SHOPLINE's "Instagram Social Post Selling" feature allows merchants to use the "Keywords comment + quantity" function on Instagram posts!
*Note: This feature supports Reels, yet currently does not support Stories.
After the customer leaves a comment in the post, the system will detect the keywords set up by the merchants, then send the shopping cart link via direct messages so that the customer can directly complete the checkout.
The article will cover the following:
- Add a new Instagram Sale Post
- Connect Instagram Social Post Selling to an Instagram post
- Disconnecting Instagram Social Post Selling and Instagram post
- Enable Instagram Social Post Selling
- Instagram Social Post Selling comment management
- Copy, end, or remove Instagram Social Post Selling
- Customer's view after making comments on Instagram post
1. Add a new Instagram Sale Post
Step 1
Go to SHOPLINE Admin > [Social Commerce] > [Social Post Selling] and click Add New Sales Event.
Step 2
Select Instagram and click Create.
Step 3
Enter the name for the Instagram Social Post Selling event and the keyword setting. Click Create to complete.
*Note: This name is only for internal use.
Step 4
Select Choose goods or Add Products to your Instagram Social Post Selling.
i. Choose goods
Click the Choose goods button and a pop-up window will appear. At the upper right of the window, you can select the following to display in the Social Post Selling:
- "All products" in the store
- Products that "Include Keywords" in the store (All products with set keywords from [Social Commerce] > [Product Keywords]. For more information, please refer to this article)
- Products in selected categories
*Notes:
- Hidden-price products and unpublished products cannot be selected.
- You can select up to 500 products for a sales post at a time.
- Available Quantity shows the number of products that are currently available. If you have enabled the “Preorder” feature and set a preorder quantity limit for the product, the Available Quantity will be your current inventory and pre-order limit combined together. Please refer to this article for more information on the preorder feature.
After you’ve selected the products, you can set keywords for them in the following ways:
- Add keywords for each product manually.
- Click Quick apply to auto-generate keywords for each product. (Please refer to this article for more information.)
After the setting is complete, click Save and you can successfully add the product.
If the product has multiple variants, you can enter a uniform prefix in the "Custom prefix" field, and the system will automatically apply the variant name as the keyword suffix.
Upon completion, click Save.
*Notes:
- If you are adding multiple products to the livestream and entering a custom prefix for a specific product with multiple variants, the system will automatically apply the keyword only for that product. You will need to set up the keywords for other products individually.
- You can also manually set up keywords for each variant.
ii. Add Products
You can customize Product Image, Name, Keywords, Price, Quantity, and Product SKU. Once you have completed editing, click Continue to successfully add the products to the livestream.
- Click create new line to add new products.
- Add Quick Import to add multiple products.
Add multiple variant products into the livestream
Click Add variant to open the setup window.
*Note: The quick import currently does not support importing product variants.
- The system presets two variations: color, and size. You can also customize the variation name.
- Click Add product variation to add more variations. The system currently supports adding a maximum of two variations. Click the "trash" icon on the right to remove a variation.
Next, enter the product keywords. You can click the "lightning" icon on the right to quickly apply keywords.
You can enter a uniform prefix in the "Custom prefix" field, and the system will automatically apply the variant name as the keyword suffix.
Next, enter the price and quantity. Click Continue to complete.
- If the prices of all variants are similar, you can enter the price in the "Same price" field. Similarly, you can also enter the quantity in the "Same quantity" field.
- Please leave the quantity field blank for all product variants to set the quantity as unlimited. If one of the product variants has a set quantity, the other variants will also need to be set with a quantity.
Supports editing header
Click the Edit header on the right of the "Create product" pop-up window to select whether to display the "Image", "Product SKU" and "Variant" fields.
Uncheck to stop displaying a field.
Step 5
Products that have been added to the Instagram Social Post Selling event will appear in the "Post Products and Keywords" list. If you have enabled the “Preorder” feature, the preorder limit will be displayed here as well. Please refer to this article for more information on the preorder feature.
Click Add Products to add more items for sale in the post.
Click the icon on the right of the products to edit product keywords or remove them.
If you want to edit product keywords in bulk, click the Bulk edit button, select the products you want to edit, and then click Edit keywords.
Step 6
Scroll down to the "Settings" section to complete the relevant Instagram Social Post Selling settings.
1. Schedule
Set the start and end time for this Instagram Social Post Selling event. If you want this Social Post Selling event to take effect permanently, you can tick "Never expire."
For example, if the start time is set to 31 May 2022 at 19:00:00, and the end time is 2 June 2022 at 10:00:00, the customer can only place an order successfully by leaving a message at this time period.
Synchronize schedule according to the time the Social Post Selling is enabled/ ends
Scenario 1:
If you set the scheduled start time as 16 June, but you only enable the Social Post Selling on 22 June, the Social Post Selling scheduled start time will be displayed as 22 June.
Scenario 2:
If you set the scheduled end time as 28 June, but you end the Social Post Selling early on 22 June, the end time of the Social Post Selling schedule will be displayed as 22 June.
Once the Social Post Selling end, a prompt will display indicating "the stop time will be synchronized to the scheduled end time."
2. Commodity Order Rules
A. Keyword Order Setting
Click Edit to set the keyword ordering rules.
There are three order rule options:
- Comments containing keywords or keywords + quantity. (e.g. I want A1 / Hello A1+1)
- Comments containing keywords + quantity. Entering keywords only is not valid. (e.g., I want A1+1, A1+1)
- Comments only consist of keywords or keywords + quantity. No other text is allowed. (e.g. A1, A1+1)
B. Reserved Inventory
Switch the toggle on the right to turn on the reserve inventory feature, and you need to set the time to reserve inventory.
When a customer places an order with a keyword, the product inventory will be automatically locked, and the product will be reserved for the customer until the specified time. For details on how to reserve inventory, please refer to this article.
3. Comments and message settings
A. Keyword Order Message Settings
Click Order message settings.
a. Reply by private message
Switch on the "Reply by private message" toggle and customers will receive a private message after leaving comments with keywords. Switch off the toggle and customers will no longer receive the private message.
To apply parameters in a customized message, you can click the "Available Parameters" drop-down menu, and click the parameters to have them copied. Paste them in the message field to apply.
*Note: The private message will include a shopping cart link by default, which cannot be removed.
b. Reply by comment
Switch on the "Reply by comment" toggle to edit the comment content. When customers leave a comment with keywords, it will send a reply with a comment. Switch off the toggle and the system will no longer reply to the customer's comment.
You can customize the comment reply.
c. Out of stock message
Switch on the "Reply with an Out of Stock message through private messages" toggle. When the product ordered by the customer is out of stock, it will send an out-of-stock private message to the customer.
You can customize the content for the out-of-stock message.
You can also insert the dynamic texts for "Customer Name" and "Product name" into the message content.
B. Auto-reply General Comment Settings
Click the Auto-reply Settings button.
Click Add auto-reply.
Enter the auto-reply name. This name is for internal management use only.
Select the keyword auto-reply mode and matching method. Then, set up the keywords to trigger a reply.
Method 1. Basic mode＋Matching method "include any keyword"
- You can only enter one keyword in each field.
- Click Add to insert multiple keywords. To edit the keyword, click the "trash" icon to delete the keyword and then enter a new one.
As long as the customer's message contains any of the keywords, it will trigger a reply.
For example,
If you set "shipping fee" and "free shipping" as the keywords,
the following message will trigger a reply:
- May I know how much is the shipping fee?
- What is the minimum requirement for free shipping?
Method 2. Basic mode＋Matching method "include all keywords"
- You can enter up to 10 keywords into the field.
- To edit a keyword, please click the "X" icon next to the keyword and then enter a new one.
The customer's message should include all of the keywords to trigger a reply.
For example:
If you set "how much" and "free delivery" as the keyword
- This message will trigger a reply:
"How much should I spend to get free delivery"
- This message will not trigger a reply:
"May I know the minimum requirement for free delivery?"
Method 3. Advanced mode
- You can add up to 10 keywords in each field. Every keyword in the same field is referred to as 1 keyword group. You can add up to 10 keyword groups.
- Click Add to insert multiple keyword groups. Click the "trash" icon to delete the keyword group.
- To edit a keyword, please click the "X" icon next to the keyword and then enter a new one.
The customer's message needs to include at least 1 keyword group to trigger a reply.
For example: If you add
- Keyword group 1: "how much"; "shipping fee"
- Keyword group 2: "domestic"; "free shipping"
- Keyword group 3: "international"; "free shipping"
The following message will trigger a reply
- How much is the shipping fee?
- What is the free shipping requirement for domestic shipping?
- Is free shipping applicable to international shipping?
The "What is the domestic shipping fee?" message
will not trigger a reply.
Next, select if you want to reply by comment or by private message. You can enable both options and customize the reply content.
Click the Add button to add multiple comment replies or private message replies.
If you set up multiple comment replies or private message replies, the system will randomly select one of the replies to send when the customer comments with the trigger keywords.
Click the icon on the left to generate the reply messages with "AI Smart Content". For more details, please refer to this article.
*Notes:
- General comment keywords should be different from product keywords or event keywords. Otherwise, the system will only respond to product and campaign keywords but not the general comment keywords.
- Every keyword requires at least 2 characters with no more than 50 characters.
- English letter case will not affect the auto-reply trigger. Any inserted English uppercase will be automatically converted into lowercase.
- Special characters such as ? , ! @ $ * are not supported.
- Adding similar keywords under 1 "keyword auto-reply" and using similar keywords in two separate "keyword auto-replies" are not supported.
- When the customer's message simultaneously contains the keywords of two separate keyword auto-replies, the most frequently triggered reply takes precedence. When the trigger frequency of two keyword auto-replies is almost the same, it will randomly select one reply.
Once you are done, click Create.
In the auto-reply list, you can enable, edit, and delete each response individually.
*Note: If customers' comments include product keywords and general comment keywords, the system will only send the keyword order message.
For example, if you enable keyword order message and general comment auto-reply:
- Product keyword: A1
- Keyword auto-reply: Shipping fee
1. Customers comment "I want A1, how much is the shipping fee?
the system will respond with the keyword order message.
2. Customers comment "how much is the shipping fee?",
the system will respond with the general comment auto-reply.
2. Connect Instagram Social Post Selling to an Instagram post
1. Created Instagram post
Step 1: Click the blue Connect post button.
Step 2: Select the Instagram account and a published post. You can use the drop-down menu to filter posts that were created in recent 7 days, 30 days, 90 days, and 180 days. Click Connect to complete.
*Note: Instagram Social Post Selling supports connecting to Reels, yet currently does not support connecting to Stories.
1.1 Supports connecting to multiple posts
You can select multiple posts for the post sale.
Customers can place orders by commenting keywords under all linked posts, and you can view a sales overview for all posts.
*Notes:
- Once successfully connected, you can still connect to new posts. Currently, a maximum of 20 posts are supported.
- The number of linked posts will be displayed in the Sales Events list.
2. Instagram post yet to be created
Step 1. In the Connect post section, click the Create Post button.
*Note: If this is your first time using this feature, please proceed to [Channel Integration] > [Facebook] in SHOPLINE Admin to disconnect the connected Facebook page and then reconnect the Facebook Page and Instagram account in order to obtain related permissions and successfully create posts on the Social Post Selling interface.
Step 2. Select the Instagram account you would like to create a post for, then enter the post content.
*Note: If you switch the Instagram account of where you want to create a post for during the process of posting, the content and images of the created post will be cleared out.
Step 3. Enter the Social Post Selling content.
Click the icon on the left to generate the content with "AI Smart Content". For more details, please refer to this article.
Then, you can use multiple quick inputs to create your post quickly.
- Product information: You can select to input the information of all the products sold in this post, or select to input the products individually and click Confirm after the selection is complete.
- Order rules: Click to input the order rules you have set up.
- Custom content:
1. Click Create to enter the title and content.
2. Click the custom content you have just created to immediately input it in the post. For future posts, you will be able to directly apply them as well.
Step 4. Click Add Image to add images to the post.
*Notes:
- The Instagram post requires you to add at least 1 image.
- Up to 10 images can be uploaded. Supported image formats include JPEG and PNG and the maximum file size for one image is 4 MB.
When editing, you can preview on the right.
*Note: Enlarging the image in the preview is currently unsupported.
Step 5. Once set up is complete, click the Create button on the bottom right to create the post.
And this post will be automatically connected with the Instagram Social Post Selling.
After creating the post
You can click the icon on the right to view the original post, disconnect, preview, create another post or connect to another post.
*Notes:
- Once you have enabled the post sale, you can connect to another post but cannot disconnect it.
- Editing Instagram posts on the Social Post Selling settings page is currently unsupported.
3. Disconnecting Instagram Social Post Selling from Instagram Post
If you have not enabled Social Post Selling, in the "Connect post" section, click Disconnect to disconnect the link with the Instagram post. You can still reconnect after the disconnection.
*Note: You cannot disconnect the Social Post Selling once it is enabled.
If this Social Post Selling ends, it will display the end time. Also, this Instagram post will be able to connect with other Social Post Selling.
4. Enable Instagram Social Post Selling
Click the Enable button at the top right of the page.
*Please double-check:
- The status of the linked Instagram post is published.
- The content of the Instagram post contains the description of product keywords. This ensures that customers can view and place an order successfully.
When this window appears, it means that the Instagram Social Post Selling has been successfully created and the status will be updated to "Open".
5. Instagram Social Post Selling comment management
Click the "Message Management" icon on the left side of the page to view customer comments and sales performance.
A. Sales Overview
In the "Sales Overview" section, you can view "Total Comment(s)," "Orders(s)," "Total Order Amount," "Unpaid," and "Unpaid Amount" of the Instagram Social Post Selling.
B. Comment Management
In the "Comment Management" section, you can view all the comments, keyword order product(s), their current cart product(s), and created order(s) of each customer.
*Note: If the customer left a comment after the Social Post Selling ended, that comment will not appear in the Comment Management section.
You can also filter out comments using the field and drop-down menus above.
On the right side of each comment, there are three feature buttons:
- Instant Chat: Send a private message to the customer.
- Edit Cart: Edit the products in the customer's cart.
- Create Order: Directly create an order for the customer.
6. Copy, end, or remove Instagram Social Post Selling
Click the drop-down menu next to the Enter button to select Copy, End, or Remove the Social Post Selling.
Bulk copy/ remove Instagram Social Post Selling
Click All Sales Events.
Check the boxes to the left of the Instagram Social Post Selling (check the box on the top to select all), then click Copy or Delete to execute the action in bulk.
*Notes:
- If you remove a post sale that is still "Open," customers will still be able to place keyword orders by commenting on the post.
- When you remove an Instagram Social Post Selling event, a pop-up window will ask you to double-check before proceeding.
- The copied post will show on the top of the Social Post Selling list.
- When you copy a Social Post Selling event, the system will only copy the name, product, keyword, order placement rules, comment, and message setup, and scheduled time of the Social Post Selling event. The Instagram link will not be included, so you will need to reconnect to the Instagram post.
7. Customer's view after making comments on Instagram post
Customers can place an order by leaving comments consisting of a "keyword + quantity" combination to the Instagram post.
Customers will receive a direct message and can tap the Checkout button to go straight to checkout.
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