Whether you’re a business owner, an aspiring influencer, or just want a large Instagram following for yourself, how you set up your account can be crucial to gaining followers. Today I’m going to walk you through all the parts of an Instagram profile, as well as how to set up your Instagram account for success.
How To Set Up Your Instagram Account For Success
Anatomy Of An Instagram Profile
We’ll start with an overview of the three types of Instagram accounts: Personal, Creator, and Business. Everyone is automatically signed up with a Personal Account. This is the most basic account type you can have. You can choose to keep it public for everyone to see, or make it private where people have to request to follow you. They can’t see any of your posts until you approve them.
Next we have the Creator account. This was recently released and is tailored for influencers, bloggers, etc. By having a Creator account, you gain access to analytics, or “Insights”, which tell you things like where your followers and engagers are located, how old they are, their gender, and even the most popular time of day that they’re active on Instagram. If you have a Facebook Page for your blog, you can now link that to your Instagram account. Also, once you reach 10,000 followers, you can put a “Swipe Up” link in your Instagram Stories.
Lastly, we have the Business account. You get everything from the Creator account, plus you can run ads, have a Contact/Email button on your profile, and tag products in your posts. Business accounts can not be Private…they must be Public.
What do the accounts look like?
Both a basic Personal Account and a Creator Account look exactly the same to your followers, so I’m only going to show you the difference between a Personal and Business Profile.
As you can see, the only added feature on the Business Profile is the addition of the Contact button. This button will allow people to either call or email you with the tap of a button!
Anatomy Of An Instagram Profile
Username: This is what you will put after the @ sign when directing people to your profile. This should be your business name, your name, or something that directly correlates to what you do or what your purpose is.
Logo or Profile Photo: This photo does not change, and should be a professional-looking photo of you, or your logo. If you have accounts across various social media platforms, you should also consider using the same profile photo on each one. This will allow people to easily identify that it’s your account. If your account is for business purposes, this is not the place for your dog photos or a goofy selfie. Keep it professional. 😉
Business Name: This part shows up as “Business Name” when editing the profile, but this is a searchable field! If you are using your business name as your Username (like mine below), you can get creative here. I have used the Business Name field to further promote what I offer: Branding, Social Media, and Web Development. See what I mean in the second photo below!
Descriptive Bio: This is the place to really tell what you do! Where are you located? What do you offer? What sets you apart from others?
Link: This is the one and only link you get on Instagram! You cannot place clickable links in your posts, so any time you want to direct someone to a link, that link must live here. It will typically either go straight to your website or to a landing page that houses all of your links.
More on “Business Name”
In this example, AKPHOTOBOOTHS is the username and the actual, real life business name, but their Instagram “Business Name” is DALLAS PHOTO BOOTHS. When you search for “dallas photo booth” in the Instagram search bar, AKPHOTOBOOTHS is the fifth one down because they used DALLAS PHOTO BOOTHS instead of Jane Doe or AK Photo Booths.
How To Effectively Use Instagram
Let’s start with the anatomy of a post. Each post contains (or should contain!) the following pieces:
Anatomy Of An Instagram Post
Photo/Video: Instagram is all about the visual. Your photo or video should be clear, and eye-catching. It’s what’s going to grab people and make them stop scrolling! Try to use images that are relevant to your offering, and also consider using the same color palette or filter to give your posts a consistent look and feel. More on that later…
Caption: Your caption should tell about the image. Most of the time, it should provide something to your audience, too. This is also where you will encourage interaction and engagement with the reader. Give them a call to action like, “Comment below and let us know what you think!” “Tag a friend who could use this product!” “Click the link in our bio to read more!” You get the idea…
All About Hashtags
Hashtags are searchable, clickable tags that basically put your post into a category of sorts. There are popular hashtags like #mondaymotivation #tiptuesday #throwbackthursday #selfcaresunday #nofilter, etc. If you search for #mondaymotivation in the Instagram search bar, you’ll find all sorts of posts, hopefully full of great motivation. You can also use this to your company’s benefit by creating a company hashtag, then putting it in all of your posts. Lady Bosses Networking uses #ladybossesnetworking in all of their posts, so if you click on that hashtag in their posts, you’ll find all of their posts, as well as any posts that their members have posted when they also used the hashtag. It’s a great way of building community!
Instagram Growth Strategies
Now that you have your account set up, how do you make it work?
Follow relevant accounts: Follow accounts that would benefit from your content. If you’re a wedding planner, follow area florists, caterers, bridal shops, wedding venues, etc. If you’re a mom blogger, follow moms…even search for mom-related hashtags and find people that way! Once you follow them, hopefully they’ll follow you back! The opposite of this, you can follow other wedding planners so you can learn from them. You can learn who they’re working with, which posts are performing well, and maybe even a new trick or two.
Interact with your community: Take a few minutes every day (literally 2-10 minutes, nothing crazy) to like and comment on the posts of your followers or other people in the “community”. If you’re a Kansas City Wedding Planner, you could even search up #kcbrides and then go through and like/comment on recent posts!
Be consistent: Lastly, be consistent! You should post on a consistent basis. You can come up with this cadence on your own, but a good rule of thumb is 1-3 times per day. Most of my clients post Monday, Wednesday, Friday or every other day. I like to post 1/day Monday-Friday. It’s all up to you and how much content you have! Just find a good rhythm and stick to it.
I hope this walkthrough and these tips have been helpful for you! Setting up a successful Instagram account can feel daunting at times, but you can do it with the right knowledge! If you still feel lost, contact me and I’ll help you get your account up and running in a professional manner.