Written by Andrew Holliday | August 8, 2016
The Instagram businessification has begun. If you manage a non-personal account, you’ve been hit by the prompts to convert to a business profile. Should you make the switch?
This question isn’t as easy as it may seem on the surface. Instagram is tempting us with “new features like insights and a new profile” which you’d think are all positive. Those features do indeed sound great. The problem lies in the fact that if you make the switch, you’re effectively raising your hand and saying, “Hey Instagram, I’m a business on the platform looking for attention.” Once you do this, they know you have a reason to pay for reach and distribution. I’m willing to bet the reach of business users will drop off a cliff to incentivize boosts and advertising.
I predicted this move to a tougher environment for businesses when they announced the algorithm change. Remember that Instagram is owned by Facebook. They’re just following their previously successful model, and doing what they feel is best for generating revenue from the platform. Wait a couple of months and I’ll bet there are all kinds of post boosting options available along the lines of Facebook.
So, back to the question at hand. Should you opt into the new business profile and take advantage of the new features, or should you keep rolling with your current setup? I hate to say it, but it probably doesn’t matter either way. Instagram is going to weed all of us business users out eventually. We’ll just have to figure out how to operate in the new normal. My real advice to everyone…
Start learning Snapchat.
We’ll dive into Snapchat in future posts. We plan on sharing our journey into this new platform. Come follow us on Instagram to see how we deal with the changes @harvest_fresh and on Snapchat Harvestcreative to see how we’re exploring this exploding platform.
