See, Tap, Shop Til You Drop – Instagram Shoppable Has Hit Aotearoa

Finally, the feature we’ve all been waiting for – Instagram shoppable has brought its instant shopping gratification to New Zealand.

The envy of businesses downunder since it launched in overseas markets, Instagram Shoppable posts allow audiences to view the prices of tagged products, and click through to purchase them without leaving the platform. No more “shop link in the bio”s, users commenting for style names and numbers, or DMing for more information: Instagram Shoppable is some cold, hard social to sales conversion.

So what does this mean for social media marketing in New Zealand? Well, we think the effects will be seen through the rise of influencers, more high quality content, and the make or break of third party apps.

Influencers just got a whooole lot more influential – or did they?

Clearly Instagram Shoppable has huge potential for businesses and brands to maximise their ecommerce as their audiences can click straight through to purchase the goods they are showcasing. However, as Insta users are far more engaged with influencers over brands, we may see more influencer “takeovers” of brand accounts, with the tagged products as part of the partnership strategies.

Influencers using a brand’s business profile will be able to provide data to prove their value as brand ambassadors. This is likely going to further “professionalise” (did we make that word up?) influencers, who are already making successful careers of their affiliation to brands and businesses.

However, depending how influencers use the new feature, brand partnerships will become more obvious to consumers. As such, we predict influencers will require more management and insight from social media experts to ensure they remain authentic in their partnerships. This may in turn increase the costs for brands looking to collaborate with influencers less willing to #spon their lives away.

At Mosh, we know building authentic partnerships is the key to successful influencer marketing, so we are excited to navigate the new Instagram Shoppable landscape and link our clients with figures who mirror their own ethos.

Better content

We also know how important quality content is, and we think Instagram Shoppable will result in even higher quality images hitting ‘gram grids everywhere. If every brand, business and influencer is going to be tagging their snaps with little shoppable dots – you’re going to need to stand out right? We are thinking there will be more carefully shot footage, and more content in general as every post is a potential for immediate purchase.

Will anyone go to the third parties?

Apps which have been created to fill the Instagram Shoppable void are likely to bite the dust now. The tools which sent consumers to sales sites are now, well, useless. BUT at least those ones which enable profiles with less than 10,000 followers to provide easy access links in the bio are still relevant. For now….