Are you looking to give the presence of your Amazon store a jumpstart on social media? Are you tired of relying on Amazon search for new sales and want to establish a presence outside of the platform? Instagram is the perfect social media platform for eCommerce companies, giving them the ability to showcase their products, connect with their target audience, and develop a broader presence that keeps their brand top-of-mind with their ideal customers
Often, brands that sell on Amazon become too reliant on internal mechanisms to generate sales. Particularly brands that don’t operate a separate eCommerce property and rely on the platform for the majority of their sales. They too often focus on what they can do on Amazon, without putting enough thought into how they can grow their sales by promoting on outside channels and establishing brand credibility that differentiates their listings.
But identifying the right platform can be tough. There are so many social media platforms to choose from, and knowing where your demographic spends their time requires that you dig in and conduct some research. Even so — there are few platforms that perform as well as Instagram does for eCommerce companies and Amazon sellers. Instagram provides a visual medium, engaged audience, and a user-base with demographics that put them among the most frequent online shoppers.
But how do amazon sellers market their products on Instagram to build a real community without expensive ads? Vizns social media management is a new product that allows Amazon sellers the ability to target niche audience and then reach out to them using anti-fake follower technology. This allows brand to create a fanbase of real followers that convert to sales in an environment that is normally notorious for bot traffic. The best part is that their algorithms help boost you to the top of the explore page which repeatedly makes your posts viral. We will talk about e-commerce features shortly but first let’s talk about why Instagram is the best platform for these strategies.
Why Instagram for Amazon and Not Another Social Platform?
Instagram is often cited as the best platform for eCommerce companies to establish a presence. While Facebook and Twitter can be helpful and viable choices for eCommerce companies, Instagram typically stands heads and shoulders above the competition in terms of ROI produced.
First, it is important to understand that when you establish a presence on Instagram, you are securing your position on a rapidly growing platform. After their acquisition by Facebook in 2012, the company has seen sustained growth each year and grew to more than 1 billion users worldwide in 2018.
Showing no signs of slowing down, we can expect to see more rapid growth from the platform in 2019. But the importance of Instagram as a network is about more than just the total number of users. Understanding who those users are and how they use the internet in their buying decisions helps to paint the picture of how useful Instagram can be to eCommerce companies.
Instagram’s Demographics Benefit eCommerce Companies
Instagram is used by more than 35% of all U.S. adults. Their users are very engaged, with more than 500 million (of the 1 billion total) using the platform on a daily basis. They are slightly more popular with women with 39% of online women using the platform vs. 30% of online men.
Their users skew young and engaged — very young. More than 70% of all 13-17 year olds are on the platform. But their young user-base doesn’t mean that they aren’t popular with the prime buying ages. A whopping 40% of U.S.-based 30-49 year olds use Instagram as well.
U.S. Instagram User Reach by Age
- 72 percent of 13-17 year olds.
- 64 percent of 18-29 year olds.
- 40 percent of 30-49 year olds.
- 21 percent of 50-64 year olds.
- 10 percent of 65+ year olds.
The upside of Instagram having the audience it does it that it can help eCommerce companies to reach a younger audience without missing out on individuals within the prime buying age bracket of 30-49.
Instagram users also tend to be educated, with 42 percent of adults who graduated college using the platform. They earn more than the user bases of other platforms. 32% of adults that make between $50,000-$74,999 use Instagram, and 42 percent of adults who make over $75,000 use the platform. In other words — Instagram users have money to spend.
Instagram has Embraced eCommerce with New Features
Beyond the fact that Instagram’s demographics closely align with what any eCommerce business would like to have access to, the platform is also a great choice for Amazon sellers because they have gone out of their way to embrace eCommerce companies using their platform to generate sales. Instagram recognizes how helpful their platform can be for both buyers and sellers and have provided numerous features and tools to facilitate both crowds.
The most prominent example of their commitment to eCommerce on their platform comes from their shopping on Instagram features. While it isn’t a requirement that you use Shopping on Instagram if you would like to promote your products on there, it certainly could be the right idea for some companies.
Shopping on Instagram allows you to tap into the more than 90 million people that engage with shopping posts to learn more about products on Instagram every month. It provides eCommerce companies with a visual way to provide more information about products contained within their posts to their followings, rather than simply linking to their store on the post. Using this system, companies can invite users to learn more on their website, show the prices of products in the image content and direct users to their product pages, and reach an audience of active shoppers.
These features represent an extension of the company’s first dabble in supporting eCommerce brands on the platform. In 2016, the company first launched their “Shop Now” button, allowing users to be redirected to outside websites. The button showed up right underneath Instagram posts and was immediately a big hit with eCommerce brands.
Instagram also announced in September 2018 that they were launching a new “Shopping” section in the “Explore” category on their app. This provided a huge boost to their “Shopping on Instagram” program because more than 200 million accounts visit the “Explore” section of the app on a daily basis. That’s a lot of exposure for Amazon sellers!
Instagram has also made it possible to tag products in Instagram Stories as well. Instagram Stories now features more than 400 million daily users — more than double that of Snapchat.
These features all taken together make one thing clear — Instagram understands the power that their platform has for driving eCommerce sales and appears to be wholly committed to furthering that bond in the coming years.
Now that we know how important Amazon is to eCommerce companies and Amazon sellers, now we’ll dive into why. What benefits does the platform bring to Amazon sellers to make it rise into such a powerful tool in the last ten years?
Benefits of Instagram to Amazon Sellers
Instagram can provide a number of benefits to Amazon sellers. 60 percent of users learn about new products through Instagram. More than 200 million users visit a business profile on the platform at least once per day. By creating a reliable presence on the platform, you position your products to be the one that Instagram users are learning about.
Some of the benefits that Amazon sellers will find in maintaining and growing a presence on Instagram include:
A Visual Platform
The fact that Instagram is a visual-first platform makes it ideal for Amazon sellers. You want to make sure that you are getting your products in front of interested parties, and nothing can do that better than a picture. Shoppers want to see what they are buying. They want to see the product image, and if you can, images that show how the product works to the benefit of your buyers, either in its usefulness or in the lifestyle that it helps to create.
Get Your Products In Front of Your Intended Audience
Instagram has become a giant in the social networking space. With more than one billion users, you can rest assured that a healthy portion of your audience uses the platform. Additionally, Instagram allows for unfettered access to audiences. Facebook compels companies to pay for their advertising services. They restrict the reach of organic business pages, pushing companies to pay for ads.
Instagram, on the other hand, doesn’t have those sorts of limitations in place. All of your followers will be able to fully access all of your posts. While Instagram does offer advertisement placements it is best to build an organic audience simultaneously.
Promote a Trusted Name
One benefit that Amazon sellers are keenly aware of is the fact that promoting products that are sold on Amazon are generally much easier than trying to promote products on your own website. Amazon is a name that packs a lot of built-in trust with any audience. The trust is inherent. That makes for fewer objections and more conversions on Instagram and other social traffic sources.
Stay Top-of-Mind
For Amazon sellers, it’s so important to stay top-of-mind with your audience. Amazon is a big site and users can quickly lose interest in your product, stumble across a competitor, or forgot to come back and buy after initially discovering your item. Instagram provides you with the ability to consistently drip-feed information about and images of your products to your audience.
Your ability to engage in real-world conversations and develop connections with your ideal customers and industry influencers can put you in a position to reach a wide cross-section of your audience, driving targeted traffic to your Amazon product pages regularly.
Instagram for Amazon Sellers Best Practices
Even though Instagram is often the right choice of social platform for Amazon sellers, it can still be a tough nut to crack. There are still best practices that must be followed to ensure that you are continually growing your presence and getting your posts in front of your intended audience.
As you start the journey of establishing your brand on Amazon and promoting your Amazon products, keep these best practices in mind:
Consistency is Key
Consistency matters when it comes to Instagram. You need to find the happy medium between posting often enough to stay on the radar of your intended audience without letting the quality of your posts dip. Brands see engagement rates that are 10x on Instagram than they are on Facebook. Instagram images in particular receive an average of 23 percent more engagement than Facebook images. But brands work hard to drive that engagement, with the average brand posting an average of 27+ times per month. Aim to post consistently but not sacrifice quality in the process.
Create Instagram Stories
Instagram Stories are perhaps the hottest feature on Instagram. With more than 400 million daily active Instagram Stories users, the video-centric feature produces high levels of engagement and helps you to stand out from the competition because Instagram Stories show up in a different section of the app than typical postings. Creating regular Instagram stories can be a great way to stay top-of-mind with your customers and grow awareness over time.
Additionally, Instagram stories help to create more reach for your standard posts as well. The more that a user interacts with your Instagram Stories, the more likely your posts are to show up on their feed.
Quality over Quantity
While it is important to ensure that you are posting enough to keep your audience engaged and aware of your presence, you do not want to sacrifice the quality of your posts in the process. Ultimately, the amount that your audience engages with your content affects how often your posts will show up in their feed. Accounts that generate higher levels of engagement have their posts show up more often than accounts that don’t.
Here are a few facts about the Instagram algorithm that all Amazon sellers need to know:
- The Instagram algorithm looks at total engagement when deciding what content will be displayed on your follower’s feeds. This means the total number of likes, comments, views, and profile click-throughs all have an effect on your overall score.
- Instagram doesn’t just look at overall engagement, they also look at how quickly your audience engaged with the posts as well. Posts that get a lot of comments and likes shortly after posting signal that you’ve posted quality content and Instagram places more priority on displaying it.
- The length that a user views your post also plays a role. This is why writing a good caption is so important. You want to give your audience every reason to continue interacting with the content that you share for as long as you possibly can.
Quality is more important than quantity when it comes to maximizing the reach of each post that you make.
Share User-Generated Content
Don’t just share product images with your audience! When your users share a picture of themselves with your product, reach out to them and ask if you can post it on your official page. You can even go a step farther and find ways to encourage your users to share user-generated content through contests or similar strategies.
Here’s an example from Wayfair, who invited their users to share pictures with their products only to find out that they’re shelving unit doubled as a pretty effective cat tree:
Optimize Your Profile
As an Amazon seller on Instagram, your goal is to increase awareness for your brand and direct Instagram users toward your Amazon product pages. If you don’t explain who you are and where they can find your products, you won’t be doing your brand much good. Make sure that you provide at least a link to your brand page, along with a short description of your company.
Engage Regularly with Followers
Conversations are a two-way street. One of the biggest mistakes that eCommerce brands continually make is treating their Instagram presence like it were a bullhorn. They constantly post new product images and updates but fail to consistently engage with their audience. The thing that they don’t understand is that engagement is the whole point of establishing a presence on Instagram or any social media property.
Talk to your fans. Jump into conversations. Answer questions that they might have. While it’s alright to automate a portion of your overall presence on a platform, you have to make sure that you are genuinely engaging and developing connections with your customers, or else you are diminishing the returns you receive for your efforts.
Seek Out Cross-Promotion Opportunities
Being mentioned by other accounts can expose your brand to new audiences. Working out deals with similar brands and Amazon sellers to cross-promote each other’s products will not only help you to secure more sales, but it will also help you to grow your following as well. This business development aspect of growing your social presence does require some effort and acuity to navigate but can pay off for brands of any size.
Consider Influencer Marketing
Sometimes eCommerce brands and Amazon sellers don’t have the time and patience to build an organic following on Instagram — but they do have the budget. Paying for mentions, posts, or stories from an influencer with an audience that closely matches your own can help to generate immediate sales and jumpstart awareness within your industry. Influencer marketing can be expensive, with influencers charging brands between $75 and $3,000 per post — but they do provide you with a shortcut to generating sales and awareness.
A Can’t-Miss Opportunity
For Amazon sellers, Instagram is an opportunity that you can’t let pass you by. It’s best to begin establishing a reliable presence on the platform now, while it is still experiencing rapid growth. Through consistent, high-quality updates, you’ll grow awareness within your industry, sell more products on Amazon, and develop close-knit connections with your customers and prospects.
Image: Depositphotos.com