Why Serena Williams, Tom Brady and countless NBA superstars are using Instagram to sell their brand

Through her Instagram, Serena Williams sells a lot of merchandise.

Serena Williams

As the sports world is slowly transitioning to the digital age, the industry’s celebrities are seeing a huge opening for them to leverage their popularity and relevance. Stars like Serena Williams and LeBron James have successfully brought their popularity offline to the online sphere. This is especially true on social media, where many sports stars are using their huge following to reinforce their business prospects.

Sports stars increase Instagram presence for improved merchandise sales

Instagram is one of the social media platforms that celebrities are utilizing for their businesses. The Facebook-owned subsidiary is making it easier for celebrities like Serena Williams to sell their merchandise in the platform. Through the app’s Checkout feature, followers can now easily purchase a certain item without having to leave the app.

As one of the most popular sports stars on Instagram, Williams is one of the first major sports stars to utilize the new feature. Through her account, she released a sequin jacket from her S by Serena fashion line on November 20. Due to the wide reach of her account and the relative ease of buying the product, Instagram was able to form more than half of the sales of the fashion line for that entire week.

With sports stars like Williams leading the charge in the merchandising efforts on Instagram, even official sports team accounts are getting into the fun. A notable example is the Los Angeles Clippers of NBA, which now sells jerseys and other basketball merchandise on their account.

Instagram, the next e-commerce platform?

For their part, Instagram encourages more creators to do social merchandising on its platform. Dev Sethi, who serves as sports head for Instagram, has stated himself that shopping is a priority for the company. This could be because the company is also earning on the Checkout feature’s sales due to the processing fee on products.

Instagram has also started rolling out a new feature that could enable creators to reach more people that might buy their products. The feature, which can be accessed through stickers on Instagram Stories, notifies users when an item becomes available for purchase. Product details and a release date can be added to the tags.

Williams’ Instagram efforts

With 11.8 million followers, Williams has made good use of her Instagram account for her business ventures and efforts. Last month, she did a huge Instagram party to help launch her jewelry line eponymously named Serena Williams Jewelry.

A partnership with diamond manufacturer K.P. Sanghvi, the collection boasts of 70 items that Williams helped design herself. The company has made a commitment towards ethical sourcing of their diamonds.

 

Serena Williams’s ranking and performance in 2019

Serena Williams Stats info

Ranked no.10, Serena played her last match on the 7th of September when she surrendered to Bianca Vanessa Andreescu 6-3 7-5 in the final in U.S. Open.

Serena Williams’s best performance of the year was reaching the final in at the U.S. Open, Toronto and in Wimbledon.