Instagram Business: A complete guide

Even if you’re a business owner, before you set up your Instagram business, you probably want to understand why you'd need to set up your Instagram business in the first place. To start with, you should note that Instagram accounts are classified into personal, creator, and Business.

Instagram Business offers various features and options for your brand. Here are the main reasons to upgrade:

1. Improve your profile by adding more details: For example, you can include your company’s address and contact option, such as a message.
2. Use account analytics and insights: By checking your profile insights, you can understand your demographic data, website clicks, content interactions, and what works best for you.
3. Add links to Stories: You can tag any product you have on Stories and take your audience to your website.
4. Launch Instagram ads: Improve your reach by investing more money in your posts and launching ad campaigns on Facebook and Instagram using Business Manager.

Using Instagram Business Features helps maximize the benefits of your Instagram business account. These benefits help to scale up your business in the following ways:

• Attract new customers
• Nurture customer relationships
• Boost Sales
• Grow your business.

Let’s go over them one by one

With its user-friendly interface, the Instagram Business account is a great tool for Instagram lead generation.

Even without a marketing budget, you can use Instagram for lead generation through:

1. Reels
2. Hashtags
3. Actions buttons
4. Instagram Direct
5. Instagram Shop

However, if you have a marketing budget, there are tools to drive organic awareness and traffic:

1. Boosting a Post - Turn an Instagram post into an ad to drive traffic.
2. Adding Click-to-Message ads - Use interactive ads to prompt users to initiate direct conversations.
3. Using Click on Instagram Direct ads - Optimize engagement with clickable actions for targeted promotions.

With Instagram Direct ads, you can put your company in front of as many people (even if they haven’t subscribed to your profile) as you want for as long as you want, depending on your budget.

This interactive ad format allows potential clients to initiate a direct conversation with you by clicking a button in the ad, redirecting them to your inbox. This fosters a more personalized and immediate connection between you and your customers. “Click to Message ads” are particularly effective for promoting products or services, as customers can inquire about details, pricing, or other information with just one click.

The Boost Post Feature is one of the easiest ways to create ads from your Instagram business account. This is a simple approach to promote any of your posts, especially if you notice much engagement.

After clicking on Boost Post, you can

• Select a goal for the post.
• Define your audience.
• Choose the budget and duration.
• Next, you submit it for review.

You'll always be able to see how each of your posts is performing under “Ad Tools” in your professional dashboard.

When you start promoting your products or services on Instagram Business, leads begin to pour in automatically. To help with the process of management and nurturing, Instagram Business offers some features you could maximize for effective customer relationships.

• Frequently Asked Questions
• Saved Replies
• Labels

This feature allows you to respond quickly to your potential clients' common questions when messaging you for the first time on Instagram. This is a crucial component for brands that want to provide clarity and information to their followers before starting a proper conversation with them.

They are used to answer common queries about products, services, or general inquiries related to the Business. By automatically answering questions, brands can improve customer satisfaction, reduce the volume of repetitive inquiries, and demonstrate a commitment to transparency.

• Click on the three horizontal lines at the top right of your screen.
• Go to Settings and Privacy
• Select Business tools and control.
• Tap Frequently Asked Questions.
• Add your questions and answers, then save.

You are good to go 🎉!

Responding to messages promptly is an important aspect of your business-to-customer relationship. Late responses could make them move to another business.

Fortunately, Instagram includes a simple option that can help you spend less time replying to client messages.

To activate these, you need to trigger “Saved replies” when you input a shortcut or when your clients come to your profile for the first time.

Saved replies are preset messages for frequently asked questions or replies. You may “save” messages so that instead of typing the same message several times, you can just input the “saved reply.”

This feature is also ideal for customer support and giveaways.

Let’s show you how it’s done.

• Click on the three horizontal lines at the top right of your screen.
• Go to Settings and Privacy.
• Select the business and ad tools.
• Click on Saved Reply.
• Write down the shortcut, then the complete message that should be sent when the shortcut is input. Remember to keep your shortcuts short and distinct from each other.
• Next, when you go to Response Suggestion, move the slider to each and toggle it on or off.

Labels allow you to categorize chats:

1. Add labels - Categorize important customer interactions, such as payments
2. Filter chats - Save time and respond to customers more quickly
3. Make changes - Change labels when new customer interactions happen

Using Instagram Business makes it easy for potential customers to browse your products or services in the app and submit orders. Below are just a few features that can help increase your sales:

• Instagram Shop
• Order Creation and Tracking

Let’s go through them one by one.

Using Instagram Shopping helps potential customers easily shop your brand’s photos and videos across Instagram.

It also ensures that your clients can make all their purchases directly in-app, instead of moving from PDPs to your website.

If you have a restaurant, you can receive orders through Instagram if the business has

• an Order food button on its profile.
• a Food orders sticker in its story.

When you tap Order food or Food orders, you’ll be redirected to one of Meta partner’s websites (example: ChowNow, Uber Eats) to complete your purchase.

You can share a business' Food orders sticker in your own story by tapping the sticker, then tapping Add sticker to your story.

To allow people to order your business’s food on Instagram, you must first set up your business with a partner.

Using this new Instagram feature enables customers to pay, track their orders, and ask any follow-up questions through direct messaging.

Customers often discuss their orders with businesses via DMs before making a purchase. With this feature, they can pay businesses directly within their Instagram chat thread. Additionally, it provides users with access to in-app chat support.

Instagram Business helps not only helps boost sales but also provides features t improve your brand visibility and enhance your messaging capabilities through:

• Analytics & Insights
• Instagram Business Verification
• Inspiration

Once you switch to a professional account, you can access metrics for your profile, posts, stories, reels, videos, and live videos. You can improve your Instagram approach by using these tools and resources.

Regardless of how great your Instagram strategy is, you need to monitor the performance of your content, determine what works, and make any necessary changes.

Your profile's insights section will provide statistics about what your audience wants to see, what they engage with the most, and what sort of material you could create more of.

It's also important to view the results of any testing, whether it's a new feature or content type.

On your insights, you can change the date, find information in case you get lost, view accounts that were reached and engaged, and the number of total followers and content you’ve shared:

You can also check analytics for an individual post, reel, story, video, or live video.

You can understand your followers' demographics, location, and active hours.

Knowing your audience is important for developing content that will resonate with them. The Instagram Insights followers report also includes demographic information that can be used when creating your content plan. It contains information on your followers, such as:

• Geographical location (by city and nation)
• Age group
• Gender

Using the “view insights” option, you can easily get a breakdown of the performance of each content at a glance. This helps you make data-driven decisions and refine your content strategy.

Instagram statistics are also included in the Meta Business Suite. Meta Business Suite allows you to compare Instagram and Facebook stats on your desktop and mobile phone.

The verified badge is another feature that makes your Instagram business account look trustworthy to your customers.

The verified badge represents authenticity. It means that Instagram has confirmed an Instagram account with a verified badge next to its name to be the authentic presence of that person or brand.

It could be stressful and mind-clogging to have to create content every time. The Inspiration feature can help businesses see how other brands in a similar industry connect with audiences and grow, allowing them to discuss and promote their brand openly.

This way, you are also aware of updates relating to your brand type, and you could easily find and collaborate, if you desire, with those who do the same as you.

To get content inspiration, follow these steps:

• Click on the professional dashboard on your main profile page.
• Under “Tips and Resources” you will see Inspiration.
• Click on it and begin to enjoy a variety of content to draw inspiration from.

The first step is downloading the Instagram app from the Apple Store or Google Play.

Add your (or your company’s) full name, and create a username and password for yourself (or your company). Instagram will need your phone number and a confirmation code.

To begin with, there are three types of Instagram accounts: personal, creator, and Business.

From your profile, follow these steps:

• Click on the three horizontal lines menu icon in the upper-right corner.
• Go to Settings and Privacy.
• Scroll down and tap Account type and tools
• Then, switch to a professional account.

You are halfway through the process!

• Next, click through Continue and choose what best describes you.
• Click on Business, and then decide whether to receive promotional emails or not.
• Fill in your contact details, or not, by tapping Don't use my contact information.
• Next, you decide whether to connect your Instagram account with Facebook.

At this point, your Instagram business account has already been created. However, if you desire to connect your Instagram business account with a Facebook business page, you should follow the steps given by Instagram. Usually, this is optional, but it's necessary so you can run ads on Instagram.

If you have an existing Facebook business page, you simply click on it.

However, if needed, you could always create a new Facebook page from the Instagram business account.

• Write your page name.
• Choose the category.
• Click the X in the top left corner to close this window so you can return to your profile.

Now you are all set up. You have created your Instagram business account. Yay 🎉!!!

After you've created your Instagram Business account, you can begin tweaking it to appeal to your target audience. There are two approaches to this:

1. Optimize your profile page.
2. Optimize the type of content you post

People often find your page based on how well you optimized the content they saw in their feed and remain on it because of how well you optimized your profile page.

Here's an example of a profile that has been optimized:

• Profile photo: Your logo is the face of your business and reflects your brand identity.
• Business name: This is not the same as your Instagram username. It appears beneath your profile picture, and you can add a name related to your brand.
• Bio: Here, you can describe what your company does, mention the latest promotions, or anything representing your brand. Make sure your bio is catchy.
• Links: You can add up to five clickable links. However, most companies use their website or links to their latest promotional pages. You can create a link tree to link more than five websites.
• Contact options: The contact button on your profile helps potential customers know the best ways to contact you, like email or phone number.
• Highlights: Highlights have a unique way of making your page look more creative. Categorize it as it fits your brand. Highlights are taken from your stories, so post there first.

After you’ve optimized your profile page, it is good that you start posting content right away. Let’s look at some tips to help you optimize your content.

This is usually displayed on your profile page and gets deleted once you delete or archive it. Posts are often in picture format. You can now add music, invite collaborators, and use carousels.

Every post in video format is automatically presented as a Reel, the most engaging post type, with a 1.23% average engagement rate. Using Reels gives you a great opportunity to expand your reach and communicate with new audiences.

Stories are a creative approach to reaching out to your clients without them having to visit your profile. When you post a new Story, a colorful ring appears around your profile picture, which informs your followers that they can tap on your profile photo to see what you’ve just shared. Your profile picture is also added to the top row of your followers’ home screens, which makes it the first thing they see.

Stories have many add-on features, such as:

• Quizzes
• Music
• Countdown
• Questions
• Emoji sliders
• Customizable links
• Polls
• Hashtags
• Mentions

You can place them over your Stories to make them more compelling and interactive. You could simply add a poll to a photo of your products to ask your customers to pick which product is their favorite.

Stories have a 24-hour mark, meaning they are automatically deleted after 24 hours. You have the opportunity each day to try out various features and understand what works best.

With hashtags, you can increase the popularity of your posts, reels, and stories.

A hashtag, such as #JanuarySales2024, is a series of words, numbers, or emoji that appear before the # symbol. Instagram hashtags are excellent at labeling and categorizing your content to make it easier to find.

You can tell compelling stories and provide context to your visuals with captions. You can also include a call to action to boost engagement. Instagram captions allow 2,200 characters, but there are limits when hashtags are involved. Crafting thoughtful captions enhances your brand's personality and fosters a deeper connection with followers.

Alt text on Instagram is a description of your image. Incorporating relevant keywords in your alt text contributes to better SEO, potentially attracting a broader client base. It also makes your content more accessible to users with visual impairments. There is no limit to the characters; just ensure that your description effectively describes your content.

Grow local visibility using geotags. Tagging your content with a location—either a specific address (like your Business) or a broader area like a city or town—will help people searching in that area discover your content. Instagram users can click geotags and see a collection of content tagged with that location, which means your content will be included in these collections.

Pheww! Now that we have set up your Instagram business, let’s see how Kommo can drive your Instagram conversations, posts, and stories that you can convert into customers.

When you get many responses from your customers on Instagram, you must maintain good communication with them. You need to be able to respond to their requests at any time and place. This is where Kommo CRM, an official Meta Business Partner, comes into play.

Kommo’s unified inbox pulls in all conversations from Instagram (and other popular channels like WhatsApp) and Instagram comments, story reactions, and DMs

You can integrate Salesbot (Kommo's chatbot) into regular messaging flows to answer customer questions before they reach one of your sales reps. The salesbot can also provide customer service, follow up, and handle simple tasks during offline hours. That’s why our no-code bot builder is the crown jewel of Kommo’s Instagram CRM.

If you don’t want to use a chatbot, Kommo allows you to create chat templates that can be customized for each client, streamlining communication and saving time. With Instagram templates, you can send pre-written messages that answer frequently asked questions and handle routine operations in just one click.

This is another feature Kommo provides. If a human agent is needed, the salesbot automatically directs your conversation on Instagram to the best team or person to handle that specific inquiry. This ensures you do not do the tasks manually and all by yourself.

Kommo offers a free Native Instagram API integration with a plethora of features, including everything we've mentioned to help you grow together with your Instagram Business profile.

With the Instagram + Kommo integration, you can add an unlimited number of Instagram business accounts and manage all conversations - including those started from comments and stories - in one place.

Plus, you can create ice breakers, quick replies, and website widgets to ensure a seamless omnichannel experience for your customers.

To kick-start the process, you’ll need:

1. Instagram Business Account
2. Facebook Business Page

Once you are ready, go to Settings > Integrations > Instagram.

Connect it using your Facebook account.

Paired with Kommo, your Instagram business account will revolutionize your brand, making it easier to place your brand before the world, find new customers, and build communication with your customers.

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