This blog post will focus on Instagram and the platform it allows you to have when looking at advertising your business and forming a connection with your customers.
Instagram have designed features which help Businesses boost posts and to gain a bigger audience. As Instagram has over 700 million active users every month, it is an important platform for promotion and advertising, especially as it is free to use, it would be unwise not to use it.
Firstly, I’m going to do a step by step on how to turn your ordinary Instagram account into a Business account.
1 To start go onto your profile and click on the 3 lines at the top of your Instagram page.
2 Secondly, go onto ‘Settings’.
3 Click on ‘Account’.
4 The button at the bottom ‘Switch to Professional Account’
This will allow you to proceed with changing your Instagram into a Business account.
After this step it will take you through and ask you about the type of Business account you want to create. It will ask if you want it Business/Creator, select what type of industry you’d want displayed on your profile. This will proceed to allow you to add contact information and connect your Facebook Page or create one too.
The features that are the best to use on Instagram when you’re in Business Account mode are as follows…
Instagram Stories
Instagram stories are available with or without Business mode, however, are so powerful when trying to get interaction with your followers and are after a space to get feedback easily. The things posted on Instagram Stories last for 24 hours only, however, are displayed at the top of the feed page, meaning they’re always in eyesight for users on the app. The different features of Instagram Stories allow you to get instant responses from those who view it, with polls, quizzes and question boxes being easily accessible on the stickers part of stories. Also, a positive of Instagram Stories is being able to show a more behind the scene type of aspect to your business, which a lot of people are fascinated in, and may form a stronger bond with your consumers. Although remember the boundaries, whilst showing some behind the scenes can be good, it doesn’t mean put the same content you would on your private personal account, on your new Business account, just allow your followers have a small insight into your business.
Instagram Insights
Business mode on Instagram is tailored to allow you to see the different statistics that are attached to your profile. It usually shows a little tab at the top stating “__ Profile visits this week” which by clicking that will take you to the rest of the data, which is also accessible through settings too.
Through this you will be able to view a variation of things:
- How many accounts yours has reached.
- How many impressions your account has made.
- Interactions on your profile.
- How many profile visits you’ve had.
It will also go on to show the general audience your page reaches, showing:
- Overall growth (Unfollowers/Followers)
- Top Locations
- Age Range
- Gender
- And the days/hours followers are mostly interacting.
This is a crucial part of Instagram allowing businesses to access information which will allow them to adapt and change certain things to allow for the audience to be broadened.
Engagement
One of the best things about Instagram is how easy it is to interact with your followers and how much this will benefit your business. Replying to comments, liking photos your business has been tagged in, creating a hashtag for your followers to use. By doing any of these small things it will encourage your followers to want to engage with you, generating a bigger impact just from your account. As an example, fashion brand Missguided have created a hashtag #BabesOfMissguided which they have put in their Instagram bio stating if you share a photo using that hashtag you may get featured on their page and win £100. The level of interaction they have generated is insane, as the hashtag now has 279k posts attached to it. Their Instagram is also filled with photos taken by people who actually wear their clothes day to day, which makes it seem more genuine.
I hope this blog post helped with getting an insight into what Instagram offers to businesses, There will be another blog post up next Saturday so keep an eye out for that.
Until then you can follow me on twitter @TheRWordd or on Linkedin at https://www.linkedin.com/in/the-r-word-287733198/