When you first create an Instagram account, you may not even realise that there was a difference between a standard account and a business account. You may have even set up the account in your business name and branded it up as a company page, but it’s still not going to be a business account unless you set it up specifically as one.
It only takes a few seconds to do and it’s totally worth doing! Here’s a list of 10 extra things you can do with an Instagram business profile that you cannot do otherwise:
Access to Analytics
If you make the switch for just one reason, then let this one be it. With an Instagram business account, you can get access to the Insights tab, which gives you data on your whole account.
You can measure things like:
– Engagement rate: how many likes, comments and shares each of your posts have got
– Traffic: how many customers are visiting your profile and your website from your profile
– Brand sentiment: how your audience talking about your brand
– Sales: what your conversion rate is and how much revenue has been generated
– Stories: how many people have interacted with your stories
Using this data, you can produce a much more effective social media strategy.
Schedule posts
While Instagram does make it really easy for you to upload all sorts of content from your phone, it may not always be convenient to do this. Plus, when it comes to a business profile, you probably want to carve out some time to create posts for say, a week at a time, and you may even have a dedicated person on your team who then uploads these.
It’s much more convenient to use a social media tool to schedule these posts at a time that works well for your brand, and it will ensure that you’re nicely organised and don’t have to worry about it again for a while.
However, due to Instagram’s API, this is only possible for Instagram Business profiles. Some social media tools may allow you to send it to their app, for which you will get a notification and then you can post it. But this is also a little annoying.
If you make the switch to an Instagram business profile, you can schedule directly to your profile.
Post from a desktop/creator studio
While we’re on the subject of scheduling posts and the annoyance of doing everything from your phone… If you have an Instagram business profile, you can access the Meta Creator Studio, which allows you to edit and schedule posts to Facebook and Instagram. You can access much more detailed analytics through Creator Studio and its ideal for those who have paid partnerships and are looking to monetise their social media.
Even if you don’t use the Creator Studio, having an Instagram business account gives you the ability to go to Instagram.com on a desktop browser and upload posts directly there.
Add CTAs or “Action Buttons”
On your profile, you can add various call-to-action buttons that get your users to do something. Even a simple Contact button is not available on personal accounts, but with a business account, you can have your email address and phone number attached to the button so people can easily get in touch.
You can easily link to a shop so people can buy your products or take advantage of an offer, and you can add special action buttons while allow you to team up with 3rd party integrations and utilise their booking systems.
Click here to learn how to switch to a business profile on Instagram.
Running Instagram Ads
A great way of getting your brand out there is to target your ideal audience with Instagram Ads. If you run an effective campaign, you can get your graphic/video/post in front of your ideal customer for just a few pounds.
There’s been lots of talk about whether Instagram’s algorithm is changing as people are complaining that their organic reach isn’t anywhere near as good as it used to be. So, many people are turning to Instagram Ads to be able to target exactly who they need to.
This isn’t possible without an Instagram business account.
You can show your industry
When you make the switch to a business account from a personal account, there’s a stage where they ask you what category your business is in. Think carefully here, as this will be displayed on your profile under your name.
This is a great way to tell visitors exactly what you do as soon as they come to your profile.
Verify Age
This is ideal if your business is in the adult industry, or you sell alcohol. If you have any sort of age-restricted products, you can add an age verification on your Instagram profile to ensure that people visiting are of legal age.
Of course, they can change their age manually at their end, but at least you’ve done the responsible thing from your end.
Shoppable posts
Even if you’re not a product-based business, you can still take advantage of this feature if you have anything at all you’d like to sell. For example, you could be an entrepreneur, but you’ve written a book, or you’re running an event. You can create a post with a snippet from your book, or an idea from your event and link it directly so that the user can be taken to a specific page on your website where you can find out more about it.
You can also customise the “shop” feed on your Instagram profile accordingly.
Paid partnerships
The Advertising Standards Authority have stated that influencers must make it clear that ads are ads, and so now you can add a “Paid Partnership” badge to any post that you’re receiving money for.
This can only be done as a business account, but it’s definitely in your best interest to do this.
Not only is it making sure you’re compliant with ASA rules, but it’s also letting other brands know that you are available for influencer or promotional work and can land you additional revenue as a result.
The Paid Partnership label can also let brands track the engagement with your posts and see the stats on their end.
Control who promotes your content
If you’ve got a business account with an Instagram shop, you can then control who is allowed to tag your products. You may think that this is silly because you want to be promoted by as many people as possible, but this is ideal if you don’t want the wrong type of posts to hurt your brand.
First of all, there could be people writing negative reviews and tagging your products, which you definitely don’t want. But with this feature, you can now control who tags your products.
Once you’ve given a creator permission, you can then take their content and promote it as an ad. This makes it easier to maximise the potential of influencer marketing.
Conclusion
It only takes a few seconds to unleash all of these features, so it should be a no-brainer to do so! But many people were not aware of all this potential with an Instagram business account.
There’s one feature that many people talk about when it comes to Instagram business accounts and that’s the ability to put links on your Instagram stories. This feature previously was only available to certain accounts – those who were content creators and those who had over 10k followers. Now, Instagram have decided to roll out this feature to all accounts, not just business accounts.
So, this is why we missed this one off our list, but there’s still those 10 other benefits to switching your Instagram personal account to an Instagram business account today.