How to sell on Instagram

If you want a guide that gives you the detailed steps to start selling Instagram, you are in the right Place

Who among us does not use Instagram in everyday life to record the beautiful and pleasant moments that we are experiencing, or as a way to help us bring our business to a distant place?

In addition, I have certainly heard about the modern trend prevailing today, which is the digital Influencer, which takes its interaction with the public as a means of making money, as it depends on its great popularity in promoting products and services, and describes it in an interesting way that encourages its fans who love it.

If you have your own business, it is important to know that you can count on Instagram to promote and market your business and the services it provides.

What do you think about keeping pace with technology and reaching your target audience in a modern and distinctive style? Continue reading this article to the end and learn helpful tips to help you sell to Instagram.

Initial steps to prepare for selling on Instagram

As in any field, you must take some measures that make you ready to enter the sales world on Instagram, in other words, there are some things that you must achieve in order to be able to exploit Instagram widely and usefully.

1-If you do not have the Instagram application on mobile, install it now.

2-If you do not have an Instagram account, create an account on the social network. Then, convert your profile from personal to commercial.

3-Think of a smart policy for the content you want to share on Instagram.

This helps you succeed in your account and gain followers on Instagram.

What do you think is the benefit of having an account and publishing it once every month or two? Follow-up on publishing is the method that will help you gain audience engagement.

4-Select the ideal frequency for Instagram post

Try to find out when your audience is on Instagram, so it becomes much easier for you to gain engagement with posts. You decide the frequency, according to the marketing strategies of your business in a manner that does not disturb the audience.

5- Try to gain audience engagement with posts

Choose the language your target audience speaks, and focus on some geographical characteristics of the place and language if you want to target a specific publication to a specific country or place.
Choose the words they use, as this is one of the factors that helps you win their interaction.
Ask questions, ask viewers to ask, ask them to comment or like, you can use some smart incentives such as preparing offers or contests and prizes for who interacts with the posts.

6-Select the product or products to sell on Instagram

Since your main goal is to sell on Instagram, you must decide which products or services you want to sell and promote on Instagram.

It is not necessary that the product belong to you or you who produced it. Rather, through the internet, you can sell products and services that also belong to other people, in exchange for your commission, and this is what we call commission or affiliate marketing. You can learn more about commission marketing by reading this article.

After reading these steps that we talked about, you will be ready to start selling on Instagram, and now you will know the method and method.

How do you sell on Instagram?

You can follow the steps below to start selling, these steps help you present your profile and promote it smartly to the public, and this is what makes the difference when promoting.

It is important that your Instagram profile clearly speaks about you and the work you do.

1-Explain the nature of your work in the description or bio field

Imagine a visitor when he clicks on your Instagram account and enters the main page, his eye naturally turns to the paragraph Bio, which is the area to the right of the main image of the profile, because he wants to know more about the nature of your work.

He usually enters your homepage and envisions that he will find an explanation or talk that talks about you, and explains about your business specifically. Imagine that he enters and does not see anything written, for sure you may have the opportunity to lose such a potential client, right?

2-Put a link to your website or YouTube channel

This step is very important and you may be responsible for getting many visits to your website, which means more opportunities to buy and get to know your business closely.

If a visitor arrives on your Instagram account, and reads that you sell a certain type of product and cares about that, intuitively, he will search for a place that can learn more about what you produce.

In such cases, your site link will act as a way to satisfy the curiosity of the prospect and may turn into a real customer. So do not neglect this simple step if you want to sell on Instagram.

3-Assign a proper name to the Instagram account

The subject of the account name is very useful, because it will be responsible for helping followers and potential audiences find your account.

Try to choose an exclusive name that is not complicated, because a complex name may make it difficult for users and visitors to find you.

Think of a name that helps users remember it already and quickly, consider using items that are easy to write by them.

4-Customize the profile picture in your Instagram account

Since you want to sell on Instagram, it is better to put a picture (profile picture) that reflects the nature of your business.

By this you help people remember your brand and get to know it from afar, and of course that's what you definitely want, it is important to help create a visual link between your brand and your target audience.

If you have an official logo for the brand or brand that represents your business, you can put it as a personal photo on the Instagram account that you want to market with.

Another option is to choose an image so that you and your hands show one of the products you want to sell, or any scene related to the field in which you work. The options are many, but the option must necessarily be related to your business.

Remember that you have transferred your account to a commercial account, that is, a business account.

Example that we have chosen for you from the internet, Example of setting the profile picture with the brand logo:  the famous jewelry brand: L'azurde , Note how the brand logo appears in the profile picture of the account:

5- Start publishing the content

Now everything is ready to start publishing and promoting your business. The appearance of the account on Instagram clearly suggests the nature of your work.

You also have clearly left outlets for the interested customer to reach you easily and know more about your business and your business.

Time to work on the content.

To do this to the fullest, you must plan an effective and smart content strategy that helps you attract potential customers and increase your popularity on Instagram.

In the meantime, you should take advantage of the different forms and types of rich content to be able to gain interaction, from smart solutions we highlight the use of interactive content so that it attracts the attention of followers and makes them interact with it with their audiovisual senses.

And do not forget that the best person who decides the content and its formulas is your target audience. Remember that you want to sell on Instagram, and this means that you should think about content that attracts and likes the audience.

In general, according to Statista website statistics, you can observe the high demand by MENA residents for videos and video usage:

 

Image source: Statista, a percentage of the Arab audience watching YouTube

 

From the previous graph, you can see that the percentage of viewers from the Middle East and North Africa region of YouTube increased from 55% of the total population using the Internet in 2015 to 59% of the total population that uses the Internet in 2017, which is a large number due to the rate of population increase Rapid and large in the Arab countries that enjoy it from the fast growing young people.

This makes it important for you to think about how important it is to use video in your marketing work, as a format that helps attract attention and is loved by the public in general, put that in your charts when deciding which formats you will use to post marketing content to Instagram.

To make it easier for you, we'll talk about the most used content formats for promoting on Instagram:

The patterns of the content used to sell on Instagram

1.     Pictures

2.     Videos

3.     Texts

1-Pictures

Images are the main form of Instagram content, as this social network was initially prepared for sharing photos, as it is a network that is visually visible.

The more carefully selected and carefully selected pictures, the more you will achieve the desired goals.

To advertise products on Instagram, you must post very good and appropriate images with high accuracy.

2-Videos

One of the options that are frequently used to post content and sell on Instagram.

As we mentioned, videos are characterized by their ability to influence the target audience and their emotions with purchase, in addition to causing significant and significant interaction among viewers.

Videos are a great way to introduce users to what you want to sell. You can speak and explain more clearly and closely with your audience.

You can record short videos of up to 60 seconds, but this time period is more than enough to capture the audience's attention.

In this regard, we advise you to focus on the first 15-20 seconds of the video. It is precisely in this period that the viewer or potential customer is at the forefront of his focus on the content that you publish to him.

Focus on the topic of the script that you write for the video. Try to talk about the product’s advantages and benefits, and remember curious and interesting information and facts during this period.

I always start in the video from the customer’s pain, from his need .. try to answer in the video the question: How much do I need such a product that is being sold on Instagram? If you think well about this point, you will succeed in convincing the customer 50% - 60% to buy or at least make him think seriously about the possibility of buying or experimenting.

You can post videos via the news and developments network in Instagram or rely on the LIVE feature or the live broadcast, it is a modern and widely used method today.

But if you want to sell on Instagram and use the video, there is another way: preparing short videos that last 15 seconds (storytelling) is a good option for publishing, the content you record in the story lasts about 24 hours and appears at the top of the application.

In addition to the Boomerang creation feature, which allows the re-display of short snapshots of certain moments captured. This makes the captured videos more entertaining, fun, unique and professional.

3-The texts

As you know, putting a beautiful picture or a professional video only without any short text - even for a line - provides content that does not fulfill the purpose, and may not interest viewers and followers to click on the video and watch it.

Knowing that your products are presented clearly and purposefully is essential to have an engaging personal page.

This is the time to express your creative side.

write creative descriptive texts and always use the hashtags. itis responsible for pointing the image or video to specific people, or a specific group of target audiences who are interested in the special type of content you publish, which means that the video or image can reach the appropriate audience appropriate for your business.

But remember that using this wonderful and effective feature (hashtag) must be smart and enjoy moderation, in order not to exaggerate and cause chaos in your post or post on Instagram.

Here is an important piece of advice: the more you contribute knowledge and benefit to your target audience, the more enthusiastic, safe and confident your purchase is.

For this, post articles, articles, and topics related to the business or the field you are marketing to Instagram.

What is the ideal frequency for Instagram posts?

Instagram is a social and interactive network that does not require the user to take much time to read the texts contained in the publications.

There is no ideal amount of material available for publication, depending on the amount of material you are preparing and ready to be published.

But you can think of some good techniques to attract more people to your profile.

Post photos and videos every day. Avoid posting more than two topics on the same day to avoid overfilling your profile, as this may alienate your followers. Also, if you publish everything at once, you will not have what you post later, right?

If you have a holiday on Friday, Saturday or Sunday, for example, this does not mean that it is not necessary to publish the content during the holiday, but rather it is necessary.

The best solution is to think about the habits and behavior of your target users on the web to choose the best time to post.

And he tried to interact with more users on Instagram through posts, as we mentioned

If you started using this social network recently, you probably don't have many followers.

It never works if you have a very cool and unique profile page on Instagram, and it contains the coolest pictures, videos and content if you do not have followers and interact with you.

Connecting your Facebook account with Instagram increases the number of followers. You can also follow people who are your Facebook friends.

Respond to comments on posts and posts directly as quickly as possible. It is not helpful to rely on automated responses that you use as they are with all followers. Rather, try to answer each person or follower in a personalized manner, as this indicates that you care about who is following you.

Use other social media to announce to your followers on other accounts that your trademark has an Instagram account.

But be careful not to try to add people randomly just because you want to increase your followers, as this is considered an unhelpful practice, in addition to that it is common to find many people accessing the personal pages of celebrities and post a comment requesting that people follow them. This is not considered an effective strategy and can cause a bad reputation for your brand.

8 ideas to choose from and start selling on Instagram

If you arrived at this article and felt excited to start selling on Instagram, but you do not yet know what you can sell, do not worry, we will give you some ideas that can be the light or start of the road on a smart idea that begins your career.

1- Clothes:

The clothing field is one of the many fields that you can rely on to sell on Instagram.

But this diversity and richness in itself is what highlights the importance of studying market segments in itself and perhaps delving into secondary segments so that you have the opportunity to distinguish between your competitors in the field.

First think about what kind of clothes you want to sell: women's, men's or birthdays.

Next, determine precisely: what types of clothes? Holiday clothing, winter fashion, evening dresses or sportswear? What is the size? XXL or XXXL?

This was just some options that you can search for and try.

2- Food:

The food sector is one of the areas that resonates greatly without any dispute. Food is a daily need.

So even mothers and women who want to have their own business project, can take advantage of their cooking skills to prepare and sell food and sweets from their home.

In this regard, you can count on Instagram to promote its dishes and announce its willingness to receive requests.

3- Services:

You can maintain a network of connections in order to provide services.

If you are a consultant in the food and food or mental health field for example, you can use Instagram to talk about this topic in your publications and marketing for yourself, in this is a great opportunity for you to win potential interested clients or who need your services.

If you work in any field of consulting, whether educational, educational, ethical, social, health, psychological, vegan, organic ... whatever the field, Instagram is a great tool for marketing the services you provide.

4- Accessories:

When we talk about selling on Instagram we know that the world of fashion and fashion has a great share.

You might consider selling accessories, for example, in a wide variety. In this field, accessories provide you with the benefit that they are mostly unnecessary pieces to try, as they are suitable for all people in terms of size, unlike clothes, for example.

5- Online courses:

Nowadays, the idea of distance learning is increasing, due to the complexity of life details and the difficulty of providing time, in addition to other problems imposed by the advanced life of congestion and inconsistencies in dates ... etc.

That is why there are large numbers of people who prefer to follow some educational courses online from home instead of going spatially to an institute or college.

For this reason, if you are a teacher and give private lessons or have specific courses, you can take advantage of that and announce through Instagram about your willingness to offer specific courses or reinforcement lessons according to the field in which you specialize or have practical experience in it.

We are talking about practical experience because sometimes it may help a person to teach his experience in a specific area in exchange for money, then certainly he will find in Instagram a very good way of advertising and marketing.

For example: If you travel abroad to study or work, to Germany for example, you have definitely learned German, right? This is a great opportunity to announce your willingness to give German lessons to foreigners or students. 

But you have an opportunity to grow your business in this field by registering educational courses in the form of videos or written courses explaining the rules and recording your voice and selling it through educational platforms or to sell courses and courses.

But why should I consider registering courses instead of giving live lessons?

You have a great opportunity to apply and sell to more people, given that you only register the course or course once, and then sell it permanently and increase your chances of getting more money, but if you only rely on the idea of giving private lessons directly LIVE will be limited to a limited number of hours, so you will not have the opportunity to grow your business, get more money, or enjoy the opportunity to reach new students and other markets.

Not to mention the idea that when educational materials are posted online for sale, you offer in this case greater flexibility for students who will have the opportunity to attend or repeat lessons and repeat listening to the content at any time they want, ensuring higher efficiency for students and a more wonderful experience for them in their educational career.

Today the student is searching for the internet and the options that are already there because he wants to have more comfort and luxury and enjoy more flexibility.

So, via Instagram, you can gain followers ’interaction with you on a specific topic and sell an educational course for those interested in that topic.

Example:

Suppose you have an Instagram account where you talk about teaching housekeeping techniques (for women), teaching English, or playing the oud ...

You can take advantage of that and prepare educational courses that teach people skills in these areas, or you can simply search for someone who has courses and courses that talk about that and offer him the idea of shopping for his courses in exchange for getting a commission, why not? A wonderful and good opportunity.

You have the audience that trusts you and follows you, and knows very well that you share knowledge and culture in the field (...) then if you marketed to the course link or an educational course that talks about the same field through a post for you on Instagram, it is very likely that one of your followers will get excited and buy course.

6- Juices:

Another idea is about a field in which you can work or sell it on Instagram, as Arab countries consume large quantities of juices, especially natural ones.

You can think about that, and prepare a list of natural juices menu to explain the components of each juice, you can rely on your art and creativity in this field, and then you start preparing the publications on Instagram to sell.

Use the art of photography, and all the features of Instagram to shoot the best stories or direct LIVE photography that showcases and markets delicious juices.

7- Electronics:

It is also a wide field and carries a great opportunity for its owner. If you work or want to work in the field of selling cellular devices, selling computer parts or the like, you can market this to Instagram and receive customer requests through it.

8- Products related to decorations:

Examples of options that you can think of when the subject is decors: paintings, drawings, embroidered pieces, and a rich and varied series of artistic products that are very successful on Instagram, especially if you are an artist, then you can work and highlight your talents at the same time

As you have seen there are many areas, but we always advise you to choose the field in which you have good experience, and you have fans or lovers who follow you what you are talking about or share about this field.

This is of great importance in helping you to become a market reference and gain more credibility for your promotional work.

Recent tips to win an audience on Instagram

In light of the great competition for marketing and promotion on Instagram, the challenge is increasing for the entrepreneur, especially in light of the changes that have occurred in the Instagram algorithms since last year.

Currently, the posts that are being published are delivered to 10% of the public on Instagram only. As for the rest of the followers, these publications only reach them if there is a mutual interaction between you and them. This is why you should think smart about providing content.

1- Do you mention the strategy of (follow-up in return) or Follow Back or as it is said: Follow me to follow you ... This method is considered SPAM and it is one of the reasons that lead to reducing the space and scope of the publications arrival, avoid doing that.

2- Answer the comments you get in your Instagram posts, try to do it as soon as possible. Otherwise, this will gradually reduce the visibility of your posts.

3- Use emoji’s in comments and posts, as this increases interaction.

4- Post stories, because people who watch your stories regularly get your posts more often. Then prepare more stories to increase the level of audience interaction on your Instagram account.

5 Use the hashtag, but within reasonable limits and avoid exaggeration. The network recommends that you only use 5 hashtags in a single post. So choose carefully the situations in which you will use hashtags and avoid making hashtags for very famous people so that your post does not disappear with the technique called shadow banning.

6- Always try to put hashtags in the text accompanying the image, as this strategy helps your publication to appear more.

7- Do not amend the texts accompanying the publications until at least 24 hours have elapsed after the publication of the photo or video. If you do, the post will have a chance to see it from the audience.

8- Do not distort an image or video and then republish it, because deleting an image or video and publishing it again may make the chances of this post appear to followers much less and by a large difference.

Conclusion:

As you have seen in this comprehensive, sufficient and comprehensive guide, if you want your business or business to reach farther places, and to new audiences, you must give serious thought to selling on Instagram.

Through all the advantages that this medium of communication offers you, you can work with all professionalism on this topic, and elaborate on your promotional methods that will distinguish you in the market and make the public love what you offer and always remember you.