Expert’s Marketing Guide for Instagram Business Account- Top Features, Strategies, Tools and Much More

Instagram has taken the world by storm. With more than 1 billion monthly active users, the platform isn’t just for personal use anymore. When it comes to social media marketing, Instagram is the first channel that brands look towards. Brands can create an Instagram business account that brings in quite a lot of traffic, engagement, lead generation and eventually sales. 

It’s a full-fledged global platform through which brands humanize their content, showcase their products, and target their audience.

And when it comes to targeting potential customers, then Instagram Marketing is one of the best digital marketing strategies that your business can adopt. 

Quick Tip: If you’re a brand or an owner and still haven’t found out the potential use of Instagram advertising, you must register for this Online Facebook & Instagram Ads Course and get started. 

In this blog, we are specifically going to discuss how you can start and manage your Instagram business account. 

Interesting Instagram Business Account Statistics in 2022

Every brand that wishes to create an online presence targets Instagram as its first social media channel for marketing. Let’s look at some statistics (source: Hootsuite) that are evidence of the profit that existing businesses on Instagram are enjoying with the correct set of marketing strategies. 

• More than 90% of Instagrammers follow at least 1 Instagram Business Account.
• Every 1 in 2 people makes use of Instagram to discover new brands. 
• Approximately 57% of Instagram users participate in polls and other such interactions on Instagram stories. 
• Instagram’s advertising reach is more than that of Facebook in 2022.

Such positive statistics encourages a brand to create an Instagram Business Account and interact with a readymade target audience. 

Essential Tools available for Instagram Business Accounts

• Business Profiles
• Business Insights
• Promotions

Let’s understand them in detail.

Business Profiles

You can distinguish your profile as a business account using Instagram business tools and with that, your account can now choose how its customers can get in touch with them or call them via text or email with a tap of the contact button as well as get directions via maps.

Giving followers multiple ways to contact your business is certainly an upgrade! An Instagram business account is free and easy to set up.

Business Insights

When you set up an Instagram business account, you can unlock your access to insights and analytics regarding your followers using Instagram business tools. 

You can now learn more about who your followers are and what they are doing on your profile. You’ll be able to see Reach, Impressions, Website Clicks, Follower Activity.

The insights feature on reels and other posts was recently launched by Instagram and has been a game-changer. 

There are two ways to view the metrics – on each post itself and on the overall account dashboard.

• Impressions – the number of times anyone at all saw your post.
• Reach – how many unique accounts saw the post?
• Engagement – how many unique accounts liked, saved, or commented on the post.
• Website Clicks – the number of accounts that have clicked on your website link in your business profile (past 7 days).
• Followers – specifically gender, age range, and location (cities and countries), plus the average times your followers are on Instagram on a typical day.
• Profile Views – the number of times users viewed your business profile (past 7 days).

This information can help you recognize your fastest-buying customers and the ones that interact the most with your brand. Use this data wisely to create relevant content for your audience in the future. 

Promoted Posts

Businesses can promote their posts using Instagram business tools. This is different from a paid Instagram ad, as you can select any image that you have already uploaded and give it a boost with the click of a button through the use of Instagram business tools.

When you promote posts via your Instagram business account, you’ll have an option of adding a button prompting people to take action. The available call-to-actions for these promotion posts include: Learn More, Shop Now, Watch More, Sign Up, Contact Us, and Book Now.

You can choose demographics based on age, gender, location, and interests, or have Instagram choose for you. While targeting, people often tend to ‘target everybody’ which is why they never see a good return on their ad investment.

Having a skill set in social media marketing can help you target your customers better to get maximum engagement.

Now that you’re aware of the functionalities and capabilities of an Instagram business account, here’s a quick step-wise guide on how to create an Instagram business account. 

How to Create an Instagram Business Account? (Step-wise Guide)

Do you want to learn how to change your Instagram account to a business account? It’s free and very simple to convert your personal Instagram account to a business profile if you currently have one.

Simply follow the given 10 steps to set up your business account:

1. Log in to Instagram
2. Go to your Profile
3. Select the Main Menu (Top right corner) 
4. Tap to Settings
5. Select Account
6. Tap “Switch to Professional account”
7. Select Business 
8. Connect to your Facebook Account (Optional)
9. Enter all the required information of your Business
10. Tap Done 

And BOOM! You are now ready with your Instagram Business account. 

Now, you can start using the following marketing strategies to kickstart your Instagram Business account journey!

Top 11 Marketing Strategies for Instagram Business Accounts 

Now that we have an understanding of everything that makes your business account work, let’s look at the ways you can use them to your advantage.

You need to post the right kind of content to stay relevant to your current followers. Here are 11 Instagram Marketing Tips that you can use to make optimum utilization of the platform, once you’ve shifted to using an Instagram business account:

1. Don’t Ignore Your Bio

The Bio is the most important thing to have whether it’s your personal account or Business account. 

Your Instagram bio informs the users about who you are and what your business has to offer. When writing your bio, keep your target audience in mind. It should be as follows: 

• Concise
• Informative
• Written in your Brand’s style and tone

2. Always Use a High-Quality Profile Picture

Your profile, your bio, should represent your brand. The majority of businesses use their logo or a variation of it. Remember that Instagram profile images are small. Select a high-resolution image that will allow you to zoom in on your logo without it becoming blurry.

3. Interact With Your Followers

Having a business profile is very relevant since your followers can contact you and get in touch with you right from the page instead of a website.

Make the most of this feature, as a lot of times, this gives you the opportunity to close a sale within the first interaction. Ensure that you are perceived as friendly, relatable but at the same time professional and authoritative.

You get bonus points for prompt responses to direct messages and comments by your followers.

4. Create a Style Guide for Your Brand

The best business accounts have a consistent look and feel across the entire content or the page. Create a style guide for your account so that your brand is visible at a glance.

The following elements should be included in your brand’s style guide:

• Post Templates
• A Color Palette
• Rules for Fonts

5. Create Sponsored Posts

It gives your Instagram business account the ability to target your audience in a whole new way. Posts are sponsored to further increase their reach. Top posts can be turned into sponsored ads too and can garner more engagement.

Sponsored posts, can be optimized for multiple goals. Your goal could be to increase profile visits to your Instagram business account handle, for more likes. In this case, your post needs to be highly engaging.

Your goal could also be to get more people to purchase your product/service, in this case, your post will be a hard sell, something that convinces the viewer to leave their Instagram experience for your website.

Whatever your goal is, it’s important to scientifically and systematically test all of your content.

6. Use Instagram Stories

Stories are a relatively new format of expression on Instagram. Stories have the highest engagement rates of all Instagram content formats.

Business accounts can use them not just to engage with their audience but to also conduct a hard sell.

They help to generate leads and are live only for 24 hours but can be saved for later use. They can be used to capture behind the scene posts which cannot be put up as regular posts.

Stories add a personal touch to your Instagram business account, and should not be used only to sell your products. Stories are a brilliant tool to build trust by revealing to your audience that you understand the things they care about.

7. Partner with Influencers for a Wider Reach

Influencers on Instagram already have a huge follower base, through which you can reach the right potential customers at the right time. Shoutouts and mentions are the currency for growth on Instagram.

Using influencers is a proven way to grow on Instagram, and you should definitely give it a shot if you can afford it. Influencers need not be individuals but can also be influential pages.

On a smaller scale, your Instagram business account can leverage micro-influencers who have a following similar to your target audience.

8. Use the Right Hashtags

It’s difficult for us to stop talking about hashtags once we have started. So much that we can write a book on it. Sadly we cannot do that here. On the bright side, we have an article all about how to select hashtags for Instagram.

Hashtags are an identification tool on social media. They help to track who is talking about what and how many people are talking about something at a particular time. 

For example, more people talk about the FIFA world during the world cup rather than after it. Hence more people are likely to use #FIFAworldcup in their posts and their stories.

Hashtags can be leveraged in many different ways. You can use a consistent brand hashtag on all your content. This will help customers find your content on the platform.

You can make brand slogans or phrases into hashtags as well! But at the same time, use hashtags other people are using since those are the ones that will bring you traffic on your page.

Another critical feature of hashtags is their recency of use. Imagine your Instagram business account as a surfer and hashtags as waves. To be found, you need to ride the right wave.

9. Post at the Right Time

Over-posting on Instagram as a business could turn off your existing followers. The key is to be consistent and not overdo it. 

You can always find when your followers are most active through Insights and try posting at that time so that it reaches the correct audience.

You can know the best times to post via your Instagram insights.

10. Be Highly Consistent

As we have mentioned earlier your main aim is to be consistent. If you post on a regular basis, you will get the most out of your Instagram Insights. 

Choose and stick to a tempo that works for your team. We recommend using a social media scheduling tool to help manage your content calendar if you are genuinely trying to grow your Instagram presence. 

11. Take the Advantage of Instagram Reels

Reels is a new feature of Instagram, launched in the year 2020. It is a short-video-making feature that Instagram has started inspired by the popular short-video platform TikTok. 

Reels are 15-second short fun and engaging videos that can have sound effects and background music addable to them. 

And the best part about this is that it has a separate “Ads” section, where brands can promote their products & services and engage with their audience. Up to 30 seconds of ads can be looped in between the reels. 

Not only Instagram, but social media marketing as a whole has been gaining a lot of popularity because of its massive and relevant approach. Thus, here’s your chance to attend an Online social media marketing course led by experts of the industry and social media marketers themselves. 

Having been through this much content, you must have some great ideas and strategies for getting your Instagram business account up and soaring. 

But to implement all these strategies you must have in-depth knowledge about other digital marketing efforts as well. And IIDE’s 4-month Online Digital Marketing Course in India is exactly what you need. It delves into each digital marketing core skill in detail with on-the-go practice. 

So you can apply these simultaneously to your business/brand while learning!

And if you wish to hire a specialist for the job, then hire from us from our pool of highly-trained professional candidates with all digital marketing skills. 

To summarize, just include these crucial steps in your Instagram practice to see the most engagement, a growing following, and ultimately, more customers.

Instagram Business Account vs Creator Account

The Instagram Business account is pretty much similar to the creator account. You can share photos, videos, and stories, of your business or brand. 

By sharing information such as your location, phone, and email, you can connect with your customers, start conversations, share your brand values, and even make your company more accessible.

In simple words you allow your potential customers to connect with you just with a click of a button. 

But there are certain features and factors that make an Instagram Business Account different from a Creator Account.

• Business Accounts can add their industry in their Instagram bio such as Advertising, Automobile, Hotels, etc.
• Business Accounts can set up Instagram Shopping which adds an online store to their profile.
• If you wish to auto-schedule posts, reels, or stories with the help of digital marketing tools, you can do so with only the Business Account.
• With Business Accounts, you can add the location of your physical store to your bio profile.
• Instagram allows businesses to add a CTA such as ‘Shop Now’ to their profile.

Now, that we know the difference between the Instagram Business Account and Creators Account and have understood how to get started, let’s look at the frequently asked questions.

FAQ – Frequently Asked Questions 

Q. Is an Instagram business account free?

Yes, an Instagram business account is completely free. Anyone can have an Instagram business account. And the best part is that you don’t even need to prove that you have an official registered business. On the other hand, making a business account will make your brand look serious and professional. 

Q. Is it better to have a business account on Instagram?

Yes, it is better to have a business account on Instagram. The Instagram business account will help your brand in effectively reaching your target audience. It enables you to publish your post where your target audience is most active, resulting in higher post engagement. The analytical tool will assist you in developing a better understanding of your customers and expanding your company’s reach. And the Auto Publishing feature allows you to schedule posts for your feed with no hassle. 

Q. Can you tell if someone has a business Instagram account?

If you see any options to contact the company directly through call or email, and the physical location then that particular brand is using a business Instagram account. 

Conclusion

We hope you enjoyed reading the Blog. An Instagram Business Account should be your stepping stone towards increasing an online presence. Even if you don’t wish to sell through online platforms, engagement and brand awareness via Instagram can help those looking for your brand recognize you. Let us know in the comments section below. And do follow us on our Instagram account at @iideonline if you want to catch up on all the latest trends and buzz in the digital marketing industry.