Instagram is used by over 800 million active users every month and is a great marketing tool for your e-commerce business if you know how to use the platform. It is easy to boost your Instagram followers and reach your target market by using the Instagram social media platform.
Below are the things you need to know on Instagram to build your brand, even without spending any money on advertising strategies.
Grow Your E-Commerce Business On Instagram With Zero Budget
1. Every post should embody your brand image
Instagram is all about delighting your audience. The photos you publish should be interesting to everyone who sees them on your feed. So when you upload photos to your feed, it’s very important to take the time to review them before publishing and make sure they’re worth your audience’s time to view them. It’s okay to use a filter to make the photo look better, but it’s even better if you publish the photos with a story in your Instagram feed. Make sure that when people look at your feed, they’ll be convinced to follow your brand because they feel it’s what their lifestyle or interests are all about.
For example, if you are building a women’s fashion brand, it would be very helpful to post real women with your style. It would be even more convincing to post hand-picked models wearing your style, as this is more personal and based on your creative fashion designs.
2. Follow the ‘Rule of Three’
In order to remain upright and stable in relation to your followers and not to be excessively promotional, it is very important to observe the following ‘rule of three’ technique, which includes:
- Posts about promoting your brand – this includes posting the products or services you offer and anything that is solely related to your line of business.
- Posts engaging your audience – this is to convince your audience to participate in a conversation. Most strategies are posting questions that you want your audience to answer, with great answers being rewarded.
- Post sharing – this involves sharing the latest news about the industry or cross-promotion with experienced bloggers, your target audience, or perhaps other companies.
Keep in mind that the best way to increase engagement and drive your brand is to find the right balance. We know that everything needs experimentation. If you’re a small business, you need to think about the things you need to focus on and make sure it works. But it’s also more effective to work with established influencers who are in the same industry as you and focus on running giveaways.
3. Tagging Products
The tagging of products makes shopping easier for your customers. This also enables you to make a clear call to action. It’s a good thing Instagram now offers business accounts the ability to tag products in their posts, and it’s just like tagging people. On the Instagram Help Page, you will find the selected countries where product tagging is allowed. This method can help you grow your e-commerce business on Instagram with zero budget.
It is very easy to convert your account from a social channel to a sales channel and can be done with just a few clicks. How do you start? Here are the steps:
- On your business Facebook page, you need to create a shop area and add photos of your products. Make sure you connect your Facebook page to your Instagram. It’s recommended that you choose the option that allows your customers to checkout on your own site rather than on Facebook. This will update your merchandise management system. Please note that this is not something you can change in your current Facebook settings, so it must be set up first.
- You will be notified by Instagram that you can now start tagging products. It may take a few days before you receive one, so be patient.
- You will now be able to tag a product when you post an image, and you will then see the “tag a product” option. There you’ll see a list that is automatically filled out, and those are the products you listed or uploaded on your Facebook Store Page.
On Instagram, hashtags are very important because they allow your content to show up and appear in search results and help you attract new customers.
It is very important to do further research in advance about which hashtags you will use. You can have a note stored on your phone with three different lists of hashtags, one for each of the common types of photos your company publishes. For example, if you frequently publish product photos, motivational quotes, and lifestyle photos, you’ll need a list of hashtags related to each of these niches. However, we also need to add some suitable hashtags to each post until we publish a post.
It is also a must for us to update our hashtag list, as we know that trend hashtags change from time to time. Always check the user experience first and make sure you don’t use too many hashtags in your posts and only use the appropriate ones.
It may take us time to find our target audience, but with the right management it will pay off. Just be patient and let your diligence work with your perseverance to reach the pinnacle of success and reach more audiences for your industry.
5. Create an amazing Instagram feed using third-party apps
It is time-consuming to grow and maintain a popular Instagram account, but it can be a great help to you if you are using a third-party application. Social media planners such as Later and Onpost allow you to organize the look of your Instagram feed using a drag-and-drop feature, which is very useful for creating a stunning design before you post it. Make sure you only use apps that comply with the terms and conditions of Instagram.
6. Always check your analytics
Evaluating your analytics within Instagram gives you insight into how you can increase your engagement. In the Audience tab, you can see when your followers are online on Instagram, down to the nearest hour, and then schedule your future contributions at the best possible times to get the most out of them.
You can also evaluate and analyze which posts are most popular with your audience, giving you insight into your audience’s preferences. Based on what they like best, you can find out what they want, and then you can publish more of what they want.
7. Engagement is Essential
At the early stage of growing your Instagram account, it requires patience as it takes time to work hard to grow your account organically. For some, it takes about a year to attract about 20,000 organic followers to their e-commerce business. By working hard, I mean that this is a give and take process, so you also need to work on comments and likes, and tracking posts and reports from your target groups.
If you comment on a post, especially on those that belong to your target audience, there is a greater chance that they will visit your site. The likes we give and receive are a dime a dozen, but a more sincere commitment will get their attention.
There are opportunities to get Instagram Story views on UseViral and buy likes and comments, but that will not work with our business. Yes, it may seem that your site looks great because of the commitment you get, but technically there comes a time when you will realize that it could have been bigger if you had gotten what you were working for. Instagram announces algorithm changes, but they do not disclose their indicator for account suspension or deletion. It is better to assume that accounts with a large number of low commitment followers are obviously a red flag and can have a negative impact on an account. We all know that Instagram’s priority is to provide excellent user experience, so we must be aware that fake accounts or accounts that have bought engagements or followers are likely to be banned, i.e. the photos or accounts will be suspended.
I hope that the above simple steps can help you grow your e-commerce business in Instagram with zero budget.
