words Alexa Wang
One of the important aspects of running a small or medium-sized business, or an SMB, is keeping an active and compelling social media presence. Brick-and-mortar stores and online businesses can both benefit from maintaining an SMB Instagram account, but many companies don’t know where to start.
Running a business takes all kinds of know-how, and social media management might not be in everyone’s wheelhouse. But SMBs don’t want to miss out on all of the benefits of a well-planned and executed social media account. So, we have put together a quick guide to explain why your business should set up a business account on Instagram along with a few quick tips to help you get started.
How is Instagram for Business Different?
The over 500 million active monthly users of Instagram continue to flood the app with gorgeous pictures, funny videos, and a deluge of visual representations of their life and activities. As users scroll through the almost endless Instagram feed, users see locations, businesses, and customers nonstop. SMBs with an Instagram account take advantage of the traffic already on the platform but add in intentional interactions with potential customers. For growing your Instagram account, you can buy some Instagram followers from the best sites reviewed by Mercury News.
Features of a Business Account
SMB accounts on Instagram have the following available features:
Performance tracking: see how many accounts interacted with the business
Promotional tools: ability to promote selected posts
Paid Partnerships: collaborate with selected content creators
Business tips: access to best practices and suggestions for creating compelling content for business accounts
Audience demographic information: age, location, growth, etc.
Promotional tools: ability to promote selected posts
Paid Partnerships: collaborate with selected content creators
Business tips: access to best practices and suggestions for creating compelling content for business accounts
Audience demographic information: age, location, growth, etc.
How Can an Instagram Business Account Help an SMB?
Advertising
Gone are the days of printing up flyers or hiring an expensive advertising agency to promote a business. Instead, social media interactions, both free and paid in the form of advertisements across different platforms, do the heavy lifting of small and medium-sized businesses. Instagram is a perfect tool for a business to produce and spread the word about their products or services to customers and potential customers.
Customer Interaction
One of the huge benefits of an Instagram account for SMB’s is the ability to immediately interact with customers. Instagram users can like, comment, or message the business as a reaction to a company posting, and the company can use this to reach out directly to the customers. Direct messaging to potential customers through the app provides a connection that other kinds of media do not.
One of the best metrics for evaluating the success of a social media campaign is how much customer interaction occurs directly with the business. With the multiple kinds of interactions that Instagram provides a business, SMB’s can easily track how engaged their customers are with their products and services through their Instagram business account.
In-app Purchases
Business accounts on Instagram allow for companies to set up a check-out feature for customers to make purchases directly on the business Instagram page. Checkout enabled accounts are in addition to linking the company website to the business where other shopping may take place. By setting up a checkout feature on a business account, SMB’s can enjoy the benefits of a shop linked with such providers as Shopify, BigCommerce, or others using the Commerce Manager feature.
Live Shopping
For accounts that are checkout-enabled, companies can broadcast a live shopping event right from their Instagram page for users to stream.
Connect Facebook and Instagram Shopping
With the recent merging of these two social media giants, SMB’s can set up a single store across both platforms. A business account with Instagram makes shopping, live shopping, and all the attending insights and commerce managing features available on both platforms simultaneously.
Followers Create Influence
One of the most important ways Instagram accounts benefit a company is when interactions are high enough to create a buzz. But for new business accounts, low follower numbers, as well as low likes or views of postings, can keep an otherwise exciting or interesting company from creating excitement online. Like a vicious cycle, low views and interaction mean the post will reach fewer potential customers.
Increasing Followers
To break the cycle, one of the ways companies increase their influence online quickly is to buy bulk followers. Once a negative, the idea of using a service to procure legitimate potential customers to follow a business account is now standard practice for many Instagram business accounts. With a higher number of followers, the app algorithm will increase the visibility of the posts, videos, or other interactions on the company page.
Setting Up a Business Account
Instagram makes setting up a company account on their platform a snap with only one extra tap to move an account over to the business side. But having an optimized profile for a small business is crucial. Here are 7 quick tips to get your SMB’s business account “insta-worthy” in no time:
1. Create a bio that focuses on the “who” or the story behind the company, rather than a dry description of the company
2. The bio should also include the company website, hashtags that are unique to your business or even emojis to make the business profile stand out and be memorable
3. Follow through with an overall feel, or aesthetic, for the whole company page
4. Plan out social media postings ahead of time to make regular posting easier
5. Add in Live Shops, Reels (videos), or a Story to up engagement
6. Make it personal: occasionally spotlight the people behind the business
7. Take good pictures or leave it to a pro, but don’t post low-quality pictures or graphics
