- 200 million Instagram users visit at least one business profile a day, and one-third of the most-viewed Instagram Stories are from businesses.
- Creating an Instagram business account – or converting your personal account to a business account – gives you access to metrics that help you market better.
- At the end of the day, an Instagram business account is more professional than a branded personal account.
According to Hootsuite, 200 million Instagram users visit at least one business profile a day – and one-third of the most-viewed Stories are from businesses. Clearly, Instagram Business profiles have huge marketing potential. Are you taking advantage?
If not, the stats above just scratch the surface of why you should. Whether you’re thinking of converting your personal Instagram profile to a business profile, or starting a business profile from scratch, there are tons of benefits to making an Instagram Business Account a fundamental part of your social media strategy. We cover those benefits below.
Why you should make an Instagram Business Account
1. Instagram Business provides a more professional interface.
Many brands – especially smaller businesses or influencers still building audiences – start out with personal Instagram accounts. And don’t get us wrong – you can reach a lot of users and still create great content that way. But once you have a solid audience, a clear brand presence, and a designated team or team member to run your social media, it’s best to take advantage of the professional interface offered by an Instagram Business profile.
It’s a little like making the switch from running a business out of your home to running it from an office. While running the business from your home is a great way to get your brand off the ground until you have the resources – believe us, we know firsthand! – switching to an office suddenly gives you an address to put on your website, a professional meeting place for clients, and an overall more professional presentation, just to name a few benefits.
Likewise, an Instagram Business Account allows you to engage with followers more professionally by listing the following directly on your profile:
- Business hours, address, contact information, etc.
- A “Contact” button
- Your industry – e.g., “Marketing Agency,” “Furniture Store”
- Links to Instagram Stories
Think of an Instagram Business profile as a virtual “storefront” that sets you apart from regular users.
2. You gain access to Instagram Insights.
All digital marketing requires the use of analytics to monitor your reach, engagement, and overall success of your campaigns. Instagram is no different. By creating or switching to an Instagram Business profile, you gain access to Instagram Insights, which – much like Google Analytics and other monitoring tools – lets you view how your posts are performing, and how you can improve.
Below are just a few examples of the metrics you can view with Instagram Insights:
- Performance over the past week: Change in followers, number of posts, impressions, reach, profile views, number of certain types of clicks, etc.
- Detailed demographics: Gender, age, location by city and country, most active times, etc.
- Engagement and impressions by post: View the performance of historical posts over a specific time period of two years or less
Though there are other, third-party monitoring tools you can use for Instagram Business, Instagram Insights is a good built-in starter tool.
3. You can create Instagram ads and promoted posts.
At the end of the day, running a business requires running at least some ads. Another privilege of creating or switching to a business account on Instagram is that you can use it to advertise. This is arguably one of the primary reasons for creating a business profile.
Hootsuite reports that 130 million Instagram users tap on Shopping posts every month. Clearly Instagram is growing as a space for business transactions, and creating a business profile allows you to make the most of that space.
4. You can integrate it with social media automation tools.
Social media tools are designed specifically for marketing purposes, and so is Instagram Business. By creating or switching to a business profile, you can ensure that your Instagram profile will play nicely with your automation tools. This then lets you smoothly create and schedule Instagram stories, posts, ads, and more, and then monitor them efficiently.
5. It’s free.
Just like other social media profiles, it’s completely free to create or switch to an Instagram Business Account. Of course, the costs come later, as creating engaging content and building a solid base of followers does take creativity, time, and money.
If you’ve already invested time and resources into a personal account for your brand, switching to a business profile is a no-brainer. But even if you’re new to Instagram for businesses and you’re thinking of creating a profile for the first time, the potential reach and insights available with Instagram Business make it well worth the effort.
Creating your Instagram Business Account
There are two routes to creating your Instagram Business account. You can either create it from scratch, or convert your personal profile to a business profile.
If you already have a personal profile with a solid brand presence and following, it makes more sense to simply switch to a business profile. Instagram makes this really simple – it amounts to clicking a button and filling in business-specific information, such as your address and business hours, if relevant. Learn more from the app’s Instagram Business resources.
Now get to posting!
Now that you know why you should create an Instagram Business Account, there’s nothing left to do but get started. Of course, that’s where the real work (and fun!) begins.
If you need guidance on getting a solid social media campaign off the ground for your brand, we’re happy to answer your questions. Get in touch with the Redefine team today.
