Why Your Band Should Have An Instagram Business Account And How To Do It
What is it?
Basically, An Instagram business account is similar to a Facebook Page. It unlocks a ton of features that are not available to personal accounts that are pretty much essential to growing your band’s Instagram following.
Why Do It?
Let’s get the important stuff out of the way first. To schedule posts to Instagram, you must have a business account. So #1, to use echopunch, you’ll need an Instagram business account. The great news is that there are virtually no drawbacks to switching from a personal account to a business account. If you want to skip straight to how to set it up, jump down to the “How To Do It” portion of this article. However, we recommend learning about all of the valuable tools and features this will open up for you.
Reason #1: Insights To Your Audience
The Insight Tools allow you to know when your users are online, demographic information such as gender, age, and which content they like so you can create content you know resonates with your audience.
This information is handy, especially when used with echopunch. You can check out your insights and schedule your posts accordingly to ensure your content reaches its full potential.
Reason #2: Sell Directly On Instagram
I have personally been a huge fan of shopping on Instagram. I get to find out about independently run businesses with great products I may not have discovered otherwise.
This is a very powerful tool for musicians to sell their merchandise. T-Shirts, Vinyl, Stickers, you name it. You may not have thought of Instagram as a potential web store in the past, but it is definitely worth a look as a hub for your fans to buy merch quickly and conveniently. After all, some of your content will be aimed at sales. Your goal is to help your fans get the merch they want from you in as few clicks as possible.
One other benefit worth mentioning is access to Facebook’s advanced targeting data for ads. Should you decide to boost a post or run a paid ad, you’ll have the powerful (and sometimes hated with the fury of a thousand suns) Facebook ad platform to make sure you are engaging with people who are more likely to love and connect with your music.
Reason #3: The Ability To Use A Third Party Scheduling App Like echopunch
We think this one is pretty important 🙂
Instagram Creator Accounts cannot use third-party app integrations like scheduling. In our opinion, say no more.
Shouldn’t I Choose A Creator Account Instead Of A Business Account?
Great question! Logic would undoubtedly tell us that as musician’s who create art, the creator account would be the right choice. Unfortunately, the creator profile is not an ideal fit for musicians.
The reality is that as a musician, independent or otherwise, you are running a business. You have expenses, customers and want to continue to make art, which requires some income. The creator profile limits the ability to do that by not including some key features in the business account, most notably in the current case, the ability to use a third party scheduling app, like echopunch.
You’ll also lose access to features like deeper audience insights such as when your audience is online, as well as the ability to sell products on IG and tag them in your posts, link your profile in your stories (once you have 10K+ followers) and run ads, should you choose to.
On the other side of the coin, there are no notable limitations to choosing a business account instead of a creator account. Fortunately, this one is a pretty easy choice!
How To Do It
First off, you will need a Facebook Page. We recommend having one for your music anyway, as another place for your fans to connect with you. Like switching to Instagram Business, there is no cost with creating a Facebook Page.
Once you have that set, you can head to Instagram and:
- Click settings, find Account, then tap “Switch to Professional Account.”
- Pick a category that best describes your Business; “Musician/Artist” is likely a good choice, then select Business.
- You’re all set. You’ve got a business account! Now let’s make some content!
