You have probable seen these “Shop This Look” widgets that fashion bloggers put in their blog posts or pages to share their OOTD posts:
Cute, right? Well did you know that you can also make a whole Shop My Instagram page with the Shopstyle Collective widgets? That way, you can post OOTDs on Instagram and link back to your Shop My Instagram page so that followers can visit your blog or site and buy the items you’re wearing (and you get a commission – sweet!) You can watch my video tutorial here, or scroll down for step by step instructions:
Step 1:
Go to www.shopstylecollective.com and sign up for an account
Step 2:
In your Shopstyle Collective dashboard, in the upper left corner, click on the Collection button
Step 3:
Under Create a Collection, name your collection (I suggest using a name like “Shop My Instagram”) and click the blue Save button.
Step 4:
Now you just want to copy the Embed code. Next, navigate back to your blog or website.
Step 5:
Now, just head over to your blog post or page that you want to add the widget to. If you want to add a new page, you can check out my tutorial on how to add a new page to your blog or website here. Make sure that you click on the Text, not Visual tab in your page editor. Just place your cursor where you want the widget to appear and either CTRL + V or CMD + V to paste the code into your post or page. Save the post or page as a draft. Go BACK to shopstylecollective.com.
Step 6:
Back in Shopstyle, just click over to My Looks, and then click the Create Look button in the upper right corner of page
Step 7:
Click to upload a photo. This should be the SAME photo that you will use on your Instagram post. Then click the blue Next button in the upper right corner.
Step 8:
Now comes the fun part. You get to add the products that you are wearing in your photo to the Look. You can search by Retailer, Brand, Category, etc. So in this photo I am wearing green J.Crew shorts and black Cole Haan sandals. I can search by brand and retailer to find the products I am wearing. Note: of course ShopStyle does not have every piece of clothing made in their inventory, so I suggest that if the items you are wearing are not available, you just search around to find something similar.
After you have added ALL of your products, click the blue Next button in the upper right corner.
Step 9:
Now you can add the details to your Look. Add a caption (similar to an instagram caption).
Scroll down past the Write a Caption section and here you can add hashtags (Shopstyle suggests some hashtags) and most importantly, add your new Look to a Collection. You want to be SURE to add your new look to the Collection that you created in Step 3, Shop My Instagram. Down below the Add to a Collection area is a section where you can rearrange the order of your products if you wish. When done, click the blue Finish button in the upper right corner.
Now you will see the look you added in the Shop My Instagram Collection.
Since you have already added the Shop My Instagram Collection code in your new page back in Step 5, all you have to now is to navigate back to the draft page that you created. Publish your blog post or page, and voila, your Shop My Instagram page is live! It will look similar to the page here:
Readers can simply click on the photo and it will expand to show the products you are wearing in the photo. NOW if you want to make your Instagram posts shoppable, go to your Instagram account. I suggest you do this on your iphone. Upload the SAME photo that you used for your Shopstyle Look as an instagram post. You can add a caption and hashtags, and most importantly, so that followers can find your Shop My Instagram page and shop the posts, you will want to simply go to your Instagram profile, and under the link for Website, just replace whatever link is there with the link to the new post or page that you created in Step 5. So for this example, I created a page called Shop My Instagram, so the link that I will paste in Instagram will be https://littlebluedeerdesign.com/shop-my-instagram.
You can simply highlight the page link in your browser and CTRL + C or CMD + C to copy the link, and then paste it in your Instagram profile. I always like to add a little note in my caption that followers can go to my Bio to shop the look since you can’t paste a clickable link in an Instagram caption.
You can create a whole Shop My Instagram page with multiple looks by simply following Steps 6 through 9 above to add new Looks to your Shop My Instagram collection. Your collection widget will be automatically updated every time you add a new look, no need to do anything else except to make sure that you add your look to the Shop My Instagram collection. If you have any questions feel free to leave a comment below and I will be glad to answer!
*NOTE: The Shop the Look widget will NOT work on WordPress.com blogs, only self-hosted, or WordPress.org. To read about the difference please check out my article here.
16 Responses
Your blog is so helpful for new bloggers! I am a new fan! 🙂
Awww thank you so much I am so glad to hear that! I really appreciate it!
Hi! If you are shopping at boutiques and such, how do you link that type of stuff?
Hey Courtney sure, you can always add a link to the name of a shop or an item, follow Step 6 on my tutorial here to learn how to add a text link:
https://www.littlebluedeerdesign.com/custom-blog-design-tips-how-to-set-up-a-wordpress-blog-post/
And then in Step 12 of this same tutorial it shows where you can add a link to an image so the image would like to a shop or boutique. Also if you want to add text links to all of the items in your Shop The Look widget, you can follow Step 9 of this tutorial:
https://www.littlebluedeerdesign.com/add-shop-look-widget-blog/
This shows you had to quickly add all of the text links in your widget to your blog post as well.
Hi there! Thank you so much I love your tutorials <3 I actually have the same question as Courtney – if we have products from boutiques or just can't find the items on ShopStyle. Your instructions in the reply here is helpful but I was wondering if we can actually link to these boutique items from the "widget" or from the "shop your instagram" page somehow?
Because it seems like from your instruction is that the only way to get around it is to simply 1) add images with links or 2)text with links? But these boutique items can't be on the widget themselves 🙁
Please let me know! Thanks so much!!
Hey there Nics! Thank you for reading! Unfortunately, other items that are NOT available in Shopstyle cannot be added to the actual widget, no, it’s their proprietary widget, so if you want to use the Shopstyle widget you are limited to only the products they offer (which yeah I agree can be limiting particularly if you shop at like small boutiques and stuff). So probably the best way to do it would be as you mentioned, to just add images with links to other retailers, or just links. Or I’ve also seen some people do the Shopstyle widget with similar items as well. It would be great if they did but I think bc it’s an affiliate program, they limit what items you can use in your widget. But thank you again for reading and I’m sorry I don’t have a better answer for you!!
This tutorial was so helpful! Thank you for posting 🙂
Thank you so much for reading I’m so glad!!!
Question, do you have to have a blog or website in order to do this or just Instagram? If I need a blog page, how do I create one?
Hi Liza yes, you need some sort of web platform (eg. a blog or website) to actually put the code into, most people have a personal blog, this will not work for wordpress.com, only self-hosted WordPress (or wordpress.org), if you are interested in starting a blog you can check out our Blog Design packages but if you just want to start a new blog and DIY it I also have a tutorial on how to set up your blog and domain here:
https://www.littlebluedeerdesign.com/bluehost-setup/
that you might find helpful!
Thank you for the information. Is it something that I can add to my social media without creating a blog or webpage? Actually just want to link things I’ve purchased on Amazon and small boutiques and discount stores.
Hey Lisa unfortunately no, for this widget it has to live on a blog or website, you can’t post it to FB, Instagram, Pinterest etc. it actually needs to be hosted on a blog or site. I am so sorry!
This was so helpful and easy, thank you!
Thank you so much for reading Fatima I am so glad to hear!
Amazing post! Thank you so much for this helpful step-by-step turtorial!
Oh that’s great Whitney thank you so much! I’m so glad it was helpful!!