Learn how to create and promote your store on Instagram to sell your products with ease, without changing the bio link!
Instagram is showing no signs of slowing down. The popular photo and video sharing app now has over 800 million users. 1 Billion+ of those are using the app on a monthly basis! Their newest feature, Instagram stories, has over 500 million daily active users, overtaking Snapchat’s daily active users.
These are staggering numbers for a platform that’s just seven years old. Instagram has become “the” place for millennials to share parts of their lives with friends. Beautiful photos, videos, disappearing stories and live videos – all make a wonderful experience for social media enthusiasts.
Wouldn’t it be amazing if you could sell something to an audience this big?!
There’s a growing number of e-commerce businesses and influencers leveraging affiliate marketing and blogs to sell and promote products. Instagram is the place where stores are headed to get their products in more hands. With Instagram being all about visuals, it gives online stores an easy way to demonstrate their products.
If you sell something online and are not leveraging the power of Instagram, you are missing out on a gold mine! Don’t worry; we will teach you how you can open up and promote your store on Instagram in less than five minutes and start selling products like hot cakes!
BUSINESSES ARE ALL OVER INSTAGRAM!
With a massive user base, Instagram has become the go-to shop for businesses. It’s a great way for SMBs (small-medium size businesses), to get their product and service exposure to an enormous market.
Instagram’s internet savvy, millennial audience is one of the reasons why Instagram’s ad platform has significantly grown over the years. Instagram reports that 2 million advertisers use Instagram on a monthly basis!
If you are new to Instagram and have not seriously committed a plan to market your business online, you’ll want to act now. It’s not too late to join the bandwagon and generate serious business for your e-commerce store via Instagram. In business, you have to go where your customers are at and right now Instagram is one of the hottest places to be!
Who knows when’s the next Instagram is coming?
STATISTICS RELATED TO SHOPPING ON INSTAGRAM
Big brands have been quick to spot the vast opportunity Instagram holds, as a marketing and selling platform, over 75.3% of US businesses will be using Instagram by the end of 2020.
This significant jump in the number of businesses using Instagram can be mostly attributed to the introduction of the “Instagram for business” feature in early 2016. Instagram is catering to businesses to help them get the most out of Instagram. Here are a few of their business focused features:
- The ability to have a call, email and directions button right below your Instagram bio
- Access to Instagram’s ad platform to leverage hundreds of millions of Instagram users
- Powerful analytics and targeting information to make those ads effective
Businesses and stores are experiencing tremendous growth on Instagram. Take a look at these eye-popping stats:
- 80% of users say they follow at least one business on Instagram
- Over 60% of users have heard about a product and service through the platform
- At least 30% of Instagram users have purchased a product they discovered on Instagram
- Over 120 million Instagram users visited a website, got directions, called a business, emailed or direct messaged a business
Instagram truly has created a well thought out marketing and sales machine. Majority of the credit of Instagram’s massive success goes to the following factors:
- The platform appeals to millennials as 64% of 18-29-year-olds use Instagram
- Everyone’s feed is filled with beautiful photos and quick 1 minute videos
- Their ads blend into the feed seamlessly and don’t feel salesy.
Did you know that a staggering 81% of consumers do online product research before heading out to the store? Instagram offers a smart opportunity for store owners and businesses to create another channel to gain a massive amount of customers…
WHY YOUR ONLINE STORE SHOULD BE ON INSTAGRAM?
If you weren’t already, you’re likely convinced of the true power of Instagram. It’s time to create and promote your store on Instagram and leverage the platform to market your business, brand, product, and services.
But why do I need a store? Isn’t posting photos and videos enough?
Unfortunately, it’s not. Instagram can’t be all good, right? Nothing is. We have been talking about Instagram’s amazing market opportunity, but it’s important to understand some weaknesses in the platform from a marketing and sales standpoint. The most glaring and irritating problem is the limitation of having a single link in your Instagram bio.
Yes, even though brands, marketers, store owners and influencers love Instagram, they have long disliked the process of changing their bio links. Nobody likes the process of going back to their profile settings and change their bio link every time they have a new post.
The people who get affected by it the most are those who run e-commerce stores. These businesses have a huge catalog of products they need to showcase on their Instagram. Having a single bio link restricts them from:
- Posting links to multiple products
- Adding links to different product categories
- Showcasing new and old products at the same time
And so on.
Let’s look at an example… Imagine you own a sneaker business and sell sneakers via your website. You would want to attract sneaker lovers on Instagram. So you add a picture of a pair of sneakers and caption it with, “buy this blue sneaker from the link in the bio” and post it. Now every time you have a new sneaker, you have to change that one bio link.
And totally forget about promoting your other social media accounts, your Facebook page or your website…as the link in the bio is already preoccupied.
Now imagine if you have five new sneakers coming out. Imagine the link chaos!
Bottomline, a single bio link:
- Limits your ability to post multiple products
- Limits your reach
- Takes time off of other business activities
- Eventually results in lost customers and revenue
Related: Selling on Instagram: How to make your Instagram shoppable
CREATE AN ONLINE STOREFRONT ON INSTAGRAM WITH THE HELP OF ELINK.IO
PROMOTE YOUR STORE ON INSTAGRAM WITH elink.io
Imagine having a single link in your Instagram bio, but that single link is a gateway to all your other links. That’s what this new tool is all about.
Elink.io allows anyone to add multiple links to their Instagram bio by creating a landing page for all your links. Now you can add as many external links to your Instagram profile as you want.
You can add any web link from e-commerce products, articles, blog posts, videos, social media profiles, affiliate products, etc. and create a collection of a visual board of links that you can share on your Instagram bio.
There are over 30 modern templates to choose from that are responsive and look great on all devices. Just add your elink.io URL to your Instagram bio and boom you’re ready to go!
This is extremely helpful for e-commerce store owners that are looking to promote their products and service on Instagram.
Let’s go back to our sneaker store example and see how elink can help us. Create an elink of all your sneakers you’re promoting on Instagram and copy paste multiple links to different sneakers on your e-commerce site. Elink will automatically generate a picture, a title and a short description of your sneakers.
Once you’re done, you can then share this elink in your Instagram bio. If you have a new sneaker coming up, simply update your elink and add a new sneaker link by going to your elink.io dashboard. Once you add your elink to your Instagram bio, you’ll never have to delete and edit your Instagram bio link again!
elink allows your sneaker store to:
- Add multiple sneaker links in bio
- Showcase old new sneaker links at the same time
- Add multiple sneaker categories simultaneously
- Add videos displaying the sneakers
- Add links to your store’s Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest page
All of this information in one place! Cool, isn’t it?!
Related: Instagram Bio Hack: How To Add Multiple Links On Instagram
LEARN FROM THE PROS
Your elink store should reflect your Instagram feed, with products laid out as they would appear on your Instagram. This makes the customer experience familiar and seamless.
Let’s give you a couple of examples of how online stores and big brands are making use of elink.io to generate more sales and drive their Instagram fans to their website and other social media pages.
@ft86speedfactory, an online store for automotive parts is making use of elink.io to have an awesome looking store on Instagram.
@ft86speedfactory does a great job of leveraging their massive Instagram following (36,000 and counting) and directing them to their store with a single link. Their elink page gets thousands of clicks a week! You can generate so many potential customers via this simple hack.
@f86speedfactory leverages elinkio by making a landing page that looks just like an Instagram feed, which gives a sense of familiarity to their Instagram audience. This makes the process of browsing through the products a breeze.
They have even added some product videos along with other automotive parts to make the shopping experience as easy and as informative as it can be. The branding at the top along with the banner adds to the visual appeal of their elink storefront.
Even Brands like Honda are making use of elink.io to have multiple links in their bio and cross-promote their products and other social media accounts.
Elink.io gives Honda the ability to add links to their other social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, etc.), link to their website and add links to their latest bikes; all in one place. They have fully branded their elink by adding their logo, a tagline, and a short description.
The best of part when creating an elink is that it works not only on Instagram, but also on other social media platforms. For example, Twitter as most social media platforms has the same “single bio link” problem. You can even use your elink in your Twitter bio to send your Twitter fans to your elink storefront.
HOW TO CREATE AN INSTAGRAM STOREFRONT WITH ELINK.IO?
Elink.io is super easy to set up. If you can turn on your computer, you can use elink. It’s that easy!
Follow these five simple steps:
- First, go to elink.io and make a free account
- Select a template for your landing page. elink.io has over 30 modern and responsive templates to choose from.
- Add the links you want your posts to redirect to. elink will automatically generate a picture and a short description of the link, making it visually appealing. Replace the image with your Instagram image for consistency!
- Give your elink a title (ex: Find all our products here!) and a description if you like. You can even personalize your elink by adding your brand logo and tagline.
- Click on publish and add it to your Instagram bio link!
BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE!
Your elink dashboard gives you robust analytics, which means you can track engagement levels, referral sources and the location of your audience. This means you can track how many people visited your elink from Instagram and their location. This allows marketers and e-commerce businesses to make smarter decisions about the content they share by understanding their user engagement.
Also, the elink webpage you create for your store is responsive. This will make sure that your links appear as good on a smartphone as they do on the desktop.
Read more: How To Create Instagram Caption Spacing
HOW MUCH DOES IT COSTS?
Here’s the best part, elink.io is free to use! Yep! You can create unlimited elinks with a free plan with basic templates and an elink ad banner. However, you can upgrade to a pro version which costs $15/month and has many cool features like the ability to access all 30+ templates, advanced analytics which lets you track the traffic sources to your elink, no ad banners, etc.
The pro plan essentially costs 50 cents a day and is a steal for all the essential features it boasts.
WHAT’S NEXT?
There are literally close to a billion potential customers on Instagram, waiting for your products to be discovered. Bridge the gap between your Instagram profile and your online store by making use of elink. Elink.io makes it easy for your customers to purchase products from your Instagram feed, thereby increasing your sales and conversions. It’s super easy to setup and costs only 15 cents a day!
Here’s a quick recap of what we have learned so far:
- Brands are leveraging the huge user base of Instagram to sell stuff.
- If you own an online store, you need to promote your store on Instagram.
- Instagram allows you to have only one link in your profile. Make it count!
- Use elink.io to create a store by adding links to your products and elink will create a landing page of your links. Then place the URL of the elink link in your Instagram bio.
- Now you have multiple links in your bio instead of just one!
So what are you waiting for? Create your custom elink, add that elink in your Instagram bio and sell your stuff like hotcakes!
Selling on Instagram was never this easy! 😉
Create your own elink today!
Further reads:
- How To Add A Clickable Link to Your Instagram Bio: Tips and Tricks
- How to Create an Instagram Wall for your Website?
- How To Sell Affiliate Products In Minutes: Social Media, Email Newsletter and Blog
- Top Tips on How To Create and Market Your Product Page
- How To Create The Best Fitness Instagram Bio (With Examples)
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This is a great idea! I have an instagram for my business, but I don’t change the bio link as it directs people to my shop homepage – I imagine that must be a pain to have to search for the product, I can see this being so helpful!
I agree that Instagram is the perfect place for brands to create a social media presence which can help elevate sales and draw awareness to their brand. Many of the big clothing brands have done this by working with influencers and in turn building up their presence!
I have a large following on instagram and have paired it with my etsy shop. I will check out this tool for sure!
wohoo! Glad i bumped into your post. feels almost like I now know a secret not many do! Looking forward to using it 😀
Seriously, one can never learn enough about using Instagram to grow a business! This article is so good and informative. I am planning to integrate affiliate marketing to Instagram and can surely use some of your tips! Thanks for sharing.
Instagram is so good for promoting a brand. This is where I discover a lot of smaller clothing labels and beauty brands, which is so fun.
Such great info! Instagram is an amazing place to promote your store as of most of the people are there now in the present. 🙂
Thanks for sharing all of this!
This is an absolute brilliant idea! I have friends that started involving instagram and other platforms to their business – And definitely can testify that it made a big impact and changes to their cycle.
It’s hard to wrap my mind around 800 million users! Truly amazing. It’s such a great platform for businesses and for I frequent, if they have an Instagram presence, I always become a loyal follower. I’ll be watching as more and more stores start popping up !
This is very informative article . I am using social media a lot to promote our small business . Thank you for sharing . But I am curious about how to make online store . Perhaps if you have specific article to explain it more details , will be very appreciate
Instagram is my favourite social media network. I discovered so many cool brands on Instagram than I did on other platforms. Now, with the Instagram Shoppable feature is even easier.
Instagram is great although I should be using it more,I think brands can really use this visual tool to takes things to the next level. I came across many great brands there.
Instagram has become my favorite social media tool. Love the visuals. This is a great post with so many resources.
I have learned something new from reading your post.