Five Benefits of Switching to an Instagram Business Account

There are millions of people on Instagram. It may not yet be the most popular social networking site, but its importance grows year after year. With that in mind, many businesses are incorporating Instagram into their digital marketing plans and for some, it can be a major source of income.

If you operate a visual business – cookery, fashion, publishing to name just a few – Instagram can be a powerful marketing tool for you to showcase your work and, in turn, increase brand awareness, build a community and even begin to generate sales.

You may already be using this platform for your business and have spotted a notification pop up from Instagram prompting “why not switch to business mode?” On the surface, this might seem like a big step and cause a little anxiety – what does this mean? What does it do? Do I have to pay? In this blog, we’re hoping to clear some of that up for you and explore the five benefits to switching to an Instagram business account!

Access to analytics

“Analytics” gets thrown around a lot in terms of marketing, whether it’s finding out how many users visited your web page, to how many users followed a link in your newsletter. Social media tracking is also becoming increasingly important and with Instagram business, you can track your successes and failures.

On Instagram business, they term it “insights” and it allows you analyse three areas:

Content – here, you can view useful insights on each of your posts, stories and ads
Activity – you can view insights into how far your posts are reaching and who is interacting with them and with your profile (e.g. link clicks)
Audience – this section provides an insight into your audience – from age, gender, location and more!

From the Insights section, you can see the best days and times to post, which content works and doesn’t work, where your followers are from, how far your posts reach and much more! From this data, you can adjust and adapt your Instagram plan accordingly.

Adding a call-to-action button

Let’s say someone visits your business website homepage, likes the look of the services or products you have to offer and wants to get in touch – they can quickly click on a button that takes them to your phone number, contact form, live chat function etc, right? With Instagram business you can programme your page to include a call-to-action button, ranging from contact buttons to “book now”, “order”, “donate” and more. This makes it easier for a follower to connect with your business quickly and painlessly!

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Links in your stories

Unfortunately, this one is exclusive to those with 10,000 followers+. But if you have already reached that milestone and find that your Instagram story content is working, definitely consider switching to an Instagram business account. Putting links into your stories that feature your products or services means that social media users can be sent directly to that product – this is an example of social media optimisation and how social media can be used to send customers into your sales funnel.

Get Instagram verified

Have you seen those little blue ticks on Instagram next to businesses, celebrities and influencers? That means they are verified by Instagram and statistics show that verified pages increases your brand’s credibility and trustworthiness. Verified accounts also have early access to new Instagram features. When you switch to Instagram business, you’re more likely to get verified than the average Joe.

It’s free!

The words “upgrade” or “switch” can immediately imply that money is involved. When switching up to Instagram business though, it’s completely free!

So why not give it a try and see if it can help your business?

Social media marketing is a bit of minefield, with so many networks and accounts out there. But equally, there are no rights and wrongs when it comes to posting your content and making a social media plan.

At Agile, we run social media accounts for the majority of our prizes, including the Irish Book Awards, The Wainwright Prize, The Telegraph Sports Book Awards, The Nielsen Bestseller Awards and NB Magazine too. We also work with several clients on their social strategy, campaign delivery and artwork creation – for help marketing, running or designing your social campaigns, get in touch today!