Business owners all over the country are choosing the business account option on Instagram to boost sales, increase their following, and boost their brand reputation; but do you really need a business account to be successful?
A business account has some great features for business owners to utilize that you can't get with a personal account. Keep reading to learn more about how an Instagram Business account can improve your marketing and attract plenty of new customers to your brand.
The Difference Between Personal and Business Accounts
"Instagram is a social media tool that every business should be using to boost its reach," says ViralRace. Without social media, the modern business is missing an essential component to success in the ever-digitalized world we live in. Whether you're a small business just starting out with your first store or website, or a veteran in the industry looking to boost your reach, you must utilize free tools like Instagram.
The main difference between a personal account and a business account on Instagram is the tools that business accounts offer. Personal accounts are pretty much designed to offer a simple platform for content creators to post their content free of charge and reach a wide audience with hashtags and optimization. Business accounts offer a bit more to help out businesses and provide valuable information.
Can't Be Set to Private: With a personal account, you can set your entire page to "private", which means that no one can see your content except your followers or people you choose. With a business account, your content is out there for the world to see, and cannot be made private, which means maximum exposure.
Reporting: Reporting is perhaps one of the most crucial components of running a business on the web. You need to know who's visiting your page, where they're from, and other details that will help you form the perfect vision of who your audience is. Armed with this information, you can improve your marketing capabilities tenfold.
Contact Button: Forget the old days of trying to squeeze all of your business's contact information in the bio section; with Instagram business, you'll have a contact button that users can click immediately to get ahold of you.
Ads: A business account also allows you to use Instagram Ads, so you can reach a great number of people with your unique content. This is an amazing tool for businesses of all sizes, and can make your marketing efforts that much more effective.
Pros of a Personal Account
Personal accounts on Instagram are where the platform started, uniting people and ideas across one versatile platform. That being said, the personal profile has changed a bit since the platform started, but still offers some great benefits for the modern business.
Connecting Multiple Pages: Perhaps the biggest pro of the personal account is the ability to connect to your personal Facebook page and other social media apps and websites. This connection allows visitors to easily find your Instagram content and navigate to your page.
Better Organic Reach: Personal profiles are the staple of Instagram, and this is where the platform shines. You'll likely have better like organically growing your account with a personal Instagram page, but you can't beat the extra tools that a business account has to offer.
The Modern Business
Business isn't the same as it was twenty, ten, or even five years ago, and it's constantly changing. The modern business requires the best tools and a great online presence to operate successfully. The bottom line in business is that if you're not online, you're not going very far. The internet has not only connected the world and made it a smaller place, but also improved a customer's ability to research brands before they ever make a purchase.
Your Instagram profile is equally as important as your website's landing page, as it acts as the face of the brand itself. Imagine a profile that's unorganized, doesn't offer any useful information, and confuses the visitor; would you follow a page like that? Or, alternatively, a page that's riddled with selfies or content that isn't valuable?
Putting time and effort into your Instagram account will help set you apart from the rabble and really make your business stand out. Taking the time to polish your account will leave new visitors anxious to press that follow button, and keep them coming back to the page for more compelling content.
Why Original Content Makes You Stand Out
Your brand and products are unique, so your content should be just as original as the brand itself. It should also be reflective of your brand's values and commitment to quality. If you don't hold your online content to the same standard of quality as your products, you're doing yourself a disservice. Be sure to maintain very specific standards across all of your online platforms.
Originality and integrity make your brand stand out. Where others may cut corners to churn out content on a weekly basis, you take the time to create compelling, high-quality content for your followers so they can spread the word about your page and brand, and you can't buy that level of attention and loyalty.
So Which Should You Use?
The bottom line is that if you're running a business, a business account is probably the best choice. With the reporting tools, contact button, and other business tools at your fingertips, you'll be able to reach your customers better, track your results, and form the best marketing campaigns possible for greater reach.
The personal account simply doesn't offer as many benefits to a business. Even if you buy cheap Instagram followers to boost your account, you still won't get as many tools as you would with a business account.
You can actually switch your account over to a business account though, and the process is quite simple. Follow the link to learn how to make the switch and start taking control of your business today.
