Seven ways to use Instagram to help your products to get seen
Posted on 2nd November 2022
As part of our Help for Small Businesses series, Lou Chudley of Spark Social gives some great advice on using Instagram to help your products get seen.
So you’re about to embark on what’s likely to be the one of the busiest times of your year. And this year, because of the cost of living crisis, people are really having to think long and hard about any buying decisions they make. So it’s more important than ever that you find ways to use Instagram that help your products to get seen.
Below I share some tips to help you to make really effective use of Instagram.
Seven ways for you to use Instagram to maximise your sales success this Christmas period
Use Reels to reach your customers
If you’re not already creating Reels content I’d really encourage you to start having a go. Reels can be anything from video clips to static images to stop motion and absolutely no dancing, pointing or lip synching is required (unless that really is your thing).
Reels is the content format that is most likely to reach further into your audience so it’s worth having a go at creating them.
Try to post at least one Reel a week in this period up to Christmas. Keep checking your insights to see if posting Reels is making a difference to your reach.
Use your Instagram Stories
Stories are a really important part of your Instagram account. Your Stories content is only seen by your existing followers so this is content you can use to really drive engagement with your most engaged followers.
Use your Stories to gauge feedback, do some market research and most importantly to find out how your Instagram community is feeling this winter.
And use your Stories to remind people what you’re selling this Christmas. Your followers who watch your Stories are the most warmed up members of your Instagram community. And they are likely to be the ones most ready to buy.
Pinned Posts
Use the new pinned posts feature to draw attention to your best sellers and new products on sale in the Christmas run-up. You can pin up to three posts to the top of your feed so use these to drive attention and traffic to your products.
Behind the Scenes
I cannot encourage you enough to share behind the scenes content with your Instagram community. People are having to make tough decisions with the money they have available this winter so help them to make their buying decisions.
Showing your beautiful products is not enough – your customers want to know more. They want to know how it was made, what your making process looks like, what were the highs and lows.
Take people on the journey of your business and remember it’s always the most relatable content that garners the most engagement.
Create video content to bring your Instagram to life
It’s still ok to share some still images of course but there’s no denying that video content will bring your account to life.
Show people your products on Reels, Stories and Lives. Give people a demo. Show how you would style your products. Show up on your Stories and Reels and let people get to meet you.
This all compelling content that brings people back to your account time and again.
Don’t be afraid to repeat yourself
It is really important to remember that even your most engaged Instagram followers will not see every piece of content you post. And new people will join you all the time and even the followers who’ve been with you for ages may have forgotten.
So get into the habit of reminding people what you have to offer them. Particularly as your bestsellers start to sell out – keep reminding people what you have in stock and what is running low.
This is key messaging if you want to help people make those all important buying decisions.
Create a gift Guide
Have you created an Instagram Guide before? I think it’s a brilliant Instagram format but it’s rather underused. However the Guides are brilliant for putting all your products in one place on Instagram. This makes it easy for your customers to find out what you are selling this Christmas.
The Guides can be saved and shared so share them to your Stories.
About Lou
Lou is an Instagram specialist and works with small business owners to help them to use Instagram to build brilliant customer relationships, build engaged communities and to grow their businesses. You can find her on Instagram & her website: www.spark-social.co.uk
If you’re interested in learning about stop motion for your Reels, Lou is running her Stop Motion for Beginners online workshop on Thursday November 17th – for more info tap here: Stop Motion for Beginners
If you found this blog useful, why not check out this other one about Hashtags on Instagram
