How to Promote Etsy Shop on Instagram-13 Cool Hacks in 2023!

Are you wondering how to promote your Etsy shop on Instagram? 

Instagram and technology used to scare me, but now I’m running a successful small business on Instagram! 

Instagram helped me to build a valuable community that buys my products and services. My community is full of people who support and value what I’m offering, and I’ve got loyal customers who’ve been there since day 1. 

So, if you want to know how you can build a community like this, read on to find out!

At a quick glance, the tips on how to promote Etsy shop on Instagram are:

1. Create a business account for your Etsy shop

2. Take good photos 

3. Set up your Instagram shop

4.  Use Instagram reels

5. Captions are important

6. Don’t forget to use hashtags

7. Run competitions, giveaways, and promotions whenever possible

8. Show them BTS

9. Make meaningful connections with your followers 

10. Show your face, you’re the brand!

11. Create engaging content

12. Post consistently

13. Invest in sponsored ads

DISCLAIMER: The links on this page may be affiliate links, from which I earn a small commission if you click on them, AT NO EXTRA COST to you. Hope you find the information here useful. Thanks! 

How to Promote Etsy Shop on Instagram

1. Create A Business Account For Your Etsy Shop

If you’re wondering how to promote your Etsy shop on Instagram, the first thing that you need to do is create a separate account on Instagram for your Etsy business. 

It will give you access to more tools and functionalities that are only available on a business account. 

That doesn’t mean you can’t share anything related to your personal life on your business account. You can share as much as you’re comfortable about your personal life to engage with your audience. 

Besides, it allows keeping your private and business life separate for those who don’t prefer to share too much on their business account about their personal life.

To create an Instagram account, just go to Instagram.com, or the app on your phone, and sign up to create a new account with your personal email address. Alternatively, you can also sign up from your Facebook account. 

After creating an account, you need to tell Instagram that it’s for business purposes.

You can follow these steps to register your account as a business. 

If you’re not able to use the same name as your Etsy shop on your Instagram it can be because the username has been taken by someone else. Do some tweaks to the name until Instagram approves. 

Next up, you’ll need to decide on your profile picture: you can choose your existing Etsy shop’s logo or any pictures that represent your brand. 

The most important, but often overlooked step is explaining your business in your bio.  

It not only gives you an opportunity to explain to your potential buyers what your business is all about but also gives you a chance to insert SEO-optimized keywords. 

Buyers can pop into your store with only the keywords that they put to search. 

Don’t forget to add the link to your Etsy shop in the bio for your followers to access.

Besides that, if you have a Facebook page, you can also connect it to Instagram by following these steps. If you don’t you can create new Facebook page solely for business as well. 

If you want to promote Etsy shop on Instagram, you can consider creating a Facebook Page because it allows you to link your Etsy shop to Instagram & Facebook, tag Etsy products on Instagram, etc. 

Picture Credit: Pexels 

2. Take Good Photos 

Pictures play an important role in your business because they help you to show off your business. 

Your Instagram profile is a visual representation of your brand, so your photos should reflect this.

Invest in a high-quality camera to take pictures of your products. It’s going to be a good long-term investment for your business. 

Take a lot of pictures of your products from different angles, backgrounds, resolutions, etc. You can get some guidance from YouTube.

As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words, the best pictures tell stories about your business and its products.

So, tell a story to captivate your audience. 

Next, choose colors and themes that represent your brand. This will make your feed look professional & branded. So, pay attention to the colors, borders, fonts, etc on your posts, and make them appear consistent so that it becomes a part of your brand. 

Editing is another thing that you need to learn to make your pictures appear the way you want them to. You can use the filters on Instagram or the editing options on your phone for basic editing needs. 

There are tons of free photo editing apps out there that you can play around with, and see what works for you. 

If you’ve ever wondered how to set up an Etsy shop with no money at all while reading this article, let me tell you that I’ve dedicated a whole article to talk about this!

Picture Credit: Pexels

3. Set Up Your Instagram Shop

Are you thinking about how to market your Etsy shop with this feature?

Well, there are over 1.393 billion monthly active users on the app, and 130 million users tap on shopping posts on the platform every month.  So, why not?

You can set up your Instagram shop using the steps from this YouTube video to get it approved and enable the feature for your account.

An Instagram shop allows people to shop for products from your posts.

They can see a little tag on your post, and when they click on it, it’ll bring them to your Etsy shop.

It’s so convenient because people can go to your account and see your posts, and if they like the products that are in the posts, they can just click on them, and go purchase them directly. 

This saves your customers a lot of time because they don’t have to go to your Etsy shop, and search for the specific product. 

Picture Credit: Instagram 

4.  Use Instagram Reels

Next, use Instagram reels to promote your Etsy business. This feature will help you to reach more people other than your followers easily. 

When posting images, videos, and stories can get a little boring, you need to diversify the content to stay relevant and make them appealing to every customer base. 

You can edit your reels by adding filters, stickers, captions, background, music, popular trending sounds or audios, etc to make it more interesting, trendy, and captivating. 

There are tons of videos on youtube to teach you how to make reels on Instagram. If you do it right, it can be catchy, funny, interesting, and enjoyable to watch. This will improve your brand’s likability and familiarity. 

When you make engaging, and fresh new content every single time, you’ll see the chances of entering Instagram’s explorer page where your business will reach more users!

Picture Credit: Unsplash

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5. Captions Are Important

Now, let’s look at how to advertise Etsy on Instagram by using captions. Captions offer more about your posts to your followers. The way you write will captivate many through the choice of your words. 

So, it’s important to write appropriate captions below your posts as it offers direct communication to your followers. There’s a 2,200-word limit for you to write your caption on Instagram. 

Your followers need to click “read more” after the 125-word count, so make the 3-4 first lines count! Try to make it brief, meaningful, and related to the post. 

You can share anything that can add value, help your audience get to know you, and your business better, and make your photos outstanding. Sproutsocial gives you amazing caption ideas!

The Instagram algorithm favors posts that get engagement. 

So, that means if your followers are engaging with your post, it’ll be picked up by the algorithm, and the post will end up on the explorer page/discovery tab reaching more users!

You can watch this video for some ideas to write captions on your posts. 

If you want to get more reach to your posts on Instagram, SEO plays an important role.

Picture Credit: Pexels

6. Don’t Forget To Use Hashtags

Hashtags are used to categorize the content. When you add them to your posts, your posts will become searchable and discoverable by others.

Hashtags can boost impressions, reach, and improve your content’s searchability. People can find your Etsy shop through the hashtags that you’re including in your posts. 

Avoid using descriptive or literal words for your products. It’s important to think of the hashtags that your ideal buyers would be searching for. 

Let’s say that you’re selling handmade candles, in your post, you should include keywords such as #candles #handmadecandles #diycandles. 

So, if a user searches for handmade candles, the chances of coming across your shop are higher!

Instagram says that users can add up to 30 tags in one post. But, an experiment conducted by Hootsuite, says that it doesn’t really matter. 

If you’re adding only 5 hashtags, it’ll give you the same amount of reach as 30. However, for better reach, it’s recommended to limit them to 3-5 only. 

Picture Credit: MODASH

You can put the relevant tags in the comment section. Use RiteTag, hashtagify to help you to give some ideas about the hashtags to use. 

Learn how to use the correct hashtags with the help of YouTube as well! 

7. Run Competitions, Giveaways, And Promotions Whenever Possible

Another excellent way to advertise your Etsy shop is by running competitions, giveaways, and promotions whenever you can.

If you’re thinking about how to advertise your Etsy shop on Instagram by running a competition, I’ll tell you how. 

You can utilize Instagram stories to invite your followers to participate. The swipe-up feature makes it easier for you, so all you need to do is add a link to your Etsy shop, and invite people to swipe up to continue shopping. 

If you have 10k followers on your account, it’s easier for you to include this swipe-up option in your posts. If you have less than 10k followers, watch this video to learn how to enable the feature.

You can run promotions on special days such as Black Friday, a business anniversary, or invent a special day just to run a promotion. Similarly, you can provide special offers, limited edition items, or discounts to drum up your sales!

Another way to make this work is through influencer collaboration where the influencer posts about your brand multiple times on their account.

Influencers usually come bearing thousands, or millions of followers. You can reach out to more followers through collaboration with them.  

There are many ways to collaborate with influencers to reach a new set of target audience who might be interested in your products. Modash explains the ways to collaborate with influencers to promote your business. 

Picture Credit: Pexels

8. Show Them BTS

Another way to use Instagram to promote your Etsy shop is by taking your followers behind the scenes. It’s to let your followers know what’s going on in your business, who’s on your team, the everyday work of the business, etc. 

If your business is making clay mugs, show your followers the process of making them. Share with them the hard work and fun that goes into making the mug they’re ordering from you, and the life of a craftsperson. 

It shows your followers that the person behind the scene is someone who’s just like them. 

You can also show the failures when your work doesn’t turn out the way you want them to. (I do this!) 

Another great idea for BTS is showing the packing of the products that you’re dispatching. Show your audience how you’re packing your orders, and the processes involved until you send them off for delivery. 

Give your followers a sneak peek of your next product, and get them to feel excited. Get them to guess the product, and make them wait for the big reveal! 

There are many ideas available on the internet for you to test out and see! You can try each one of them, and look at the types of BTS that are doing well with your audience. From there, you can understand what they’re preferring to see more from you. 

When you’re being honest with your audience, they are more likely to believe what you’re saying because you’ve got nothing to conceal, and there’s no hidden agenda behind your business. 

Picture Credit: Pexels

9. Make Meaningful Connections With Your Followers 

Some of you may ask, “please tell me how to promote my Etsy shop on Instagram without interacting with my followers, I don’t have time to reply to all the messages”.

I can understand that this may sound time-consuming, and some of us don’t have the time to do this. But hear me out, this step is very important to your business in the long term and I’ll tell you why.

I grew my wonderful Instagram community by making meaningful connections with my followers. I make myself available to my followers and answer their questions regarding my products & services. 

I also provide support to my followers who took my courses if they have questions afterward. I value them so much because my goal is to provide the best to the people who put their trust in my business.

I show up every day to my audience and be transparent about my work, and about my products, and services. I once had the privilege of selling out my workshop in 30 minutes, even though there were many people offering the same. 

So, trust me when I say that people will always purchase from you when you’re offering value, and they will come to buy from YOU even though there are many competitors in the market that are offering the same as you are. 

Having a strong connection with your customers helps in building trust. 

It also increases customer retention because of their good experiences with you and your business!

When you genuinely put efforts into building customer relationships and into making them happy, they will recommend your business to others, and that kind of positive word of mouth is the best form of advertising!

Picture Credit: Pexels

10. Show Your Face, You’re The Brand!

The next point is closely related to the previous one. Showing your face to your followers on Instagram is a great way to build trust with your followers and a better way to connect with them.

You might ask, “how to promote my Etsy shop with my face? Who will be interested to see me”?

Actually, people love seeing faces! 

That’s true, researchers found that pictures with faces were 38% more likely to get a like than photos without faces. So, yes you can build brand recognition by showing your face.

Showing yourself doesn’t mean that you need to take perfect pictures all the time, and show your followers how perfect your life is. Instead, show the imperfect parts of your life that say you’re a human and that all of us go through struggles. 

Do this genuinely and people will start recognizing your business and trust your business.

 Share your personal stories, and your struggles being a small business owner, and show people that you care about them.

I recommend this step because I show up consistently to my audience and show them some parts of my life. You don’t have to tell your followers everything, choose what you’re going to share. 

I became more confident because I get to be myself without worrying about anything else. It’s important because if you want to build a positive and wonderful Instagram community, first be confident about yourself and in what you do.

So, show up, talk to your followers, identify their needs, ask them how you could do better, and ask for suggestions to serve them better. 

Picture Credit: Pexels

11. Create Engaging Content

It requires a lot of work to promote your Etsy business on Instagram, but it’s doable if you’re planning them wisely!

Keep a content calendar to produce your content. 

A lot of content creators swear by this method. It’ll help you to produce your content ahead of time, create consistent content, and post regularly even when life gets busy. 

Keap tells you the ways to create engaging content for your Instagram business.

Apparently, you should avoid posting on Sundays because it does not bring you enough traffic to your post!

Additionally, respond to all the comments that you’re receiving to show that you care and read each one of their comments. 

You can get more information from Instagram insights on which post brought you more followers, likes, shares, and engagement, and create content based on the type of content that was performing well.

Picture Credit: Instagram

12. Post Consistently

My next point is about posting consistently. Does that mean you should post every day?

Well, Sprout social says that you should post 1-2 times per day but this can vary by industry. So, find competitors in your niche and observe the number of posts that they’re posting on their accounts.

You can also observe the formats of their posts and the captions. 

Look for the posts with the highest likes and find out how the post was designed and how is it different from the rest of the posts. 

I’m not advocating the practice of plagiarising others’ works. Don’t ever do that.

Get some inspiration and brainstorm your own ideas by going through your competitors’ posts. 

I post consistently to keep my audiences posted about what’s going on in my life and in my business. 

I choose to post frequently on stories to run a Q&A session, share something from my travels, or anything I feel like sharing with them. 

You can also post anything random for some fun interactions with them. You can share something funny/sad that happened to you or ask for their opinion/advice to avoid boring them with business-related content only.

Posting consistently will multiply your chances to attract more followers, and keep your followers engaged. 

13. Invest In Sponsored Ads

Finally, I’m going to tell you the last hack of how to promote Etsy shop on Instagram by investing in sponsored ads. 

If you’re wondering how to advertise Etsy with Instagram ads? I’ll tell you how!

Instagram ads are known to be non-intrusive and less likely to annoy your target audience. 

There are many types of ads that you can choose from. You can target your audience more specifically by selecting the location, demographic, interest, etc. 

The costs for Instagram advertisement are based on a variety of factors and as per wordstream, it’s said that these factors are not revealed by Instagram. The Instagram bidding models are based on CPC ( cost-per-click) and CPM ( cost-per-impression). 

As per Oberlo, CPC costs $ 0.25-$ 7.96 per click; for CPM, it costs $ 8.83 per 1000 impressions. The costs might vary based on the campaign objective. 

If you have a Facebook page, you can run ads concurrently on both platforms by following the steps mentioned in this video. 

You can select a budget that works for you, and the number of days to run the ad. You can change it at any time. 

Alternatively, you can run Instagram ads without a Facebook page. All you have to do is select the post that you want to boost.

Metrics watch tells you the Instagram analytics KPIs that you should be tracking to measure if the ads are reaching your target audiences. 

How to copy your Etsy shop link?

Basically, the URL of your Etsy shop is, yourshopname.etsy.com. For example,  if my shop’s name is Outandbeyond, then my URL will be Outandbeyond.etsy.com. 

However, if you’re finding it difficult to understand, you can watch this tutorial to help you understand better. Alternatively, read this article to help you with your Etsy link. 

How to fix the “ link not allowed” error on your Instagram business account?

If Instagram is showing you “link not allowed’, this can be due to the explicit content on your page, or the wrong address.

However, there are several ways that you can try to configure this problem: 

• Check if Instagram has blocked your IP address because when your IP is blocked, you’re unable to add links to your Instagram bio. If you’re accessing Instagram from WiFi, switch to mobile data and vice versa. 

• If that doesn’t work, you can try connecting to a virtual private network ( VPN). You can download a credible VPN on the Play store/Apple store. 

• You can use a link tool like linktree that allows you to create a personalized page for all the links that you want to share with your audiences. 

Alternatively, you can find out more about how to troubleshoot this problem in this article that I wrote. 

How can you link your Etsy shop to your Instagram and Facebook pages?

You can use the Instagram shop feature to tag your products in your Instagram posts and link them directly to your Etsy shop. 

Find the instructions to link your Etsy shop to your Instagram step-by-step here. This requires you to have a Facebook page, and an Instagram business account. 

If you don’t prefer setting up an Instagram shop, you can add your Etsy shop link to your bio. You can also connect your Etsy shop to your Facebook page. 

Alternatively, you can share your Etsy shop/listing with your followers on your Facebook & Instagram. You can do this by downloading the app, it’s called sell on Etsy on the Google play store/Apple store. 

FAQs On How To Promote Your Etsy Shop On Instagram

How do I introduce my Etsy shop on Instagram?

So, if you’re wondering how to promote your Etsy shop on Instagram, follow these simple steps. 

Go to your Instagram profile: Settings > Business > Shopping > Website and enter your domain like you entered it on Facebook Business Manager (so: yourshopname.etsy.com) and tap select. 

Picture Credit: Pexels

How do I promote my Etsy shop on social media?

If you’re thinking about how to promote your Etsy shop on Instagram or social media; here are the top Etsy social media tips in 2023:

• Capture attractive images of your products
• Add mentions & hashtags
• Be active in social communities
• Try different promotional campaigns
• Post consistently 
• Tell a story about your brand

How do I share my Etsy listing on Instagram?

So, are you wondering how to share your Etsy listing on Instagram; to create a social media post on the sell on Etsy app:

• Tap More on the app
• Tap marketing
• Tap social media
• Select a milestone, listing, or promotion that you’d like to share
• Use photos provided in the app, or upload your own
  

Can I link Etsy to an Instagram post?

Yes, you can link Etsy to an Instagram post. You can use the Instagram shop feature to tag products in your Instagram post and link them directly to your Etsy shop. If you’re not using this feature, you can still link by adding the link to your Etsy shop in the bio. 

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With all these tips, there’s no denying that Instagram is for Etsy sellers, and Instagram is for Etsy shop owners who want to promote their products/services.

When you’re showing up consistently, and being your authentic self, your brand will get noticed by your target audience. 

So, let’s keep this in mind, this is about growing an engaging, supportive community loyal to your brand. This will guarantee you recurring sales, and loyal customers.

Don’t stress yourself out before starting. If you follow my tips and have patience, you’ll get people rushing to your Etsy shop daily. Don’t forget to share this article if you found these tips useful!

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