If you are confused between private/creator/business profile, then this is a guide for you! The Instagram platform has come a long way now and you must switch to Instagram Business Profile NOW!
Here’s WHY
Instagram is a social networking site that focuses on visual content, namely photos, videos. The basic idea is to share your thoughts via the medium of photos and short videos. As opposed to other platforms such as twitter, facebook, Snapchat etc., Instagram focuses on through videos and photos rather than the written word.
Instagram has become more than a social networking site in recent years, it has pleased users across all age groups with its minimalistic approach, ease of sharing content and a mobile-oriented form factor which not only makes it easy to use on the go but the prime choice of many social media enthusiasts. By early 2019 Instagram had already registered over a billion users and is growing steadily. The whole design language of the platform ensures that the platform is engaging as well as user-friendly. All of these make Instagram a fun platform to use, Instagram has 500 million+ daily active users, everyday an average of 500 million people are active on Instagram.
Let’s talk about Instagram Business account
An Instagram business account is the commercial iteration of Instagram profiles that allow the user additional control, deep insights and ability to promote content through to larger audience by paying a buck to Instagram. Any Instagram profile can be switched from Personal to Business very easily, to do this
- Head over to Settings in the Instagram App
- Click on Account
- And Click on Switch to Professional Account (Shown in the image below).
Here you will get two options:
- Creator Account (I will go through this in a separate post)
- Business Account
Just follow the instructions and you will have your Instagram Business Account within seconds!
Why Switch to Instagram Business Account?
Business account adds features useful to garner audience as well as know them. Instagram allows you to see data that will help you to improve your content by showing how your audience responds to it. This helps in improving and adapting content to get the desired result. Apart from likes, comments, shares and saves, a business profile enables you to view:
- Impressions- The total Number of Times that any of your posts have been seen.
- Reach- Number of Unique Accounts that have seen any of your posts.
Also how many times your profile has been viewed as well as how many times a visitor has opted for the call to action i.e. your address, contact information such as email, business address and/or phone numbers.
All of this information regarding your profile which allows you to know more about your active and potential audience can be viewed under insights which are available in the expandable menu on the top right corner of your profile.
Apart from being able to see how your profile is performing with the audience, you can also understand how each individual post, campaign and story can help you garner an audience. This allows you to better plan, develop and execute content. Below each post, you can see the insights related to that individual post.
Individual Post contains insights like:
- The Number of likes the post has received.
- The Number of comments made on the post.
- How many times the post has been Shared.
- The Number of people that have Saved your post.
- Interactions: This includes profile visits and call to action etc., i.e. how many times a certain post has persuaded people to visit your profile and get in touch with you.
- Impressions: The Total no. of times your post has been seen
- Reach: How many unique accounts have come across your post, giving information as to the medium that led them to that post
- From Home – People who already follow you
- From Hashtags: People follow different hashtags and may come across your posts through these.
- From Profile: People who came across your profile and then viewed the post
- Other: Were tagged in the comments, the post was sent as a DM, shared via DMs, Links etc.
When your motive is to promote something on a social media platform such as Instagram these tools, their understanding and application of these tools is an edge. These tools not only allow you to see how your content is being responded to but also allows you to get it to the place you want it to be. These tools allow a rather detailed view of the audience, namely
- Geographical Area: What Percentage of your Audience belongs to which Country/City
- Their Gender
- Age group
The primary aim of social media marketing is persuading the audience to interact with the content that you share online i.e. like, comment, share as much of the content as possible, to create as much exposure for the brand/product as possible. You can also create different engagement posts for your Instagram followers!
To achieve this goal, it is necessary to keep improving and adapting the content to the target audience’s preferences. Social media sites see, uploads of millions of photos and videos every day, Instagram alone sees an upload of around 96 million posts every day, to stay relevant and with the competition it is necessary that you keep adapting the content, as necessary, change the things that don’t work and add things that you think will be beneficial to make sure that it works with the right audiences.
Insights indicate the direction your content, profile, brand image are moving in and viewed as people from what area, what age, what gender is viewing your content, how many of these people are interacting with it and how, these ascertain whether or not you are going according to the plan, if not they make changes accordingly.
Paid Promotions are another great perk available to business profiles, paid promotions are basically boosters for a post. This is essentially a feature that allows you to run a post as an ad on Instagram, for a fee, which the platform decides based on how long the ad will run, for what geographical area and some other details. A promoted or boosted post garners more exposure than a post organically does. A boosted post garners more exposure and is than a regular, which is why posts for product launches, events, sales etc. are boosted to ensure that the information gets notice of as many people as possible, a percentage of the generated buzz usually translates to sales.
Any post can easily be promoted, provided that it fits the norms prescribed by Instagram. Boosting a post is simple in the Instagram app itself but I HIGHLY RECOMMEND using Facebook Ad Manager for running ads because they have more targeting options!
But if you are just starting out, here’s how you can boost a post inside the Instagram App:
- Go to the post you wish to Boost and Click on the promote button at the bottom of the post.
- Select your Goal
Instagram will ask you what you want to boost your profile, website or direct messages. This will have an impact on the result, whatever it is, generating traffic for your website, persuading people to inquire about your service/product, or just promoting your profile, select the option that best fits the goal you have in mind. - Select your Audience
Age, gender, interests, etc of the people you wish to reach, and who you think will be interested in your promotion. - Select your Area
Select the locality in which you wish to boost from just an area around your business to a whole country or continent can be selected, but be sure to select what will benefit you the most. - Enter Budget and Duration
As in how much you want to spend on this promotion and in what amount of time. Example- 1200 for 6 days, this can either mean 200 per day or 1200 every day for six days. So be careful with your daily budget and final budget. - Add Money to your account and
- Click the “CREATE PROMOTION” button.
After this Instagram will review your post this might take some time or just seconds depending on the content, once it is approved the promotion will go online. All you have to do then is to keep monitoring it, watch the reach and expenditure and make sure everything goes as per plan.
So this was all about why you must switch to Instagram Business Profile Right Away!
If you have any doubts/queries, do let me know by commenting below!
Also read – 350+ Best Instagram Captions for Photos and Selfies!