Four steps to run a business account on Instagram

Lu Yang
4 min readOct 31, 2017

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There is an increasing number of businesses seeing Instagram as an important tool to promote their products or services. This blog is intended to share 4 most useful steps to manage a business Instagram account.

First step: Identify whether there is a necessity to establish a business account on Instagram

Data does indicate there is a considerable amount of users on Instagram and creating an Instagram business account may help reach potential consumers. With this regard, more businesses jump on the bandwagon and start establishing their business account.

However, they overlook an important theory— the “80/20 rule”, which suggests a business should spend 80% of efforts on 20% of customers as they are the ones who make 80% of the business revenues. What that means is a business should firstly define their target market, identify the consumer journey and understand their digital footprint. The business can then build a more solid online presence. Therefore, if the target market tends to find blogs to gather information, it may not worth spending time on building an Instagram business account.

Whether it is necessary to create a business profile on Instagram also depends on the product/service category. If the business relates to tutoring and coaching service, it is better to establish a Facebook account to engage conversations rather than on Instagram.

Second step: Learn from a successful Instagram fanpage

How does learning from an Instagram fan account help with business Instagram account management? Here is the reason. Fans are the ones who show a strong passion to share their love to the favorite icon with others. Because of this desire, they typically take the initiative to grasp the latest Instagram features and use an engaging tone of voice to “brand” their icon. As such, even general users (not anti-fans) can feel that enthusiasm from the feeds.

Similarly, when managing the business Instagram account, it is critical to make the target market feel and appreciate the enthusiasms and determinations that you have with your product/service through the contents and application of new Instagram features. The bottom line is people would pay more attention to those who are passionate about what they are doing.

Fan accounts sometimes also communicate with fans through a “fan codes/language,” which generates uniqueness among fans. In this sense, the business can also build its own brand tone of voice with the target market, such as create a unique nickname for consumers.

Third step: Develop a comprehensive bio

It is critical to have a comprehensive and professional profile under the account for the purpose of allowing potential customers to gain a better understanding of the business. Some of the key information that should include under the description box are the business name, the mission or vision, the business category as well as the website address (or other social media sites).

Fourth step: Content is EVERYTHING

I have experience in account management, and here are some of content creation tips that I would love to share and assist with the business account management on Instagram.

  1. Apply a unique hashtag in all feeds: It is not recommended to throw a bunch of hashtags on each post as it will look overwhelming. In addition, It happens that some hashtags are popular applied by users but do not relate to the business. However, you can design a unique hashtag and add it in all the contents. This will facilitate developing a “community” on Instagram as consumers can also use the same hashtag to post contents relevant to the business and you can then identify the customers and stay engagement with them. It also helps new brand switchers or new category switchers to understand the business.
  2. Manage the frequency of the posts and the consistency of the contents. It is not a bright idea to create feeds many times a day or only several times per month. Understanding the frequency and identifying the best time to create posts are important. In addition, the content should be consistent with the brand image, and I also recommend that the pictures are in the same style and the descriptions contain the similar tones.
  3. Create certain contents on certain times to increase customer engagement. This means the business can choose a certain day of each week or each month and post a unique content. It can be reposting an Instagram user’s picture that has your zbrand name tagged in. It will generate a habit among consumers and allow them to have expectations on that day and eventually foster engagement.
  4. Call-to-action. This is an opportunity to convert top funnel audience to consumers. At the end of the post, you can encourage users to leave a comment or direct them to the website.

That is my perspectives about business account management on Instagram. Now, it’s your turn. Leave a comment and share your thoughts on this topic❤.

You are also welcomed to visit my website: http://lyangmarketing.pagecloud.com/ and discover more interesting topics!

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Lu Yang

My passion is a mixture of obsession and madness for creativity. I create contents on my website: http://lyangmarketing.pagecloud.com/. Feel free to visit ;)