Instagram has evolved from sharing personal photos to being one of the biggest marketing channels. Instagram has over 200 million business accounts. If you have a business, it’s high time to harness the full potential of Instagram. In this beginner guide to Instagram for business, we’ll cover all essentials you can grow your business efficiently with the help of Instagram.

Let’s dig into it.

How to set up an Instagram business account?

First, change your personal account into a business account to use Instagram for business.
Because business accounts have additional features not present in
a personal accounts.
These additional features are:

● Instagram insights
● Ads
● Instagram shopping
● Contact information
● Auto-Schedule content

Here is the step-by-step method to set up a business account.
1. Go to your profile. Click on three horizontal lines in the top right
corner.

2. Click on Settings.

3. Tap Account.

4. Scroll down and select the switch to a professional account.

5. This page will appear. Click on all four steps.

6. Select a category for your business. Instagram will suggest options.
For example, clothing, writing, shopping, and retail.

7. Click on a business account.

8. Add your contact info.
● Email
● Phone number
● Address

9. Instagram will allow you to connect your business account with
your FB account. It is optional to connect your FB account with Instagram.

10. Next step is to add details to your professional account.
Details are:
● User name
● Website address
● Profile photo
● Bio
Tap complete your profile

How to optimize your business Instagram profile?

User name

Your user name should be the same as your company name. Because people search for you on Instagram with your business name.

Add a clear profile photo

• Add your logo as a profile photo for your business account.
• Instagram profile picture is circular, so its aspect ratio should be 1:1.
• The Instagram display photo size should be 110 *110.
• Your display photo must be clear and eye-catching.

Example: Semrush’s Instagram profile photo

Write a Bio

• Instagram allows you to write a 150 characters bio.
•  You should take the time to write a bio as you have limited words.
• This is the first point of your interaction with your audience. And we know the first impression is the last impression. Explain your business in simple and clear words.
• Use keywords of your business in your bio to improve searchability.
• Show your personality with emojis.
• Add hashtag in bio to drive engagement.
• Include a link to your website or the latest product.
• If you have turned on Instagram shopping on your profile, add the view shop button. It will directly take your customers to the in-app store.

Example: Jonie’s Instagram bio

What is the Instagram platform structure?

After setting up your business account, first, you should learn the Instagram
platform structure.

These are formats to post content on Instagram.

Post

It is simply sharing a photo or video on an Instagram profile.
Instagram users can comment, like, share, and save your post.

You can tag other brands and people on your post.
You can add geotag and shopping tag to your post.

Example: Nadinepieces has added geotag and shopping tag in their post.

They will remain forever on your profile unless you archive them.
Posts are further divided into carousel posts.

Coursel post
You can share 10 photos or videos in a single post in carousel posts.

Stories

Instagram stories were a response to Snapchat stories.
They are displayed at the top of your Instagram feed.

When users click on a display photo, they can see your stories.
You can share photos and videos on stories.

The video duration on stories is 15 seconds.
Users can comment and share stories.

They disappear after 24 hours, but if you put them in highlight, they are saved permanently.

Highlights appear at the bottom of your bio.

Example: Francesca’s Instagram stories highlight.

Organize your highlights with a name as they help your audience find their desired content easily.

Highlight make it easy for new users to understand your brand.

Make your stories more engaging by using filters, stickers, gifs, polls, and
music options.

IGTV

IGTV is a short form of Instagram TV.
Videos longer than 1 hour are uploaded to IGTV.

Reels

Reels were introduced as a response to Tiktok reels.
They are 10-60 second videos.

They are posted on the Instagram feed.
Users can like, share, save, and comment on Instagram reels.

You can find video content(reels, IGTV, live) by clicking this icon.

Example: Paula’s Choice Skincare

How to define your Instagram business strategy?

• You cannot run an Instagram business account without setting a business
  strategy. First, understand your target audience.

● What are their pain points?

● What are their shopping behaviors?

● What are their demographics?

• What is their favorite type of content?

After understanding your audience define your goals for using Instagram for business.
These goals can be:

● Brand awareness
● Showcasing products to your audience
● Engaging with customers
● Increasing followers and sales
● Educating your audience about your business

In the end, decide your posting schedule and the content you will share with
your audience.

In the following sections, we will describe the content to share on Instagram in detail.

How to decide the type of content to share on your business Instagram feed?

Share content on your feed that targets and excites your audience. Content that shows your brand personality.

Rubbastuff also approves it.

” Find your audience. Find what interests them?
What will excite them to interact and talk about you? Keep it real”

There are many options to share content on your feed.

You can use all these options or stick to a few.
Do hit and trial and find what works for you.

1:Product photos

The first thing you should show to your audience is your product photos. If you are not creative in creating content for Instagram, then the simplest content is to share product photos.

It will help your audience to understand your business and products. The best place to showcase your product’s photos is your Instagram feed.

It will help your audience in exploring your products.

Example:  Toms share their products on their feed

2:User-generated content

Should we share a secret to making your clients happy? Yes,

Post their photos on your feed. It’s called user generate content.

UGCgenerates trust in your clients.

Clients love brands that engage with them. You can create a hashtag for UGC.

Example: SHEIKE  share user-generated content on the Instagram feed.

How to find user-generated content?

You can find them with your hashtags and people tagging you.

Click on this icon, and you will find clients tagging you.

3:Lifestyle photos

Do not share photos that look like ads. Because on Instagram audience wants to see pictures that are relatable to daily life.

You should share photos of products to show how they can use them in real life.

Example: Loft’s lifestyle photo.

4:Quotes

There is too much negativity on social media.

It’s ok to share quotes on your feed. Who doesn’t like a positive boost in life?

This shows your empathic side to followers.

Example: Fitafy shares quotes on the feed. Quotes give the motivation to stay fit.

5:Behind the scenes content

The audience loves to see the process of making a product.

Share behind the scene videos or photos on the feed to increase loyalty, customer support, and sales because it shows your transparency.

Examples:

Famous Indian designer Sabyasachi always shares BTS of his latest products.

Milly showed behind the scene their iconic dress.

How to decide on content for Instagram stories for better engagement?

50% of Instagram users visit a website after seeing it in stories.
Stories have many options to add creativity and fun to engage users.

Here are a few content ideas to share on your stories to increase
engagement:

1:New arrivals announcement

Stories are the perfect choice to announce your new arrivals. You can create FOMO for your new collection before launching on stories.

Announce it on stories with a bang. Don’t forget to share the website link in your announcement.

Example: Birce Fine Jewellery sharing updates about new arrivals on stories.

2:Use ask me anything stickers

Use these stickers to allow your audience to ask questions directly.

This helps you to note down what customers needs from your brand. When you give answers to your customers, it builds customer loyalty.

Example: INKEY List team gives answers to their audience’s skin concerns on stories using ask me stickers.

3:Countdown stickers for Instagram stories

If you want to remind your audience of an upcoming event(sale, live chat, etc.), share a countdown sticker. It is like an alarm.

They will set the reminder. This is a good strategy to check your audience engagement.

Example: Sephora uses a countdown sticker on Instagram stories for a chat.

4:Repost users-generated content on stories

Just like feed repost user-generated content on stories.

Example: pull and bear repost customer story.

5:Conduct polls on Instagram stories

Instagram polls are modern-day surveys. They are short, fun, and to the point.

They give you endless ways to interact with your audience.
You can use them for customer feedback and market research.

Example: Uniqlo and  H&M conducting a poll on stories.

How to grow your business on Instagram?

1:Do Instagram Live

According to Hubspot, Instagram Live has the highest ROI of any content format.

It is the most effective way to grow followers.

As you connect with your audience in real time.

To get the most from lives, announce your live sessions in advance and request the audience to send you their questions.

Example: Primark announces its live session on stories.

Prepare yourself for doing live sessions.

If you have more viewers at your live session, Instagram will feature it at the top lives on explore page.

You can save your Instagram live and share it on your feed.

2:Collabrate with other brands

If you want to increase your reach, then the best option is to collaborate with other brands.

In brand collaboration, two brands create a product for their combined audience.

It helps grow the audience and market the brands without blowing the budget.

Nina Clark of sleepwear brand Nightire explains how to grow the brand by collaborating with other brands.

She says,” Invest time in finding partner brands to collaborate with.

Whether through multi-brand competitions, giving shout-outs to one another on Stories / the grid, or even collaborating on designing a range or style together – tapping into other brands’ audiences is a surefire way to grow your reach.”

Example of collaborating the brands

She shares her example of collaborating with other brands, “I have partnered with brands like Healist, REN, and Life Armour in the past.

These collaborations have led to the brands commissioning Nightire to create limited edition products for them (mostly eyemasks).”

3:Create a visual strategy

Instagram is a visual aesthetic platform. Your feed is your first impression to visitors, so make it appealing.

Your visual aesthetics are your brand signature and digital billboard. If it catches the attention of your visitors, they will follow you.

33 % of accounts lost followers due to inconsistent aesthetics.

Make a strategy that shows consistency on your grid.

For a consistent grid, you should have a consistent

• Colour palette
• Lightning choice
•  Editing style

“Have a consistent grid theme. When it comes to growing your Instagram account in the business world, it’s all about consistency.”

  Ian Carroll of Digital funnel.

She further added, “Look at your last nine posts on Instagram; these are your first impression for a new visitor – is there a consistent theme running throughout?

Is your personality shining through? Is there a similar use of colors, layout, or filters? 

See this example from Chanel; they use horizontal images to display the same vibe across 3 images. It’s engaging and eye-catching, giving the upmarket feel they’re going for.”

4:Make brand ambassadors

Find brand ambassadors to grow your business if you are a small brand with a limited budget and cannot afford influencers.

Ambassadors are people having followers in the hundreds or a few thousand.
Ambassadors promote your brand in exchange for products.

The Charity Shop Gift Card PR share how they grow their Instagram with brand ambassadors.

“Our Instagram strategy started with reaching out to many smaller accounts that make up the growing charity shopping social media community.

This helped us find suitable ambassadors to represent our brand and try our product and volunteers to help grow awareness.

It was important to find the right people to represent our brand that would have an authentic voice within the community.

We found that it wasn’t necessarily the people with the most followers with the best engagement; the smaller influencers had created a very strong-knit and growing group of thrifters where they would interact with each other’s posts.

It was important to position ourselves in the community by interacting with the posts, creating a 2-way relationship between the brand and our target audience.”

Examples: Here are examples of Charity shop collaborating with ambassadors.

5:Collab with influencers

77% of marketers consider Instagram as the best platform for influencer marketing.

Collaborating with influencers increases the reach of your brand to your targeted audience and builds trust and credibility. Ultimately it generates and increases your sales.

Influencers range from million to thousands of followers. They charge according to their followers.

Find influencers that match your budget and engage with your brands.

 S’more’a’licious Ltd Laura Vogan explains the importance of influencers.

“Influencer marketing is super important for small businesses on Instagram in order to help them grow and be seen.

Using an influencer relevant to your target market is essential and also someone authentic who engages well with their audience.”

Example: Here an influencer is promoting smorelicious.

6:Interact with your audience

Growing your business account is a two-way road. You should engage with your audience to make them part of your community.

It has become the number 1 strategy by IG marketers to invest in 2022.

Politely interact with your customers in the comment section and reply to their DMs.

It shows you care about them.

They will likely follow you when they feel valued and special.

Now customers use comment sections to ask questions related to customer service.

Reply to them and resolve the problems to maintain your brand image.

Another way to initiate the conversation with your followers is to write good captions having CTA or questions.

Rich Rudzinski, Founder of Drivey.com says, “Interacting with your followers is a more organic and great way to improve your engagement.

A great way to build this rapport with your followers is to include questions or a “call to action” (CTA for short) in your caption.

Questions and CTAs help you break the ice and keep the conversation going. Just make sure you’re interacting with the comments you are receiving.“

Example: Trinnylondon asks customers a question in captions and replies to them in comments.

7:Use Instagram Hashtags

Hashtags are clickable and searchable words that bring new eyeballs to your
content.

Use relevant hashtags of your industry in your posts and stories.

Now Instagram allows the following hashtags.

They also help you to feature on Instagram explore page. It will expand reach to a new audience.

If they find value in your content, they will follow you.

 85% of social media strategists follow a documented hashtags strategy.
Use a mix of high-volume,mid-volume, and low-volume hashtags.

When you type a hashtag on the search bar, Instagram shows you its
search volume.

You can add 30 hashtags to a post. But best practice is to use 5 to 9
hashtags.

Types of hashtags

These are 5 types of hashtags to use in your content.

1. Location-based hashtags like Toronto.

Example: Cakesbymickey is a Toronto-based business that uses Toronto in its hashtags.

2 Industry hashtags: They describe your industry, like product photography.

Example:epn_product.photography use product photography as a hashtag in a post.

3:Community hashtags: They bring a community together like writers on Instagram.
Example: Freelance writer Ray Slater Berry has added #writersofInstagram in his post.

4:User-generated hashtags: Brands create specific hashtags, and users post their photos on their accounts with these hashtags.

It helps the brand to find its user’s content.

Example: Coast fashion’s user-generated hashtag is #DressupWithCoast.

5:Descriptive hashtags: These are related to your post. For example, you have posted a picture of a necklace and then add  #necklace.

Example: Dillards add a photo of necklaces and add hashtag necklace.

8:Follow trends on Instagram

Change is only constant on Instagram. Instagram introduces new features
and trends frequently.

People love to see new trends on Instagram. You can attract new
audiences by following the trends and using new features. And trendy
content has an 11% ROI.

Sarah Ogden of horseshoe flowers explains the importance of following
Instagram trends.

She says,” Running a business through Instagram requires you to be very
flexible, to constantly change and adapt your approach.

As Instagram is always updating its platform (adding features or changing
the way features are ranked) you need to be flexible and move quickly to
the changes.

So if there is a new trend on the platform, you need to embrace it, try the
new trends out and allow yourself to be seen by more and more people.
Instagram for business is all about following trends and getting the
biggest reach possible.”

For example, Sarah followed the trends of Instagram reels.

9:Understand your audience

People buy from people. You cannot grow your Instagram if you do not understand your audience.

Julianne Ponan, of creative nature, says, “Having a purpose and understanding the people you would like to interact with across social media is important.

I have a personal Instagram where I talk about allergies, campaigning for change, and tips and tricks when living with allergies.

My business Instagram is focused on specific recipes that cater to people
with allergies.

Having a strategy that incorporates personality and purpose will engage
your consumer.”

Example: They share their recipes by understanding their audience’s needs.

How to track your performance on Instagram?

The secret to running a successful business on Instagram is tracking your
performance.

Tracking performance helps you to achieve your goals.
Instagram provides you with analytics tools.

Go to your profile page, and under your bio, there is an insight option.

Click it to analyze your content.

By default, it will give you analytics of the last seven days.
Its filter has a range of days. 90 days is the last limit to check analytics.
First, set the filter of your required days to check the analytics.

In the insight section, you can track the following:

• No of the followers you have gained
• Number of accounts that reached your profile
• Reach on your content
• Impressions on your content
• Total Profile visit
• Accounts engaged
• Performance of content you have shared(stories, posts, live, videos)
• Performance of single posts.

• You can also check audience behavior on Instagram’s number of followers
  report

It will help you understand your audience to create an Instagram strategy. As it shows:

• Demographics of your followers
• Age and gender
• The most active time of your followers

You can also use tools like Buffer and Sprout social to check the analytics of your Instagram account.

Conclusion

We have shared all essentials to run a successful business on Instagram. We hope you are ready to increase your visibility and revenue using Instagram.

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