HOW TO PROMOTE AN INSTAGRAM STORE

Posted by Socialcaptainfans on April 27th, 2021

Instagram is a popular channel for attracting traffic and, therefore, potential buyers to a virtual store. The modern platform is used by large brands and aspiring entrepreneurs. Therefore, the issue of promotion is very important.

The advantage of the marketing solutions of this social network is that it is tailored for visual content . The features of the site require the use of strategies that give quick results. How to promote a store on Instagram on your own will be discussed in this article.

Promotion methods
There are many marketing strategies for promoting a store page on Instagram. Almost any of them is done independently. It should be understood that this will require financial costs, but it will be cheaper than the services of professionals.

In accordance with the specifics of Instagram, there are 7 options for promoting the store:

target;
redirecting traffic from other resources;
mass following;
hashtags and geotags;
commenting;
mutual advertising;
practical jokes.

Preparation for promotion
To advertise a store on Instagram to bring results, you need to prepare a promoted profile. It is enough to adhere to a few tips:

Sentence. When going to the profile, the user should immediately understand what the store is offering him. This applies to both visual content and description.
The store page for Instagram should be designed in the same style. Do not post only products or work results. It is better to alternate them with other publication formats, for example, advice from the store of choice, expert opinion. This will help to quickly promote the store.
Publishing a video. This Instagram content format tells more about the brand. It is worth alternating between videos and photographs.

Cleaning up inactive subscribers. Before starting the promotion, it is worth removing bots, other stores and inactive users from the list. Thus, audience engagement will increase.
Ensuring the "independence" of the page. Having entered the profile, the client should not only understand what the store is offering him, but also purchase the product without leaving Instagram. You should not use your own website for payment - this will reduce sales. To better promote your account, use auto funnels.
Knowing how to promote your store on Instagram, you can achieve good results and get a decent income!

Targeted advertising
Targeted ads are interest-based pop-up ads on Instagram. That is, it is shown to an interested audience. This is a pretty effective way to promote a page, but it requires a relatively large budget.

Such store advertising can be in different formats: photography, video up to 60 seconds, slideshow, ring gallery. You should choose the most suitable type of publication in order to demonstrate the products to the user.

To effectively promote a profile, you need to be able to set up a target on Instagram . To do this, you can invite a specialist, or do it yourself:

3-4 trial posts are created on the Instagram advertising network and promoted for a small amount.
Ineffective publications are removed depending on the statistics. Another one is added, the advertisement is launched again.

The most effective one remains. You can try changing it a little to promote the post more effectively.
Important! For targeted ads on Instagram, the CTR (conversion to impressions ratio) should aim for 5%.

Advertising must reach the target audience. To promote a store on Instagram with a specific audience, it is enough to go through the pages of customers and determine common interests.

Traffic redirection
There is another way to promote an online store on Instagram - by redirecting traffic. This method is quite simple, but not for everyone. Its essence is to send people from another platform to Instagram.

For example, this is suitable for bloggers on YouTube or owners of VKontakte publics. It is enough to make a post with a link to the store to promote it.

Massfollowing
This is one of the easiest methods for promoting your store on Instagram. Its mechanism is simple:

Massfollowing is an option for promoting an account with the help of numerous subscriptions to other pages on Instagram for the purpose of mutual subscription.
Massliking is a similar method, but likes are used instead of subscriptions.
Usually, in order to promote the store with these methods, bots are used that independently perform all actions. It must be remembered that the use of third-party programs can cause the page to be blocked on Instagram. You can try doing it manually, but the effectiveness will be low.

The effectiveness of these methods lies in the fact that the user will become interested in knowing who subscribed to him or liked the publication. After going to the page of the online store on Instagram, if it is correctly framed , a new potential client will appear. It should be noted that the effectiveness of promoting a store using this method may be low.

Hashtags and geotags
This method is the most unreliable option for promoting a store on Instagram, but the simplest. Hashtags and geotags are present on any page. In the context of a store, it is enough to learn how to use them correctly:

Hashtags. Conventionally, these are the same key queries. You need to come up with a common hashtag in order to promote the brand. Under each publication, you should indicate it and additional ones, for example, #manicure for a nail designer. You shouldn't use more than 4 hashtags per post.
Geotags. Best suited if a store is being promoted that is strongly tied to a specific area. To do this, it is enough to attach a geotag to each publication.
You shouldn't use hashtags and geotags just like that - users want to see thematic content on demand. Otherwise, it can damage the reputation of the business on Instagram.

Commenting
To promote your store, you can comment on publications of famous personalities and opinion leaders on Instagram. In the profiles of the stars, there are discussions under the posts. It is enough to subscribe to several popular people and regularly advertise your products or services in the comments.

Some especially zealous fans constantly look at what they write under the publication, so it becomes possible to get several customers for the store.

To promote your store faster, it is better to use the option with edit comments. To do this, under the photo on Instagram, you need to leave an interesting text so that it will be liked and brought to the first positions.

The product advertisement is then added using the edit function. This is usually done under the "UPD:" footnote.

The effectiveness of this method in order to properly promote an Instagram store is rather doubtful for several reasons:

Possibility of blocking. Administration may issue a ban for spam. Several advertising entries should be created. Less often, the owners of Instagram pages themselves clear comments and block those who advertise their product there.
Insecurity. It sometimes takes a lot of effort to bring a comment to the top positions on Instagram. You never know which thought the viewer will like and which will not. If a post does not make it to the top positions, it is likely to be seen by less than 1% of the post's total reach.
Irrelevant audience. Different people subscribe to the profiles of the stars on Instagram. Users with differing interests can even follow an expert in a narrow field.
The reputation of the store. Nobody likes ads. It causes even more negative feelings when it appears where it should not be. Continuous spam will diminish the trust of potential customers on Instagram.
In total, there are enough obstacles to quickly promote a store on Instagram. On the other hand, it's free.

Mutual advertising
Many people want to promote products or personal brands on their own on Instagram. This can be a good way to promote your profile.

Its gist is simple: both parties to the deal are posting advertisements. As a rule, this is a deal between a blogger and a store : the first one posts a publication describing the experience of using the product, and the last one reposts.

This kind of bartering between the two brands occurs less frequently and is usually offline. It is important to find a partner who will work in the same area. This can be done in several ways:

Manually on Instagram. Using hashtags, you should find bloggers or stores that match the topic. You should select 15-20 pages with approximately the same number of subscribers, and then send an offer for promotion.
In special groups and communities. There are many private conversations on a specific topic on third-party social networks and messengers. It is enough to join one of them. In the chat, you can easily find a partner for mutual advertising in order to promote your goods and services.
Post a post about search on Instagram or another resource. It is advisable to attach the hashtag "# mutual PR".
Draws and promotions
This method, in order to effectively promote an online store on Instagram, is quite simple in its idea - the user is promised a prize so that he fulfills the conditions. Probably everyone has seen such promotions on social networks. The INBRIEF expert agency conducted a study, thanks to which you can make an effective rally:

Most people prefer a guaranteed prize or an accumulation of bonus points. Casual and creative pranks are less interesting, therefore less suitable for promoting a store on Instagram.
In all categories, people prefer a cash prize. In the case of certificates, discounts of 500 and 3000 rubles show themselves best.

Most people prefer to participate in the action from a computer. The audience under 25 uses a smartphone in 16% of cases. SMS traffic is not at all in demand in order to promote the store.
To achieve high engagement, you need a prize from 3 to 10 thousand rubles.
A few small prizes are more interesting to the audience.
Best of all, information about the contest on Instagram is distributed through packaging - this is how 75% of people find out about it, another 16% via the Internet.

You can choose any format that better helps to promote the promoted business. For a beginner store on Instagram, the "bring a friend" mechanic is suitable: it can be a discount on a product or a free gift. In the specifics of Instagram, there is a popular way to promote a profile, in which, in order to participate, you need to mark friends in the comments.

Customer retention
Promotion will not work if you do nothing with the new audience. To keep potential customers engaged, you should post interesting content on your store page. Posting only photos of works or products on Instagram is a bad decision.

One day, though beautiful, but advertising posts in the feed will start to tire, which will greatly increase the natural outflow of subscribers from the store, which will not give an opportunity to promote it.

To avoid this, you need to publish posts that are interesting to the audience and attract new followers from Instagram.

You can talk about the method of production, the features of the service, for example, why shouldn't a tattoo artist post manuals on how to care for a tattoo?
Also, a good solution to promote your store on Instagram would be to publish photos of the goods made by the customers of the store.

In addition to retaining current subscribers, this way, you can attract new customers to the store. Instagram smart feed algorithms can promote interesting content for free. Therefore, it is worth adding an advertisement for your brand at the end of the description in order to promote the store.

Large companies have long been using social networks, including Instagram, this way to promote the page to increase orders. Some even go for memes.

Benchmarks
A benchmark is a comparison of a more successful Instagram store with your own in terms of advertising. Each area has its own marketing characteristics. To promote effectively, you need to be aware of them. At the beginning of your business, it is impossible to promote a page well without the services of specialists. In this case, a benchmark will help.

You should find the Instagram page of a store of a more successful brand in the same area and compare how a competitor operates. It's important to pay attention to everything from design to stories. Thus, you can not only better understand the specifics of your field, but also keep abreast of new thematic trends and quickly promote your store.

You should choose a competitor's store on Instagram of approximately the same level. International companies can use completely different ways to promote their products that are ineffective at the entry level.

Eventually
High-quality promotion of an online store of any subject for Instagram by independent forces is possible. For money, you can do it faster and better, but with a competent combination of free methods, the result will also appear.

It is important to understand that promoting a page is not only buying advertising, but also the ability to work with a new audience, carefully review the reviews left and track the trend. Constant development and comparison will allow you to build an effective campaign and promote your products on Instagram.