Instagram’s Business Tools

In the past few years, Instagram has become the most-used social media platform, especially by Millennials. When someone wants to look you or your business up, likely they will first turn to Instagram. Given the platform’s ever-growing relevance, it is critical that you not only attract people to follow your page but also maintain followers’ interests so that you can get the most out of your account. Luckily, Instagram and other sites provide beneficial tools that can make a huge difference. First, you need to make sure that your account is set as a business profile. This is done through account settings. Once you are set to being a business account, you have access to all of Instagram’s tools for business.

1. Aesthetics

The key to gaining new followers is to have an Instagram profile that is extremely appealing, right off the bat. People are attracted to profiles with cohesive grids (your grid is the series of photos that people see when they first click on your profile). With websites like Planoly, you can create an account that lets you schedule posts, rearrange posts to create the most attractive overall look, and have access to analytics that track your likes, comments, and followers.

2. Activity
Instagram provides a tool that allows you to see your overall account insights. You can access insights by clicking the top right menu on your profile page and then clicking “Insights.” Here, you can see how many actions were taken from your profile over the last week, broken down by the day. Actions include profile visits, website link clicks, email clicks, and call clicks. Activity insights also show you your reach and impressions. Your reach is the number of unique accounts that have seen your posts and your impressions are the number of times your posts have been viewed. Both Interactions and Discovery are broken down by day so that you can see which days are generating the most activity.
3. Content
Under the “content” tab, Instagram shows you the insights related to each individual post, story, or promotion. When looking at your posts, you can have them organized in order of engagement, calls, comments, emails, follows, directions, likes, impression, profile visits, reach, saved, shares, texts, or website clicks, going as far back as two years. By clicking on a post, you can also see the specific breakdown of impressions and interactions from that picture. In this way, you can see what content is doing best with your audience and where you can improve.
4. Audience
The final section of insights is the “audience” tab. Here, you get data on your followers such as where they are from, the age range, gender, and what times of day they are most active. This tool is especially helpful when deciding who to target with your content and when the best time to post pictures or stories would be.
5. Promotions
Through having an Instagram business account, you also can promote certain posts for a fee. The purpose of a promotion is to increase its visibility, hopefully leading to more engagement. It is different than an ad because it is less targeted at converting and is more focused on gaining a bigger audience. Due to this distinction, when paying for promotions you pay based on visibility. Overall, they are like a less intense version of an advertisement – giving you the opportunity to boost your engagement without launching a full ad campaign.
There are also many other websites and companies that give you even more in-depth Instagram insights as well as let you access your account on a desktop. However, if you are just getting started with Instagram, experiment with the tools that they provide. Use them to see what type of posts resonate the most with your audience and where you are getting the most engagement. Once you have an understanding of what your followers want to see, you will be on your way to creating a very successful Instagram business account.

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