Instagram is a place of fun for your audience – mirror selfies, holiday pics, and that adorable cat video that you can watch on loop 25 times in a row and not get tired of. The platform allows for that through countless features designed to make the everyday user experience a seamless and exciting one.
But a significant – and by far the most profitable to the platform – contingent of users, such as yourself, use Instagram as a place from which to advertise, gather information, and conduct business. So, doing a solid to creators and small businesses, Instagram has just launched their Professional Dashboard. It’s a feature in which the professional tools granted to those who use Instagram for business purposes can all be conveniently accessed in one place. Here’s a quick explanation of the three main benefits of the Professional dashboard.
1. Track Your Performance
You can use the dashboard as a centralized place to track your brand’s performance and gain insights into trends from that information. With an easy to interpret initial Insights graph, as well as a monthly comparative Insights percentage visible as you enter the dashboard screen, you can get a quick scan of how your content is performing this month compared to the last – and which days you really nailed it! When you click on “all insights,” you get a highlight reel of handy numbers as they relate to your brand’s performance in the chosen time frame (which you can select on the top left). This page also links you to individual content analytics (which you can arrange in order of reach/engagement/etc.) to see which of your content your audience responds best to. This page also contains a direct link to your current promotions, so you’ll never forget to top up those boosts when you need to.
2. Grow Your Business
This section provides an easy-to-access selection of tools that you can use to grow the audience of your business. The “Promotions” section offers you, first and foremost, a large drop-down option to book a Marketing Consultation Call with an Instagram consultant to “get free, personalized advice on optimizing your ads and growing your business.” You are then offered the options of creating paid promotions with your highest performing organic content and shown a comprehensive list of the content you are currently promoting (as well as a handy-to-access expenditure figure on each image). Access to past promotions in this tab also makes for a valuable reconnaissance of successful and unsuccessful advertising strategies you have previously utilized. The “Instagram Shopping” button takes you straight to the ‘Manage Products’ screen of your Instagram Store if you already have your store set up or prompts you to start one up if you don’t.
The “Branded Content Approvals” tab will come in handy when running collaborative promotions with business partner’s profiles. Features include allowing tagging, approval, and ad creation access permissions that yourself and your business partners may require to run a successful, simultaneous campaign from more than one account. Finally, the “Saved Replies Tab” allows you to create shortcut replies to comments and DMs. This will make replying to those frequently asked questions a breeze – as well as helping out any third-party community managers you may have hired to encapsulate your brand’s voice the way you want it. A newer feature in the Professional Dashboard is the “Offer Food Orders” feature, in which your business can partner with a delivery app such as Glovo, Rappi, or Uber Eats to offer in-app delivery of your products to users in your area.
3. Stay Informed
A third – super helpful – section of the Professional Dashboard is a selection of curated resources designed by Instagram For Business that include “tips, tricks, guidance, and inspiration.” There are currently four ‘best practices’ content sections on the Professional Dashboard. These are: How to Plan and Create Content, How to Boost Audience Engagement, How To Create an Instagram Shop, and Understanding Instagram Insights & Ads. Each of which contains a variety of useful information and insights accompanied by colorful visual guides. We recommend checking out @instagramforbusiness regardless of if you decide to utilize the Professional Dashboard or not! The account always comes in clutch with handy trends, tips, and tricks to help you manage your digital strategy.
By consolidating these tools into one place, Instagram has functionally given the small business owner the equivalent tool to what many larger businesses choose to pay third-party software for. Be sure to let the Dawning Digital team know if you find any cool hidden features within the Professional Dashboard that we haven’t mentioned here.
What if you’ve found the Professional Dashboard, but still need some guidance with developing, maintaining, and engaging with your Instagram audience? Dawning Digital would love to help. Click here to book a free consultation call with us to see how we can assist you with living your best life on Social Media!