How to Sell on Instagram: Best Techniques

Let’s talk about Instagram as an effective sales channel. If its prime goal was publishing images, now people use it for sales and quite successfully.

Instagram works with visual representation. That’s is the main advantage and disadvantage simultaneously.  If you sell “delicious” stuff like pies and cupcakes, makeup kits, handmade stuff, cafes, hotels, it’s quite easy to present to Instagrammers. But what if you sell instrument or diapers? Do not worry, even bricks can be sold on IG if you use right techniques to manage your account promotion.

Structurize the posts themes and draw up the publication time-table

Think over the content blocks: PR products, useful info, corporate life, contests/promotions, exclusive materials. Over time, it will become clear to what type of it the audience responds better, and which blocks should be cut off.

No matter how valuable the content is in your eyes, you should not clog the news feed of followers with too frequent posts or vice versa torture them with irregular posts. Most companies make 1-2 posts per day. Through trial and error method, you will find out what time of the day your followers most actively “like” posts and set up your publication schedule.

Use hashtags

With the help of tags, you will help your TA easily find you online, because tags help you sort the pictures by subject. 2. You can use them for contests and promoting new trends. The key point here is not to overdo it.

Use more hashtags. A larger number won’t reduce the loyalty of the TA, and won’t attract untargeted traffic as many people claim. For example, #ferrari is a very specific tag. Leave it without add-ons, and Ferrari lovers follow you. But if you add #car #fashion #luxurycar #speed etc. to this tag, then you will get 10-20 likes instantly.

Write tags in the comments to the post, not in the description of the photo. So you can quickly remove, replace or restore it. And your post will be fair to look at.

To come up with popular and appropriate hashtags for each of your posts you need either a lot of free time or the hashtag generator. I advise you to use such tools as they are able to generate around hundred of relevant tags, so you can easily combine several of them and not to repeat yourself. Thus, you can get both suitable hashtags and free time.

Actively interact with the audience

Social networks are created for communication first and foremost. Even if you sell on IG, you have to interact with the audience, maintaining bidirectional communication.

Never leave comments unanswered. It’s better to track all comments using automation tools so that you won’t skip the important ones.

Like back, thank your followers, encourage, be interested in their lives.

Ask buyers to leave a comment about your product/service with a tag in their feed. Be sure to repost positive feedbacks.

A hint. All-round communication with users is a time-consuming process and quite monotonous, to be honest. The necessity of automation tools is obvious. Use an Instagram bot to manage all the processes in the frames of promotion. On the whole, that tool can set the right targeting campaign and direct its activity towards only those users who will be somehow interested in the content or goods you offer.

Create dynamics around the acc

How? Think what people love most. Free stuff, of course. Turn up the thermostat with the help of giveaways or contest. For instance, offer them to like your post in exchange for the participation in the giveaway. And do not forget to point out that the winner will be identified randomly. People are always willing to take something for free, and if our sell that possibility they will buy it.

Encourage your fans – post their photos with their reviews on your product or service. Personal PR will be perceived with gratitude and will increase the loyalty of your audience.

The loyal user buys more, oftener and more willingly.

Do not forget that Instagram is the place of images: your photos and videos are the core elements of your success. But if you ignore the rules that were generously mentioned by me above, you lose the chance to improve your strategy, increase your brand recognition, boost your sales and gain the love of thousands and millions of IG users.