Here’s a quick, but relevant, note for Instagram advertisers. This week, at a Facebook Marketing event in NYC, The Social Network confirmed that Instagram will soon be making its Shopping Tags for Stories available to all brands which have enabled shopping on Instagram.
Announced last month, Instagram’s Shopping Tags for Stories extend on the platform’s Shopping Tags for posts, and provide another way for marketers to reach the growing number of people using Instagram Stories. And with 400 million people now consuming Instagram Stories content every day, it’s definitely worth consideration, while all signs suggest that Stories adoption will continue to rise, with Facebook execs repeatedly stating that Stories will soon overtake the News Feed as the primary sharing surface in social media.
So, how can you get access to this new option?
As noted, Instagram will be looking to open up Stories tags to all advertisers who have enabled shopping on Instagram. To do this, businesses first need to be approved for shopping on the platform, which means you need to meet the following requirements:
- Your business must sell physical goods that comply with Instagram’s merchant agreement and commerce policies
- Your Instagram account must be converted into a business profile
- Your business profile must be connected to a Facebook catalog. This can be created and managed on Business Manager, through Shopify or BigCommerce platforms or directly on your business's Page on Facebook.
If you tick all the boxes, Instagram will then review your account, which generally takes a few days. If you’re approved, you’ll get a notification on your account that you’re able to tag products in your posts. The option is available in most, but not all, regions (full details available here).
In addition to this, TechCrunch also reports that Instagram is making its Collections ad format, which they previewed earlier this year, available to all advertisers.
The format blends video and product catalog, end enables in-stream purchases within the app.
Both of these options will be more broadly available for this year’s holiday season.
Will the arrival of more overt selling type options disrupt the Instagram applecart? We’ll have to wait and see.
