If you’re like most small business owners, you’re always on the lookout for ways to make your products more discoverable online. And if your target audience is active on Facebook and Instagram, then making shoppable content on those platforms is a must.
Facebook and Instagram offer a great way to reach new customers and drive sales. But how do you make sure your shoppers can find what they’re looking for? Read on for our tips and easy steps to start putting them into practice!
Create Shoppable Content on Facebook and Instagram
Making shoppable content on Facebook and Instagram helps potential customers discover your products while browsing their favorite social media platforms. When done right, shoppable content not only promotes product discovery but also encourages potential customers to consider a purchase and, eventually, buy your products.
But how do you ensure you’re making the most of your shoppable content on Instagram and Facebook? To answer that question, let’s see how your potential customers interact with shoppable content on Instagram and Facebook.
Product tags and stickers highlight your products in feed posts on Facebook and feed posts, reels, stories, lives, and IGTV on Instagram. That’s how people discover your products.
A product tag in a feed post on Instagram
Tags and stickers lead shoppers to a product detail page, where they can see more information about the products: from pricing, to descriptions and more pictures. This information helps customers become knowledgeable about the products, empowering them to become confident consumers and encouraging them to complete their purchase.
A product details page of an item tagged in the Instagram post
From there, customers can click on the “View on website” button and easily checkout on your website.
Customers are directed to the product’s page on the website for a purchase
To encourage customers interact with your shoppable content and lead to product detail page for easy purchase, you need to:
- Catch their attention with product tags and stickers
- Provide relevant product details to help them decide on a purchase.
Best Practices for Shoppable Content on Instagram and Facebook
Now let’s dive into the steps you can take to make the most of products tags and stickers on Facebook and Instagram.
Learn the following do’s and don’ts of product tagging, and your customers will be more likely to proceed to use your social media platforms as shopping portals:
Stick to frequent and consistent product tagging. Make a rule of tagging all available products in your content. Create at least ten shoppable pieces of content a month.
If you’re planning a new product launch or a sale, start posting shoppable content more often to boost product discovery.
Test different formats for shoppable content. Do your customers interact more with posts, stories, or reels? Do they click on tags in lives and IGTV? Try all available formats to see what performs best for your audience.
Product tags in a reel
Add more images to product detail pages. There should be at least four pictures of your product showing the item from different angles. You should also show the product being used.
Save shoppable stories and lives. Don’t let shoppable content expire from your page. If you tagged products in your live, save it to IGTV. Turn on
Keep images clean. Don’t overcrowd your content with tags or people won’t be able to see the products clearly. Tag no more than three products per post. If there are other products in the picture, use caption copy to highlight the tagged product. Also, don’t use overlays or watermarks on pictures to avoid a cluttered look.
Tag products at different price points. This way you’ll learn what your potential customers engage with and are interested in learning more about.
Measure the impact of product tagging. In Commerce Manager Insights, you can view metrics such as number of views and purchases sorted by different content types (posts, stories, IGTV, IG Reels, IG Live and FB Live). There are also insights for products that are tagged to Collections and insights for the exact products that customers interact with.
Learn more: How to Leverage Product Tags on Instagram to Increase Sales
Now that you’ve learned the best practices for product tagging, let’s find out how you can optimize your product catalog on Facebook and Instagram.
Make Your Product Catalog More Discoverable
Creating shoppable posts is an effective way to lead your potential customers to a purchase. However, to make their shopping experience more streamlined, make sure your catalog provides high quality product information.
What is a product catalog on Facebook and Instagram, you may ask? A catalog is a tool that holds information about the products you want to sell on Facebook and Instagram.
Items from the product catalog are displayed in the Shop section
This information is essential for shoppers, as they have a lot of questions about a product they want to buy. What is this product made of? Are there other sizes and colors? What about the shipping and return policy? Are there any reviews?
The catalog also plays a role in product discovery on Facebook and Instagram, as it enables products to appear in search results and recommendations. It also helps shoppers filter items when they are browsing products in your shop on Instagram and Facebook.
A complete catalog makes it easier for shoppers to find the exact product they want, while an incomplete or
Best Practices for a Quality Product Catalog on Facebook and Instagram
The importance of a
Keep your product information updated. Prices, availability, sizes, and other product information changes over time, so your catalog should be
If you sell on both Facebook and Instagram with Ecwid, the platforms automatically sync your catalog to ensure that your pricing and inventory are always relevant. If you make any changes to product details in your Ecwid store (for example, product picture, title, or price), these products are immediately updated on your Facebook and Instagram pages.
A Little Lacey’s Ecwid store is connected to Facebook, so the product details are always up to date
Ecwid sellers love the convenience of an automated sync. Take it from Betsy Enzensberger, artist and Ecwid merchant, who sells her sculptures on Facebook:
“I upload new products/sculptures to my shop on a very regular basis, every few days. Each piece is automatically uploaded to my Facebook Business Center.”
Pay attention to titles and descriptions. They should be different from one another and include important information about your product. Add keywords, but don’t overuse them. Don’t add links to titles and descriptions. Oh, and don’t forget to proofread each description before you send it live. This sounds obvious, but it’s so easy to forget to do a quick grammar check and end up looking unprofessional in front of potential customers.
Use high quality photos. High resolution images that are at least 500 x 500 pixels are your best friends. There should be at least four pictures of your product showing the item accurately and being used.
Use correct product links. Always be on the lookout for broken links, and make sure that your product links begin with http:// or https://. Links must direct customers not just to your website but to the correct product page for that exact item on your site.
Assign categories to products. Provide a product category for each item in your catalog and add more specific information for each category. That affects the discoverability of your products.
Check for rejected products. Items that don’t comply with Facebook’s Advertising Policies or Commerce Policies won’t display in your shop on Facebook and Instagram. You can either edit rejected products so they comply or request a review if you believe they were incorrectly rejected.
If you sell on Facebook and Instagram with Ecwid, here’s how to appeal for rejected products from your Control Panel.
More Tips from Ecwid Sellers
We’ve asked Ecwid sellers who sell on Facebook and Instagram to share their advice for quality product catalog with other business owners. Take notes of their tips and share yours in the comments!
Betsy Enzensberger and Michael Martin sell on Facebook and Instagram via Ecwid, so their online stores are automatically synced with the social media platforms. All they have to do is add or edit products in their Ecwid control panel, and the items are automatically updated in their Facebook and Instagram shops.
Betsy Enzensberger sells her original artwork, so she has a few tips for
“My best practices for wording of products is the title, SEO, description. These are what makes the products discoverable. The titles for all my products have a very specific descriptor ‘Melting Popsicle Art’ after that I use a short creative name, then I use my trademark ‘Original Melting Pops.’ I want my customers to know what they are looking at, what it’s called, and know that it’s an original piece of mine. For example: ‘Melting Popsicle Art — Tease — Original Melting Pops.’
Then there’s the description. If someone clicks on my products unknowingly, they may have no clue what they are looking at. What they will see in the description is a passionate statement from me as an artist, a clear description of what the product is, size of product, and a small paragraph about me as an artist.”
Betsy Enzensberger’s sculpture in her Facebook shop
Michael Martin, owner of
“In terms of our product catalogue, we focus on good pictures and good descriptions which are
I write the
It’s also a good idea to explain to the customer why they should buy your product i.e. explain your product’s USP (unique selling proposition.)
Provide every detail about the product — dimensions, weight, colour, material, etc. — so that the customer doesn’t have to work to find this out. You want to make the process as easy and informative as possible for them.
I also leave a link to our contact page so that customers can get in touch quickly and without effort should they need to ask any more questions. Product titles need to be a punchy version of the description where you can go into a lot more detail.
It is definitely worthwhile keeping a track of your inventory too or all this will be for nothing if you have 0 of the items in stock!”
A detailed description for a Reclaim Design’s product on Facebook
Start Selling on Facebook and Instagram
Creating shoppable content on Facebook or Instagram allows potential customers to discover your products while browsing their favorite social media platform.
Start experimenting with shoppable content to let your customers buy your products immediately from within the app. And to help your items show up on Facebook and Instagram, strive for a high quality catalog with relevant,
Still don’t have a store on Facebook or Instagram? With Ecwid, you can seamlessly connect your online store to those platforms in a couple of clicks. Your product information will be synced automatically and you’ll be able to manage all your orders from one place, no matter where your sale came
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