Since 2010, Instagram has positioned itself as one of the most important social networks in the digital and social media market. Its great success is due to the editing tools it has and the speed it gives us when uploading photos and videos to our profile.
Millions of people upload audiovisual content to Instagram daily, including in their stories that appear at the top. However, what happens when social networks stop being spaces only for people?
Currently, companies have made efforts to penetrate these platforms and use them as spaces to promote products and/or services. This practice has grown since Instagram allowed the creation of profiles for companies and will continue to grow much more now, thanks to its new update for online shopping: Instagram Shopping.
In this sense, Instagram is the social network that is managing to arouse the greatest interest among brands, not only because of its wide popularity among users on the Internet, but because of the various tools it provides to companies, such as: knowing the statistics of your followers (gender, country of residence, level of interaction), the KPIs of the publications (number of likes, followers, comments, etc.) and now, add price tags to the publications.
What is Instagram Shopping?
Instagram Shopping is a new way to provide its advertisers (companies that live on this platform) to promote and market their products, while offering its users an interactive platform to make purchases online.
From now on, some brands will be able to label several of their products within a photograph, as if it were a catalog with prices. With this functionality, the Facebook subsidiary will turn Instagrammers into potential buyers. That is, it will facilitate the conversion process in which the inbound marketing methodology is supported to materialize successful purchases.
A new update?
On March 20, 2018, Instagram announced that the function is now available so that users can make purchases through this social network. In this global effort to monetize content and interactions in digital media, Instagram has taken the opportunity to launch its new update.
Please note that this feature is currently only available to approved businesses in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United States, and the United Kingdom.
If your company operates in these countries and you want to take advantage of this function starting today, it is important that you first know some mandatory requirements to activate Instagram Shopping :
- Your business must sell physical products that comply with the merchant agreement and commerce policies.
- You must convert your Instagram account into a business profile.
- You must have the latest version of the Instagram application.
- Your business profile must be connected to a Facebook catalog, which you can create and manage in Business Manager using the Shopify and BigCommerce platforms, or directly on your business’s Facebook page.
Once you meet the aforementioned requirements, Instagram will review your account so you can access this feature. Typically, this process takes a few days, but sometimes the Instagram team may need to review your account in more detail, which could lengthen the process time.
Finally, if your account is approved, you will receive a message from Instagram notifying you that you can now activate product tagging in your account settings.
The great advantage that Instagram Shopping offers you is that you can tag products found in both new and existing posts. It is possible to tag up to five products, if the publication has a single image, or up to 20 products, if the publication has multiple images. We show you:
What will the user experience be like with this update?
For Instagram users to see your price tags, they must tap the bottom left of your post. Instantly, a small window will appear (something similar to what happens when profiles are tagged) identifying the products in the image, information regarding the name of each item and its price.
Once a specific label is selected, a new detailed view of the product is displayed. This way, your followers will be able to click the “Buy now” link (which acts as a call to action ) to go directly to your e-commerce or virtual store where your product is located.
To test this new experience, Instagram is counting on the participation of large retail brands based in the United States such as: Abercrombie & Fitch, BaubleBar, Chubbies, Coach, Hollister, J.Crew, JackThreads, Kate Spade New York, Levi’s Brand, Lulus, Macy’s, Michael Kors, Tory Burch, Warby Parker and Shopbop.
It is also important to note that Instagram will not generate income directly with this new function, but will do so under its status as an advertiser, who offers paid advertising to those brands that wish to promote a particular content.
Being able to display your products in the news feeds of both users who already follow you and those who don’t. In other words, this company will not keep a percentage of your sales, but will respectively charge the cost corresponding to the advertisement of your publication.
On the other hand, Instagram plans to complement these functions with a button to save products that allows your users to buy them at another time, along with the possibility of adding these Instagram Shopping tags also in videos.
In short, Instagram Shopping will become a fundamental ally for those company profiles whose growth in their followers can translate into growth in their sales.
The simplicity and speed that this tool provides generates a much more successful shopping experience for Instagram users, who, in fact, already use this social network as a space to find out what brands are currently offering on the market.
