How To Switch To A Business Account on Instagram (and Why You Want To)

It’s been a long time coming.

For years, if you wanted to track your analytics on Instagram, you had to use a third-party platform or app. Last month that all changed, and marketers everywhere threw up their hands in a little hallelujah when Instagram introduced Business profiles.

All you have to do to use it is switch your personal account over to a business one. But why would you want to do that? And how? Let’s jump in.

Why Make the Switch?

Data, data, data!

Without data, how do you know when to post, what to post, or whether your posts are even doing anything for you?

You don’t.

And while Instagram’s new stats aren’t quite as comprehensive as the kind of numbers you can pull from Google Analytics, they do provide some solid, informative insights.

Here’s a look at the stats dashboard. At the top, you can swipe to the right and see impressions, reach, and website clicks for the past seven days.

Impressions indicates the number of times your post has been seen. Reach is the number of unique accounts that have seen your posts. Website clicks is the number of times people have clicked the link in your bio and visited your website.

In the middle of the screen you’ll find data on your top posts. Yep—an at-a-glance reference for which of your posts have performed best. You can sort it based on any of the metrics mentioned above, and also by time frame.

At the bottom of the screen is my favorite stat: the follower data. By expanding this section, you can see the age, gender and location makeup of your follower base, as well as the times and days they’re most active on Instagram.

This is basically a big, neon, flashing clock telling you when to post to get the most engagement! Gold mine.

Ok, so hopefully we’ve established that an Instagram Business profile contains some key data any brand would want to tap into. Now let’s go through how to get it.

Switching to an Instagram Business Profile

It’s super simple.

First, make sure you’re ready to make the switch. You’ll want to do this with an Instagram account that’s already dedicated to your business, not the one where you post your daughter’s dance recital and last night’s leftovers.

If you don’t have a dedicated Instagram account, now’s the perfect time to register for one!

Go into your account options by clicking the gear icon from your profile screen.

From there, click on ‘Switch to Business Profile.’ If you don’t see this option listed, it may not be enabled for your account just yet. As of August 2016, the platform was conducting a slow rollout of the feature.

Next, you’ll be prompted to connect Instagram to your Facebook account. This will allow you to link your Instagram Business account to your company’s existing Facebook page (which allows you to run Instagram ads, among other things).

Finally, enter a bit more information to fill out your business profile. Don’t worry—your phone number and email address won’t be shown on your public profile.

You’re done! You’ve made the switch and should begin to see analytics populating as you add new posts.

Something to Consider

There’s one more thing I should mention, because I feel like it’s a valid thing to know up front.

There’s a lot of talk about how Instagram will decide which posts to show users in the future. If you’ve been on Facebook for a few years, you’ll remember how an algorithm change significantly limited the reach of Business Page posts a while back—it was a move on Facebook’s part to limit spam in the news feed and get businesses to pay for their posts to be seen.

Some believe Instagram will eventually go the same way. After all, the platform is owned by Facebook and it already changed up its news feed to begin showing posts out of chronological order.

Do I think this will happen? Probably, eventually.

Do I think it’s a reason to avoid switching to a business account? Absolutely not.

Just as customers started to expect every business to have a Facebook page, the same is already happening for Instagram. As a brand, you need to engage where your customers are. If they’re on Instagram, you’ve gotta be there too, with a legitimate Business account.

Have you switched to a Business account yet? Once you do, follow me @tamibrehse and shoot me a comment so I can follow you back!