[Instagram’s business & creator accounts – Digital Marketing – Part 10.1]
In the previous blog, we explored the various creative ways of using Instagram features which may aid in getting more followers.
Going ahead, some of the account owners may want to promote their posts for more visibility. The free or personal account on Insta doesn’t allow you that. In order to promote your posts, you will have to update your account.
Instagram lets users promote their content via two approaches – upgrading to a business account or upgrading to a creator account. To ease the understanding, I have split the blog into two parts. In this part, you will get an overall idea of what business and creator account exactly are, and their similarities and differences.
In the next post, I will keep it image heavy to walk you through the process, share some actual numbers from my Instagram account along with some tips to avoid running into issues.
So for this part, here are the perks of a business/creator account of Instagram.
Decreased organic reach
I am saving the good parts for later.
In one of the threads on Growth Hackers, IG users have expressed their experiences of switching to professional or business accounts, many of whom narrate the falls in reach or engagement.
While for many the change is drastic, for others it may not be the case. From my personal experience, the first time I switched to a professional account in hopes of more visibility, the organic reaches on my post actually reduced.
The major takeaway here is when you switch your account to business or professional, there is a possibility that your post engagement may reduce. In my opinion, it is best for experiments when the follower count is still low, like something below 500, and implement the learnings in future promotions.
Access to analytics
There are two ways to view the analytics that Instagram offers you on upgrade:
#1 Overall analytics
This IG analytics is available to you under the hamburger menu icon under “Insights”. This is where you get numbers for all of your content in terms of – views, audience demography, reach, impressions, best hours of engagement, and so on.
#2 Per post basis analytics
This analytics is useful when you are interested in the numbers of a particular post. “View Insights” is available for each post one your IG account is upgraded. It gives you numbers in terms of reach, engagement numbers like profile views, and insights into hashtags that led people to discover your content.
Post promotion differences
As mentioned earlier, Instagram gives you two options to upgrade – business or creator. The CTA (call to action) for post-promotion mostly remains the same in both the accounts, i.e making the target audience go to your profile or website, etc, it’s the post-promotion part where the difference lies.
Instagram will collect business details for business accounts, and the mandatory or optional fields will vary as per the country’s laws. E.g. while business details like name and address are mandatory, GSTIN numbers are optional.
For the creator’s account, the payment part will take you straight to integrated payment options like internet banking, credit/debit cards, or Paytm (for Indian creators).
Ease of switching between accounts
One real good thing about the whole upgrade process is the ease with which you can switch accounts. You are one tap away from a professional/business account.
However, the ease comes with few issues. We shall look into this in detail in the next post.
More Hidden Features
Ever wondered why some accounts ask you to “swipe up” in their stories which takes you to a particular landing page or shopping link? That’s because they have at least 10K followers.
10K is a big number for people to take your account seriously and for Instagram to give you some more hidden features.
If your content calendar is set, there is a guaranteed zero-interruption in posting frequency, and money is not a matter of concern, I don’t see a reason why posts shouldn’t be promoted to the point of having 10K followers along with good engagement rates. This is where I would stop this blog post on business and creator accounts. I hope this gave you enough pointers to do your own research and hence more clarity!
If there are questions, do let me know in the comments, and I will address them in the next post.
Till then, stay tuned!
Table of Contents for Digital Marketing Series
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