Why you should switch to an Instagram business profile
- SEO & Marketing
- 10th May 2019
- Abigail
Social media by definition is applications that enable users to create, upload and share content to other users, it allows you to be creative and express yourself individually, or your business globally. During 2018, we experienced an anticipated boom in the growth of social media, 11 users were signed up to a social network every second last year. In just January this year 3.256 billion users populated the social media world, which is nearly half of the planet! The stigma that comes with social media often construed by older generations shouldn’t deter you from the vast opportunities available by getting involved. On Instagram there are options in terms of what account type you can have. It is either a business or a personal account.
Instagram Individual Explained
Instagram individual accounts are the best place to get started with your social media journey, it is essentially a timeline of images that represent your life. It’s great to build a portfolio of memories and good times to be able to reminisce in the future. Consider it the future of bulky photo albums that your grandparents are hoarding. It’s unique features mean that you can explore your favourite niche’s and follow them to be notified when your favourite influencers and celebrities are uploading.You are able to express yourself in whatever way you feel most comfortable and you can determine the privacy settings on your profile, which means you control who’s part of your social media journey.
Instagram Business Explained
Unlike the personal account, the business accounts have a whole assortment of features which can be used for more than just entertainment. Instagram can be used to advertise your business, or your product to billions of users logging on online every single day. So why would you choose to advertise on Instagram as opposed to the local newspaper? The brand reach is vast in comparison to every advertising platform on the market. Increasing the amount of people that see your product will boost your brand awareness. Brand awareness is the whole reason you advertise in the first place right? Trying to get your brand, product or service in front of your demographic has never been more effortless. It is known that Instagram usage is higher than reading the local newspaper. 1 billion people use Instagram every single month. The competitive edge that any business gains is the engagement directly with your target market. Likes, comments and shares are a perfect way of understanding how successful your next product launch is going to be. You will also be able to tailor your products or services to make sure that the customers are happier. Every large brand and business uses Instagram to market and connect with their customers. 71% of U.S businesses are using Instagram.
What are the specific features of Instagram Business
Shopping tag
When your Instagram business profile reaches more than 10,000 followers, you will be given access to this exclusive feature. It enables you to tag images of your product with a direct link to purchase the product from your website, this streamlines the buying process for customers with the ability to take them direct to the product page of the item tagged.
Here’s what it would look like to a standard user browsing your page!
Instagram insights
This is a very useful tool which will allow you to track the amount of followers gained/lost, track the amount of visits your profile has had over a set time period, follower demographics, analytics per individual post and promotion features. This will ensure you’re implementing the best marketing strategy possible for the demographic, Each individual post will have its own breakdown so you can see exactly how the consumers are responding.
Third party application integration
The moment you convert your Instagram account to business, you are able to give third party applications access to the account, why would you want to do this? Certain applications such as Hootsuite will allow you to schedule your content uploads, this means that you can create your posts for the week ahead and the application will upload them at the time you specify. An additional feature with this application is that it uses insights to calculate the best times to upload the posts and it automatically does it. Not only does this mean your content is even more optimised for the best results but it makes the process much easier! In the future Instagram have mentioned that they are looking to add a donation sticker to use on the stories, which would be great to raise money for charity using your social media following. As well as this by the end of 2019 everyone will be able to create custom filters on Instagram to improve your branding even further.
Promote button
For every piece of individual content that’s uploaded, as a business account you will be given the option to promote the post through Instagram. You can use paid advertising on your individual posts to increase the reach and engagement.
Simply click the promote button below the post you’ve just uploaded!
Call to action button
Only on an Instagram business account can you have the contact buttons displayed below the bio. This is a great feature to have because users don’t have to struggle to find your website, to then find out your contact details. Consumers can contact their favourite businesses through their favourite social media platform.
Here is what the contact buttons look like, You decide exactly what methods of contact to include.