How to Use Instagram for Etsy Shop?
Instagram has been shaking the online shopping world for the last couple of years. This has been the case ever since it allowed shoppers and sellers to do business rather than checking their friends’ photos or videos on this social media giant.
When it comes to marketing your store online, taking advantage of Instagram for Etsy shop products stands out as a unique strategy to use. You will also find out a ton regarding the pros and cons of selling on Instagram vs Etsy.
Last but not the least, you will sort out how to link Etsy to Instagram so as to get a lot of traffic to your store. Let's get the ball rolling.
Table of Contents
What are the Benefits of Instagram Marketing?
Instagram has been dominating the social media ads with an engagement rate of 4.21 %, many times better than not only Facebook but also Twitter. So potential advertisers on Instagram should know the basics.
First off, as a seller on Etsy, you have to know how to advertise on Instagram and what sorts of advantages you will get at the end of the day. Plus, you are to find out which Instagram ad type fits the bill for your store. Let’s begin with the advantages.
- With a number of over 1.2 billion users in the world, it presents a great source of motivation for businesses.
- Taking the advantage of Meta which connects Instagram and Facebook, you are much more likely to reach out to the masses out there easily.
- The ads on Instagram are generally shown in a way that does not disturb or annoy people seeing them.
- Connecting some other marketplaces like Shopify is only at the touch of a button for boosting sales.
💡Nice to Know: Shopify Vs Etsy | Which One Is Easier to Get Started?
- The measurement of success of a certain campaign is through brand awareness, how many people you have reached, not the number of likes or comments you have received on the platform.
- With the highest engagement rate on all social media platforms, it has the upper hand against its competitors, meaning when you invest in Instagram ads, it will certainly yield the best results in terms of return on investment.
💡Nice to Know:Definitive Guide to Dropshipping on Instagram
Free and Paid Ways to Market Your Store on Instagram
When you want to promote your shop on Instagram without paying any ads fees, there are some points for sellers to take into consideration such as integrating other marketplaces into Instagram and posting high-quality images and videos.
As for paid ads on Instagram, they really give an amazing edge to the advertisers over others. The crucial point here is to decide which one fits the bill most. So, make sure to select one of the following for your business.
Types of Paid Ads on Instagram:
- Photograph Ads
- Video Ads
- Carousel Ads
- Stories Ads
Selling on Instagram vs Etsy
Selling an item online, especially handmade and vintage items, Etsy is the platform people would prefer. However, when it comes to popularizing and marketing your products, Instagram works better.
It is a matter of choice to sell your items on either of them. So, sellers need to make a decision: Selling on Instagram vs Etsy, or selling both on Etsy and Instagram? The latter stands out as a better option. Thus, let’s have a closer look on how to promote your Etsy Shop using Instagram.
9 Amazing Tips on Using Instagram for Etsy Store Sellers
Now, onto the tips that will dramatically change your point of view in terms of exploiting Instagram for Etsy shop materials successfully.
It will be nice to keep in mind that the tips provided below are just for showing the full perspective and envisioning the potential of your Etsy store. Without further ado, let's discover the killer hacks and put them into practice.
1. Set up Business Profile
If you sell unique items on Etsy and want to expand them to Instagram as well, you should switch to a business profile on Instagram. The platform charges you nothing but provides you with an analytics tool, Insights.
Instagram Insights is just perfect for getting to know how you are doing with your content and your followers. The tool also provides you with the following data:
- Reach
- Impressions
- Clicks on your website
- Detailed info on your posts (the most or the least engaged ones)
- Video views
- Demographic data on followers such as age and gender
With the business account in hand, you can also use an extra contact button, enabling your potential customers to communicate with you instantly. The only thing to do when establishing a business profile on Instagram is to possess a Facebook business account.
2. Analyze Your Competitors
The trial-and-error approach will work best at the beginning of the process once you have set up your account on Instagram. In this regard, you need to take the following factors into account so as to get the most out of this experimental approach:
- The quality of the photos and videos
- The colors you used based on seasonal factors
- The caption
- Effective tagging techniques for posts
- The time of the day
To find out more about your competitors, the Etsy Product Research tool is here to help you out. Your Etsy shop makes, say, baby dresses and you are wondering who you are competing with and what the strategies are.
First of all, this useful tool gives you basic and advanced searches based on prices, sales, favorites, reviews, and more. Additionally, labels like raving, best seller, and detailed release time are also provided.
Sellers have the opportunity to see top charts about the product by the help of this tool. They can view sales over a certain period of time, total reviews, and total reviews. So, if you are into it, give the tool a go.
Your rivals, in this sense, will also help you understand better whether you are on the correct path. You can learn a ton from them in terms of the procedures to follow attentively. Making use of strengths and weaknesses in your business is here to stay.
💡Pro Tip: If you determine the proper item to analyze, you can explore the seller’s inventory, sales and order info by EtsyHunt Shop Analyzer.
3. Generate unique content with captions and hashtags
Making use of the captions to fit what message you are conveying in your image or video is the next crucial phase. So the longer the captions draw the attention of your followers, the much higher the engagement rates on Instagram.
Seizing the power of hashtags is also a very useful and effective way to increase the efficiency of what you are posting. The Explore section on Instagram can be an ideal way for you to come up with unusual ideas and trending hashtags.
4. Tell your brand
When you sell on Etsy, your audience is limited to what you have on the platform. Yet, Instagram can be a levitating point where you communicate with your existing and would-be followers.
You tell them your unique story and answer the questions related to your business procedure or your vintage items. And, over time, you will see a considerable amount of loyal customers relate to you and your items.
Using Instagram for Etsy shop items will also help you feature some special moments from your work and shop. It will help you provide followers with unique shots of your work with the condition that it should reveal the true parts of it.
5. Create captivating visuals
A well-taken photo of your store says a lot when it comes to enticing masses to your items. It will really make a huge difference when compared to other accounts on Instagram with the same concept.
Plus, the setting and atmosphere are vital to the popularity of your store. You can get the full attention of your followers through not only a lively atmosphere but an energetic and living setting as well.
If the image and setting complete each other, then you had better take a closer look at the types of product photos so that you have a perfect match with the aesthetic of your shop. Check out the following genres:
- Studio shot
- Lifestyle shot
- Scale shot
- Detail shot
- Group shot
- Packaging shot
- Process shot
6. Interact with your target audience
Communicating through Instagram is like no other communication tool, for you are using the power of the community of followers. They can comment on anything, from positive feedback to asking for business strategies. So get ready for it.
Keeping Questions&Anwers and Comments sections on the platform as active as possible is the ideal way to get your message across to your audience. It will certainly help increase your brand recognition as well.
7. Post regularly
Another great way to promote Instagram for Etsy products is programming your time to create content at certain intervals. It will help keep your shop up to date and assist in enabling your followers to find out the latest developments about your store.
It will always be great to mix your image types taken from many different angles and present them with brand new techniques so that people following your account will understand that your posts including photos and videos are always on the go.
8. Create feedback loops
Going reciprocal is a win-win situation on Instagram all the time. If you get a lot of likes and mentions from an account, then it is high time you referred to that person or store in your story or post, developing a strong bond between both.
Motivating your customers or followers in this regard to post a photo showing your items and mentioning your account is invaluable. Use it or lose it.
You can always praise and honor them through some small custom gifts or feature them in your post and give them credit for what they have done for you.
9. Explore Instagram Stats
As mentioned before, seizing the opportunity of Insights full of analytics and statistics will certainly help you improve your skills on the platform. Market research tools are an integral part of success in selling on Instagram vs Etsy.
Whichever marketplace you use, what matters here is finding out about the need and interests. So, investing time in analyzing the traffic of your items and demographic variations of your followers is what you need to do to be a successful seller.
Based on the data you have collected from the stats, you may also want your followers to design their dream items and share them with others, which is a perfect way to forge a sense of community.
How to link Etsy to Instagram?
There are a couple of different ways to link Etsy to Instagram. Learning how to do these will boost conversion rate and increase brand recognition.
One way of completing this is to add your Etsy shop link to the website section of Instagram so that people can browse it, and if interested, visit your store for shopping. This clickable option is a great convenience for shoppers on the platform.
Another way to make this possible is using Etsy’s shop manager section. You can share your photos, listings, sales, etc. on social media, on Instagram in this case, both on your computer and your app.
Using a little complicated yet effective way to link Instagram to Etsy is the last option. You use Facebook’s business account and associate it with your Etsy’s shop link. There you go!
Final Words
With the paid marketing options on Instagram, businesses have started to take the chance to promote their stores on Instagram. So they have found ways to link Etsy to Instagram. And it has proved to be beneficial in terms of brand awareness.
Using Instagram for Etsy shop sellers is the key factor especially when it comes to using the power of social media. The tips stated above will encourage you to be more active on the platform for better results.
