Why You Need an Instagram Business Account

I’m going to give you 3 reasons why you need an Instagram Business Account as a photographer, plus one downside.

I waited a REALLY long time before switching my IG profile over to a business account. When business accounts were first introduced, there was worry that your posts wouldn’t get the same reach, that you might not be able to switch back, or that they would start charging businesses for their accounts, or certain features. 

Many people have noticed a recent drop in IG engagement as the algorithm is forever-changing, but I didn’t notice any significant change at the time I made the switch. And here are 3 reasons why I think it’s beneficial as a photographer:

1) Insights

You can gather quite a bit of information about your account growth and engagement, as well as where your audience lives, their age and gender, and when they are most active. This is helpful when planning your post captions (you might speak to an audience differently if they are mostly young 20-somethings, vs if they are a bit older and more likely to be married with children) and the time of day you might want to post to get the most engagement.

2) Auto-Post from Another App

2) Auto-Post from Another App
There are many options for planning your layout, writing your captions, saving and adding hashtags, and scheduling your posts. I use Planoly, and I love being able to sit down and plan out a few posts at a time. I recently signed up for the paid plan to be able to add more images, add my hashtags to the first comment automatically, and auto-post to my FB page at the same time. But I used the free plan for over a year before deciding the upgrade was worth the time-savings for me.

3) Saved Replies

If you aren’t making use of this hidden gem – go set it up now!
Settings > Business> Saved Replies

You can set up keyboard shortcuts for common replies you use when people dm you. Maybe you just want to direct everyone to your email instead, or maybe you have a reply set up for each session type you offer so you can quickly send off all the info they need when inquiring with you. Either way, this is such a time saver!

Extra benefits: contact buttons in your profile, promoting posts or creating ads, adding links to stories once you reach 10k followers, create shoppable posts, story highlights.

The one downside?
Your business account can only be linked to your Facebook business page, not your personal page. I used to enjoy choosing whether I wanted to share my IG post to my business page or personal page (or sometimes both), depending on the content. So I do miss that. As a workaround, I can go to the post on my FB page and share it to my personal account.my IG post to my business page or personal page (or sometimes both), depending on the content. So I do miss that. As a workaround, I will go to the post on my FB page and share it to my personal account.

I think this one drawback shouldn’t outweigh all the reasons why you need an Instagram Business Account!

Other helpful links in this series:
·· Part 1: Create a Follow-Worthy IG Profile ··
·· Part 2: How to Create a “Link In Bio” ··