badge which you can see near their account names. Most of the time, they also have their photos as avatars for quick recognition.
Commercial and Brand Instagram accounts and their peculiarities
A while ago, Instagram introduced Business profiles to facilitate business operations for companies and brands. There are several features which distinguish such accounts from others:
“Contact’ button;
Additional stats on publications and activity;
New advertising features;
An option to include company’s physical address.
Here are some recommendations on how to operate a commercial account on Instagram:
Always provide fresh news and new information for your followers, keep them entertained. Try and divide your content into different sections: as a clothing line on one day you may publish a picture of your client in a new dress bought from you, on the other day you can publish a fresh package to send out to one of your customers, next time post an interesting fashion fact or behind-the-scenes photo etc.
Do not post too much, 3 to 6 posts a day is a sufficient amount. The exception is when you have a special event or important news to tell your followers about, on that day you may use from 5 to 10 photos.
Despite your account being commercial, try and mix your professional photos with random pictures from your daily routine made on your phone rather than professional camera. People like more “humanity’ in their company and will appreciate that type of sincerity from you.
Publish your photos on specific times:
Morning: 6—7 AM;
Afternoon: 12—2 PM;
Evening: 5—9 PM.
For each region and each business sphere a time may differ so after a while you will see when it is better to add new posts.
Think of your strategy of Instagram promotion. Come up with around 10 first publications, make them interesting for new users and keep them intrigued for the 11th post. Make your brand look original for people.
Do not forget about live broadcasts. For any business accounts a live video where each customer may receive answers for their questions is a great opportunity.
Do not be too focused on your commercial image, your behind-the-scenes footage and photos are just as important: show your brand from inside out.
Always inform your followers on any upcoming events. This will boost the events’ popularity and attendance if necessary.
Designing a business account
Some advice on how to design your commercial account:
Instagram is a highly visual social network. Create quality and bright photos which will leave lasting impression, think of some interesting “gimmick’ for your pictures. Come up with a creative approach to your products and fulfill that approach on photosets for your products.
Use your brand name as the account’s nickname. Sometimes a name that you want to use is already taken, or cannot be used for other reasons; in that case use a name that could be quickly associated with your business or relates to it directly.
Use your logo as your avatar but design it beforehand.
Include all the information and fill out every info section. Put a link to your website, describe everything clearly and thoroughly.
How to design your publications:
Interact with your public: ask them questions in the description, play the “capture this’ game, entertain them with other small activities;
Despite being a common thing amongst all users and bloggers, do not hesitate to use hashtags, it still works even after all these years.
Use common hashtags even if they are too basic: for example, a gift shop could use hashtags such as #giftshop #gift #present #bestgifts etc.
Methods of Instagram monetization
There are three ways to make profit out of your Instagram account:
ads selling;
paid account promotion;
business advertising.
If you are serious about making profit out of Instagram you need to learn more about these methods and analyze them to choose one that suits you best.
The first method is selling advertisement. You need a fairly popular account with couple of thousand followers in order to choose that method. Your account can be a blog, a public page or a celebrity profile. Most popular accounts with dozens of thousands of followers usually choose from various ad offers themselves. But on the other hand it is fairly common for account owners to offer their profiles for promoters to place their ads on. There is no need to wait for a good offer when you can come to the advertisers yourself and show what your account can do. Another way of doing that is via promotion platforms where you can buy and sell ads. Usually there are numerous options and some may suit you better than the others.
The second method is paid account promotion. It is a fairly new way of promotion but is already proven to be really effective. Many companies have already tried hiring a promoter for their social network account, so-called “Instagram manager’. Here are some things that you need to do as one:
profile designing for a business account;
creating content and developing strategies for business starts and reaching mass audience;
applying different methods of account promotion (which includes using your popular Instagram profile);
organizing ad campaigns and working with other advertisers.
Third method is business advertising. One of the most popular demographics on Instagram is women who are 18 to 30 years’ old so your business will be popular if that demographic is considered. Some businesses on Instagram look out of place and probably will not attract many people: trying to sell construction supplies or cars on Instagram is probably pointless since Instagram relies heavily on visuals. Cosmetics or candies, on the other hand, would attract more users by just being visually pretty, so a lot of people would be interested in buying such products.
Here are some businesses that are popular on Instagram:
café, restaurants, bakeries and pizzerias: food attracts more people both online and in real life, making such businesses rather popular and profitable;
beauty salons and gym accounts that are popular in real life would reach wide audiences on Instagram also;
businesses related to teaching;
hand-made accessories and DIY;
baby products;
candies and pastries;
jewelry and accessories;
clothes and shoes;
perfumery and cosmetics;
generally speaking, everything brand new and unique: there are many popular items that are “revolutionary’ and “innovative’, i.e. bottled stockings, push-up bras, Kylie lipsticks etc.
There are many different niches and businesses that are not yet popular but have potential, i.e. wholesales, liquid makeup, budget travel, sand animation DIY master classes and clothing repairs etc.
Monetizing each method and average numbers
Now that we established three main methods we can