6 ad-free ways to boost your Teespring sales on Instagram

Instagram is one of the fastest growing social networks and it’s also growing in popularity as a promotional platform for Teespring sellers. We recently caught up with Angela Vickers, a Teespring seller who has been using Instagram to sell products for the past several months.

Apart from advertising, Instagram is a good channel for promoting products organically, i.e. without ads. Currently, most of Angela’s Teespring sales come from organic Instagram traffic and she uses the social network to present herself as a clothing brand with products designed for specific niches.

In this post we’ve compiled a list of our top tips with Angela’s help for promoting organically on Instagram. If you’ve got extra tips to share feel free to leave a comment below!

1. Create one Instagram account per storefront / niche

Angela has 3 Teespring storefronts and each one has its own Instagram account. Keep in mind Instagram accounts only have one clickable link available in the “bio” section—so this is where you should add your store link. Angela also commented shortened URLs tend to get more clicks, so consider using bitly links in your bio.

Lucy Watson added her Teespring Store link in her Instagram bio (lucywatson-store.com)

2. Use all of your hashtags

Think of hashtags as lottery tickets…why wouldn’t you use them all? Hashtags are an effective way to boost content exposure and get new followers organically. You can add up to 30 hashtags in each post and we recommend you use them all. Angela also suggests avoiding generic hashtags like “#shirt” because your audience will probably miss your content—the more specific the better. If you’re not sure where to start with niche-specific hashtags try researching online, there are tons of tips and tools available!

3. Explore influencer marketing opportunities

Collaborating with “influencers” is something big brands have been doing for ages. Influencer marketing involves using a specific individual (or influencer) to encourage action (i.e. purchases) from their followers. Angela uses influencer marketing too; she focuses on Instagram accounts within her niche and organizes product giveaways for their following. Usually, she’ll send an influencer $40 worth of products and in return, they will post it to their Instagram or organize a contest/giveaway for their followers. Their content will get tons of comments and shares and Angela says influencer posts often result in more sales compared to paid advertising.

The image below is an example of influencer marketing; notice how the user tags the company’s account and uploads a photo of the products. 

View this post on Instagram

Thank you @sigmabeauty for the thoughtful and beautiful Mothers Day gift!! Honestly, I'm super grateful!! I absolutely LOVE everything and Izek was so excited about his plate!!! 🌸🎀💖 #MomGoals

A post shared by Dulce Candy (@dulcecandy) on Apr 21, 2017 at 4:07pm PDT

The trick here is to pick the “right” influencer for your niche so be sure to check things like location, following size, and overall audience demographic. Also make sure their followers are truly engaged, avoid fake influencers (who purchase followers), and go for micro / mid-sized accounts with followings from 10k – 200k. Angel usually aims to collaborate with accounts that have around 100K followers.

4. Share quality content frequently

Angela usually posts 3 times a day and uploads lifestyle images of people wearing her products (check out this post to learn how to find your “best” posting frequency). She commented these types of images get more engagement compared to simple product mockups; Instagram is a visual platform the images you share need to be high quality, beautiful, interesting, etc. Avoid posting duplicate photos and be sure to upload original content to your account. If you’re serious about maintaining your posting frequency there are a variety of sites you can use to schedule content. When choosing images to upload it’s also important to make sure your products/designs are easily visible too. Finding quality content might be a bit difficult, so that’s why we recommend featuring user generated content (learn more in the next tip).

5. Upload user generated content

The type of content you should be uploading to your Instagram account is different than what you’d normally use on a Facebook page (i.e. no memes, viral videos, etc.). Like Facebook however, when it comes to engaging content your following is a great place to start! You can ask customers to post a photo with their item and tag you or use a specific hashtag for the chance to get featured.

It’s common for Instagram accounts to ask people to submit photos through their bio or in individual posts—you can also use a specific hashtag to make collecting submissions easier! Check out the example below:

Remember you can use the Teespring Messages Tool to ask buyers to share their photos for the chance to get featured. This is a good way to collect user generated content not only for Instagram, but for Facebook and Twitter as well; whenever Angela receives buyer photos she publishes them on her niche’s Twitter and Facebook accounts too. Learn more about post-listing promotion here.

Email subject: Get featured on Instagram!

Body (example):

Hey {{first_name}},

Thanks so much for purchasing {{products_ordered}} of my design—I’m so glad you like it! Please let me know if you have any feedback on what you’d like my next design to be.

Also, I’ll be featuring customer photos on my Instagram page so feel free to post a selfie wearing your new item and tag @TravelTees – you can also send me the photo via Instagram message. If your photo is featured I’ll be sure to tag your account so you know it’s been posted.

Thanks again and have a great day!

Kate (Founder of Travel Tees)

We often feature images submitted by influencers, sellers and customers on Teespring’s social channels. The image below was shared by Ashley James, an influencer and Teespring seller based in the U.K. Use the hashtag #TeespringFeatured for a chance to be spotted!

6. Cross promote to grow your following

Angela says cross promoting other brands on her account has helped her get a lot of new followers, and as a result, sales!

“For example, if you sell to a “fishing” niche you might try re-posting a picture from a rod and reel company and say they make a great product. You’ll tag the company in your photo and maybe they’ll respond with nice comment or like your photos…and this interaction could lead to a collaboration. I guess you could compare this to posting in a Facebook group…when you post you hope that the users of the other products will gain access to your posts, which will expand your audience and validate your products (by association). Another example would be if you sell fitness themed designs on Teespring and cross-sell a brand that specializes in yoga mats or if you repost a photo from a meal prep guru—this may spur them to repost something from you, which can help you get new followers.”

 

Ready to put these tips to the test?