Instagram has introduced new and valuable features for businesses, aimed in particular at small- to medium-sized companies that don’t yet advertise on the social media platform.
Here’s more info on these features, and tips on how to use them to better engage with your customers on Instagram.
- Business Profiles: Much like Facebook profiles are different from business Facebook Pages, Instagram’s Business Profiles now offer you the chance to distinguish your company from all the individual users on the site. Instagram Business Profiles allow you to provide directions to your business, choose a way followers can contact you with one click, and more. Business profiles also unlock access to Instagram’s new Insights analytics feature and give you the ability to promote your posts, similar to Facebook. While free to obtain, only those who have a business page on Facebook (Instagram’s parent company) can set up an Instagram Business Profile and these new features.
- Insights: Until now, the only quantifiable ways to measure the success of an Instagram post were the number of likes, comments and video views. Instagram’s new in-app Insights feature provides businesses with a dashboard of info on post engagement. Using the Insights feature, you can see what time of day the post did best, the kinds of people who engaged with the post, and more. There is no charge for this service, and it’s open to non-advertising businesses.
- Promote: Businesses can now turn well-performing posts into ads, right from the Instagram app. Add a call-to-action button and pay to promote the post. While more robust Instagram advertising options are available through your Facebook Business account, this feature is built for speed and convenience.