PERSONAL ACCOUNT

For a personal account, you can make the account private if you choose to and you have to grant access for anyone to see your stuff. On a personal account, you can share whatever you like, curate it if you want to, and your post doesn’t have to be intentional. You’re basically sharing whatever you want to share with your friends and family.

There are Instagrammers who have a personal account, make it public, and share their personal stories. Some share their adoption journey, struggle with miscarriages, etc. to hopefully inspire others or provide support and comfort to someone else that’s going through the same thing. What I’ve noticed in these accounts are a little more curated and their intention is to basically share their story in hopes of it helping someone else.

If you don’t convert your personal account to a business account, then you’ll be missing out on the features that come with a business account that I’ll be mentioning. If you’re like I don’t care about followers, I just want to share my stuff then a personal account will work for you. Boom!! Decision made. But if you’re like I’m not sure yet then continue reading…

BUSINESS ACCOUNT

When you have a business account on Instagram you can get analytics for your business, doesn’t matter the size of your business. The analytics tells you information about your followers, about your post (impressions, likes, saved, etc.), and about your stories,

Also, you can take a post that’s getting a lot of likes and comments and turn it into an ad. In a personal account, you won’t be able to do this.

Many have mentioned that when they converted to a business account their organic reach decreased. Maybe that’s true. Instagram business accounts would have to pay some $$ to reach their target audience. You have to remember that Instagram’s goal is to create connections and make money (for themselves, not you). Instagram will always be changing its algorithm, and trying to beat is very unlikely.

The goal of your business account on Instagram should be to provide good content that allows your followers or prospective followers to engage. This is key!!

In a business account, you spend more time curating your stories, captions, and photos. You don’t just slap anything on. I believe every post should be intentional. Your intention is to gain like-minded followers and convert those followers into customers. So what you post does matter.

THREE QUESTIONS TO HELP YOU DECIDE IF YOU SHOULD HAVE A BUSINESS ACCOUNT 

1. Are you planning to advertise on Instagram?
2. Do you plan on using Instagram to grow your following?
3. Do you plan to run ads?

If you said “YES” to all three questions, then you should have an Instagram business account because only a business account allows you to do any of that. If you’re like I don’t plan to do anything of that but just want to share my story then create a personal account and make it public.

CAN I MIX SOME PERSONAL STUFF INTO MY BUSINESS INSTAGRAM?

Of course, you can!! BUT, A BIG BUT, you have to be strategic about the personal things you insert. Does it attract your ideal client? I share photos of my kids and husband because it’s part of my brand. I want to attract potential clients that care about a healthy marriage and value family. So that’s why I post photos of my husband and kids.

CAN YOU HAVE BOTH?

Sure, you can have both if you want to. There’s no right way. You can have a personal Instagram account that you make private or public and a business Instagram account that solely focuses on your business. Questions to ask yourself when you have too many accounts:

• Will it overwhelm me to keep up with two accounts?

• Do I have enough time to curate posts for the accounts I have?

• What are your goals for each Instagram account?

As you can see, there are so many options. Make a decision and go with it. If it doesn’t work then just close the account, make it private, or change it back to a personal account. Whatever you decide to make now, you can change it later.

WHY DON’T I HAVE TWO ACCOUNTS?

At this point in my life, I only have one Instagram account and it’s a business account. I don’t have enough time to focus on two accounts. This works for me now and it might change later.

I hope this helped you make a decision. Got more questions just send me an email at info@shengherr.com.

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