What Can Followers See on A Professional vs Personal Account?

Instagram sure has come a long way since 2013. 

Today, businesses are born and flourishing on this platform. It’s not just a fun little lunch-break activity anymore. It’s awfully functioning business space.

A single user can customize the visibility of their profile, however, they please! Along with the information that is displayed.

When it comes to classification, we have two distinct types of Instagram profiles: Instagram Business account vs Personal account.

Professional Instagram profiles are later broken down into Creator and Instagram Business profiles.

But for now, let’s get personal.

Personal accounts can be considered as basic starter accounts. When you first create a profile with Instagram, your account is automatically classified as Personal. 

It’s also really easy to use. These profiles are more suited for someone who is just getting started on Instagram.

Personal profiles share most of the same baseline functionality as both types of Instagram

Business accounts. You can follow users you like and engage with them by liking and commenting. You can also upload to Stories and Feed, and so on.

The main difference between the Personal and the Professional profile is who they are aiming for. 

While Personal accounts can serve the general purpose that any Instagram profile can – Instagram professional accounts are made specifically for Businesses and Influencers. Especially when they want to expand their social media reach on the ‘gram.

Instagram business profile vs personal

Personal Profiles

You have the bare minimum with this one. Your followers can see things like your name, a website that you can link, and your bio. 

This is awesome for all the newbies out there – but not nearly enough if you are looking to step up your Instagram game.

They are also great for the folks who don’t have that much time on their hands. Especially for social media. If you aren’t too concerned with numbers and are just in it for the ride – look no further. This is the profile type for you!

Professional Profiles

Your options sure do get a boost when you decide to make the switch to an Instagram professional account. This one goes a little bit more in-depth when it comes to features. Instagram for business is no piece of cake. 

Here is all the information that your followers will be able to see on your profile:

• Contact Inforamtion
  • Email
  • Phone number
  • Location
• Website
• Biography
• Tagged Posts
• Comments
• Followers and Following
• Likes

These are super important to get to know before actually using them every day. Your audience’s reaction and feedback on what they see on your page will help you improve your content. 

Knowing how the field you want to conquer works starts with a theory, not practice. 

And in this l blog, we’re all about knowledge.

Seems cool? Great! Let’s keep on diving. Here are some Instagram business profile categories:

Contact Information

One of the first big changes for the better during the transition.

Email

You can add your email address. In turn, users, (companies, brands, influencers) can reach out to you with ease. A vital part of an Instagram Business account. Especially if you’re offering some sort of service or product – being available to your customers is very necessary.

This is a big leap possibility-wise. Especially for potential partnerships or even new customers.

Phone number

This allows you to get in contact with your followers on a more personal level. Having a phone number linked makes you seem real and down to earth. Plus, a phone line strictly dedicated to your clients is always a good idea.

It shows effort, care, and makes a clear line between what’s business and what’s personal. 

Location

You can add an address so that people can visit and find you easily. This works great if you are a local business and want to attract more customers! This step is helpful, even if you don’t own a physical store!

Making your location visible can narrow down your regional preferences audience-wise. Your crowd on Instagram will be more targeted and genuinely interested as well! 

Website

Another great thing about the improved customization is that you can add your website. Directly to your profile! 

This is a great way to increase your conversion rate if you are an Instagram business profile. Especially if you want your followers to visit the website and buy your products or services. It gives you an answer on how to set up your IG store too! 

Many folks like to browse Instagram for col products to buy. Your store could just catch their eye. Or your website! Works both ways for you in the end. 

When you enter a website, its link will appear just under your Instagram Bio. Instagram Business accounts are very handy here.

Biography

Having a good Instagram bio can certainly get you a long way. A bio usually consists of basic, but useful information about you or your business. 

Writing an eye-catching Instagram Bio isn’t easy – but very vital for your account. 

The bio doesn’t just stop there. If you are using your Personal profile, you can link the profile of your business (Instagram professional account) by putting in the bio (@username).

Tagged Posts

A profile page of every Instagram user consists of 2 things: their Feed and their Tagged Posts.

The Tagged Posts are pretty self-explanatory. You can see posts where that user has been tagged by their friends/followers. They can even appear on the Explore feed due to similarity. A great way to control Instagram explore feed and appear on it more!

There are also ways that you can manage the posts that you are tagged in.

Here is a step by step on how to remove your tag from a certain post:

• Open up the post that you want to remove the tag from
• Click on the 3 dots at the top right corner
• Tap the “Hide Options” button and choose how you want to proceed (you can either just hide it from your profile or outright remove the tag)

You also have the option to manually approve tags. This way tagged posts won’t just automatically appear on your profile. Here’s how it’s done:

• Go to your profile and go to Settings
• Select Privacy
• Under the Interactions tab at the top, you’ll find the “Tags” options
• Here you can switch to Manually Approve Tags

Comments

Comments are a great way to engage with your audience. They are designed to keep the story going below your post. And, since they are visible to (mostly) everyone, it’s that much easier to jump right into a conversation with your followers.

Comments, just like tagged posts, can also be curated. If we go back to those privacy settings where we were for the tags, you can see a variety of options.

You can do things like:

• Allow comments only from certain groups (everyone, your followers, the people you follow, and both)
• Block comments from individual profiles
• Automatically hide offensive comments
• Manually filter specific keywords

Followers and Following

This is Instagram’s most important feature. The ability for your followers to see who’s following you and who you are following is really big.

This can help you out immensely. It doesn’t matter if you are an influencer, a business Instagram account, or even a regular user. 

People are more likely to follow you if they see that you already have an established follower base. This is how to control followers on Instagram, kinda. 

You can use the “Following” to an advantage as well. Think of it as a carefully curated list of Instagram profiles that you endorse. This way, your followers can get to know you a bit better.

Growth on Instagram is the most important part…So what do you need? An ultimate guide for gaining Instagram followers!

Likes

Instagram likes first disappeared in Canada last May. The trend then expanded to several more countries, including Australia, Brazil, Ireland, Italy, Japan, and New Zealand, and the United States.

This doesn’t mean that likes are completely gone. You can still personally see the number of likes that you have received and from who. Unfortunately, that doesn’t stand for your followers.

This is just a trial that Instagram is doing in certain locations. Instagram states in its app notification for users who are part of the trial, “We want your followers to focus on what you share, not how many likes your posts get.”

If you are not in the countries under this trial, you can see all of the numbers like you did before.

Takeaway

Knowing all important information before making an Instagram business account is super handy. You have to weigh all options before settling down and working on the growth. Even if you are an influencer, a professional profile could benefit you greatly! 

But if you’re just here to kill some quarantine time and have fun, the personal one will do you just fine! So, what will it be? Instagram business vs a personal account?