Do you use an Instagram business account for marketing or still stay with personal?
If you want to connect to your target audience visually, Instagram is the number one place to be.
The study says that Instagram provides brands 58 times more engagement per follower than other social media platforms.
Global Web Index research shows that these days 30% of Internet users has an account/actively use Instagram.
It means that including Instagram to your marketing strategy can open up new opportunities to your brand.
Whether you just starting with Instagram or want to improve your strategy, this article will help you to implement the newest technics to use Instagram effectively in your business.
Switch to business profile
Instagram allows you to have a personal or business account. The personal account has the regular features, while the business account gives you access to statistics, allows adding the contact data and has an option to create the ads.
For now, not every account is qualified to get the business account. For that, at least you should have a Facebook business page.
If you see this notification at the top of your Instagram, it means you can get the Instagram business account:
If you don’t have this message, go directly to the settings and check if you have the switching option
When you have a link ‘Switch to Business Profile’ you are ready to go. Tap on it.
Your Instagram account should be connected to your Facebook profile.
Then you should connect it to one of the pages you manage. You can only connect one Instagram account to one Facebook page.
The next step is setting up your business profile. After filling this form, you will get the ‘Contact’ button on the top of your account, below the follower’s number. Everyone can tap on the button and see the way to reach you: call, email you, or look at the map where you are located.
When you are done, you will see the final welcome message. You successfully switched to the business account.
If you want to go back to the personal account, go to the settings again and choose ‘Switch Back to Personal Account’.
The Analytic function for Instagram Business account
From now on, you will get the access to the analytics. To check the whole statistic, tap the icon at the top.
Right after you changed your account type it will be empty. It will be available only for the new posts.
After you start posting new images, you will see more details there.
It shows you the data for the last week and includes:
Impression: How many times people saw your posts.
Reach: The amount of unique accounts, which saw your posts.
Website Clicks: If you have a link in a BIO, then you will see how many times people clicked on it.
Followers: Includes the data about when your followers are usually on Instagram, the percentage of man and women followers, average age, and top locations by the cities and countries.
Check your statistic to see what content performs well, who is your audience and when it’s better to post to reach more people.
Also, you can analyze data of each post. Below the images you have two links ‘Promote’ and ‘View Insights.’ Tapping on ‘View Insights,’ you will see the impression of the post, how many people it reached and the engagement stats. The engagement number includes the amount of likes and comments of the post.
How to promote your Instagram post
Now you can promote any of your posts through the ads, even those, which were published before you switched to Instagram business account.
Choose the post you want to promote.
At the next step define your call-to-action button.
Next, setup your audience data. You can specify the location and interests, so your ad will be shown to accounts in that area with the age and gender you set.
Then you decide how much you want to spend and duration how long you want to run this promotion. You can stop it anytime.
When you finished your settings, review your selection, add a payment method and run the promotion.
Conclusion
The optimizing your Instagram business account is only the first step. It helps you to know more about your audience and see what performs well on your account.
While running the ad can bring you the new followers, you need actually to start engaging with them.
I’d love to hear about your experiences with using Instagram Business account. Leave me a comment below with your results as well as anything that did or didn’t work well for you. Let me know also if you have any questions about this topic.
Marina Barayeva is an international speaker and coach who helps women entrepreneurs become recognized experts and confidently sell their services. She is also a TEDx speaker, has presented to audiences in Asia and North America, and has been featured in such media as ArtPeople, CCTV, China Radio International, and others.
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