How to Use Instagram for Business in 2023: 6 Pro Tips

Instagram is the top media platform for towers relationships with brands, equal to a Meta-commissioned Ipsos study. And half of Instagram users say the platform helps them discover new brands. Plane largest for brands, 44% of users shop weekly on the platform.

If you’re not using Instagram for merchantry purposes, those potential new customers might never find their way to your products or services.

Here’s how to use Instagram for merchantry growth in 2023.

How to set up Instagram for merchantry in 4 steps

1. Switch to a Merchantry account

You need to create an Instagram worth first, then convert it to a merchantry account. If you have an existing personal or creator worth you want to convert, that works too. It’s self-ruling and anyone can do it.

You can have up to five Instagram accounts, so go superiority and alimony your personal Instagram worth personal if that’s what you prefer.

1. From your profile, tap the hamburger (three lines) menu icon in the upper-right corner.
2. Tap Settings. Some finance may see Switch to professional account on this menu. If you do, tap it. Otherwise, tap Account, then tap Switch to professional account.
3. Tap Continue (you may need to tap it multiple times as Instagram previews the misogynist features of a professional account).
4. Select a Category and use the slider to segregate whether to show it on your profile, then tap Done.
5. Choose Business (unless it makes sense for you to segregate Creator), and tap Next.
6. Use the slider to opt in or out of promotional emails from Instagram for professional accounts, then tap Next.
7. Add or edit relevant contact details, then use the slider to segregate whether to show your contact information on your profile, then tap Next (or tap Don’t use my contact info to skip this step).
8. If you plan to connect your Instagram merchantry worth with a Facebook merchantry page, follow the prompts to connect your worth to your Facebook Page. This is technically optional, but it’s necessary in order to use Instagram shopping features or run ads on Instagram.
9. Tap the X in the top left corner to tropical this window and return to your profile.

Learn increasingly well-nigh the difference between Instagram merchantry and creator accounts.

2. Add merchantry information to your bio

In 150 notation or less, your Instagram bio should describe your trademark and showcase your brand voice. We’ve got a full guide to creating an effective Instagram bio for business (complete with templates), but here’s a quick video to walk you through the basics:

Also be sure to make the most of the other components of your Instagram merchantry profile:

• Profile pic: Most brands use their logo. Your profile photo displays as 110 x 110 pixels (cropped to a circle), but it’s stored at 320 x 320, so that’s the size you should upload.
• Link in bio: Link to your website, your latest blog post, a current wayfarers or a Link Tree.
• Contact information: If you didn’t add contact info during your worth creation, you can do so at any time by tapping Edit profile. Instagram will then add a Contact sawed-off to your profile.
• Action buttons: If relevant, you can add a sawed-off that allows customers to typesetting or reserve appointments or to order food. To use this feature, you need an worth with one of Instagram’s partners. Tap Edit Profile, then scroll lanugo to Action Buttons.
• Story highlights and covers: Instagram Story highlights are flipside way to maximize your profile real manor by providing increasingly information well-nigh your trademark or your products. Organize Stories into saved collections, then add some polish with Highlight covers.

3. Connect your product catalog

To tag products in Instagram content, or to run unrepealable kinds of Instagram ads, you need to create a product catalog. You can do this in Meta’s Commerce Manager.

1. Head to Commerce Manager and click Get Started, then select Create a catalog and click Get started again.
2. Select Ecommerce, then click Next.
3. If you have a shop on an ecommerce platform like Shopify or Big Commerce, click Connect a partner platform and follow the prompts to create your catalog. Otherwise, click Upload product info, name your itemize and click Next.
4. Click View catalog to unshut your catalog, then Add items to start subtracting products.

We’ve got a whole post on using Commerce Manager if you’d like increasingly details on how this tool works.

4. Turn on Instagram shopping

Once your itemize is full of products, it’s time to turn on Instagram’s shopping features.

1. From your profile, tap the hamburger (three lines) menu icon in the upper-right corner.
2. Tap Settings, then Business, then Set up a Shop.
3. Tap Get started and follow the prompts to submit your shop for review.
4. Wait for approval. You can trammels the status of your shop at any time by going to Settings > Business >Shopping.
5. Once your shop is approved, go to Settings > Business >Shopping, select your product itemize and tap Done.

We’ve got a full blog post explaining everything you need to know well-nigh Instagram Shopping if you want to focus on this particular speciality of using Instagram for business.

Using Instagram for business: 6 tips

1. Research your audience

A good social media strategy starts with a sound understanding of your audience.

Instagram’s regulars demographics requite you an overall picture of who uses the platform. For example, 18-34-year-olds represent the largest ad regulars on the site.

Source: Hootsuite Global State of Digital 2022 (October Update)

However, that doesn’t midpoint your specific regulars on Instagram will be made up of 18-to-34-year-olds. For example, looking at the regulars insights for my own Instagram account, I can see that my regulars skews older than the Instagram average:

Source: Meta Merchantry Suite

You can find demographic information on your existing regulars using Instagram Insights, Meta Merchantry Suite, or Hootsuite Analytics. But if you’re just getting started using Instagram for business, you might not have a large unbearable pursuit to proceeds meaningful insights here yet.

In that case, take a squint at the demographics of your regulars on other social channels and of your existing consumer base. While this won’t translate exactly to Instagram, it should requite you a sense of who’s interested in your merchantry and what you have to say.

Understanding your regulars puts you in a largest position to create targeted content and merchantry captions for Instagram that resonate. Since regulars research is an important foundation for your content strategy, we’ve got a whole post defended to helping you find your target market.

2. Figure out your content mix

Now that you know who your regulars is, you need to determine what to share with them. Rather than posting random content whenever the mood strikes, you need to develop a content strategy that speaks to your regulars and keeps them engaged, all while contributing to real merchantry goals.

While you should certainly post some promotional content to get people excited well-nigh your products and momentum sales, you moreover need to provide content that builds polity and sparks engagement.

That might midpoint including user-generated content or other curated resources, sharing insider expertise well-nigh your industry, or joining in on a trending meme. (But tread thoughtfully here – only join in on trends that are towardly for your trademark voice.)

Look for opportunities to develop themes or regular installments that you can build into a series. “Content buckets” indulge you to trammels unrepealable boxes without having to overthink creation. The increasingly planning you do upfront, the largest you’ll be worldly-wise to produce regular content and respond to last-minute or unplanned events.

3. Schedule your content in advance

From Reels to Stories to posts, there are many options when it comes to Instagram content.

The weightier way to create a unified strategy is to schedule your content wideness all Instagram surfaces (and other social platforms) using a content calendar. Or, take it up a level and schedule all your content to publish automatically at the right time using a tool like the Hootsuite Publisher. Yes, you can plane schedule Stories and Reels in advance.

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The widow wholesomeness here is that you can create your content in defended blocks of time and schedule it to post at the weightier time for your audience. Plane if that time is outside merchantry hours, on the weekend, or in the middle of the night.

4. Tag products

When you share content well-nigh your products on Instagram, tagging makes it much easier for people to learn increasingly or buy. You can tag up to 20 products in a photo feed post.

To tag products, create your Instagram post or Reel as usual. Then, on the final screen surpassing posting, tap Tag products. You can tag products from your own shop or someone else’s, which creates unconfined opportunities for collaboration and cross-promotion.

Source: @reitmans

In Stories, you can tag products using the Product link sticker.

Source: @allbirds

5. Track your results (and learn from wins and losses)

With an Instagram merchantry profile, you have wangle to the platform’s seated analytics tools to help you understand how well variegated types of content perform.

There are several other analytics tools available, including Hootsuite’s, that can track longer time frames, automate reporting and make it easier to compare Instagram metrics wideness other social media platforms.

Try for free

No matter which tools you use, the important thing is to trammels in regularly to learn what kind of content resonates weightier with your target audience. You’ll start to see patterns well-nigh what generates the most engagement, as well as what kinds of social media content increase views vastitude your existing follower base. (Hint: Try Instagram Reels.)

Use these lessons to strop your content strategy over time.

6. Treat Instagram as a consumer service channel

Success on Instagram requires you to engage with your followers rather than just wham content out and hope someone likes it. One important component of this two-way liaison is monitoring your DMs for questions, comments, and consumer service requests.

Instagram merchantry finance have wangle to a couple of DM features that make managing consumer service easier on the platform. First, your inbox is divided into Primary and General tabs to make it easier to alimony track of your messages. And second, you can create saved replies to wontedly asked questions that you can wangle via keyboard shortcuts.

Hootsuite Inbox makes it plane easier to manage your DMs by permitting you to assign messages to the towardly team members. If you really want to take consumer service on Instagram seriously, a tool like Sparkcentral allows you to integrate Instagram with your CRM.

FAQs well-nigh using Instagram for business

Is Instagram self-ruling for business?

It’s self-ruling to set up an Instagram merchantry account, promote your business, and plane set up an Instagram shop.

The only fees for Instagram merchantry finance are ad financing if you segregate to run Instagram ads, and selling fees if you use Commerce Manager to indulge your customers to trammels out and well-constructed their purchase within the Meta platform.

So, there is no fee to use Instagram Shopping to tag products and uncontrived users to your website to buy them. However, if you use Meta’s native checkout through Commerce Manager, you will pay the pursuit selling fees:

• $0.40 for shipments up to $8.00
• 5% for shipments of $8.01 or more

Instagram is waiving these fees until 11:59 PST June 30, 2023.

How does Instagram work for business?

As you’ve seen in the Instagram for merchantry tips throughout this post, Instagram offers many useful features for businesses. Some of the most important features only misogynist for professional finance are:

• Instagram Insights for regulars demographics and details well-nigh how your content performs
• Instagram Shopping to tag products in your content
• Instagram Uncontrived features to largest manage DM communications

But on the whole, Instagram for businesses works just like it works for creators or personal accounts. Create unconfined content that inspires, informs, or entertains your regulars to grow your following and build polity virtually your account.

What are the disadvantages of using Instagram for business?

For most businesses, the benefits of using Instagram for merchantry far outweigh the disadvantages. That said, there is one important disadvantage that’s expressly important when using Instagram for small merchantry development.

For micro businesses, it can be tempting to use Instagram as your unshortened merchantry presence. But this puts you at risk if you overly have an issue with your account, like stuff hacked, locked out, or blocked. It’s a good idea to moreover have a website you tenancy where you can protract to make sales and grow your regulars if there’s overly a problem with your Instagram merchantry account.

Save time managing Instagram for merchantry using Hootsuite. From a single dashboard, you can schedule and publish posts directly to Instagram, engage your audience, measure performance and run all your other social media profiles. Try it self-ruling today.

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