How to Switch to a Business Account on Instagram

Switching your personal Instagram profile to a business account is one of the quickest and most powerful upgrades you can make for your brand. This simple, free change unlocks a suite of professional tools designed to help you understand your audience, reach new customers, and grow your business more effectively. This guide will walk you through exactly why you should switch, provide a clear step-by-step process, and show you what to do with your new features once you have them.

Why Switch to an Instagram Business Account? The Benefits You Unlock

Moving from a personal account to a business profile isn't just a change in name, it's an entirely new toolkit for growth. Personal accounts are great for sharing updates with friends and family, but if you're using Instagram to build a brand, sell products, or offer services, you're operating with one hand tied behind your back without these features.

1. Access to Instagram Insights (Invaluable Analytics)

This is arguably the most significant benefit. Without a business account, you're guessing what works. With one, you get concrete data. Instagram Insights gives you a detailed look at who your followers are and how they interact with your content. You can see:

• Audience Demographics: Learn about your followers' age range, gender, and top locations (city and country). This helps you confirm if you're reaching your target market or if you need to adjust your strategy.
• Follower Activity: Discover the days and hours your audience is most active on Instagram. This is golden information for scheduling your posts to get maximum engagement right out of the gate.
• Content Performance: For each post, Story, and Reel, you can track metrics like Reach (unique accounts that saw it), Impressions (total times it was seen), Likes, Comments, Saves, and Shares. Seeing which content gets the most saves, for example, tells you what your audience finds truly valuable.
• Profile Activity: Track how many people visited your profile, tapped on your website link, or used your contact buttons within a specific timeframe.

2. Enhanced Profile and Contact Options

A business account makes it much easier for potential customers to get in touch. Instead of burying your contact info in your bio, you can add interactive buttons directly on your profile, including:

• Email: Lets users send you an email with one tap.
• Call: Allows users to call your business number.
• Address: Opens a map to your physical location.

Beyond basic contact info, you can add "Action Buttons" that integrate with third-party services. This allows followers to take specific actions like “Book Now,” “Reserve,” or “Order Food” directly from your Instagram page, reducing friction and capturing customers at their moment of interest.

3. Ability to Run Ads and Promote Posts

To run paid advertising campaigns on Instagram, a business account is a requirement. This allows you to create targeted ads that reach people far beyond your current following. You can target users based on their location, demographics, interests, and behaviors. You can also "boost" or "promote" high-performing organic posts to get them in front of a larger, relevant audience, turning your best content into a powerful lead generator.

4. Instagram Shopping Features

For e-commerce brands, this is a game-changer. A business account is the first step toward setting up Instagram Shopping, which allows you to create a digital storefront right inside the app. You can:

• Tag products in your feed posts, Reels, and Stories.
• Create collections of products.
• Let customers browse and purchase without ever leaving Instagram.

Which is Right For You: Business or Creator?

When you switch to a professional account, Instagram will give you two choices: Business or Creator. They are very similar, but have small differences:

• Business Account: Best for companies, retailers, local businesses, and service providers. This option is geared more towards direct sales and customer service, with more prominent contact options.
• Creator Account: Designed for public figures, artists, influencers, and content producers. It offers more flexible profile controls, simplified messaging inboxes, and sometimes (depending on the region) better access to trending audio for Reels.

For most brands selling a product or service, the Business account is the right choice. If you're a personality-driven brand, a Creator account might work, but you can always switch between the two later if needed.

How to Switch to a Business Account on Instagram: a Step-by-Step Guide

Ready to make the switch? The process takes less than five minutes. Follow these simple steps.

Step 1: Open Your Profile and Access Settings

Open the Instagram app. Tap on your profile picture in the bottom-right corner to go to your profile. Then, tap the three horizontal lines (the "hamburger" menu) in the top-right corner.

Step 2: Navigate to Account Tools

From the menu, tap on “Settings and privacy.” Scroll down a bit in this new menu until you see the section labeled “For professionals.” Under this heading, tap on “Account type and tools.”

Step 3: Begin the Switch to a Professional Account

In the “Account type and tools” menu, you’ll see an option in blue text that says “Switch to professional account.” Tap it. Instagram will now show you a few screens highlighting the benefits. Tap “Continue” on each one.

Step 4: Choose a Category That Represents Your Brand

Instagram will ask you to select a category that best describes what you do (e.g., 'Product/Service,' 'Restaurant,' 'Health/Beauty,' 'Digital Creator'). Pick the one that fits best. You can also decide whether you want this category label displayed publicly on your profile with the “Display on profile” toggle. When you're done, tap “Done.”

Step 5: Select "Business"

Next, you'll be asked to choose between “Creator” and “Business.” Since the goal is a business account, select “Business” and tap “Next.”

Step 6: Review Your Contact Info

Now you can add or edit your public business information. This is where you can input the email address, phone number, and physical address you want customers to use. Make sure this information is accurate! It will power the contact buttons on your profile. You can tap "Don't use my contact info" if you prefer to skip this for now.

Step 7: Connect a Facebook Page (Optional but Recommended)

Instagram will prompt you to connect your business profile to a Facebook Page. While this is technically optional for many features, it is highly recommended. Connecting a Facebook Page is necessary for running ads across both platforms, setting up Instagram Shopping, and using many third-party management tools. You can choose an existing Page you manage or create a new one.

That's it! Your account is now a business profile. Instagram might guide you through a brief setup checklist to help you get acquainted with the new tools, such as exploring your insights or creating a promotion.

You’ve Switched! Now What?

Switching is just the first step. To get the most out of your new business profile, here are a few things you should do right away.

1. Optimize Your Profile for Business

Go back to your profile and make sure everything is geared towards attracting customers.

• Update Your Bio: Clearly state what your business does and who it's for. Include a powerful call-to-action (CTA) telling visitors what to do next (e.g., "Shop our new collection👇").
• Check Your Contact Buttons: Tap on the new email and call/location buttons to make sure they work correctly.
• Use the Website Link Wisely: This is your one clickable link. Make it count. Link directly to a product page, a landing page for your latest offer, or use a "link-in-bio" tool to share multiple links.

2. Get Acquainted with Your Analytics

Don’t wait to check out your data. Tap the “Insights” button on your profile and start looking around. You won't have past data from before you switched, but all content you post from this point forward will be tracked. In a week, check back to see:

• Which posts got the most reach and engagement.
• What times your followers were most active.
• The demographics of your audience.

Use this information to shape your future content strategy. Double down on what works and adjust what doesn't.

3. Experiment with a Small Post Promotion

You don’t have to spend a lot of money to see how ads work. Find one of your existing posts that has performed well organically. Tap the "Promote Post" button and spend just $10 or $20 to promote it to a targeted audience for a few days. This is a low-risk way to learn how the ad tools work and see the impact of reaching a wider audience.

Final Thoughts

Making the switch to an Instagram business account is a foundational step for any brand serious about growth on the platform. It transforms your profile from a simple gallery of photos into a powerful marketing tool filled with data, customer connection points, and promotional capabilities.

Once you have access to these awesome professional tools, the real work of managing your social media presence begins. At our own businesses, we constantly felt the friction of juggling content calendars in spreadsheets, replying to DMs and comments in different apps, and trying to pull analytics from multiple places. We created Postbase to solve that chaos. Our platform is designed for today's visual, video-first social landscape, allowing you to plan your content with a beautiful visual calendar, manage all your engagement in one inbox, and get clear analytics without ever feeling overwhelmed.