With restricted movement and extended lockdowns around the world, the internet has become, for almost everyone, the fundamental medium of engagement. The result is a big spike in digital commerce, a phenomenon that is expected to be a mainstay in retail even post the pandemic.
Globally, there has been a 70 percent increase in internet time and 60 percent spike in engagement across various social media platforms over the past months. According to data revealed by Facebook recently, the company has seen up to 70 percent more time spent across their apps, with Instagram and Facebook Live views doubling in just a week.
Instagram, especially, was already evolving into an influential sales channel for the fashion industry and the coronavirus pandemic has only amplified its hold. With a billion individuals accessing the app every month and about 2 million users visiting business profiles everyday, it is no wonder that more and more fashion brands are making a beeline for the app’s selling potential.
Check out these popular tips, tricks, and industry-favorite features to help you create your own successful Instagram for fashion marketing strategy!
1. Set Up Your Instagram Profile
Before going about promoting products on Instagram, it is indispensable to have a professional, highly appealing business profile and proper knowledge of the tools that the platform has to offer. Instagram is a highly visual platform, so it is indispensable to create a profile with aesthetically striking content to captivate your audience.
There are innumerable ways for fashion brands to contrive sales opportunities in Instagram. You can especially take advantage of the specialized selling tools that the app keeps introducing regularly like adding product tags in posts and stories, the ‘shop’ tab, Checkout out in Instagram, etc. It is advisable to get all these features approved Sand complete the setup before starting your journey in Instagram.
Once your profile is set up, it’s time to work on a deft content strategy that can potentially drive traffic, boost sales, and engage a growing base of followers.
2. Curate your Content Strategy
Unlike e-commerce social media platforms are perfect to bring a brand story and in today’s date and time a inspiring brand story is key to every lifestyle brand’s success. Apart from that, brand mission, product features, product updates, lifestyle content, behind-the-scenes pictures and videos are proven to be some of the most engaging content on social media platforms.
It’s also utterly important to let your audience know the USP of your products rather than just bombarding them with product promotions on a daily basis. The 80/20 rule is a time proven content mix strategy that every most successful brands utilize — keep 80 percent of your content to tell stories and features of your products and use the rest 20 percent for promotion.
Remember to be regular with your content – that is the sole trick to survive in any social media platform.
3. Bet on User Generated Content
Consumers are still hunting for product features, ratings and reviews to assure their purchase decisions. But branded content has become redundant now and a great way of bringing authenticity to a brand is through user generated content (UGC) — genuine content created by consumers for their fellow consumers.
As content created by individuals who do not represent the brand, UGC has a human connection and is a great tool to convert indecisive shoppers to loyal consumers. The best way to go about is to create a committed community of fans who are highly social and have a penchant to review and share testimonials about their favorite products.
4. Keep a Tab of App Features
Instagram has big plans of being a influential sales channel for direct-to-consumer brands and companies. And hence it has been rolling out numerous features of late. The app introduced their now ubiquitous product tags in 2016, and by 2018, this feature was introduced in Instagram stories as a well.
The app also rolled out the pilot for its highly anticipated ‘Checkout’ feature in March 2019 to 26 brands and retailers across beauty and fashion. In September 2019, it tested a new feature called Reminders — that allows fashion brands and retailers aout product launches and drops. Most of these features are still in the testing phase and are slowly getting rolled out to more brands in stages depending on their presence in Facebook and Instagram.
Currently in India, a slew of brands and retailers including Myntra, Shoppers Stop, Lifestyle, Nykaa fashion, etc., are utilizing the ‘shop’ to warm response.
5. Learn from Trendsetters
Brands and retailers across the world are exercising creative ways to effectively inspire consumers in the social commerce eco-system. While LA based accessible wardrobe staples brand Staud features an entirely shoppable feed using the tagging feature, watch and jewellery major Cluse banks more on user generated content to set themselves apart. Brands like J. Crew and Dollar Shave Club have been successful in harnessing the power of social proof through highlighting positive feedback from consumers.
The bottom line is — there are myriad strategies and ways of selling on social media platforms like Instagram. But the catch is, what works for someone not working for others — you will have to find your own ways of positioning your brand. Follow your favourite brands on Instagram and keep a tab of their strategies – there’s a lot to learn from these trendsetters.
