Do you need a business license to sell on Instagram?

No. You don't need a business license to sell on Instagram, but according to Instagram's Commerce Eligibility Requirements you should: Follow Instagram's policies. Represent your business and domain.

blog.hootsuite.com - How to Sell on Instagram in 2023: 8 Essential Steps - Hootsuite Blog

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Instagram shopping lets you create an engaging shopping experience directly from your profile. Every day, millions of Instagram users explore their feed looking to buy things they love.

And there are a few reasons why:

It’s the most popular app: Since Instagram is one of the most popular social media apps in the world, you can get discovered by a lot more users. It has a massive user base: Users worldwide spend an average of 145 minutes (about 2 and a half hours) per day on social media. With over a billion users globally, that’s a lot of eyeballs! It’s an engaging social media platform: Instagram has a very user-friendly platform for selling products. And it gives creators a chance to engage directly with their followers and build relationships. All you need to do is post photos and videos to start promoting your products. Social media has become a powerful tool that creators and entrepreneurs can use to market their products or services and gain new customers.

The world is at your fingertips – literally.

Allows you to target an audience in your niche by showing your products or services to the right people Makes it easier for users to buy directly from your website or through the built-in checkout without leaving the app

Boosts brand exposure and drives traffic to your page and website

Helps you tell a story and curate a customized shopping experience

Drives product discovery through your feed, stories, and videos

Lets people browse and learn more about your company and products

As a small business or creator, it’s important to get your products or services on as many platforms as possible. Sounds pretty great, right? But before we talk about how to sell, let’s make sure you’re able to sell in the first place.

Let’s dig deeper into what each of these conditions means:

Make sure you comply with all their policies or your commerce account could be closed.

So, before you jump into selling, learn about their policies.

Represent your business and your domain

That means you need a website before you can open your shop.

You might be thinking, “how can I sell on Instagram without a website?”. Well, you can’t.

Looks like it’s time to launch your site if you haven’t already.

Be located in a supported market

Show trustworthiness

Your brand and page should be considered a trustworthy, authentic, presence.

You might also need to keep a sufficient and authentic follower base.

Take a look at your follower list to see if any questionable-looking bot accounts are following you.

Provide correct information and follow best practices

Make sure your product information isn’t misleading.

Product details should be correct and reflect what’s written on your website.

Plus, your refund and return policies must be available too.

If everything looks good, you’re ready to start selling!

We’ll cover all these topics in more detail starting from the top.

1. Find the right niche and build your following

Every great business strategy starts with narrowing and defining your niche.

A niche is a specific set of people or businesses who are looking to buy a particular product/service.

That’s where you come in! So, know your audience.

You’ll discover their wants and needs and how your product or service caters to them.

Here are a few ways you can discover your niche:

Learn about your ideal customer’s passions, interests, and behavior

Think about their problems and needs and how your product/service solves them

Perform a competitive analysis on similar businesses in your niche

The more specific your niche is, the more you’ll stand out to your ideal customer. Once you know what your niche is, look up your competitors by searching hashtags that are relevant to your business. You can also check the Explore page and browse trending hashtags, accounts, and photos. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel here. If their strategy is working, feel free to use it as inspiration. But the goal is to look at what they’re doing and do it better.

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And once you’ve narrowed down your niche, you’ll have an easier time building your following. Think about ways you can post high-quality photos, create valuable content, write better captions, or just engage with your followers. All you need to do to switch to a business account is go to Settings, Account, and tap Switch account type.

Here you can enable your business account in one step. Easy enough, right?

After set up, you’ll get access to exclusive content just for businesses.

Take a tour of the latest features and tips and tricks to get the best experience.

Now you’re ready to open up shop.

Let’s get started with the basics, step by step.

Follow these steps next to set up your shop:

Followers can visit your shop, explore products, and buy directly from your profile, posts, or story. You can also set up the Checkout feature if you’re based in the US. This way people won’t have to leave the app to make a purchase.

4. Create shoppable posts

A great way to drive product discoverability is through shoppable posts.

Shoppable posts are regular feed posts, Reels, or Stories that include product tags. These tags show users the price, product name, and let them add it to their cart or go to your website to buy. Users can tap on the tags to view more about your product or service too. Remember to use a call to action in every post to make it more compelling. Tell people to check out the link in your bio too to learn more about your business. Once your shop is live, you’ll be able to start creating shoppable posts right away. Shoppable posts are the perfect way to advertise your products to both followers and potential customers.

How to create shoppable posts

All you need to do to create shoppable posts is either create a brand new post or update an existing post with tags. You can tag photos or videos. So, choose something interesting and eye-catching that shows off your product. For new posts, you can simply select Tag products in the post editor. Double-check that you’ve selected the right product before you publish the post and then hit Done.

Now your feed post is shoppable!

How to create shoppable posts with Hootsuite

Open your Hootsuite dashboard and go to Composer . Under Publish to , select an Instagram Business profile. Upload your media (up to 10 images or videos) and type out your caption. In the preview on the right, select Tag products . The tagging process is slightly different for videos and images: Images : Select a spot in the image, and then search for and select an item in your product catalog. Repeat for up to 5 tags in the same image. Select Done when you’re finished tagging. Videos : A catalog search appears right away. Search for and select all the products you want to tag in the video. Select Post now or Schedule for later . If you decide to schedule your post, you will see suggestions for the best times to publish your content for maximum engagement. And that’s it! Your shoppable post will show up in the Hootsuite Planner, alongside all of your other scheduled content. You can also boost your existing shoppable posts directly from Hootsuite to help more people discover your products.

How to create shoppable Stories

To create shoppable stories you will need to post a story and tap on the Stickers option. From there you’ll have the option to select the Shopping sticker to tag your product. Publish the story and your story will now have product tags that users can click on directly from your story. When thinking about what to post, make sure the photo or video is high-quality and creates value for the user. You don’t want it to come across as too sales-y.

Be authentic and let your brand’s story shine through.

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Focus more on the post itself and let the products speak for themselves. Try following the 80/20 rule when it comes to how often you make your posts shoppable. That is, only make 20% of your posts shoppable (in order to not bore your followers).

5. But create regular posts too

Of course, you don’t want to just show your followers only sales posts because this might come across as pushy. We believe the 80/20 rule mentioned above is your best strategy for balancing shoppable posts vs. regular posts.

Try to aim for 80% regular posts and 20% shoppable posts.

It’s important to remember that with every post you should try to create value and not just post for the sake of posting.

Create content that is both engaging and creative.

Post content that you know your followers will want to share with their friends or repost.

That’s free advertising!

If you’re looking for some post idea inspiration here are a few we recommend:

Ask your users engaging or thought-provoking questions

Provide educational content in your niche

Give your followers a behind scenes peek at your business

6. Get on the Explore page

Getting discovered on the Explore page is every creator’s dream.

That’s because it’s the key to increasing your organic reach.

Suddenly your Explore page is full of hiking boots and similar products.

But wait, how is that possible?

It serves up targeted content to users based on their interests, search history, and user behavior data. It’s intuitive and knows exactly what to show users. Giving them the right content, at the right time. Here are some more of the benefits of showing up on the explore page:

Boosts engagement on a piece of content

Drives discoverability and new followers

Signals to the algorithm that your content is great and takes note of that

Increases conversions which mean more sales

Getting your posts in the Explore feed should be the goal of every post.

There is an art and science to getting on the Explore page.

7. Try live shopping

Instagram live shopping is a live, interactive shopping experience available to approved Instagram shops based in the U.S. You can instantly interact with viewers, engage with potential customers in real-time and you can save your videos for later. Going live is also another opportunity to grab people’s attention and tell a story.

And it’s a great way for customers to discover new products.

Interact directly with shoppers and show how to use a product or answer questions

Feature new products and promotions

Collaborate with influencers or creators

Schedule live shopping broadcasts

Before you go live, make sure you add products to a collection to showcase each product.

Product launch coming up? Schedule a live shopping experience to build awareness.

Or if you have a hot seller, you can feature that product by pinning it to your live broadcast. Don’t be shy. Lives are a chance to show off your best-selling products and drive more product discoverability.

So, give it a try!

Plus, the algorithm loves when accounts engage with their followers. Bonus points for you. It’s a safe and secure way to sell products directly on the app. And users are more likely to make a purchase when it’s easier to buy and fewer steps are involved.

Happy selling!

Engage with shoppers on Instagram and turn customer conversations into sales with Heyday, our dedicated conversational AI tools for social commerce retailers. Deliver 5-star customer experiences — at scale.

Get a free Heyday demo

blog.hootsuite.com - How to Sell on Instagram in 2023: 8 Essential Steps - Hootsuite Blog

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