When the option of the Instagram Business account first came out, I was hesitant to make the switch. My first uncertainty centered around the was the fact that I might become the guinea pig. There was a possibility of falling into a new algorithm which would push down the importance of my posts.
You know, kind of like when Facebook launched its business pages. Suddenly, your stories got buried unless you spent money on the ads. If you don’t know…yeah, that happened. And everyone was disappointed about how much life sucked.
Benjamin Surman, Founder & CEO of Fortis, a brand consulting firm, shares in my skepticism. When asked about whether it’s a good idea for bloggers to switch, he broke it down simply:
“…Keep in mind that Facebook does have to make money for the investor. I believe that we are going to see algorithms as deep as those on Facebook for business profiles which will lead to business profiles having to do more to have their posts seen by followers, not limited to paying for post promotion.”
I’ve had the option of running ads on Instagram with my Facebook account for a while. The ability to create more ads within Instagram wasn’t too enticing. But, having an accurate set of audience stats is a plus, considering a lot of the apps got the boot in early June.
The Good & The Bad of Instagram Business Account Switch
You can switch between business and personal. Meaning, if you’re not feeling the business account switch, you can always go back to having a personal account. That made my business account change a lot easier to tolerate.
Jonathan Tavarez, Founder & CEO of Vantage Internet Group, a digital marketing consultancy firm, gave me a breakdown of some of his experiences with the new feature.
“[Switching to an Instagram business account] requires linking your Facebook account which may notify all of your friends about your business account on Instagram. You may or may not want that and it is annoying.”
His suggestion for managing this? Create a separate Facebook account for managing the advertising on Facebook and within Instagram.
It’s convenient and faster to build an ad through the Instagram app. But, the targeting capabilities are inferior to creating the ad through Facebook.
There’s good and bad here. On one side, it seems that targeting is not as precise as within Facebook. But, the default audience seems to be fairly matched to the account’s target audience. Although, the algorithm of that targeting is still unknown.
As far as the advantages? Mr. Taverez points out that the variety of CTA (call-to-action) buttons has drastically increased. You can test out several CTA types if you’re looking to run Instagram ads and gauge their performance.
If you’re looking to gain more traffic to your blog, or to gain more exposure, the ease of Instagram ad management is a huge advantage. You can now quickly and effortlessly create ads on the go.
Should You Make the Switch?
In short, it doesn’t hurt at the moment if you’d like to receive some quick stats and try running a few ads. As a fashion blogger, you most likely already have a Facebook business account for your page. If you’ve run Facebook ads before, there aren’t many extra steps for you to take in setting up the Instagram business account ads.
Take Benjamin Surman’s advice though and think about long term strategy for your business. Considering that Facebook hasn’t been shy in the past about making sweeping changes, it’s best you “move your base [strategy] before someone does it for you, by force.”
What are your top concerns about Instagram?
