Ecommerce and Instagram go together like vanilla ice-cream and chocolate chips.
You can have them separately, but it’s just not right.
Early 2019, Instagram introduced “Checkout on Instagram”, which allows brands to set up a shopping experience right on the platform. This makes shopping really fast and convenient for customers.
Now, before you go ahead and close down your ecommerce site and Shopify subscription, keep in mind that this option is still only available for selected brands.
Brands like Dior, Zara, Burberry, H&M and many others have the shopping experience setup, so go ahead and try it out on their profile.
(Source: Techcrunch.com)
This is definitely a feature to look forward to. Due to faster product page loading speed you’ll be getting higher conversion rates and a more seamless experience for your customers. This is concluded by numerous studies.
Regardless of this awesome new feature, when it comes to building your ecommerce brand on Instagram there are so many things people get wrong. I’ve been working with over 3000 accounts and I decided to put together some of the main mistakes I see ecommerce brands do on Instagram.
Now, as much as we would like, we’re not all Instagram superstars and not all of us have built a massive following on Instagram yet.
It’s cool. Don’t worry about it.
It’s important to understand that it’s not all about how many followers you have. You can easily run a 6-figure business with 1,000 followers on Instagram. Quick math lesson here - sell $100 worth of products to all of your 1,000 followers over one year.
That equals $100,000.
So don’t feel bad comparing your new one-of-a-kind sport apparel brand’s Instagram account with the likes of Nike and Adidas and with their millions of followers.
The important thing in utilizing Instagram for your ecommerce brand is to capture attention and trigger emotions.
In this article, we’re going to cover 4 common mistakes ecommerce brands do on Instagram.
So pay attention and avoid these for your ecommerce business.
Alright, let’s dig in.
1. Dull Product Photos
You might have an amazing offer - great value for money, but if your communication is boring and doesn’t really spark any interest, then people aren’t going to care (or buy).
I’m not going to call anyone out here, but here’s what can be considered boring.
Low image quality and also just bad photography setup. If you’re doing dropshipping and just using the images that your supplier gives you, you’re likely not going to do well on Instagram.
Aim higher than your role models and brands you aspire to be. Order your own products, schedule photo- and video shoots and hire professionals. Don’t cheap out with this one.
However, if you’re running on a budget, checkout this guide on product photography by Hubspot.
Your posts are not just the visual part - there’s also captions (I bet you knew that already).
Now, this does depend on your brand and how you want to present your products. However, if every single post is just a close-up of a product with a caption saying “Buy this look. Link is in the bio” then you’re not going to capture a whole lot of people.
If you want to present your products in a very minimal way - you can, but definitely make it interesting with the post caption.
So, overall, the longer the caption that you write, the longer people are going to spend on your post. The longer people spend on your post the stronger signal that send to Instagram that they want to see more content from you.
If possible, once in a while (you don’t have to do it with every post), add longer text to your post and tell a story about your product or the offer.
The worst thing you can do is just post photos of your product that your supplier gave you and post them with a bunch of hashtags without any post text.
Here’s @herschelsupply, who we think does an amazing job with interesting product shots and they are not very shy with post captions either.
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