At The Blogger Programme, we believe that people go to Instagram to be inspired and discover content that they care about, which includes content from brands and businesses. According to Instagram, they currently have '25 million business accounts worldwide', with an astonishing '200 million users visiting at least one business profile daily'. Instagram is the 'primary visual touchpoint of our times', and it is where the majority of businesses are allocating their marketing spend. All target markets now live on Instagram and use it to discover what they consume and interact with, from travel destinations, shopping choices, hotels and venues, activities, the list goes on.
Making the change to a business profile is incredibly advantageous as an influencer, and here's why...
Make Your Business More Credible
Creating a business account will only make you more credible when working with brands, as it allows you to add contact information, industry information and a business address directly to your profile.
Insights Are Key
Instagram business accounts allow you to see in-depth insights, including a post's reach, impressions, profile visits and audience demographic. You can also look deeper into website click throughs, location of your audience and how many of your posts are being saved by other users. All this information is not disclosed to regular users.
Provide Links In Your IG Stories
The swipe-up feature in Instagram Stories are only available to Instagram business accounts (and those who have above 10K followers). This gives you the ability to insert a link to redirect your followers to anywhere you want to take them. A lot of brands are now wanting to work with influencers who have this feature as it allows that influencers audience to be redirected to their webpage, helping them achieve additional reach and potential sales conversions.
Gain Actionable Information
Business profiles also provides you with actionable information about which posts are performing well, including things like the best days of the week and times to post. You can also promote any posts you've shared, and include a button such as "Learn More" to reach new users in your target audience.
TBP Access
Here at The Blogger Programme, we now ask for all influencers to have an Instagram business account if you wish to work on brand campaigns and opportunities. This is to ensure we can provide the brands we work with, with in-depth statistics and analytics that they require when using influencer marketing. So are you thinking about making the switch? No problem! We have put together a straight forward, step by step guide to setting up your Instagram Business profile in order to help increase the possibility of brand partnerships and collaborations.
Step 1:
On your phone, go to your Instagram account and click options (three lines on the top right-hand corner). From there, go to Settings. Scroll down until you see "Switch to Business Account". You’ll then be prompted to connect your Facebook Page and all of your additional contact information. (You must connect a Facebook page to use an Instagram Business Profile)
Step 2:
Next, it will ask for your business profile details including an email address, phone number and business address (you do not have to put an address if you do not wish to, it is optional). Once you have done this, you have your very own business profile! Now for the fun part...
Step 3:
You now have the ability to track your analytics for future posts (note ‘future’, as it doesn’t track pre-business account data on your posts.) Once you upload your first post with the business account, you have the option to ‘View Insights’on that picture. If you click on this you will be able to see the following analytics:
The number of likes, comments, saves, profile visits and your pictures reach.
Step 4:
In the top right-hand corner of your profile, you will also find an icon that has 4 little columns, this shows your profile insights:
Still having issues? You might have made one of these common mistakes:
- You have not connected a Facebook business page WHILE switching to Business Account on Instagram. You will need to switch back to Personal account and go through the process again.
- When logging back to TBP, you have connected your Instagram account. Disconnect that, and connect with Facebook instead. It will pick up your Instagram account too!
- After reading the above, you might have gone and connected with Facebook, as well as Instagram. Disconnect everything! ONLY connect with Facebook, we promise, it will all be synced.
- You've done everything right but still not Verified? Get in touch at hello@thebloggerprogramme.com.
If you are an influencer wanting to get involved with blogging opportunities and work with The Blogger Programme on paid campaigns, then you can sign up for free here to access all our influencer opportunities and get sent them directly to your inbox each week.
Love TBP x
