Step 1: Convert to a business profile

This step is simple to complete and super important for you to start selling on Instagram. By converting your standard Instagram profile to a business profile, you gain access to a few indispensable selling and reporting options. Make the switch by following these steps:

1. Open the Instagram app and tap on your account (bottom right of your dashboard).
2. Now tap on 3 lines in the top right corner of your screen to open the settings menu.
3. Scroll down and tap on ‘Account’.
4. Scroll down to “Switch to Professional Account” and follow the prompts.

Congrats! You have converted your profile. You can change back to your personal account by following the same process and tap ‘Switch Back to Personal Account’.

Step 2: Hashtag research

If you don’t already know how important #hashtags are, you need to pay attention to this. Business owners are frantically trying to stay ahead of the pack and reach more people while keeping costs low. Hashtags are the easiest and most important way to make an impact with organic Instagram posts.

Now that you’ve switched your profile to professional, you can see how many impressions you get on your posts via hashtags and the accounts that you reached that were not following you when they saw your post – new customer acquisition, for free.

It is easy to do “Hashtag research” for your individual posts and for your overall business posts. Search for terms related to your business by heading over to Discover > Search > Tags and search for terms related to your business. When the search results appear, you can see how many posts have used the hashtag. Popular hashtags will have a higher number of posts, so using that hashtag in your post will add your content to the discover que and make your products visible to consumers searching using the same hashtag.

You will get the best results by using hashtags relevant to your business with both high and low posting volumes. The reason that this is a good strategy is that the #’s with high post volumes allow you to be included in the popular searches, but the #’s with less posts can still be relevant and using them gives your post a good chance of being seen and appearing in searches to be seen and engaged with by a high-intent crowd.

Define the tone of your messaging from your other platforms and create a social media calendar to plan your content and schedule your posts weeks in advance. You can use popular tools like Hootsuite or Sprout Social to manage your posts and schedule them to go live in peak hours using data from Instagram Insights. Make sure the link in your bio is always up to date and relevant to your promotions and areas of focus and include ‘link in bio” CTAs in your post copy to prompt customers to go to your bio to follow the link.

Step 3: Paid Advertising

Netcash Shop is fully integrated with Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Google, Snapchat, Mail Chimp and international marketplaces like eBay and Amazon. It is simple to connect Netcash Shop to your existing social media platforms, websites, and blogs. You can manage your paid advertising from your Netcash control panel and sell across multiple platforms – all from 1 central control panel, and best of all, any changes you make in the Netcash Shop control panel will sync instantly across all platforms so that prices, product information and images are all consistent and updated wherever you are selling.

Many business owners think that having a smaller budget for paid advertising is a problem. This is not always correct, if you plan your advertising and execute your campaigns correctly, you will get more bang-for-your-buck by running low-budget Instagram campaigns than you would with organic campaigns. That might not make sense if you are thinking that organic posts are free. Yes, organic is free, but Instagram ads done the right way can give you some crazy ROI and you could make your money back with plenty of interest.

Make sure that you are planning your paid Instagram adverts strategically.

You have the option to spread your paid ad campaign across both Facebook and Instagram, or you can edit your placements to appear on Instagram only. You can manage this from your Facebook Ads Manager dashboard or even easier, from your central Netcash Shop control panel.

Advertising across both platforms has great benefits. You can take advantage of Facebook’s advanced, detailed targeting options, as well as Reach and Brand Awareness campaign types. By doing so, you are unlocking plenty of opportunity for your business by pushing your ads to a much wider, specific, targeted audience. One benefit of using these campaigns is to use the traffic you drive to your platforms for remarketing campaigns.

Step 5: Partner with influencers

Influencer marketing might not be right for every brand, but in general when you are selling a product, lifestyle, or service, partnering with the right influencers is a great opportunity for businesses, small to large. Here’s why…

You are putting your product or brand in the hands of an influencer with a large following. The influencer posts about your brand on their feed, in their Instagram stories and even with live IGTV tutorials and video reels.

In short, you are using a credible source with an engaged and specific audience to market your brand instilling trust and educating their followers which can increase the chance of conversions.

My advice when it comes to influencer marketing, request data on the influencer’s audience, do they have high engagement on posts and is their ‘brand’ in line with yours. For example, a Fashion influencer might not be the right fit for your tech products.

In summary, selling on Instagram can be very lucrative. Promote your brand, have a clear and consistent message, and make your page and posts visually appealing. You need to draw the attention of potential customers and get them to buy in to your brand.

Do not be afraid to start with smaller budgets in the beginning while you are finding your feet. These 5 steps are a good starting point for beginners, or improvements for the seasoned seller.