Instagram Account Overview

Digital Marketing - Study Notes:

Types of account

There are two types of Instagram accounts, organic and business. There are a variety of reasons for why you would choose one account over another. Figure out your long-term goals and make the decision as to how you can best achieve them.

Organic

The organic account is more familiar to a social media audience.

Reasons to use an organic account:

• Relationships: Organic account allows you to engage and build relationships over time with people interested in your business.
• Discovery: It’s easier to be found on an Instagram search.
• Communication: You can respond to comments on ads or posts and move these communications to direct messages.
• Clickable account name: There’s a clickable account name when you use advertising, meaning people can visit your Instagram account for more about your business through your organic posts and follow your account.

Business

The business account has features that drive business results. There are additional resources like contact and website information with the ability to utilize paid advertising.

Here are reasons to use a business account:

• Discovery: It increases chances of being discovered with Instagram’s new algorithm.
• Recognition: Users can immediately recognize you as a business.
• Additional profile options: You can add contact details, a business address, and call to action.
• Analytics: It has robust analytics with the insights view, overall impressions, top post, reach impressions, engagement, follower growth, location, and demographics.
• Ads: It includes Instagram ads within the platform.
• Promotion: You have a higher chance of being promoted.

Verified badge

A verified badge is a check that appears next to an Instagram’s account name in search and on the profile. It confirms that Instagram acknowledges this is the authentic account for the public figure, celebrity, or global brand it represents.

There is a verification process because well-known accounts and figures have a high likelihood of being impersonated. Instagram wants to make sure that the community can easily find the authentic people and brands they want to follow. Verified accounts are reviewed to make sure the Instagram experience stays authentic. Instagram will take away an account verified status if it posts spam or other content that doesn’t follow community guidelines or uses a profile pic or a bio section to promote other services.

Account structure

There are two types of Instagram account structure that can be adopted: single account and multiple accounts. Take note of the following considerations for each account structure before choosing which structure suits your company needs most

Single account

A single-account structure has the following benefits for marketers:

• Have centralized content.
• Maintain a consistent voice.
• Simplify account moderation.
• Keep followers under one account.
• Support discovery and scale.
• Single Instagram account: there’s security risk with sharing account details with multiple stakeholders and defining roles and responsibilities for those without account access.

Bear in mind the following:

• There’s security risk with sharing account details with multiple stakeholders.
• You need to define roles and responsibilities for those without account access.

Multiple account

A multiple-account structure has the following benefits for marketers:

• Business approach differs by region.
• Parent brand supports sub-brands.
• Localize content.
• Manage customer service content.

Bear in mind the following:

• Do you have the budget?
• Do you have the resources to support multiple accounts?
• Do you have a clear strategy to post unique content on a regular basis?
• Do you have a localized or sub-brand message that is critical to driving your business objectives?
• Does it make sense for your brand to be spread thin across multiple channels?
• Do you have a bandwidth across your company to teach them best practices, brand voice, and execution?

Switching between accounts

You can have up to five Instagram accounts per brand and you can switch between each account very easily by just changing a few settings.

1. Go to your profile and tap gear (iPhone) or vertical line (Android) in the top-right.
2. Scroll to the bottom and tap ’Add Account’.
3. Enter the username and password of the account you’d like to add.
4. Go back to your profile.
5. Tap your username at the top of the screen.
6. Tap the account you’d like to switch to.

To remove an Instagram account that you've added:

1. Go to your profile and switch to the account you'd like to remove.
2. Tap the gear button on iPhone, or vertical line on Android in the top-right.
3. Scroll down and tap ’Log out of [username]’ or ‘Log out of All Accounts’. Logging out of all accounts will remove all the accounts you've added.