To a business owner, Instagram might seem like a waste of time. Tons of selfies, photos of food and travel, and silly memes galore. Nothing that would seemingly drive traffic to a business that sells products or services.

But the reality is Instagram can be very lucrative when used correctly. Thanks to the creation of the Instagram Business Account, there is now a considerable amount of customization that a business can do inside their Instagram account.

What is an Instagram Business Account?

Originally launched as Instagram Business Profiles in 2016, this unique type of account has grown in popularity during the past few years. Today, over 25 million businesses use an Instagram Business account, with over 2 million advertisers paying to promote their brands and products.

Essentially, an Instagram Business Account lets you:

– Add relevant information about your company: location and phone number, business hours
– Review real-time metrics for your posts, stories, and promotions
– Gain insights into your follower demographics: location, age range, gender

These Instagram business account features let you stand out from the businesses that only use a basic profile. You can allow people to contact you via direct message, or push them to your website. It is also much easier to run promotions for your content directly within the app.

Instagram Business Account Insights

Perhaps the most appealing feature of an Instagram Business account is that you can view accurate insights about how your followers and visitors are interacting with your brand.

Your Instagram profile is essentially becoming a second website, so it is essential that you understand how people are interacting with it.

Each piece of content can be broken down into four types of interactions: likes, comments, shares, and saves. These are great metrics to help you gauge what your audience values and what kinds of posts you should be adding more of each week.

Discovery is Important

The content insights have a section labeled ‘Discovery.’ According to the Instagram App, this measures ‘how many people see your content and where they find it.

The Instagram discovery metrics break down into three subcategories:

– Impressions: the total number of times your post has been seen.
– Reach: the number of unique accounts that have seen your post.
– Follows: the number of accounts that started following you as a result of the post.

Ideally, each post should attract and keep new followers to your account who will then see your content natively in their feed from then onwards.

Switching to an Instagram Business Account

The best news of all is that there is no cost to set up an Instagram Business account, except for the time to switch over.

It takes only a few minutes, and here are the steps to follow:

1) Create an Instagram Account for your business (if you haven’t already)
2) Go to your Profile and tap Edit Profile
3) Tap ‘Try Instagram Business Tools’
4) You have an option to connect your account to an existing Facebook Page for your business.
5) Add your business details such as contact information, location and opening hours.
6) You’re all done!

These are some of the basics of an Instagram business account, and how the tools can benefit your business. As Instagram continues to grow in usage and engagement, it is a platform well worth using to market your business.

If you are looking to grow your engagement and reach through social media, then we can help. Brandastic is an orange county digital marketing agency, who help companies with their social media, SEO and digital marketing content. Contact us today to see how we can help you grow.