NU
Personal vs. Business Instagram Accounts: The Main Differences You Need To Know
Instagram is one of the biggest social media networking platforms in the world. Learn how to leverage Instagram to grow your business with these tips!
Instagram, it’s a social media network that has amassed millions of users thanks to its simple, visually-driven format. But there is more to Instagram as a place to showcase bits and pieces of our lives in pictures. For business owners, it’s a fantastic platform to market and sell every product imaginable.
Instagram offers two types of accounts, personal and business. If you’re an aspiring influencer or entrepreneur who wants to tap into the marketing powerhouse that Instagram is, let’s dive deeper into each account, so you’ll know which one to get:
Personal Account
A personal account on Instagram is its default account. It’s an account that’s not meant to market or sell anything at all. You are primarily posting personal content. You can post pictures, short videos, etc. With a personal account, you can interact with your followers – friends, family, colleagues, random followers, etc.
A personal account does not come with features to boost your business’ reach. However, you can tinker with the privacy settings in case you’d like to control who could see your personal account.
Suppose you are an entrepreneur, or better yet, a ~ solopreneur ~. In that case, you can use your personal Instagram account to show a different side of you, build an audience and hopefully, gain even more customers in the long-term. You have the choice to run both a personal and a business account.
Business Account
Instagram’s business account is designed for entrepreneurial users who want to grow their business and expand their reach. The account comes with robust marketing features to track your business and market your products such as analytics, geographical and demographical trackers, and so on. You can also boost your posts to extend your reach and maximise your marketing resources. That said, a business account cannot be set in private.
Switching Between Personal and Business Account (or Vice-Versa)
To switch from a personal to a business account, go to Settings, then scroll to “Switch to Business Profile.” Key in your business details then save.
If you'd like to switch back to a personal account, go to Accounts, then scroll down to “Switch to Personal Account.”
Benefits of an Instagram Business Account
Instagram Business is similar to the Personal profile save for some key features that are meant for marketing.
Instagram Insights
One of Instagram’s most powerful features is the Insights. This feature gives you a look at your page's activity, audience, and content:
Activity: Tracks the number of your followers and viewers. The activity tab outlines your profile performance each day, listing down the accounts you’ve interacted with along with the number of website clicks + performance comparisons from previous weeks.
Audience: Outlines the demographical and geographical profiles of your followers. With the audience tab, you can check out your followers’ age, range, gender, and location. You’ll also know the active times of your followers for perfectly timed marketing posts.
Content: Outlines how many likes each post gets. This tab lets you check the number of impressions each post received for better hashtagging and optimisation. Apart from the photos, the Content tab also tracks the performance of your stories and paid ads.
If you are an entrepreneur and you want to maximise Instagram’s many marketing features, this is the best way to go. Using your business account, you can track your marketing efforts.
Add a Contact Button
With a business account, prospective customers could contact you much easier because the profile lets you add a contact button. You can configure the contact button so that clients could call, text, or email you directly from Instagram. This way, your customers don't have to hunt your website link on your profile to get in touch with you!
Connect Facebook Business Page with Instagram Business Page
What would a legit business be without a Facebook business page? If you want to boost your presence on social media, you can start a Facebook page and then connect it with your Instagram business profile.
Facebook and Instagram are sister companies, so it makes sense that their best marketing features complement each other. By integrating your Facebook page into your Instagram page, you can build a credible brand that attracts a lot of people.
As for the configuration, it's easy. Be sure that you're logged into your Facebook page. Go to your Instagram account settings and choose: Public Business Information > Select Page > then select a page you'd like to connect to. Tap done and you're all set.
Marketing-focused Instagram Stories
The Instagram story lets you share tidbits of your day through pictures and videos online in a slideshow format that disappears after 24-hours. The Story feature enables you to respond to follower questions with videos and pictures. You can also add special effects like filters, static stickers, animated stickers, and geostickers. You can also add music and post it on your profile.
On a personal Instagram account, you get the basic format. But on the business platform, the stories feature lets you embed links to every post that people could view by “swiping up.” This feature is great because it allows you to drive traffic to your website easily. Also, you’ll know who your avid viewers are because the feature tracks your views and viewers.
Create Promoted Posts
Promoted posts are images you post on your website that could be turned into paid ads. The duration of the ads will depend on how much you’re willing to pay – Instagram offers different rates depending on how long they’ll show the ads to other users. Once the ads stop, you can boost the said ads for more extended promotions. Again, Instagram will track the impressions of the ads, so you’ll know who your ideal clients are. You can use this information to create better ads in the future.
Ready to make the most out of Instagram and grow your business? You can by switching to the Business profile. With the Instagram business profile, you can take advantage of different brand tools and SEO features to gain more followers and likes!
PLEASE COMMENT BELOW