Selling on Instagram: 5 Steps to Make Money
1: Convert to a business profile
Nothing novel here, but a shocking number of small business owners I talk to want to start selling on Instagram without first completing this simple step. Converting your standard Instagram profile to a business profile gives you access to a number of indispensable selling and reporting options. Before we get into those, here’s how to make the switch. Log into your account and tap the cheesburger-looking button at the top right of your dashboard. Tap Settings at the bottom right. Scroll down to “Switch to Business Profile.” Boom! You’re done. If you ever want to switch back (you won’t), just head back to the same spot and tap “Switch Back to Personal Account.” Now! Some highlights of the features available after you’ve made the switch: Instagram Insights. It’s not as easy on Instagram as it is, say, on Facebook, to look up a follower’s personal and demographic information. It’s even more difficult to compile that data in aggregate. Instagram Insights does the hard work for you.2: Buoy your organic campaigns with hashtag research
Another thing that happens whenever I take over a business’s Instagram account: business owners are desperate to reach more people, and they have no idea how. If you’re a serious business owner you might look at a hashtag and think, That’s a frivolous thing I want nothing to do with. But the fact is, hashtags are the biggest way to make an impact with your organic Instagram campaigns. Switching to a business profile gives you the ability to see, on a post-by-post basis, how many impressions come via hashtags, and how many of the accounts that you reached weren’t following you when they saw your post. When you get smart with hashtags, both of those numbers will skyrocket.3: Start running ads
Another thing I hear a lot of: I have a very slim budget and want to make the most of it. A lot of business owners think having a small budget takes them out of the running for Instagram ads, and that couldn’t be further from the truth. If you execute effectively, you will get more for your money running low-budget paid Instagram campaigns than you will creating and running organic campaigns. And I know what you’re thinking—Unless I’m paying someone to do it for me, aren’t organic campaigns free? Yes. But Instagram ads represent the potential for insane ROI, so if you do it right, you’re going to get your money back with plenty of interest.
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