Adding links to Digital Products on Instagram can be a bit of pain, but it’s completely possible! Follow the steps below and tag to your digital products on your Instagram posts!
Once of the amazing things about Instagram is the ability to link to products directly from a post. I had not played around with this feature much for my 259 West themes, however, I knew it’s something I wanted to take advantage of for my quilting side business.
However, as I got all my ducks in a row for the launch of my first pattern, I ran into a huge issue. Instagram, as a rule, only allows you link to physical or deliverable products on your posts. While I planned to have a physical pattern, I also wanted to be able to link to the downloadable PDF pattern. As much as I Googled the answer seemed to always be the same – PDF and other digital products are not allowed by Instagram… but how come I had seen other quilters linked to PDF patterns?
Well, two days of Googling, some near tears, lots of cursing, and about 100 tabs laters, I found a way to add a digital product to Instagram!
Go to Facebook Catalog Manager
This step was my first frustration – Facebook does not make it easy to add products, to begin with, and after I did it the first time, it took me for.ever to find this page. So bookmark it, memorize it, love it – facebook.com/products.
Click on your Catalog
Or, if you haven’t created a Catalog yet, do that. You can follow Facebook’s directions on how to Add a Catalog here.
As you can see, I have two catalogs under my account – one for 259 West and one for my quilting account. For this example, I’ll be clicking on my quilting catalog.
Click “Add Data Source”
This part is where I got tripped up, a lot. I have it set up, so my site automatically sends my products on my shop to my Facebook page. However, when doing it this way, Facebook automatically makes my digital products “Not Available” on my Facebook Page Shop and Instagram. So instead –
Check the “Add Manually” option and click “Next”.
A window will pop up where you’ll need to fill out your product information manually. Facebook doesn’t ask or check if this is a physical product, therefore allowing you to link to your PDF or other digital product. Once you are all done entering your product information, click the blue “Add Product” button.
And now your digital product is available on your Facebook Page Shop and so, you can add it on Instagram! I have noticed that sometimes it takes a little while for Facebook to communicate with Instagram and make your products available to tag on Instagram, but other than that, that’s it!
As you can see in the screenshot below, my PDF pattern is tagged and it takes people directly to the pattern so they can purchase it online!
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