Over the past couple of weeks, Instagram has been giving us the opportunity to convert our Instagram Profiles to a Business Profile.
Switching to a Business Profile is a personal choice but by switching over you have access to more features that are fabulous to manage and analyse your Instagram marketing efforts.
This article provides all the details of switching over and what new features you will have access to.
Do you have access to the Instagram Business Profile?
Firstly you need to ensure your Instagram app on your mobile device is updated to the latest version.
Once my app was updated I had a message that was showing at the top of my screen every time I opened the app.
If you don’t see this message, tap on your profile photo at the bottom right of the screen. Then tap the settings icon at the top right of the screen. Scroll down and if you have access you will see an option to “Switch To Business Profile” towards the bottom of the screen.
Why switch to a Business Profile?
An Instagram Business Profile will give you added features such as:
- Promotions – Create promotions on Instagram that help grow your business. In other words you can create ads from your posts directly within Instagram with the Business Profile.
- Insights – Learn about your followers and see how your posts are performing. These insights are only available for new posts published after you switch to a Business Profile.
- Business Details – Add a phone number, email or location so customers can reach you directly from a button on your profile.
Setting Up Your Instagram Business Profile
To switch your profile across to a Business Profile, tap on “learn more” to view the features provided with a Business Profile and then tap the blue “Log in with Facebook” button.
That will then connect your Instagram profile to your Facebook Business Page. If you are an admin on more than one Facebook Business Page, ensure you select the correct Facebook Page to connect to. Instagram will then copy the information from your Facebook Page to Instagram.
You will then get the opportunity to edit that information. The information added here will activate buttons on your Instagram Profile to allow people to email, call and get directions to your business if you have added that appropriate information.
That is it. Once the above steps are completed your new Business Profile is live.
Note: If you switch to a business profile and then decide you want to switch back to a personal profile, that is easy to do in your Options Settings.
Profile Settings
On my new business profile, I added an email address so you can see the contact button now showing at the top. When people click on the contact button they are prompted to email me.
Instagram Insights
To view your Instagram Insights, go to the top right of your new business profile and you will see a graph icon (next to the settings wheel icon). The graph icon will take you to your insights.
Remember your insights will only start calculating for posts published after you switch to the new business profile.
The insights will give you data on the past week which include:
- Your top posts for the past 7 days which are sorted by impressions. Tap on the “See More” link to see how many impressions each post received.
- A graph showing the average times your followers are on Instagram on a typical day. Tap on the “See More” link beside this graph and you can drill down on the demographics of your followers including gender, age and location which you can sort by cities or countries.
This will be valuable data for your marketing as you will be able to see the best times of the day to post when a larger majority of your followers are on Instagram. You will also be able to tell what demographics you are attracting to your page and whether you are posting content that is attracting your ideal audience.
Definitions of Insights Data
Impressions is the total number of times all of your posts have been seen.
Reach is the number of unique accounts that have seen any of your posts.
Website clicks is the number of accounts that have tapped on the website link on your profile bio.
Followers is the average times your followers are on Instagram on a typical day.
Promoting Posts Directly From Instagram
With the introduction of Business Profiles on Instagram, we are now able to promote posts directly from Instagram. Previously, we were only able to do this via the Facebook Ads Manager.
Here is step by step instructions on how to promote an Instagram post.
Click on the promote button to the bottom right of the post.
Choose what you would like the objective of your ad to be – the choices are “Visit your website” or “Call or visit your business”.
If you select the “Visit your website” objective, you then choose an action button for your ad. The text option you select will appear as a button on your ad. Choices are:
- Learn More
- Watch More
- Shop Now
- Book Now
- Sign Up
- Contact Us
You then input the link that you want the button linked to.
Once that is completed, scroll down to choose your audience options. Select an audience you have saved before or create a new one. In the interests section, you can select between 4 and 10 interests to target with your ads. Scroll through and complete all sections so that you are confident the right people will be seeing your post promotion.
Keep scrolling down to complete all other options including the budget for your promotion and the duration.
Once completed tap the “Next” option at the top right of the screen.
Review all the details and then tap “Promote” at the top right of the screen.
Your ad will then be reviewed and you will see “Pending Approval” under your original post. Once it is approved you will see “Currently Promoted” under the post and you can view the performance of the promotion by clicking on that button or via the Ads Manager in Facebook.
I have been using Instagram Ads since they were introduced and have been getting great results for clients. As this post promotion feature in Instagram is only a new feature, I will be doing some testing to see if this is a good option or if better results are achieved by setting up the ads through the Facebook Ads Manager.
Stay on the lookout for further updates on this.
Laura says
Thanks for this review Jayne. I’ve just switched my profile to business!
Jayne Day says
Thanks Laura.
Theresa says
Great post Jayne, I had no idea! Just switched over 🙂
Jayne Day says
My pleasure Theresa.