This post is about how to create and optimize Instagram business account to grow your business fast. Instagram is inarguably one of the indispensable tools for marketing, advertising and creating a social media presence for Small Businesses. It is a platform where you can create a strong social presence and advertise your business as a brand.
Although Instagram is also known for creating personal profiles but those profiles are only meant to interact with one’s family or friends’ circle. The main benefit of Instagram kicks in when you leverage it as a business profile.
In this post we will look at how and why we create an instagram business profile and how we can optimize it to grow your business fast. Click on the images below to find detailed information about each chapter in this post.
Chapter 1
Why and How to Create an Instagram Business Account?
As an instagram user, you have multiple different options and tools available in a business account to promote, advertise and grow your business. Whereas in a personal Account, you do not find an option to see the analytics or even contact details. That is why it is important to switch to a business account if you are looking to find audience for your business. Here are some essential tools that you get as an Instagram Business profile owner.
- Call to Action Buttons
- Analytics/ insights
- Instagram Shop
- Advertising tools
- Scheduling tools
- Access to Facebook business suite
How to Optimize Instagram Business Account?
Here are the main and most important steps in creating your profile:
- Selecting a Username
- Choosing a profile name
- Using an optimized Instagram profile photo
- Writing a catchy and optimized bio
1.Selecting an optimized Username, Why it is important?
An optimized Instagram username is crucial to the growth of a new profile when your visitors do not know you as a business or a brand. They start knowing you, tagging you and finding your name around Instagram. At this point having a properly optimized username is more important than the time when you have an established presence with a hundred thousand followers.
At other times it is also important from SEO (Search Engine Optimization) point of view when people search a particular service or product with its name. In that case, usernames come first in the instagram search results.
It is also important to know the difference between Instagram profile name and username.
A profile name appears under the logo on the profile while a username appears on the top of the screen. It is also called instagram handle.
Things to consider while choosing a username or instagram handle.
- There is a limit of 30 characters for the username but it is better to keep it within 12-14 for better visibility. For example if you go to Instagram home and see the stories on top of the feed, you will see usernames under the stories. If the username is longer than 14 characters, Instagram will cut it showing dots.
- Do not use too many characters such as full stop(.), underscore(_) etc. It will only make a username confusing and hard to remember whereas simple and straight usernames will be easy to remember, write or use for anyone.
- You can use your category, niche , location in your username depending on your business requirement.
- If you operate globally, donot include your location in your username.
- You cannot create spaces in your username.
- You can get ideas for your Instagram from username generator tools.
- Get ideas from profiles of your competitors or people in your niche.
- You cannot create the same username as others. It is unique to every account.
2.How to choose a profile name
- For your profile name, you should choose a name that suits your professional or commercial intent. For example, if you own a company or a shop, you can name it after your shop’s or businesses name. For example “Nike” or “Apple”
- Some names can also be theme based, for example; ” Kitchen Tips”, “Motivational Quotes”, etc.
- Profile name can be same for different accounts. It is not unique.
- It should be searchable. Instagram users who are searching for a keyword like” digital marketing” should be able to see your profile name in the search result. If you have not entered your keyword in your profile name. It will not be searchable form SEO(search engine optimization) point of view.
- Names can according to themes or categories such as “graphic design guru”, ” Social Media Services- Michelle”
- You can add location to your name such as “Dietician- NY”
- By choosing specific profile names, we are optimizing our profile with targeted keywords.
3.How to optimize Instagram Business account photo
- Your profile photo appears in a circular format on Instagram. That is why make sure you select a photo that is circle optimized. It will show in a circle anywhere your profile picture shows on Instagram.
- Your photo should be 500☓500 px for the profile. As discussed before, it should be able to show properly in s circle. May be you can create a photo on top of a circle in Canva or photoshop.
- The profile picture should look sharp and should be high definition.
- The brands can use their brand logo for their instagram profile photo.
- Initially, when you start a business profile, you can test different profile photos and see what works best for your business.
4.How to write a catchy and optimized Instagram bio
Your bio should aim to sell your business or in other words precisely tell about your services, products or value you intend to provide to your visitors.You only have 150 characters to use.
- Your goal or objective of making your profile should reflect on your instagram bio.
- Your audience should get a clear idea what you can do for them or what value you would provide if you follow their link or follow them on isntagram. For example as a designer you can say:
“I help brands grow with their designing needs”
- As a marketer you can say:
” We can take care of all your marketing needs. Let’s work together to grow your business” etc.
- You can use a slogan in your bio such as: : “Let’s grow together”, ” Your best buddy in your online business”, etc.
- You can list your expertise in the bio just as,” social media strategist” ” pro graphic designer”. SMM Expert”, “IG growth specialist” etc.
- Do some research on your competitor’s profiles and see how they have optimized their bios with important keywords related to their niche, slogans, offers and call to action strategies.
- It is also a good practice to use emojis and points instead of writing a paragraph. You can be more precise with points.
- Also enter your targeted or business keywords or hashtags in your bio.
- The most important part of your Instagram bio is “Call to Action” button. The last point of your bio should be an invitation to visit your website, visit the links you provided, book an appointment, book a consultation, or attend free webinar etc; followed by the relevant clickable link.
- You can also change your bio when required according to the requirements of your business or the new offers you are making to your audience.
Here are examples of Instagram bio for different niches.
Chapter 2
How to use Instagram content for marketing?
Instagram marketing strategies include different uses of Instagram content.
1.Organic content like regular posts, stories, carousels, reels etc.
2. Paid marketing with Instagram stories, videos etc.
1.Instagram posts
Posts are usually images, carousel or videos that provide some kind of information related to your niche. Posts also serve to display an engaging theme for your Instagram profile. Many brands and businesses use a certain colour scheme or pattern in their Instagram posts so that they stand out among other profiles.
Using a specific theme or a theme based profile is a good marketing strategy that give your profile a unique touch and makes it attractive and professional.
Take care of the photo dimension for each post type while taking photo of your products or other objects you want to use as IG posts. You should use high quality and sharp images to optimize instagram business account.
2.Posts vs Videos
Posts are easier to create and you can create them using templates. Videos take more time to create but they can get more engagement than regular image posts. The same is true for Instagram reels and stories.
Instagram posts and videos can also go viral while stories cannot go viral. They are meant to attract more engagement since they appear on the top of your instagram page.
So what should be Instagram content marketing strategy for a new business?
- Create more videos. Videos have more chances to become viral than regular posts. Videos have enhanced opportunity to appear in Instagram Explore feed.
- Always use Call to action strategy with your posts like ” save this post”, “Like and share this post”, visit the Link in the bio etc.
- Secondly, we can work on regular posts, images or carousels to bring engagement and build a professional instagram profile.
- For both posts and videos you can write engaging captions…not too long or too short but captions that are readable and include emojis and points where needed.
- You can add your follow@yourbusinessname in the captions. Besides you can use #hashtags which are extremely important for a new brand or business to grow with. Instagram users launch queries using keywords and hashtags so there are good chances that your post get more views with well researched hashtags attached to it.
3.Instagram stories
Instagram stories can be used as a marketing strategies for two reasons.
- They bring more engagement.
- You can include clickable links in stories and redirect your viewers to your business page or online shop.
You have multiple useful tools available to create instagram stories and add links, call to actions, stickers and so on to make your story interesting and engaging.
Find more information on the use of Instagram stories following the link below:
Instagram Stories,Top Benefits of Stories for Business Growth
4.Instagram Reels
Instagram reels are short videos that loop when a user scrolls instagram page.Reels get 22% more engagement than other posts according to other posts. The same benefit has been reported by bigger brands in fashion.
Reels can be 15, 30 or 60 seconds long. You should optimize that time to show a quick introduction of your product or service and end your reel with a strong “call to action.”
You also have a good variety of tools to make your reels interesting.
Recently, Instagram adds your posted videos automatically to the reel feed.
How to videos, tips and tricks, quick fixes of problems and behind the scenes reels are a great way to create variety in your reels and engage your audience.
Why and How to do Paid Instagram Marketing
Paid Instagram Marketing or Advertising can be performed with all types of content such as stories, image posts or videos. Story ads have been popular on Instagram and people would mostly see them in their feed. Here are some reasons why you should use Instagram ads.
- To sell a product or service
- To bring more traffic to your account.
- Brand awareness
- Getting good return on your investment
- Being able to run ads on Facebook and Instagram simultaneously
- Attracting more visitors as compared to Twitter or other social media platforms
You can use Facebook ad manager on your laptop or desktop to create all kinds of ads for Instagram and Facebook. You can run an ad by creating it on your cell phone but it does not give you much control or options while creating an ad.
In Facebook ad manager, you get an option to select only instagram to run ads on. You can also select where you want to show your ads such as in stream, stories, feeds or search etc.
If you do not have much technical information about how to run ads using Facebook Ads manager, you can still run ads by using Facebook app on your mobile phone, which has an easier, less technical and more navigable menu.
Story ads are more popular and comparatively new on Instagram. You can get good results by making a story ad on Instagram.
Chapter 3
Instagram Engagement strategy to optimize Account
Making an engaging profile will only work when you engage with other profiles and reach out to your competitors with comments, likes and shares.
Here is a list of strategies
- Interacting with other Instagram Profiles
- Using other social media profiles to promote your instagram
- Post or scheduling instagram content at the right time
- Using relevant hashtags to bring traffic
1.Interacting with Other profiles on Instagram
Nobody can find you are on Instagram unless you follow other profiles and engage with as many relevant profiles as possible.
Reaching out to others on Instagram is called engagement. It works best when you make a strategy to engage. But how to make Instagram engagement strategy?
- Find out profiles and Instagram business pages with a similar niche as yours and comment on their posts.
- Like and share their posts and follow some profiles you think can benefits you or add to your knowledge.
- Find out how big players are managing their business profiles and engaging with audience.
- Tag people in your posts.
- Find collaborators on Instagram and tag each other in your posts.
- You can use location tags and hashtags in order to attract people if they are searching a specific location.
- Experiment with different reel features since reels bring more visits to your profile.
- Go live once a month to engage with your audience
- Understand Instagran Algorithm. Instagram only promotes high quality content. If people are liking or saving your post, IG will boost your organic reach bringing you more visitors.
- Create mixed content.Do not just stick to reels or videos. Create stories everyday to make your presence felt at all times.
- Carousel can tell your brand story in detail. Create carousels with unique and valuable information.
- Use interactive stickers like “polls” in your stories.
2.How to Use other social media platforms to promote your IG profile
Another guaranteed way to promote your instagram profile or posts is to mention or link the to other social media profiles such as Facebook, Pinterest, and Twitter.
Also link it on your Business website or Youtube channel. As your audience finds your instagram link, you will get visitors from your website or channel too.
3.When to Schedule Instagram Posts
It is not quite easy to keep a daily routine of posting on Instagram or other social media platforms. But it can be made easier by scheduling your posts in advance. Facebook Business manager can be one of the best options for scheduling your posts both for instagram and Facebook.
As we talk about scheduling, we should know when is the best time to post on instagram. The best time to post on Instagram is when your followers are mostly active on the platform. This can be found out by visiting the Instagram insights page.
Initially you will not be able to see many insights but after a couple of weeks you will find out what time of the day your audience is active. You can schedule your posts accordingly.
But this does not end here. After you have scheduled your posts for a certain time, you should check their performance after a week or so and see how many impression they are getting, how many likes or shares they have and then if you are satisfied, you can continue scheduling at the same time otherwise you can experiment with other time slots.
4.Using relevant hashtags to bring more visitors
No one can deny the use and importance of hashtags to optimize Instagram business account. For a new profile specifically, they are a great opportunity to target keywords that people are searching on Instagram.
But how to find the hashtags for your posts??
The answer is..
- You can find hashtags using Instagram search engine and see how competitive they are.
- Hashtag research can also be performed using the “Facebook schedule post” feature in the Facebook Business manager. You can write a keyword in the hashtags search box and you will find a list of hashtags with their search volume both on Facebook and Instagram.
- The best strategy is to use a combination of all hashtags from low to high search volume. The lowest volume can be hundred to thousands, the medium can be hundred thousands and high might be used million times.
- Remember to use all available hashtags for each instagram post. You can use 30 in all so make the best of the opportunity.
- An important thing to know about using hashtags is you should always change your hashtags with each post. Do not copy your competitors hashtags as written on his post. If you want you can change the order or arrangement of these hashtags to use for your post but also add your own.
- If you use someone’s set of hashtags as they are, you might receive a shadow ban on your account; which means that your account will receive a ban for a certain amount of time usually 14 days, without giving you any notice. During that period your post or profile will not get engagements from hashtags or keywords.
Chapter 4
The Role of Colours and Themes in Instagram Profile Optimization
The question is why use brand colours for Instagram profile optimization?
The answer is right here:
- A consistent theme creates brand identity
- Examples of Brand colours and Themes
- How to choose a colour scheme for branding?
1.A consistent theme creates brand identity
With the use of a particular colour scheme or a particular theme, you want to grab the attention of your audience. Choosing multiple colours in the colour palette or changing the colour scheme frequently can confuse your followers. The consistency of one style, theme, or colour scheme will create an identity for your Instagram business profile. Which means that your visitors will remember you with your colours and style.
2.What are some examples of Brand Colours and IG themes?
For example, an instagram business account has an instagram logo in green and black. Its post feed also displays the same colour in different shades. This feed will be easier to remember for you because colours are the first elements used to create a psychological connection between you and the brand or business you are visiting.
Here are two examples of business profiles who identify themselves with the use of specific colour combinations.
Predominant colours, when use in a profile, on a website, or social media posts, become a brand’s identity and creates a solid impression in the minds of customers.
One example of brand colours is Macdonald’s red and yellow colour, which shows everywhere including its logo. We can understand that red and yellow are most vibrant colours and they are also food colours. Using the niche specific colours is also therefore very important. You cannot use black or blue colours to represent a food item. Instead, shades of red, yellow, green and brown will work better in food advertising.
3.How to choose colours for branding or IG Business Account?
The question comes, How to choose a colour scheme for marketing your instagram business Profile?
The best practice is to find your competitors on Instagram and see how they are choosing colours to build their identity with colours and unique styles. The reason why some IG business profiles get more followers than other is the strong impression they create with their theme and colours which others fail to do.
Final Thoughts
Instagram is a dynamic platform. It needs your continuous effort. That is why it takes times to optimize Instagram business account. It is an ongoing process which requires consistency and dedication. The best thing to do while making and marketing your Instagram business profile is to observe more successful business profiles in your niche and see how active they are on Instagram and other social media platforms. Your Instagram page represents you and your business so take professional care of it while applying marketing tips and strategies to grow it.