Instagram Live Shopping is a new feature of Instagram that provides businesses with an opportunity to advertise and sell their products while interacting with existing and potential customers in real-time through a live broadcast.
Businesses can tag certain products or sales items, which then appear at the bottom of the screen where customers have the option to purchase them directly from the app. Once the broadcast is over, businesses may save the video and post it to their profile, allowing customers to continue browsing and buying.
The Potential Profits
Instagram Live Shopping is beneficial to businesses for one big reason: Instagrammers like to spend. According to an Instagram Trends Research Study conducted in 2020, 44% of those surveyed said they used the platform to shop every week. While many of these purchases were done on a spur-of-the-moment basis, as much as 28% were intentional. Those numbers have likely only increased since the fallout from the COVID pandemic moved people out of malls and brick-and-mortar stores and further into online commerce.
The Features Offered
Instagram Live Shopping offers a host of features designed to make the experience user-friendly on all sides. Among these features include the ability to have multiple hosts at once (such as brand partners or influencers), customizations (such as stickers and face filters), and immediate audience interaction. You can also upload still images or videos if you want to focus on a specific product.
How to Use it to Your Advantage
There are several ways to use Instagram Live Shopping to your advantage. You can use it to reveal a new product launch or feature a product sale or buy-one-get-one-free deal. You can create product tutorials for your products (if applicable). Or you can host a question-and-answer session for consumers (Ask Me Anything isn’t just for Reddit).
To make sure your broadcast does as well as possible, promote it in advance, keep it relatively short, and make sure your content is solid. Include these ingredients, and you’ll set yourself up for success.
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Photo by Brooke Lark on Unsplash