Instagram Business Profiles: Why Marketers Should Upgrade

Have you considered moving to an Instagram business profile?

Wondering what advantages you'll gain?

To explore Instagram business profiles, I interview Jenn Herman.
More About This Show
The Social Media Marketing podcast is an on-demand talk radio show from Social Media Examiner. It's designed to help busy marketers and business owners discover what works with social media marketing.

In this episode, I interview Jenn Herman, a social media consultant and Instagram marketing expert. Her blog, JennsTrends.com, has placed in our top 10 social media blogs three different times. She also wrote an ebook called The Ultimate Beginner's Guide to Instagram.

Jenn explores Instagram analytics.

You'll discover valuable Instagram business profile features.

Share your feedback, read the show notes, and get the links mentioned in this episode below.
Listen Now

You can also subscribe via iTunes, RSS, or Stitcher.

Here are some of the things you'll discover in this show:
Instagram Business Profiles
The Instagram Algorithm

The Instagram algorithm came out last year and Jenn explains that for marketers, the algorithm is helpful. You can use it to get better reactions from, engagement with, and reach to your target audience.

Jenn stresses that the Instagram algorithm is more personal than the Facebook algorithm.

On Facebook, when something is really popular, Facebook is more likely to show that content to more people. However, the Instagram algorithm is based on personal use, not public use. Instagram users don't necessarily see someone's content just because others engage with it. That said, the Instagram content that each user engages with most does show up higher in his or her feed.

To make the Instagram algorithm work for your marketing efforts, Jenn recommends sharing the best content for your customers and followers. When you emphasize quality over quantity, your users are more likely to stop, engage, comment, like, and so on. As a result, your followers will constantly see your content higher in their Instagram feeds.

Also, Jenn says the Facebook and Instagram algorithms re-sort content differently.

Facebook constantly re-sorts content, whereas the Instagram algorithm doesn't. Instead, on Instagram, the re-sorting is based on how often you post and how often a user logs into Instagram. For example, if a user logs on and then logs on three hours later, Instagram re-sorts only the content uploaded in the last three hours. The content that appeared during the user's last login appears exactly as it did before.

For marketers, this approach to re-sorting means that your Instagram followers won't miss your content if they scroll far enough through their feeds. For example, say someone follows Social Media Examiner and likes to engage with its Instagram posts. The user logs in after 24 hours and Social Media Examiner has posted three times. In this case, Jenn says the user will see Social Media Examiner's three posts higher in his or her feed, but not necessarily back to back.

I ask what marketers can do to encourage fan activity and make their content seen first. Jenn says the key is having better content and (counter-intuitively) posting less content. When you post a lot, Jenn says it's more difficult for that content to show up high in your followers' Instagram feeds. People are more likely to skip your posts. However, gorgeous posts can create a strong connection with your followers and people are more likely to engage.

To increase the chances people see and engage with your Instagram posts, Jenn recommends posting your best content three times a week. Also, Jenn suggests adding calls to action. In a text overlay or caption, encourage people to leave a comment or tag friends in the post. The algorithm will see that engagement.

I ask Jenn how the algorithm applies to Instagram Stories versus the Instagram feed. Jenn says that at least for now,