By: ScottCox Wednesday January 24, 2018 comments Tags: instagram business profile, content creation, social media, marketing strategy

Should you really change your Instagram profile from personal to business? Will your engagement drop? There are pros and cons to both. But a business profile on Instagram is definitely something a company should consider since over 25 million businesses have made the switch to an Instagram business profile.

With an Instagram business profile, ventures of any size can receive analytics about their followers and posts, present a more professional looking profile, and promote Instagram posts as ads. But let's dive into the pros and cons. Still in love with Facebook? You don't want to miss these 3 things.

Here's a look at the features of a personal profile:

Link to More Than One Facebook Page

The ability to connect multiple Facebook pages is exclusive to personal profiles.

Private Account

Personal accounts can be set to private, unlike business accounts. Even though you would normally only ever set your account to private if you were concerned about people you don't know seeing your photos and posts, some people prefer social media privacy and should stay with a personal Instagram profile.

Here's a look at the features of a business profile:

Instagram Ads

Utilizing the powerful advertising tools Facebook does, Instagram ads allow you to set up, run, and track campaigns the same way you can with Facebook ads.

Instagram Insights

Insights, one of Instagram's prominent business features, is a built-in analytics tool that gives specific details like who your followers are, when they're online, etc. This information is also available for Instagram posts and Stories so you can determine how they performed and how people are engaging with them.

Promoted Posts

With a business profile, you can promote your posts from within the app, similar to boosting a post on your Facebook page.

Connect with Followers

Business profile pages automatically can add additional contact info including website, email, address (or city), or phone number.

All business Instagram accounts with 10,000 or more followers can add links to their Instagram Stories. Here are the top things to do on your Instagram account.

Schedule Posts

Now IG's API allows business pages to integrate with third-party applications, which means you can schedule IG posts ahead of time. Pictures and video can now be published at a later date using a scheduling website or app, freeing up so much of your time. Check out the details here!

Contact Button

With the contact button near the top of your profile, you have the ability to include directions, a phone number, and/or and email address.

Get Early Access to New Features

Many companies don't realize that a business page offers the potential to test new features early. Even though there's no guarantee to get to try them out, Instagram is constantly testing new features, and you won't even have the option if you only have a personal profile.

Not sure how to manage your Instagram business profile, contact us to see if we can help.