Have you ever wondered how you can grow your Etsy shop using Instagram? Then keep reading as this blog is going to tell you the strategies that you can use to enable you to grow your Etsy shop using Instagram.

Instagram is fast becoming a very lucrative shopping platform. This means that a lot of people who want to buy an item (especially if it's handmade) go to Instagram now to shop.

A few years ago Facebook was the place to go to look for handmade items, but Facebook is being replaced by Instagram for this now.

There's a few ways to grow your Instagram profile to get more people into your Etsy shop, and I'm going to explain 7 below:

ONE: YOUR FEED

Make sure that your Instagram feed tells people what you do or sell. Ask yourself "is it absolutely obvious what I do to someone who's just landed on my page?". Try this out with a couple of trusted beta testers!

Your followers should be able to tell what you do by looking at your profile and your feed together, but also on their own.

Imagine if your followers could only see your profile and not your feed. Does your description explain clearly what you sell or the services that you offer? Is your logo up to date and professional? Do you have story highlights with FAQ's and useful information?

Ok, how about if we covered your profile? Does your feed clearly show what you do, or is it full of photos of your dog and what you had for your breakfast? Keep your feed/ photos relevant to your target market and your brand.

TWO: BRAND YOUR FEED

Branding is super important on instagram, but it is often a place that is missed by handmade business owners.

Make sure that your brand vibe/aesthetic matches that of your Etsy shop so people don't get confused and click off.

If you sell macrame wall hangings, and you've branded your Etsy shop with beautiful soft neutrals and sage greens, but then your Instagram feed is full of bright red or purple stock images, you will confuse and put off your customers.

*HARSH TRUTH: the prime reason why you’re not getting sales through Instagram is because your branding is off

Imagine your social media platforms are branches of your business 'tree'. Those branches come from the same 'trunk', and should be branded consistently throughout all of your platforms.

So how do we tell if our Instagram feed is branded? Here's some questions to answer:

• Are your photos in your chosen aesthetic?
• Do they attract your target market?
• Are they relevant to your target audience?
• Are you using your brand colours for your story highlights?
• Where can you improve?

I would say that it's so important for handmade business owners like you to spend the same amount of attention on branding your Instagram feed as you would your Etsy shop or website.

Take a look at our Instagram - @handmadebosses for an example of a well branded feed. Make sure to follow us while you're over there, we'd love you forever! 

THREE: FOLLOWERS

Now, I don't want you to panic when I say this next bit, but I don’t want you to focus on the number of followers you have.

Instead, I want you to focus on engagement. I hear you saying "yeah, but Steph, how are we supposed to get engagement on our posts if we don't have lots of followers?", but hear me out...

Would you rather have 10,000 followers on Instagram with only 5 of those followers who actually comment on your posts, and buy your items? Or, would you rather have 100 followers with 30 of those who like, comment, share and buy your items? I'd say you'd rather the latter, right?

I'm going to say it again so you really move away from counting followers, focus on your engagement!

As a rule of thumb, you should expect 10% of your Instagram followers to engage with your posts and stories. This include:
• likes
• comments
• saves
• re-shares 
• Interactions on story stickers like polls and questions etc

* TOP TIP: At Handmade Bosses, we have set up a spreadsheet for us to monitor our content, and we'd recommend doing it too! It's not as scary as it sounds, and you don't have to use a spreadsheet if you don't want to. You can use a notebook and just scroll back through your Instagram posts over the last 7 days, and make note of what content is performing well, what worked best, and what isn't getting much engagement. 

Just so we're clear - Engagement over followers! You've got this now, right?

Knowing about engagement is also super useful when Influencers get in touch with you asking for free stuff! Remember, it is super easy for influencers to buy followers, so it's important to check their engagement rate on their posts!

An influencer may have thousands of followers, but if only 5 people are engaging with their posts, I would avoid them as they won't make you much money. Also, make sure they have the same target audience as you do! (but that's a blog post for another day)

BOSS! Do you want to make more sales on Etsy? Then you need to increase your conversion rate! DON'T PANIC! I'm going to explain exactly how to do that in my FREE 90 minute masterclass - The 3 Step System To Skyrocket Your Etsy Conversion Rate 🙌🏻

Click the button below and save your seat!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sign me up!

 

FOUR: REELS

Instagram have admitted that they are leaning more towards video content right now with the increased popularity of Reels.

You've all seen Reels of people dancing around and pointing to different words on the screen, but you don't have to dance or be silly if you don't want to. In fact, you don't even need to show your face!

Here's some Reel ideas for you to try that doesn't involve dancing (unless that's you bag, then you do you, Boss!):

• Use reels of you making your work
• Save a 5 second snippet of each order that went out this week, and put them together in a Reel
• Show you packing an order
• If you're comfortable, show how you made that product
• Do a tour of your workspace
• Record a day in your life with 2 second clips added together into a Reel.

Your followers will be hypnotically attracted to seeing these Reels, and they'll be more likely to purchase from you if they can see where it's made, how it's made, and by who!


Your challenge is to create a reel this week and share it on Instagram. Tag me in it so I can see it too @handmadebosses


If you're feeling super brave, why not try an Instagram live, or IGTV (Instagram TV)?
Here at Handmade Bosses, we go live every Monday at 1pm (UK time) on Instagram to teach something useful to our followers, for 20 minutes or so. It's a fantastic way to increase engagement, and chat to your followers. 

FIVE: HASHTAGS

Long gone are the days where you would need to use all 30 hashtags in a post. Instagram have said they recommend only using 3-5 hashtags on your posts now.

Your hashtags need to be relevant to the photo you are posting. Don't use #motivationalquote when you're sharing a photo of your crochet elephant, it's just not relevant and it won't help your reach. 

Don't use large hashtags as your post will get lost within seconds. I would avoid any hashtag with more than 500,000 posts. Hashtags are a lot like Etsy tags, the more niche the better. A hashtag with 1000 results will perform much better for your post than a hashtag with 9 million results. 

SIX: ENGAGE

That's right! I want you to be social on social media. 
Ideally, you should be around 1 hour after posting and engage with those who leave comments, and go to their profiles and thank them by engaging on their posts. 

I would also recommend being social with your competitors followers - yes it's completely acceptable to do this, you're not breaking any rules!

Your competitors will have the same target market as you, and so you should absolutely engage with them. Go on to your competitors Instagram feed, and look who is engaging with their posts. Go to their followers and engage with them on their own profiles.

You don't need to DM (direct message) them as this can come across as spammy, just engage on their profiles and recent posts. When they see your comment, they'll wonder who you are and they'll naturally head to your Instagram profile.

You'll attract them instantly as your Instagram profile is branded to their taste, the content is super relevant, and they know exactly what it is that you do - so they will naturally follow you.

*TOP TIP: I would recommend spending 20-30 mins a day engaging with people on your Instagram account. Engage with your existing followers, engage with other peoples' followers, engage with strangers using your hashtags. What ever you do, just engage. 

SEVEN: COMPETITIONS

Competitions on Instagram are a fantastic way of increasing your engagement, and also followers.

Ask your followers to like, comment and share your post or profile to enter the competition. This is exactly what Instagram LOVES and you will be shown to more people naturally.

Giveaways are a great way to get rid of out of season stock, items you don't want to continue with, and one off special pieces.

So there we have it, you now know how to use Instagram to grow your Etsy shop.

If you'd like to watch me chat about this blog post, you can watch the YouTube video by clicking HERE