Instagram for Business, otherwise known as Instagram Business, is the way chosen by the social network owned by Mark Zuckerberg to help businesses promote their products and services within a global community of people interested in their business. The platform provides companies with a number of useful tools to grow their business on Instagram, but to succeed in this intent you need to know how to make the most of all these resources.
This guide explains what Instagram Business is and how it works. In more detail, in the next few lines you can find out why it is advisable to use Instagram to grow your business, how to create a business Instagram account and how to provide the right information about the products and services that the company offers or the business itself, so that you can more easily reach loyal and new customers.
Why to use Instagram for Business
Among the many reasons why users around the world use Instagram is the desire to discover new content that interests them, including those of brands and companies. In fact, according to a survey of Instagram users conducted in November 2015 and released by the platform, 84% of people surveyed said they discover new products on Instagram. According to some internal Instagram data (dating back to November 2017), it turns out to be 2 out of 3 visits to the social profiles of companies by people who do not yet follow them. Dates back to October 2019 another statistic, also provided by Instagram: 90% of people on the social network follow a company.
But how many Instagram users and, therefore, potential customers are there for brands that decide to use Instagram for Business? Again, Instagram is the official answer, although the figure is not particularly recent: in 2018, there were more than 1 billion accounts on Instagram that were active every month.
As we already mentioned in the opening of this guide, creating a business Instagram profile ensures several advantages for companies, which can promote their products and services within a community of potential customers interested in what they do. In aggiunta a tutte le funzioni organiche già presenti negli account Instagram personali, le feature e le impostazioni che contraddistinguono la tipologia di account aziendale permettono di raggiungere un gran numero di persone, ma anche di rimanere in contatto con loro e di aumentare, in questo modo, le possibilità di vendita.
Nello specifico, tra i vari vantaggi garantiti, con un account Instagram di tipo aziendale è possibile:
- visualizzare metriche in tempo reale sulle prestazioni di post, Stories e inserzioni nell’arco della giornata;
- visualizzare informazioni più dettagliate sui follower e sul modo in cui interagiscono con i post e con le Stories;
- stimolare le persone a mettersi in contatto con l’azienda aggiungendo e-mail, luogo e recapito telefonico;
- comunicare direttamente con i follower tramite i messaggi, i commenti sui post e gli adesivi interattivi di Instagram;
- intercettare più persone pagando la promozione del post direttamente sull’app.
Quanto costa Instagram for Business
Prima di capire come funziona esattamente Instagram for Business è doverosa una precisazione sul prezzo: in molti, infatti, si chiedono se questo particolare servizio offerto dal social network sia a pagamento. La risposta farà felice molti titolari di aziende: il costo di Instagram for Business è pari a zero in quanto si tratta di un servizio assolutamente gratuito. Ciò significa che passare da un account personale a un account aziendale non comporta alcuna spesa.
Come creare un account Instagram aziendale
Vediamo ora, più nel dettaglio, come passare da un profilo Instagram personale a uno aziendale. La trasformazione avviene in 7 step:
- accedere al profilo e cliccare sull’icona del menu in alto a destra;
- cliccare su "Impostazioni";
- cliccare su "Account";
- cliccare su "Passa a un account aziendale";
- collegare l’account aziendale a una Pagina Facebook associata all’azienda (facoltativo, ma consigliato da Instagram);
- aggiungere i dettagli dell’azienda (categoria, informazioni di contatto etc.);
- cliccare su "Fine".
Come configurare l’account Instagram aziendale
Instagram stesso ha fornito alcuni consigli utili a configurare al meglio un account Instagram aziendale. Il nome dell’account, innanzitutto, deve essere facilmente riconducibile al brand e deve essere breve (il limite massimo è di 30 caratteri). Allo stesso modo, l’immagine del profilo (ritagliata in forma circolare e mostrata come una icona da 150 x 150 pixel) deve essere altrettanto immediata e semplice. The advice is to choose the logo or a graphic symbol related to the company.
Including some relevant hashtags in the company biography helps, then, to make the brand more easily identifiable. Emoji, on the other hand, help describe the company visually as well. Finally, it is advisable to pay particular attention to the section dedicated to contact information, filling in accurately and completely the fields related to website, email address, phone number and location.
What content to share: tips for businesses
To attract the attention of the public and grow your company on Instagram it is important to communicate and express your brand identity effectively and publish posts that engage users with engaging text, photos and videos.
To best communicate your company's identity it is important to think about what makes it unique and decide what you want users to know about it. Uno stratagemma molto utilizzato e utile per esprimere in maniera efficace l’identità del brand è quello di creare i primi post (generalmente i primi 9) in modo da formare una griglia che abbia una coerenza grafica e tematica.
Pubblicare contenuti regolarmente aiuta a mantenere alto il coinvolgimento dell’utenza, ma è importante condividere post in grado di attirare l’attenzione. Ancora prima di iniziare a pubblicare qualcosa, però, è ancor più fondamentale stabilire un formato e un registro comunicativo per i propri contenuti, creare un calendario editoriale, utilizzare i propri obiettivi di marketing come bussola per la creazione del piano dei contenuti e lasciarsi ispirare dai post degli altri account presenti su Instagram. Vediamo ora alcune indicazioni che possono contribuire a rendere più efficace la pubblicazione dei post.
I consigli utili per i testi:
- scrivere didascalie brevi e interessanti;
- utilizzare hashtag coerenti (massimo 3, per evitare di sovraccaricare il testo);
- ricorrere alle domande per coinvolgere gli utenti;
- aggiungere una call to action chiara, nel caso in cui si stia promuovendo un post o creando un’inserzione.
Per quanto riguarda i contenuti visuali, alcuni suggerimenti sono:
- usare un’illuminazione adeguata;
- concentrare l’attenzione sul soggetto per comunicare un messaggio chiaro;
- provare anche sfondi diversi, colorati e particolari per dare ulteriore profondità alle immagini dei tuoi prodotti e attirare ancor più l’attenzione (ma sempre utilizzando uno schema di colori coerente).
Another useful tip for companies that want to promote their business on Instagram is to take advantage of the geolocation tag to reach people nearby. And that's not all: it's advisable to interact with your community in order to develop a close relationship with potential customers, including by liking or commenting on posts published by other users.
How to use Instagram for Business statistical data
Statistical data is one of the most useful resources made available to businesses by Instagram for Business, as it provides invaluable information about users' favorite content. Specifically, Instagram for Business makes available various information on demographics and follower behaviors through three specific sections, called "Activity", "Content" and "Audience".
In the "Activity" section, in particular, you can find out the actions users perform on the company's profile and the number of people who have viewed the content (Coverage and Impression). To access specific data related to the performance of posts, Stories and promotions, it is necessary to access the "Content" section. Finally, information on the types of followers that your business profile is able to attract is contained in the "Audience" section.
How to create ads with Instagram for Business
Let's now look more specifically at how to promote your content via Instagram for Business. To create a promotion, you can either click the "Promotions" button on the business account or the "Promote" button present on an already published post. Instagram promotions are the most effective tool available to companies to make their products and services known to a wide audience or to communicate the arrival of a new special offer.
The product/service or offer must be the central element of the post you have chosen to promote. There are many possibilities of customization: you can choose the format, but also your business objective, the target audience, the budget, the duration of the advertisement and much more. The most useful advice for those who want to create ads on Instagram is to experiment as much as possible, in order to understand more precisely what their users/potential customers like the most.
We have already pointed out that Instagram for Business is free: creating a business profile on the social network does not involve, in fact, any expense. Different, of course, is the speech related to the price of advertisements: as mentioned, it is up to those who create the promotion to choose the budget of the advertising campaign. When creating the promotion with Instagram for Business, in fact, it is required to indicate the total budget, i.e. the total amount you are willing to spend for the advertisement, and the duration, i.e. the number of days in which the promotion should be active.