How to Make an Instagram Business Account

Oct 25, 2019

If you’re looking to promote your business on Instagram, you’ll want to make sure you’re set up with an Instagram Business account. An Instagram Business account is one of two Instagram Professional accounts, which offer additional tools for both businesses and creators.

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In this article, we’ll explain how to get the most out of Instagram for your business with a Professional account. We’ll dive into:

The benefits of an Instagram Business account
How to switch to a Professional account on Instagram
How to set up your Instagram Business account
Instagram Business categories
How to remove Business from your Instagram account

Instagram Business account benefits

Why switch to an Instagram Business account? Doing so will unlock a whole set of features that are unavailable with a Personal account. These include:

View insights: Learn about your followers and see how your posts are performing. Easily see which content performs the best, find out what time of day your audience is the most active, and more.
Run ads: Create promotions to reach new audiences and build your business. Making an Instagram Business account lets you start using Facebook Ads manager to run targeted ads.
Manage your account from a computer: Link your Facebook and Instagram Business accounts to post to Instagram from a computer, view insights, and more.
Add an action button: Make it easier for people to get in touch with you or take the next step. With an Instagram Business account you can add a call-to-action button right at the top of your profile.
Showcase your industry on your profile: Instagram Business account holders can share their industry right on their profile. We’ll dive into Instagram Business categories later on in this post.

How to create an Instagram Business account

Switching to a Business account on Instagram is easy. In this section we’ll show you how to do it. First, we’ll show you how to switch to a Professional account. Then, we’ll help you get your Instagram Business account set up.

How to switch to an Instagram Professional account

Ready to turn your personal Instagram account into an Instagram Business account? Here's how in 4 steps.

Step 1: Go into Settings in your Instagram account
Step 2: Tap on "Account"
Step 3: Tap "Switch to Professional Account"
Step 4: Select "Business"

Instagram-business-account

Note: If you’re interested in a Creator account, you’ll select "Creator" in step 4. Creator accounts are a good option for public figures, content producers, artists, and influencers. With a Creator account you’ll also have access to insights, ads, and more flexible profile controls.

How to set up your Instagram Business account

Once you’ve selected to switch your Instagram account to a Business account, it’s time to get your Business account set up. There are a few things you’ll need to do:

Connect your Facebook page. This step is optional. But if you already have a Facebook page for your business, you can connect it. This’ll allow you to do things like share an Instagram post or Story to Facebook. Plus, it’s a necessary step if you want to be able to manage your Instagram account from a computer.
Select a category. You’ll be asked to select a category that best represents your business. Recommended categories include Personal Blog, Product/Service, Art, Musician/Band, Shopping & Retail, Health/Beauty, and Grocery Store. We’ll talk more about Instagram Business categories in the next section.
Add contact info. How can customers get in touch with you? Add an email, phone number, and address. Don’t worry, you can always choose not to show your contact info if you aren’t comfortable with it.

And that’s all there is to it! Note that if you are turning an old Personal account into a Business account, you’ll only start to see Insights for new content that you share going forward. If you go back to a Personal account you’ll lose any insights from your time with a Business account.

Instagram Business categories

As we mentioned in the previous section, when you create your Instagram Business account, you’ll need to select a category. The category you choose will be displayed on your business Instagram profile and should help tell the story of what your business does.

The recommended categories are Personal Blog, Product/Service, Art, Musician/Band, Shopping & Retail, Health/Beauty, and Grocery Store. But those are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the full list of Instagram Business categories.

There are Instagram Business categories for a huge variety of businesses, from Real Estate Agent to E-commerce Website to Petting Zoo. Just type in terms related to your business to find the category that best suits you. And don’t worry! You can always come back and update the category if you change your mind.

instagram-business-categories

How to Remove Business from your Instagram account

If you’ve already created an Instagram Business account and you’d like to go back to a Personal account, that’s easy to do. Here’s how:

Step 1: Go into Settings in your Instagram account
Step 2: Tap on “Account”
Step 3: Tap “Switch to Personal Account”
Step 4: Confirm

Note that if you do switch from a Business account back to a personal one, you’ll lose all of the content and insights from promotions you ran on your account. Additionally, you’ll no longer be able to view insights for existing and future posts and Stories.

What's next?

Once your Instagram Business account is set up, what’s next? Well, it’s time to start creating content, of course! To learn more about how to create content that drives engagement and gets results, check out some of the other content on our blog:

Are you using an Instagram Business account? What are your favorite features? Let us know in our private Facebook group, the Animoto Social Video Marketing Community.