Instagram is a small business haven. Yes, the platform makes them jump through hoops for reach but when you have cracked the right content schedule, there is nothing like it. Instagram rolled out Shops in a small and phased manner in 2020, and that changed how many did business on the platform before.
This is a platform that many small businesses have time and again leveraged to connect with their audience and sell their products. It became so popular that almost every retail brand, no matter how old and established (Walmart is a case in point) has a strong presence here.
But as we all know, just putting up pictures or reels of the product does not bring conversions and that is what businesses need. More than engagement and more than followers, businesses need sales.
So how can you make the best of Instagram Shop and have it reach more people while also convincing them to click buy immediately?
Let’s take a look.
The title has given our plot away but that’s okay. Yes, we led with the fact that Instagram Shop can do well if you use Instagram Guides as well. And before we tell you how you can make that combination work, let us take a step back and understand why Instagram guides can help.
Instagram has given small businesses, brands, and customers the luxury of selling right from the platform itself. But for that to be successful, you have to take it up a notch and ensure that the product is :
The easier the customer can find the product, and the closer you can come to mimicking the ecommerce experience, the higher your chances are of making that sale. And that is exactly how Instagram Guides enter into this equation.
While social media platforms love and celebrate short-form content, sometimes long-form is important. Blogs, listicles, and product roundups are very popular on the internet, and with good reason. They make a customer’s life so easy. They bring the right mix of information, entertainment, and sales proposition to make it work.
Instagram guides are a miniature version of that on the platform. You can use them to categorize your posts, segregate products, and build a guided version of your product catalog so that customers can easily scroll and find what they need.
Instagram guides have a lot of applications and creators have been using them to make it convenient for their audiences to find their content :
Before this, creators and businesses would have to reshare their content excessively, post them on stories to save to highlights, and spam their audience with it. But now, all you have to do is create a simple guide and keep adding content to it. It lives on forever and people can find it in a jiffy.
As a retailer on Instagram, you can use it to build a curated and compressed ecommerce experience for your customers.
Looking to get started on guides immediately? This is the process guide you need :
Instagram Guides have three primary settings – Places, Products, and Posts. Which one do you choose and why?
All three modes of Instagram guides can come in handy for a retail business :
Setting up an Instagram Guide is quite easy as you can see from the steps below (applicable for Posts and Places Guide types) :
If you are creating a product-based Instagram Guide, this is the process :
Of course, it is not just about creating Instagram Guides because then everyone will have this in the bag, right? So follow these simple easy-to-follow guide ideas to make your products pop and create an extremely accessible Instagram Shop for your customers.
Gift guides are always a huge winner when it comes to the ecommerce industry. People often struggle with picking what to gift and a guide makes it easier for them. Every year, the holiday season sees brands wooing their customers with elaborate gift guides. When you have an Instagram-based business, having an Instagram guide doing the same will make conversions easier.
You can either choose Post or Product Instagram guide type for this guide idea.
Remember to choose a good cover image and promote it constantly so that customers know you have a gift guide ready to make their lives easier.
Every business has a very versatile and diverse audience base. And when they come looking for clues on what to buy from a business, generic content does not cut it anymore. Your posts on social media target your audience base as a whole. For example, if you are a clothing store, you may post content that suits men, women, children, and everyone.
So how do you make that experience more targeted?
Well, one way to do that would be to create segmented product guides that can help the customers see what you have for someone like them to make the shopping process easier.
Some ideas for segmented product guides are :
You can choose the categories based on the type of business for the best results.
Educational content helps customers make better decisions so they are always happy to see it. But how do Instagram guides come into this? Well, we are sure that your Instagram content strategy involves you talking about your product features, the innovations, and the benefits they add to the customers’ experience.
Create posts-based Instagram Guides to curate them so that customers can access all this information in one place. Instead of having to go scrolling through your feed and navigating across your highlights, customers can see them with one top. Just because of Instagram guides.
Instagram commerce is a thing and it is only going to get bigger. Social commerce will replace ecommerce quite soon and Instagram is definitely leading the pack. Businesses who understand this and push themselves will have a better chance when the competition gets tough.
Remember that the cover photo and graphics you use in your Guides can make or break the experience. So, you need to have catchy social media graphics in the first place. You can have all your social media designs and cover images for different guides created at a flat monthly rate by choosing an unlimited design subscription. And with a design subscription, you get a lot more in addition to social media graphics – like branding designs as well as print and digital ads, and more.
Want to know more about the best unlimited design services to work with? Check out our blog here.
