How To Turn Instagram Followers Into Paying Customers (2022)

Hey, congratulations. You did it. I'm proud of you. You know why? Because through your hard work and dedication, you've grown a sizable Instagram following for your business. You've been creative, you've been authentic, you've been consistent, and you've engaged your followers. You were diligent about community management. Maybe you even had a couple hashtags go viral. But despite all your success building a brand, you haven't been able to figure out how to generate revenue from Instagram. What's up? It's Shamal from HubSpot, and in this video, I'm going to help you turn Instagram followers into paying custom by updating your content strategy. And I'll go section by section through the Instagram app to make sure everything you do is optimized for sales. To help you get the most out of Instagram, check out the free Instagram for Business templates available in the Description. And don't forget to like this video. Subscribe to the HubSpot YouTube channel and hit the notification bell whether Your Instagram has 100 followers, a thousand followers, or 100,000 followers. Those are all fans who could just be a few taps away from becoming paying customers. Don't believe me? Nah, honestly, that's. I wouldn't trust me either. But the numbers don't lie. In a survey conducted by Instagram's parent company, Facebook, 81% of respondents report using the app to research products and services, while a different survey by Facebook revealed that 50% of Instagram users have visited a website to buy a product or service as a result of seeing it in stories. What's really amazing about those numbers is that unlike other social media platforms, Instagram doesn't make it that easy to drive sales. The app only allows for one hyperlink in your profile, and no links are allowed in captions or comments. And that swipe up to see more feature that you've probably seen in IG Stories? Well, that feature is only available to accounts with over 10,000 followers. Instagram recently announced that it's replacing the swipe up with link stickers and is testing making those available to users with fewer followers. But concerns about spam and misinformation mean they'll be rolling it out slowly. In the meantime, there are still plenty of things you can do to optimize your entire Instagram strategy to generate sales. The first thing to do is review your content and make sure that it does the following Number one Convey what you're selling. This might sound obvious, but a lot of brands, when building a following Focus on lifestyle content that generates lots of comments and likes but doesn't clearly explain what it is your business provides. Memes, polls, inspirational quotes. They're all great for engagement, but it can be hard for a follower to understand how these equate to whatever it is you're selling. Selling. I'm not saying you should get rid of the content your followers already enjoy, but be sure to add content that makes it clear what you offer. This could be product shots or promotional posts about special offers. A good rule of thumb is to use the 8020 rule where 80% of your content is whatever high engagement content you've been producing and 20% is more self serving promotional posts. Any more than that and you might find yourself losing some of those hard earned followers. But in that 80% you can still be doing more to increase sales indirectly. For example, social proof is a major factor in convincing potential customers to try your product. In fact, 92% of consumers are more likely to trust non paid recommendations than any other type of advertising. So why not spotlight some of the great things customers are already saying about you in your posts? Be sure to tag whoever said it so other users can see that it's real praise from a real person. You can even recruit ambassadors to testify on behalf of your brand. This is especially effective if your brand is aspirational. I'm probably never going to try to climb Alaska's North Slope. And it's not because I can't. I'm just, you know, I'm super busy, you know. But I sure would want to travel with a duffel as tough as this. Yeti the second way to adjust your content to encourage sales is to address the benefits your product or service offers to customers. Yeti does this really well when it states in its bio, we make gear that helps you stay out longer, travel farther, and live harder. You know they're starting to win me over. Maybe I should give this whole Alaska North Slope thing a try. You know what I'm saying? Photo captions can also include benefit statements like lets you hold an entire day's hydration in your hand and enjoy more thrills with no spills. By adding promotional posts, social proof, and product benefits to your Instagram content mix, your followers will start to think of you like a brand that they need. The next step in optimizing your Instagram for sales is to create a path for users to learn more about your products or services and eventually lead them to make a purchase. To do that, let's start with your Instagram bio. Your bio is the One place where Instagram lets every account put a link, so that link better be a good one. But before we go there, let's take a look at what other top brands do to make their bio impactful. I already mentioned how Yeti uses its bio to clearly state the customer benefit. Quadlock calls out all of the countries they ship to for free, and St. Frank includes social proof in the form of a quote from Vogue as well as the location of its retail store. You can use this space for additional calls to Action or to showcase branded hashtags. You're also able to tag any additional IG accounts you might want to showcase. And Instagram offers contact buttons for phone and email, as well as an action button that allows for one click shopping, reservations or ordering with select partner integrations. But without a doubt, literally beyond a shadow of a single hair, a single crumb of doubt, the most important element of the bio is your link. This is literally the best chance you have to send followers to a destination where they can become customers. If your business has a well functioning website, then your homepage is probably the best bet for sending traffic. But that's not the case for all brands, which is why plenty of tools have been built to optimize the link in Bio. A common one you'll find is linktree, which creates a simple webpage that contains however many links you need. Another popular app is Like Shop, which recreates your Instagram grid, but every image is clickable. Now, I'm going to let you in on a little pro tip. Everyone knows to type link in bio in your post captions to direct your followers to your clickable link. But users have to think about where to tap to get your bio. And in the game of social media marketing, even a split second pause can be the difference between a user stepping into your sales funnel or to just keep on scrolling. So be sure to just tag yourself right next to any cta. That way followers can get right where they want to go with absolutely minimal friction. You know, if we're talking friction, I'm talking like it's like you're gliding. You know what I'm saying? You know, there's, there's almost no air drag either. I mean, we're just. Finally, let's talk about Instagram Stories. Stories were introduced in 2016 as a more immediate and off the cuff alternative to the carefully curated main feed cultivated by many Instagram users, including a lot of big brands with fun interactive stickers and filters only available on stories. The feature became a huge hit with half of Instagram's 1 billion users watching stories daily. That's 500 million people just going, I sure do love this content. Madness. Absolute madness. I already talked about how stories led accounts with over 10,000 followers add links to stories, which is one reason why stories have become so popular with brands. But making stories can be a lot of work because unlike standard Instagram posts, which can appear in a user's timeline up to three days after being posted and live forever on your profile page, stories disappear after just 24 hours. The only stories that remain are the ones you select to save in your stories. Highlights this is why savvy brands will create highlight groups that match specific product lines or campaigns, each with its own custom image that lives right below the bio on the profile page. It's like having a mini catalog right on the app. Other techniques for increasing engagement on stories include telling followers to DM you for more information or tell them share this post and I'll DM you the deets. I just made that last one up myself. Will it work? I don't know. Is it worth a try? I think so. Let me know in the comments. Success on social media is an art and a science. What works for one business might not be so great for another. That's why you always want to be testing out new ideas to see if they work. If you want to learn more about techniques for mastering Instagram, including how to properly track your performance and other essential skills, click the link below for our free online Instagram Marketing course, available at HubSpot Academy. You can also explore our Social Media Strategies for Business playlists. And you already know what to do. Don't forget to subscribe to this channel and hit the notification bell so you never miss a new video. Now, if you'll excuse me, it's time for me to get lost in the sauce of Instagram stories and stores. All right? You won't see me for weeks, and if you do, it's just a hologram. All right, don't be alarmed. I'll see you next time. Hair combing brought to you by HubSpot, everyone's favorite pastime.