How to Use Instagram for Business Like a Pro – Step to Step

Instagram is one of the biggest social media platforms with 1.5 billion active users monthly, who use it both for fun and to promote their business.

Companies across the world are creating accounts with a mission to promote their products and attract more customers, trying to learn how to use Instagram for business efficiently.

If you, too believe you need to create Instagram for business but don’t know where to start and what features to use, then this article is the right choice for you.

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How To Optimize Your Instagram Business Account?

After you have created Instagram for business, you will need to optimize it and add all the necessary information to it.

Business profiles need to add much more information compared to regular users, and the more information you provide the platform, the better your account will perform.

These are all the things you need to add to your profile if you want to optimize it and turn it into an Instagram business account.

Profile Photo

You must add a profile photo if you want to have any type of Instagram profile, especially a business profile.

The best profile photo for a business account is a photo of your company logo or a sign that will help people identify you without even reading the username or the description.

Just like you would add a selfie as a profile photo on your personal Instagram account, you need to add the logo you are recognizable for on your business profile.

Make sure your profile picture is adjusted to the shape and size of your Instagram profile circle if you want the logo to look good, and always use the same logo you are using on other social media platforms.

Instagram Username

When creating a business profile on Instagram, you should take your business name as your username; otherwise, people will have difficulty recognizing you.

Instagram usernames don’t have any spaces between the words, and it would be best if you weren’t using any dots or numbers in the name because it can look a bit off.

Instagram Display Name

Your Instagram display name also matters, and you should use it to write the name of your brand or company.

If your brand name is already your username, you can use this field to write your brand slogan or the catchphrase you are known for.

It will make you more visible on search, and the account will probably pop up if people look up your slogan too.

Bio

Your Instagram bio is one of the most important parts of your profile; you need to write it in a way that would catch users’ attention.

It is the perfect place to say what your business is about, what services or products you offer, and what you are known for.

If you didn’t add your brand slogan, you could add it here and hype users about your services and products.

It is very important to sit down and write a good bio because it can determine if users will even consider checking your account and buying from you or not.

Website

Everyone with an Instagram business account must add a link to their website if they want to be taken seriously.

If you are selling something or providing people with different services, you have a website or at least a landing page that provides users with more information.

This way, you will redirect your potential customers to the page with more information, and if you are eager to share novelties from your webpage every day, you can always add multiple links in Instagram stories.

You can also create a link tree with multiple vital links for your business, but your official website is the best thing to add.

Contact Options

If you want new clients or customers, you need to provide them with information about how they can contact you.

Most businesses have multiple contact options, so you can leave your e-mail and phone number or even redirect people to Instagram direct messages if that is your business model.

If you have a physical store somewhere, always add your exact physical address and include the Google Maps link.

Action Button

The best way to make people purchase your products or hire you for a job is to add an action button to your Instagram profile.

If you want to make people purchase things from you, the best way to do it is by adding the “Order Now,” “Book now,” and “Get now” buttons that will take them to the shopping page instantly.

Facebook Page

To make sure people find you on all social media platforms, you can best connect your Instagram account to them, especially to Facebook business.

Facebook and Instagram are also a part of the same company, so you can connect it to your Facebook page within seconds and ensure your potential customers a more enjoyable experience.

Category

When you use Instagram for business, you can choose the Category your business fits into, so always choose the most specific one that perfectly describes your brand and services.

Instagram Story Highlights

Most people underestimate the power of high-quality Instagram story highlights, but they are the best way to optimize your performance on Instagram and communicate with the audience.

By posting Instagram stories regularly and sharing different tips or discussing relevant happenings within your niche, you will be able to reach a wider audience and have more people interact with you.

It will also make you look more interesting and trustworthy, which you want to achieve.

These are some of the fields you need to fill out if you want to optimize your Instagram account and all of them make a massive difference in the appearance and performance of your profile.

If you are using Instagram for business and want to stand out among the competition, doing these tasks in a unique way will help you attract many people and brand yourself easily.

Strategy to Grow My Instagram Business Profile

Most people believe that all they need to do is create an Instagram account and start posting, and the followers will come on their own.

However, succeeding on Instagram has never been harder because the platform is saturated with millions of accounts promoting the same or similar things.

You will need to put in some effort if you want to stand out on this social media, and investing time and energy into marketing is a must.

If you are unsure what to do to grow your Instagram account, these are some of the most important steps in every Instagram marketing strategy.

Find Your Target Audience

When you decide to install the Instagram app and start using this social media platform to promote your business, you will need to define your target audience and realize who you are trying to talk to.

You need to know who your customers are – what they do, how they approach buying, and what things they need to make their lives easier.

Every brand and product has its customer, and you need to realize who that is if you want your Instagram account to succeed.

Once you realize who you are trying to cater to, research what are the things they post on Instagram and what they like and share, you will recognize what type of Instagram posts and stories will attract them to your account.

Also, check out how other brands with a similar target audience post and promote themselves on this social media; write down all the best ideas and see which resonates most with you.

An analysis like this can help you learn what types of Instagram posts, stories, and reels you should be posting to attract your target audience to the profile.

Track Your Statistics

All Instagram users with a business profile will be able to see their Instagram insights, analytics, and statistics so they know how well their stories and posts perform.

These are the most valuable features the Instagram app offers to business users because it helps you see if your strategy is working or not, and it allows you to see what type of posts are the most interesting to your followers.

You will see your top Instagram posts and stories, so you can decide which type of content you should create in the future to get the best engagement rate.

Always track your interaction rates and statistics, especially if you are learning how to use Instagram and attract your target audience.

These statistics will help you reinvent your social media strategy when needed and make your experience on Instagram much more successful than if you were posting without giving too much thought to content.

Set Goals

After you have figured out how Instagram analytics works and started gathering and analyzing all the information about your performance, you can set performance goals for your Instagram profile.

You should always set goals for how much website traffic you want, how many followers and likes you want, and how your engagement tab looks on this platform.

After figuring this out, you will need to sit and think about the best strategies to achieve it quickly.

The desired number of likes, followers, and engagement rate can be achieved shortly; you just need to learn how to use Instagram correctly.

When you know your goal, it will be easier for you to find a marketing strategy to help you achieve it, and you will be able to get the most out of your Instagram stories and posts.

Create a Schedule

If you want your Instagram strategy to provide you with results, you will need to master the art of planning and scheduling content.

Scheduling is necessary both for Instagram posts and for Instagram stories because people interact with both of them equally.

Once you know what type of content you need to create and how often you should post it, you can create a content plan for all the posts and stories you will publish on your Instagram profile.

Plan out content, shoot it, come up with the copy you will use, and write it all down in your business calendar.

It is vital to stick to the plan if you want to succeed on the Instagram app, and if you don’t have enough free time, it would be best to install an app that will post photos and videos according to your schedule.

How Often Should I Post On My Business Instagram?

Using Instagram for business is not the same as having a personal Instagram account because you will need to be careful about the things you post and when you are posting them.

In this case, Instagram will be used as a vessel for promotion, and you will need to take a different approach to the platform.

Most people are unsure how frequently Instagram should be used for business purposes and how many posts and stories should be added to their accounts in a day or a week.

The key to succeeding on Instagram is to have an interesting Instagram feed and be consistent with posting, whether through posts or through Instagram stories.

If you want to stand out among the competition, your Instagram for business should be updated daily with at least some form of content.

Marketing strategists these days recommend posting stories daily to remind your audience of your presence and offers every single time they open their Instagram.

Stories are the most popular form of interaction these days and don’t require too much time to be created, so they are perfect for keeping in touch with your audience.

You should be sharing your special offers, ads, and niche-related content through your stories, but you can also repost some cool pics and videos you have used for inspiration in the creation process.

However, you will also need to dedicate some time to your Instagram feed and publish at least 3 posts per week if you want to stay relevant.

Your Instagram posts need to be unique and true to the brand, so it can be pretty challenging to come up with that much original content every week, but it is necessary if you want to stay relevant.

An interesting and aesthetically pleasing Instagram feed will attract customers to your brand, so take time to create original posts and include some user-generated content.

If your customers have posted pictures or videos using your products, reposting them is always a great idea.

It will help you gain relatability among the audience and show them people are actually enjoying and buying your products.

Connecting Instagram to Facebook Page

Every business has several social media profiles, and if you want to provide your customers with an enjoyable experience, you will probably want to connect your Instagram to your Facebook page.

Instagram and Facebook seem to be the most popular platforms for promoting businesses, so if you have a profile on both of them and want to optimize your customers’ experience, this is how to connect them:

• Open your Profile page.
• Tap three lines in the upper right corner
• Click Settings
• Click Account center
• Choose Set up accounts center
• Choose Add Facebook account
• Log in to your business account
• Choose Yes; I want to connect my Facebook page
• Confirm the action
• Finish Setup
• Choose Yes or No when asked if you want to sync in a profile photo
• You are done!

Once you have connected your social accounts on Instagram and Facebook, you can modify the settings on both platforms.

You can choose whether you want your Instagram posts to be shared on Facebook or not, do you want to add the same photos and captions, and plenty of other options.

Depending on your preferences and social media strategies, you can set these up and create separate business calendars for them.

How To Use Instagram Ads?

Instagram has more than a billion users who log into the platform every single day, so its ads are one of the best ways to promote your products and services to a more significant number of people.

This is how you can use Instagram ads to make your high-quality content even more popular and attract new followers and customers.

• Set up an Instagram business account – you will not be able to start using the Ads features until you convert to a business profile.
• Choose a photo or video you will use as an ad – you can add a new photo, or you can sponsor some of your older posts.
• Open Promotion settings
• Set the target audience
• Set your budget
• Set the duration of the ad
• Save these settings or opt for Instagram-suggested ones
• Click Create Promotion
• You will receive a notification when your ad gets approved and starts appearing on Instagram

Instagram ads are one of the newest features on this social media and are probably the best way to get the desired reach and engagement.

Organic reach is very hard to achieve, but by choosing the desired demographic and catering to a specific audience, you will be able to get to people who would probably check out your content even if it wasn’t sponsored.

All of the ads also include the call to action buttons that will make it more likely for the user to purchase or book something you are offering, so if you sponsor a post, you can expect people to purchase it the moment they see your ad on their homepage.

There are also specific campaigns you can run on Instagram, and although they are primarily short-term, they can provide you with immense success within just a few days.

They are inexpensive compared to all the other ad options on the internet and provide you with great results within a day, so they are definitely a worthy investment.

Is Instagram Good For Business?

Although Instagram has almost 1.5 billion active users every month, some people are still not convinced that it is a useful platform for business.

However, the number of Instagram business accounts on this social media and the number of extremely popular brands who pay a lot of attention to their Instagram presence show this is a platform worth your time and attention.

These are some of the reasons why Instagram is great for your business, and you should create your business profile today.

It Gathers Billions of People

When you are trying to sell your product or promote your services, you want to do it on a website or a platform that has a large number of users.

In the best case, you would choose a platform that gathers different people because you will be able to reach out to a broader audience and promote your products and services to everyone.

Instagram content is something almost 1.5 billion people consume every month, which makes it a far better option for promotion than any e-commerce website or freelancing platform.

If you have interesting content and know to show the pros of your company, you will be able to gain attention and get clients.

Every Business Can Succeed

Most people avoid creating Instagram business accounts because they think their company and their products are not popular enough and will not be able to succeed on a platform as huge as this one.

You can’t expect overnight success on Instagram, whether you have a large business or a small one, so working on Instagram accounts requires a lot of time and energy from everyone.

Just because you have a small business, it doesn’t mean that with some dedication and consistent Instagram posting, you won’t be able to grow it immensely.

Instagram will help you reach your target audience and sell more than you usually would; all you need is an excellent social media marketing strategy.

Helps You Connect With Your Target Audience

The reason why so many brands see a lot of success when using Instagram is that they can connect with their target audience closely through Instagram stories and captions.

Through Instagram stories and captions, you can share your thoughts and opinions on different things, say how this business or product has improved your life, and discuss other things from your niche because that will make the audience interact with you.

And once you have established interaction with your potential clients and customers, you will be able to convince them they need your products and services quickly.

You should interact with your audience to see what types of products and services they need but can’t find anywhere, so you can see how to meet their needs with new ideas and projects.

User-generated Content

User-generated content is one of the best ways to promote your products, and social media marketing these days is mainly focused on influencers and partnered promotions.

By sending your products to an influencer or someone with a bigger audience on Instagram and having them shoot content for you, you will get many more followers and customers.

This type of content makes your brand look trustworthy, useful, and reliable because why would people be buying if it was the other way around?

However, if you have many customers sharing posts and videos using your products, that can be great content to repost to your account to attract more people and show you have a loyal community too.

This is the best type of content to share, so if you have a lot of user-generated content created by your customers, you should repost them as frequently as you can.

These are just some of the reasons why brands and companies are creating Instagram for business these days, and if you learn how to use all the features and options to your advantage, you will see a vast improvement in your business performance.

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