A business Instagram account gives you more insights, more features and more advertising opportunities. Want to see how many times your profile has been viewed? Do you want to be able to place ads in the Stories? Do you also want a contact button in your Instagram profile? In this article, we'll explain further how to turn your personal profile into a business Instagram account.

What is a business Instagram account?

We receive the question "what is a business Instagram account?" more and more often. Instagram has been incredibly popular for years. Because Instagram's popularity has increased so tremendously over the years, the social media platform became increasingly interesting for businesses as well. Until October 2016, there was no way for businesses to create a business Instagram account (also called Instagram Business). As an organization, you simply had to create a regular Instagram account and then profile yourself as a business.

But then Instagram Business was created. That makes it possible for businesses to create a business Instagram account with some handy features, including statistics. Instagram Business is still best compared to a business Facebook page for your company.

That leaves the question of how do I then create a business Instagram account. We're going to explain that in these next steps.

Step 1: Create an Instagram account

A business Instagram is a personal account linked to a business Facebook page. So step one is: Create an Instagram account if you don't already have one.

Do you already have an Instagram account? Then proceed to step 2.

Step 2: Create a business Facebook page

Before a business Facebook page can be created, a personal Facebook page is required. We'll assume for a moment that you already have a personal Facebook page, but if you don't you can create one here.

Step 3: Link your personal Instagram page with your business Facebook page

Now we come to the most fun and exciting part of this article: linking Instagram with your business Facebook page.

You do this as follows:

• Within the Instagram app, go to the account you want to link
• Click on the 3 dashes at the top right
• Click on 'Settings' at the bottom
• Then click on 'Switch to company profile'
• Click continue often enough until you see 'Link to Facebook' displayed
• Click on 'Choose page'
• Select the correct page
• Click 'Next'
• Complete the contact information
• Click Done

Now everything is ready to get started. Would you also like to understand a little better what benefits it offers. Below are the four benefits of a business Instagram account

Four benefits of a business Instagram account

Having a business Instagram account has four benefits.

Benefit 1: Statistics

I personally think this is the most important benefit. Namely, you can see the statistics of your Instagram account. Think about the percentage of male/female, number of profile visits, number of interactions, number of views and number of website clicks. This data is an important part of evaluating how your Instagram posts are performing and combination to why. At what time of day is the best time to post, but more importantly when not to post. Similarly, you can combine that by posting certain posts for women at a different day and time than a post that focuses more on men.

Benefit 2: Additional marketing functionalities within Instagram

Having a business Instagram profile also has the advantage of giving you more marketing/advertising opportunities within the platform. In fact, once the link between Facebook and Instagram is established, you can start promoting posts and other content.

You can do this with photos and videos in the timeline, as well as through paid stories. Attract attention with a single image or show all your products in a convenient carousel or collection.

You are able to make certain choices there, select the audience to be reached very specifically. Select interest, behavior, by location or other demographics and you spend your advertising budget on only truly relevant audiences.

Benefit 3: Contact opportunities

Because Facebook's information is linked to Instagram, someone can instantly call, email or request directions when they visit the Instagram page.

This is incredibly useful for promoting products or offering a local service. Then interested parties can immediately request the information they need.

Benefit 4: You have access to tagging products in posts and stories

You can also 'tag' your products in posts and stories. One of the requirements to be admitted to the 'Shopping on Instagram' functionality is that you have an approved business Instagram profile. But what is that Shopping on Instagram?

For example, when you sell t-shirts and you post a picture of the t-shirt on Instagram, you can tag the product, so to speak. The moment someone then clicks on the product, he can immediately go to the right page on the website and buy the product. So this can lead to direct sales through Instagram!

If you have any other questions about using Instagram. Please be sure to contact us.