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Hi, everybody. Welcome to this presentation on Instagram marketing for eBay sellers. This is a sponsored presentation by WorthPoint.
My name is Danna Crawford. I’ve been an eBay seller since ’97. You can find more information about me at my website. I’m also a Solutions Provider with Constant Contact, and I became the Strategic Director at WorthPoint.
I organize their treasure hunts throughout the country. You can just to WorthPoint.com/treasurehunt and see where we will be next. Also, I do a lot of presentations. If you need a speaker, just give me a shout out.
Let’s talk about Instagram today.
Here’s a few fun facts that I learned about from this Omnicore Agency.
•68% of Instagram users are Females.
•80% of Instagram users come from outside the U.S.
So that’s just a clue, all of you eBay sellers, if you’re not offering global shipping, hello! You might want to make sure you have that information and are signed up for the Global Shipping Program and/or international shipping via eBay
•77.6 million Instagram users are from the US.
•Instagram is used by 31% of American women and 24% of men. •Six in ten online adults have Instagram accounts.
•32% of all Internet users are on Instagram.
•59% of internet users between the ages of 18 and 29 use Instagram and 33% of internet users between the ages of 30 and 49 use Instagram
•38% of female internet users use Instagram and 26% of male internet users use Instagram 72% of Teens use Instagram.
These are some things to keep in mind, because you want to get your eBay items out there to the appropriate people. It’s all about hashtags and being seen, which we’ll talk more about in a minute.
Now, Instagram for eBay sellers.
It’s all about branding. You can brand your business, brand your eBay account, brand your name, your logo. You’re going to want to build up your Instagram account as you go along. It’s not an overnight, get rich quick kind of platform. I like to use a site called Linktr.ee.
On Linktr.ee, you can link it to several different sites.
If you have an eBay store, you can link it to there, or you could link directly to your eBay categories. Say you just want to promote t-shirts, then you want to link it to your t-shirt category on Instagram on Linktr.ee.
You can just link it to your eBay ID. If you don’t have an eBay store, it’s okay. Just link it to your eBay ID, so that they can look directly from there, or link it to your feedback. You can link it to all of these things if you use Linktr.ee, or if you don’t want to use Linktr.ee, you can pick and choose which works best for you.
I like to use my friend Mike.
He’s one of my favorite people on Instagram, and he’s got Mike’s General Store. He’s quite handsome, as you can see.
Mike’s General Store and Fine Goods. It’s all about creating your profile on Instagram. You can see Mike has in bold, link to eBay store, with arrows pointing down, and a link to his eBay store.
Anything he’s talking about on Instagram, you can go to his profile and find his eBay store. He also gives a shout out that you can find him on Twitter, and gives his name on Twitter, in case people are looking at Twitter, they also use Twitter.
Next he has some hashtags in his title. He’s got Mike’s General Store and Fine Goods, #eBay, #clothes, #Disney, #games, #toys, #collectibles. That’s a good profile.
In my profile, you can see power selling my way through eBay since 1997. I’m a consignment, reseller, WorthPoint Strategic Director. Living the dream thanks to eBay and WorthPoint.
Finally, I’ve got a direct link to my Linktr.ee account.
I also manage right now the WorthPoint account. I help out with it, I should say. WorthPoint is still new on Instagram. This is a new platform for them, so we’re trying to build it up. Please go like them, as we’re building it up.
I made sure that we had those important hashtags in their profile, like #antiques, #art, #vintage, #collectibles, #whatsitworth, and #WPThunt. That stands for WorthPoint treasure hunt. Then, of course, the Linktr.ee account.
Linktr.ee account
It’s pretty easy. It’s free to set up a Linktr.ee account. You don’t have to pay money, but they do have a paid account as well, which I’m going to show you the difference. If you go to Linktr.ee, you only get one chance to link an Instagram. You want to take advantage and make that one link very important.
Here’s an example of a fellow eBay/poshmark seller TheShoppingMom2. You can find her on Instagram. You can see this is her free Linktr.ee account.
At the top, she’s got the second eBay meetup conference, the Posh Closet, the eBay store, the Sea Diva, Let’s Shop for You, and Facebook eBay eBay and Nothing but eBay group.
You can click on any of those, and it will take you. Those are all direct links. As you can see, when you use Linktr.ee, you can have links to many different things.
Here’s my account with a paid Linktr.ee account. When you pay, I can’t think off hand. It’s a monthly fee, and it’s not very much. You can customize it.
You can see I can upload graphics. I can upload avatars. I can have different colors and different backgrounds. I have the beach on the background on mine. Then I can switch these around. I can get rid of them. I can change them. It gives you a lot of customization.
When you go to my page, you can look at my eBay meetup group directory or my website, or whatever I’m talking about. They also let you customize one of them to shake a little bit. Actually, on mine, if you visit it, you’ll see my eBay store shakes.
When you put up a post on Instagram, like this one, for example. eBay sellers from around the world are organizing and joining local Meetup groups.
Use my directory to find one in your community. Then I put in bold, link in profile in all caps. LINK IN PROFILE.
So, you want to add that to your post. Then, when you create a graphic, you could actually put in the graphic, link in profile, just to give people a friendly reminder or get them to click on your profile, so then they can find what you’re talking about.
Of course, in my profile, I have a direct link to the Meetup group directory for eBay sellers in my profile. Make it easy.
You can create these graphics.
Take a picture of what you’re listing on eBay. Do a screenshot of what you’re listing on eBay, and then you can use an app. Just visit the app store, whatever kind of smartphone you’re using, and look for a way to add text to photos.
Then you can add link in profile, add whatever kind of words you need in your photos. Sold. I like to share sold listings, items that I sold on eBay or items I’m selling.
Also, it’s all about hashtags.
Now, this is a good example. This is the Snug Bungalow Shop on Instagram. I love their style. She’ll say, just listed, and then she puts the item that she listed. She includes a photo. She even adds the eBay logo at the bottom to let people know that this is on eBay.
Then, she’s got the breakdown of all the hashtags. Church Marg, 2002, good condition, hat comes off. She’s got her little description up there, but she’s got the important hashtags added.
Like #ebaystore, #forsale, #toysforsale, #simpsons, #thesimpons, #homersimpson, #maggiesimpson, #margesimpson, and then #playmatestoys. She’s got all of those.
You can see in the bottom right corner of her photo she’s got the graphic logo pic.collage. This means she used a free app to create the collage.
Content matters!
I learned this when I became a solution provider, local expert with Constant Contact, the world’s largest email marketing platform. I went through their training back in 2006, and I’ve been using them ever since.
One important lesson I learned is how important content matters. Not only in email marketing, but in social media marketing, which includes Instagram.
80% should be valuable interesting content. 80% of the items that you put out there, your pictures, should be interesting, valuable. How can it help people? What kind of information can you share? Can you share tips?
Other eBay sellers like to see what kind of things you’re selling, what kind of things have you failed at? What kind of things have you learned? I don’t know everything.
I don’t pretend to know everything. I like to share information that I have, and people can learn from it. They can take it or leave it. 80%.
After you’ve shared 80%, now you’re allowed to come in. You’ve earned the right to share 20%! Now you can say, “buy my product.”
When you list items on Instagram, or you put things on Instagram, it really shouldn’t be all, buy my product, buy my product. What happens? People are going to say, bye-bye. I’m not going to follow you anymore, because you’re too much in my face.
Remember that 80/20 rule. You’ll earn the right of 20%.80% helpful, friendly, educational content. 20% buy my product, visit my link, shop my store. Whatever you’re promoting. Remember, it’s not all about me, me, me on Instagram, or any social platform.
You also want to get social, because it is a social platform. That means you want to build relationships. You want to engage with people, encourage people. Leave comments. Cross-promote. Be friendly and approachable.
Be approachable.
Of course, always give that big red heart when you like something. That’s important too. It’s important to get hearts, but it’s important for you to not only just put stuff out there, put stuff out there and never engage with people. Engagement is very important.
It can be a time suck.
People that have been to any of my workshops, I tend to mention it a lot about the timer method. Back in the day, I still have my egg timer on my desk, or a windup kitchen timer I used to use as well. Now I use Siri.
I’ll just say, Siri, set my timer for 30 minutes. Guess what? Siri just set my timer for 30 minutes. Then, I would spend that 30 minutes and go engage. I would say, I have 30 minutes.
I’m going to go be productive. I’m going to say hello to people. I’m going to comment, and I’m going to dedicate 30 minutes of my life to engaging with people on Instagram.
I’m not going to promote myself. I’m just going to go out there and talk and socialize. Then when that time goes off, I’m done. Walk away. It’s time to walk away, shut’er down, and work on the next thing. For me, it would be time to list items on eBay or, of course, to go do my WorthPoint business.
Final Facts
Posts with a location get 79% more engagement. (omnicoreagency.com) Folks, when you write your post or you create your post, you should have a location on there. Your eBay store, your eBay business, should have a location. You should have it registered. You should get it in the system.
My friend Debbie has the Southern Cottage, and I’m Power Selling Mom. When I’m over at her house, I’m going to post a picture of something at her house and post it from the Southern Cottage, so she gets a little promotion of her location.
When she comes to my house, she’ll log in and do something from Power Selling Mom. When you come visit me, don’t forget, use my location. When I visit you, I will use your location!
Photos with faces get 38% more likes.
That’s a lot. You may have noticed that. When people have their faces up versus objects all the time, it works.
Posts with at least one hashtag average 12.6% more engagement.
Hashtags are important. You can use 30 of them, so try to use them all.
Instagram users engage more on weekdays with Tuesday and Thursday showing the most engagement. Isn’t that interesting?
Instagram videos get two times the engagement of photos than any other social platform. Make a video of your items. Show your workspace. Show where you keep your boxes. Show some of your shipping items. Show some of the items you’re listing. Show your screen.
FYI
The most popular hashtags on Instagram are #love, #Instagood, #me, #cute, and #follow. Funny. Pizza is the most Instagrammed food globally, followed by sushi.
Now you’re ready. Congratulations! Go get social on Instagram, and market your eBay wares. Show off your eBay business. Tell a story.
What are you eating?
Believe it or not. People say, oh my God, that girl is always putting her food up. Guess what? She’s getting some attention with that food, so I want to see your corned beef you had on St. Patrick’s Day. I want to see what you got going on. It’s fun to share your food!
I know one guy that shows every once in a while what he’s cooking. I’m fascinated with that, and he gets a ton of attention. It puts a personal touch, a human being behind your eBay business. That’s what it’s all about.
People nowadays like to get social.
They like to feel good about you. It helps to share these kind of things. Be productive, and then, of course, remember the 80/20 rule. 80% friendly, 20% buy my product.
Of course, we don’t have any questions today. This is a recording, but you can follow up with me at PowerSellingMom.com.
My services include:
- eBay Consulting
- eBay Store Assessment
- eBay Consignment
- Affiliate Marketing
- Using WorthPoint.com
- Email Marketing
- Social Media Training
If you need a speaker, give me a shout out, or an article on any of these topics. Until then, I hope to see you on Instagram.
Special thanks to the Omnicore Agency for providing such FUN facts about Instagram. FYI here is a link to read their entire article if desired:
https://www.omnicoreagency.com/instagram-statistics/
Instagram Marketing Webinar Replay
Further Reading
How To Get Verified On Instagram By Kevin Urrutia
