Early last week Instagram announced the launch of its new suite of analytics and management tools for it’s 200,000 business users. The new tools were developed after receiving feedback from hundreds of businesses with the goal of understanding the needs of small businesses and how they use Instagram to promote and grow their business. The tools were designed to allow business users to better understand their current and prospective customers, acquire new customers and create new and better ways to help businesses make their profiles and posts stand out.

1.   The new tools will not be available right away to all, there will a roll out over the next few months in the U.S., Australia and New Zealand, and will expand to the rest of the world by the end of the year.
2.   Not everyone will be able to convert their Instagram profile to a business account, only those with already established Facebook pages will qualify. Instagram will then be able to populate your business profile with the company’s street address, website and phone number.
3.   With the new Insights analytics tools businesses will be able to track their best performing posts and learn details about their audience’s demographics. Businesses will also be able to learn how much reach a post had, the number of impressions, the level of engagements as well as basic information such as age, gender and location of it’s followers.
4.   With a new tool called Promote businesses will be able to quickly and easily make a new or current post into a mobile ad straight from the Instagram app. The tool will even offer suggestions for which post should be promoted based on your budget and the audience demographics.
5.   Business profiles will distinguished from an individual users profile in a very subtle way, by way of a “contact” button. Instagram users will be able to call, text or email the business right from the app as well as pull up directions for the business.

For years’ businesses have been using Instagram as a way to connect with current and potential customers, but with little to no insight as to how their posts were performing beyond the basic number of likes and comments. With the launch of these new tools small businesses will be able to better track their posts performance and really utilize Instagram to help their business grow. How will you use Instagram and its new tools in your business?

The 5 Things You Need to Know About Instagram’s New Business Tools