Should I change my Instagram to a business profile?
In short, yes! In this blog we will explain why you should make the change, and how to switch your Instagram to a business profile (you can switch back later if you think it’s not for you).
For any business, Instagram is a good place to be putting out content and promoting your brand on. The channel’s growth over the last couple of years has been massive, and it’s going to continue. We work with a lot of businesses who are prioritising Instagram over Facebook and using it as their main social media channel. While this isn’t necessarily what we would recommend for everyone, Instagram is undeniably a strong platform for all brands.
Instagram introduced business profiles for businesses in 2016, and businesses have been debating since whether to make the move. Facebook have made major changes to their algorithms in the last couple of years in prioritising friends’ content in the newsfeed, and brands have worried this would be replicated to Instagram business profiles and lower their reach. We can’t predict the future unfortunately, but these are the reasons why it makes sense to move to a business profile now.
Instagram Insights
This is one of the major advantages to a business profile. The app has an in-built analytics tool, called Insights, which provides detailed breakdowns of how posts and stories performed, detailed information on your followers e.g. age, gender, location – and with this knowledge you can start to really tailor your content to perform as best as possible.
Contact Button
Once you provide contact information for your business account, a contact button will appear in your profile. Instagram users simply have to click that button and then chose whether they want to email you, call you, or find your location on a map.
Shoppable Posts
Shoppable posts make it really easy to tag and shop products directly from your Instagram posts – and this is only available to users with a business profile. You can choose photos you’d like to feature on the post, tag up to 5 products per image (or 20 products per carousel), add filters/captions etc and post. When the tagged product post is tapped by a user, the user will see more information on the product (including price) and can link through to the product on a website where they can make a purchase.
Share Links on Stories
Instagram lets users with a business profile and over 10,000 followers add links to their Instagram stories. You can drive traffic to your website, your blog etc.
Promoted posts
While we are no advocate of the Facebook boost, promoted posts in Instagram work in a similar way and can give your chosen posts a bit more pep. Again, we would advise you use your budget on properly set up paid campaigns – but there are a small number of benefits to the Instagram promotions and Facebook boosts.
How to switch to an Instagram Business Profile
Log in to your Instagram and go to settings
Click on account and click on “Switch to business account”
Choose category for your business profile
Add your contact information
Connect to your Facebook (you must be an admin of the page)
And you’re all set! If you go into settings and account again, you can “Switch back to personal account” at any time.
