ensure a varied Instagram content strategy.
Make the most of the Shopping on Instagram feature by tagging up to 5 products per post and up to 20 products in carousel posts.
Shoppable tags can be dragged and dropped around an image to ensure they don’t block too much of the photo and detract from the post’s visual appeal.
Check that each tag displayed on an image touches the right product so viewers can easily see which product each tag refers to.
Once you have added shoppable tags and published the post, click through to check that the URL for each product takes Instagrammers to the correct page on your eCommerce store.
#6. Useful links
Shopping on Instagram is a great tool to transform your feed and drive sales.
Read more for further information and inspiration on Instagram advertising:
https://later.com/blog/facebook-shops/
https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/selling-on-instagram
https://www.falcon.io/insights-hub/topics/customer-engagement/instagram-shoppable-posts-2018/
