There are tons of ways that brands can interact with audiences in the Instagram app, and live selling makes it even easier. You can share products, hang out with your audience, and interact with users in real-time to give your customers the next best thing to in-store shopping experiences.
New from Instagram, Instagram Live is a real-time video option offered by the social media giant for content creators to attract new viewers and entertain existing followers. In addition to Stories, Reels and traditional Feed video posts, Instagram Live is a great option for retailers and brands looking to engage with—and sell to—their audience in an interactive way today’s market demands.
Below, we’ve outlined how selling on Instagram Live gives your customers a personal shopping experience and how it improves your online presence.
Article Outline: Live Selling on Instagram:
What is Instagram Live Shopping?
An exciting feature of Instagram Live is Instagram Live Shopping—the ability to sell to viewers during the live stream. The perks?
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- Shoppers can purchase directly from the Instagram Live platform without needing to leave Instagram and head to a separate website.
- Instagram Live video hosts can interact with user comments and answer customer questions during the live stream in order to build a sense of community and enhance the user experience.
- Instagram Live Shopping video streams are recorded and stay shoppable even after the fact. This means that brands and retailers can go live once but post the recordings later so that customers can shop from the content over and over again, well after the live stream takes place.
Live shopping on Instagram let’s brands connect with their audience by showcasing new products, collaborating with other creators, and giving shoppers the chance to get to know your brand better. Unlike recorded video, live shopping occurs in real-time. While you’re streaming, your customers can ask questions and get answers about your products directly—without ever having to leave home or the Instagram app.
Learn More: Instagram Reigns Supreme for Today’s Retail Businesses
How Live Selling Can Improve Your Business
Live selling allows brands to showcase their personalities through interactive, exciting, real-time storytelling. This type of immersive content helps deepen consumer relationships and secure repeat shoppers.
Even better, live selling with the right technology facilitates instant, in-app purchases for shoppers. This immediacy means a more pleasing and seamless shopping experience for consumers—and more revenue earned for retailers.
Why Live Sell on Instagram?
Instagram is now the fourth-most popular social media app in the world, earning $47.6 billion in revenue in 2021. The platform helps users find your content based on hashtags, previous searches, and other posts they have liked in the past—increasing reach and engagement. Even more, 67% of millennials today say they prefer online shopping over in-store experiences, so it makes sense to commit to a digital strategy that includes this platform.
Instagram Live shopping is a great tool for brands and retailers on the platform to broaden the way they connect with their followers. Live video, especially short-form live video, is increasingly more popular now than ever, especially with millennial and Gen-Z consumers. Adding an Instagram Live video strategy is an easy way to tap into this lucrative revenue stream.
Features and Benefits of Instagram Live Selling
One of the keys to selling more efficiently is to meet your customers where they are—many of whom are likely already on Instagram.
Collab with Other Sellers and Content Creators
The Live Rooms feature gives hosts the option to invite up to three more sellers to join their livestream. This is a great way to get to know new audiences, improve your reach, and increase your Instagram following.
(Live) Video Creation Features
You can customize your live stream with filters, stickers, questions, and branded content to make shopping on your live stream unique and engaging. Plus, you can incorporate stills, pre-recorded videos, and presentations into your live selling event.
Real-Time Audience Interaction
Perhaps the best feature of live selling on Instagram is that brands can interact directly with customers in real time during the live shopping event. Answer questions, show off certain details, and give your audiences a one-of-a-kind shopping experience, all from the comfort of the app.
Live selling adds an extra element to your brand that is hard to communicate via pictures and videos alone. Going live is an interactive format that immerses your customers into your products to give them the closest shopping experience to “the real thing.”
Learn More: The Power of Using Instagram in Multichannel Retail
How to Start Live Selling on Instagram
Learn how to get started live selling on Instagram below:
Requirements
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- For now, you must be located in the U.S.
- Checkout on Instagram must be enabled.
- You need to have at least 30 products uploaded three days before your first live selling stream.
Getting Started
Step 1: Tap “Your Story” in the upper-left corner of the Instagram app.
Step 2: Toggle Live by swiping left at the bottom of your screen.
Step 3: Add the products you want to sell by tapping the shopping bag icon on the left.
Step 4: Hit the “Live” button and start streaming!
Step 5: Pin products on the screen for viewers to interact with while you’re selling on Live.
Step 6: Share your live stream by turning it into a series of Instagram stories, reposting it as a video, or downloading it, then posting the video anywhere you like.
Ready to put Instagram to Work for You? Request a Free Trial from CommentSold
Tips for Selling on Instagram in 2023
Instagram Live selling is a great way to engage audiences, build a loyal following, and sell more stuff in 2023. If you want to make the most of your live selling events, then here are a few tips to guide you:
Use a Platform that Supports Selling on Instagram
Live selling platforms like CommentSold were built to help people sell live not just on one channel—but across several channels at once. Instagram live video sellers using the platform can sell live on the social media platform while also broadcasting live on Facebook, their website, and their mobile app for more reach, engagement, and revenue across the board while pulling from a single, centralized inventory.
Invite Influencers to Join your Instagram Live Shopping Stream
One of the great things about Instagram Live selling is that hosts can invite other Instagram users to join their live. Tapping into another brand or influencer’s followers can significantly help increase reach, spotlight brand awareness, and help foster a stronger—and wider—sense of community
Promote Your Live Stream
Putting up a few posts, sharing teasers for your new products, and filming reminders to share in your Instagram stories are all ways to promote your live stream. But why should you promote your live stream? The answer is simple: views.
If you don’t tell your audience when you will be going live, how will they know when to tune in? Promoting your live selling event is the best way to make sure that you have plenty of viewers once you’re ready to go live. People are busy, but if they know about your live stream in advance, they can make arrangements to be present for your live stream.
Don’t Drag On
Although it’s super fun to hang out online with your audience, be sure to keep your live shopping stream on point. People will get bored and move on if you talk about irrelevant topics for even five minutes before diving into the purpose of your live stream.
Don’t let it drag on too long, and be sure that your content is easy to digest. Anything overly complicated that can’t be explained in a short live stream can be made into a series of videos or a tutorial.
Make it Fun & Entertaining
Driving sales is definitely the goal for most sellers that go live, but your audiences want to be entertained. So give them what they want by balancing your live selling events with plenty of fun and enjoyable content made purely to engage with your customers.
You can even go live to share some behind-the-scenes action, like your workspace or warehouse—or use gamification techniques to turn your shopping event into a contest or giveaway.
Above all, be sure that your content is high-quality, free from distracting noises, and kept at least PG. You want your Instagram Live selling efforts to result in more followers, viewers, and sales, so don’t scare them away.
Make the Most of Instagram Live Shopping
Instagram makes it easy for your customers to buy your products in-app as well as build your following. If you have a great product but are struggling to engage and convert, then maybe it’s time to give live selling a try.
Live selling turns regular product listings into a streaming event. Instead of simple product listings, live selling is dynamic and can help you show off your products with style. It’s really simple to get started, and it’s a fun new way to engage audiences that are ready to buy online.
Want to know more? Learn how to live stream to all of your channels at once.
About the Author: Magnus Eriksen is a copywriter and an eCommerce SEO specialist with a degree in Marketing and Brand Management. Before embarking on his copywriting career, he was a content writer for digital marketing agencies such as Synlighet AS and Omega Media, where he mastered on-page and technical SEO– Make it Fun & Entertaining
