Gone are the days when brands had only links in bios and swipe ups to re-direct customers from Instagram to their website.
Let’s face it, we’re impatient. Sometimes a slow-loading webpage is enough to make you lose your shopping mojo. Luckily, Instagram’s shopping features are making strides towards a friction-free experience. These features allow brands to covert social scrollers into shoppers even faster.
So which Instagram features should your brand be using to make sales?
Shoppable Posts
In March 2018, Instagram brought shoppable posts to more countries, after tests first began in the US. The feature allows brands to tag shoppable items in organic in-feed posts, providing customers with product details, prices and the ability to ‘View on Website’ to purchase.
Whether you’re a global brand or SMB, this feature provides customers with a seamless shopping experience. It gives your customers more information and allows them to easily tap through to your website. Use Instagram’s shoppable tag on all product-focused posts to ensure your customers receive a constant flow of available items to purchase when scrolling through their feeds.
Shoppable Stories
Just six months later, Instagram expanded their shoppable tags to Stories, working the exact same way as shoppable posts. Brands can now tag shoppable products in their Stories – one of the app’s most popular features – for consumers to click through and purchase.
Instagram Stories has over 500 million daily active users, many of who tend to scroll through their Stories before their feed. Tagging shoppable Stories is the perfect way for any brand to quickly grab users attention, target them with product information and drive ecommerce sales.
Instagram Shops
As businesses sales were being impacted by COVID-19, Instagram introduced ‘Shops’ this May. Brands now have a new ‘View Shop’ button on their profiles, where shoppers have a full-screen storefront of shoppable products available to them at any time.
This is another feature that helps keep shoppers in the app, and may increase conversion rates. Any products you’ve tagged as a shoppable item are added to your Instagram Shop, and customers can view their Shopping Bag, Wish List and Recently Viewed items from your store.
Soon, all businesses around the globe will have access to Checkout on Instagram. Currently only available in the US, Checkout on Instagram allows shoppers to purchase items through Instagram, removing the ‘View on Website’ option and streamlining the Instagram shopping experience even further.
The Shop Tab
After tests first started in July, Instagram has swapped out the notifications tab for a new ‘Shop Tab’, removing Instagram Shops from the Explore page and placing it in a more accessible and prominent spot on the home screen.
Online orders from social media platforms have increased by 84% in the third quarter, according to a study by Salesforce. So this new prime location for the Shop Tab will likely increase the number of Instagram Shoppers – and increase the sales potential for your brand.
To celebrate this new feature and promote the launch of the Shop Tab, Instagram Australia held the worlds first Instagram-exclusive shopping event. On Thursday 3 December, InstaNight featured exclusive sales and one-night-only product drops from over 50 Aussie brands.
Use content to maximise conversions
To make the most of these features, brands need high-quality content that will stand out on Instagram feed and showcase your products. 54% of consumers said they are more likely to trust brands if they make their content engaging and relevant, and keep it regularly updated (53%). An easy and cost-effective way to generate that content is by partnering with Vamp in one of two ways.
Influencer campaigns
Our pre-vetted community specialise in creating branded content that is creative, authentic and performs on social media. Once they have created that content – and shared it with their engaged audiences – its ready for you to re-share or buy the HD usage rights to.
Content creation-only campaigns
You can also use our platform of diverse global talent for content creation-only briefs. Generate and buy the HD usage rights to beautiful still-images, cinemagraphs and videos, at cost-effective rates.
