In the past couple of weeks, Instagram has started to unveil business profiles. Business profiles on Instagram give you the opportunity to learn more about your audience and how to build your following on Instagram. In this post, you’ll learn why your small business should create an Instagram business profile and how these new features can help your business grow.
Benefits of an Instagram Business Profile
There are many benefits of switching your Instagram profile over to a business profile. Instagram business profiles provide users with new tools that can help you increase engagement and grow their following. You can add a call to action on your Instagram business profile, track who’s engaging with your profile and your posts, and create advertisements for custom audiences. The perks of an Instagram business profile make a strong case for why your business should make the switch.
How to Switch to an Instagram Business Profile
Before you can start taking advantage of Instagram business profile’s newest features, you first have to create an Instagram account for your business. Switching your account is simple. Click on the person icon in the bottom right of your home screen and select the wheel icon located in the screen’s top right corner. This will take you to the Options page, where you can select “Switch to Business Profile.”
Related: Getting Started on Instagram for Small Business Marketing
In order to change to an Instagram business profile, your profile must be public. Your profile should already be public so Instagram users who don’t follow you can view your profile, but if it’s not, just slide the “Private Account” setting to off to make your profile public.
You also need to have a Facebook business page to have an Instagram business profile, so create a Facebook business page if you don’t already have one. Once you have a Facebook page for your business, link your Instagram profile to your Facebook business page to start using Instagram for your business.
New Instagram Business Profile Features
Instagram has released quite a few tools for small businesses to grow and gain customers from the platform. Let’s run through the latest Instagram business tools that can benefit your small businesses.
Contact Info
One of the biggest changes in Instagram for business profiles is contact information. Instead of just putting your contact info in your Instagram bio, Instagram business profiles allow you to add your business’s address, email, and phone number to your profile.
If you fill in this information, your Instagram business profile will have a “Contact” button at the top of your profile that Instagram users can click on to quickly locate, email, call, or even text your business. For more information on optimizing your Instagram business profile, read our post on how to create the perfect Instagram profile for your business.
Call to Action Button
Including your business’s contact information on your Instagram profile will help more people find your business and bring them one step closer into becoming customers. Small businesses can use the call to action “Contact” button on Instagram to help attract more people to their businesses.
Insights
Instagram has now added insights to Instagram for business. Insights are tracked analytics that you can use to understand how your posts are performing. Just like Facebook’s engagement analytics, Insights can help you analyze your audience and determine the best ways to grow your following.
Insights will let you know how many impressions, clicks to your website, followers, the amount of reach your Instagram posts have. You’ll see the most popular days and times people are engaging with your posts, and how many people are liking and interacting with your posts, too. You’re able to filter your posts based on this information to find out even more about the people interacting with your profile.
To view Instagram’s latest analytics tool, click on the graphs icon, which is located in the top right corner of your Instagram business profile next to the wheel icon. You can also access Insights for each post by clicking on each individual picture or video on your profile.
Instagram Insights provides a comprehensive breakdown of your business’s followers. If you click “See More” on the Instagram Insights page, Instagram breaks your followers down by gender, age, and location. This information only applies to the pictures and videos you post after you switch your profile to a business one.
How to Use Instagram Business Insights
The Insights feature provides valuable data you can use to expand your reach on Instagram and get more customers for your business. By analyzing the data, you can determine trends in your posts and use Instagram more effectively. Take a look at how time, day, content, captions, and hashtags play a role in users engaging with your business. Instagram Insights eliminate the need for third-party analytics platforms, and the insights are provided for free!
Instagram business profiles also give you the option to create your own advertisements that target a specific audience. You can create a custom audience, set a time and budget, add a call to action, and track engagement for your ads.
Instagram’s new business profiles provide compelling reasons why your business should switch to a business profile. Instagram business profiles are convenient, easy to use, and give you detailed analytics on your ads and your audience. Check out how to use Instagram for your small business for more marketing ideas that can help your small business grow.
