How to Best Create & Utilize your Account on Instagram

The three different types of accounts for Instagram:

Personal

First- Do you have more than one account? If so, you may want to consider the following:
1. Choose a Primary account.
2. Post regularly, and then say “we are closing this account….go to THIS account”
3. Then start “archiving” your posts
4. Then create a bio that says “This account is no longer active…head over to THIS account”
**SOME people will convert
***Reach out to FB rep or IG direct to connect accounts or use adv spent

If you currently have a personal account on Instagram, it may be time to consider switching to a creator or business account.

Sure a personal account lets you post the same great photos as an Instagram business account or even a creator account, a business account comes with more premium features. This means more ways for your potential customers or clients to reach you.

Creator

The creator account allows you to tag brand products in their posts-creating a new way for users to shop straight from Instagram. Best for public figures, content producers, artists, and influencers.

So now that we have established that both the creator & business accounts have more benefits – there are differences between the two –

You can switch back and forth between the two types of accounts.

Creator vs. business accounts

While creator accounts allow you to preschedule your posts from the Facebook Creator Studio App, business accounts allow you to preschedule your posts from other apps like Plann, Planoly, Later, and others, in addition to the Facebook Creator Studio app.

Both allow you to have access to insights (which are your analytics). Both allow you to boost or promote your posts. Both allow you to link your account to your shop on Instagram.

But, creator accounts allow you to link to other accounts, which makes a lot of sense since it was designed with the Influencer in mind.

Both accounts have access to daily updates of follows/unfollows so that they can see how content is performing (or in some cases not performing) and which content is resonating with their audience.

Both can categorize DM’s for primary and general or even flag a comment in the DM for follow up later.

Checklist for both accounts

-INSIGHTS (reach, gain/loss, days of the week, times of day)

-PROFILE CATEGORY (athlete, blogger, entrepreneur…)

-EMAIL (direct contact)

-FILTERS (general, primary, message requests for profiles you’re not following)

-PRESCHEDULE POSTS *(Creator only FB Creator Studio)

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You can switch back and forth between the two types of accounts.

Key differences - business

-API INTEGRATION (third party apps – access to other apps for prescheduling)

-NO ACCESS TO PRIVATE ACCOUNT (makes sense for business)
-TAG PRODUCTS (Create a Facebook Shop)
-ADD ADDRESS (Physical Business Location)
-LESS INSIGHTS (API will give you more insights)

Key differences - creator

-API INTEGRATION (third party apps – access to other apps for prescheduling)

-NO ACCESS TO PRIVATE ACCOUNT (makes sense for business)
-TAG PRODUCTS (Create a Facebook Shop)
-ADD ADDRESS (Physical Business Location)
-LESS INSIGHTS (API will give you more insights)

*ON A SIDE NOTE – I HAVE BEEN ASKED ABOUT “COMBINING ACCOUNTS” ON INSTAGRAM AND I WOULD LIKE TO SET THE RECORD STRAIGHT-AT LEAST AS OF TODAY.

You cannot combine accounts. If you have more than one account, simply choose one as your PRIMARY ACCOUNT. Then post regularly to that account and with the existing account, write in the Bio “WE ARE CLOSING THIS ACCOUNT…..HEAD OVER TO THIS ACCOUNT” Begin to archive or delete posts and focus your efforts on your primary account.

Then, at a later date, you should change the Bio on the account that is no longer the focus and write in the Bio section “THIS ACCOUNT IS NO LONGER ACTIVE.” You will convert some people over to the new account and you will lose some followers. That’s fine.

Alternatively, contact a rep at Facebook or Instagram directly and if you use advertising spent dollars they may be able to help you with this.

Overall, if you ultimately want to monetize your account, you are better off sticking with a business profile-even if you are an Influencer. If eventually want to sell your products or services you are going to want to add a category for contact, location, insights, third party apps, swipe up feature.

You can switch back and forth between the two types of accounts.