Navigating Bookstagram - Stories & Tips From a Small(er?) Account - Instagram Business Tools

Hello, fellow bookstagrammers! Today I'm sharing with you yet another installment of the Navigating Bookstagram series, and it's all about using Instagram's business tools for bookstagram! But what exactly are Instagram business tools?

Instagram has been offering tools and insights for businesses to use since 2014, but more useful, updated tools only came out in the spring of 2016. By connecting a Facebook account to the Instagram page, users can now see analytics on each individual post and their posts as a whole, as well as information on the demographic of their followers. Additionally, if they add the feature, users can view insights on their Instagram stories.

Setting Up Business Tools

First, you'll need to create a Facebook account and/or page. Once you have a Facebook account, you can create a business page by clicking the down arrow at the top of the screen and "Create Page." From there, choose from the options they give you (below). What you pick will determine what category you can label your page as. This is important. Whatever category you pick will be shown on your Instagram page (when using the app), and even if you change the category later, it won't update unless you unconnect the accounts. Choose wisely. For instance, ours says "photographer." Once that is done, you may connect the two pages. 

Go to Instagram, and under "Edit Profile", click "Try Instagram Business Tools." Sign in to your Facebook account, and be sure to select the correct page to match. After that, you're all good! 

Using Instagram's Business Tools

So, what exactly can you do with Instagram's business tools? Well, you can do a lot of things...look at your page's impressions and profile views, how many times people have clicked the link in your bio... But what's helpful for bookstagramers?

Probably my favorite feature, the followers section gives you everything you need to know about your followers. You can see a graph on the ages of your followers and where they are in the world. You can check out if you (overall) gained or lost followers in the last seven days. But what I especially love is that you can plan when to post by looking at what hours of the day and even days of the week that your followers are more active! 

Another helpful tool for bookstagrammers are the insights given for posts. On individual posts, you can see the total number of engagement (comments and likes), views, and saves. You can also look at all of your posts within a certain time frame and sort them by categories such as likes, comments, and saves. This way, you can see what pictures worked and what ones didn't.

Note: You can't get insights for posts posted before you obtained Instagram business tools. 

Is it Worth it?

Of course it's worth it! For one thing, figuring out a good time to post was so much easier and simpler. Determining the success of posts in comparison to others was also easier as well. And, if it's there, you might as well use it, right? And if you don't trust me, know that a lot of bookstagrammers use it! While we may not be "businesses", we are writers, photographers, and bloggers, which are all an option as a Facebook category. And besides, it's not going to waste. It makes things just a bit easier to share our love of books with other book-lovers, and that's all we're trying to do on bookstagram anyway, right?