What Instagram Creator Accounts Mean for Your Business

7 min read

Since late 2018, Instagram has been prepping a treat for its half a million active influencers: the Creator profile.

With enhanced analytics, inbox management, and our personal favorite — shoppable posts from partner brands — the Creator profile is a game-changer for influencers and partners alike.

Partnering with influencers is already a fantastic way to drive results for your brand, with every dollar invested on influencer marketing delivering $5 in revenue. And with shoppable posts for partners through the new Creator profile, that opportunity for selling directly on Instagram just got even bigger.

So, how do you benefit from the Creator profile and influencer marketing? Read on to find out.

Who are Instagram Creators?

Although the Creator profile is being rolled out to all users regardless of follower numbers, it’s designed for influencers who are already creating content for large audiences. Creators can identify their specialties by choosing from 40 options, including actors, graphic designers, writers, musicians, and more.

Instagram Creator Profile Features

This new profile type solves three main problems for users with large followerships:

Filtering options for Direct Messages allow for better communication with brands and followers. Influencers can prioritize messages from brands and friends and rank them by relevance or time to make sure they never miss an opportunity.
Filtered Contact Methods. Now influencers can choose to show or hide their preferred method of contact to encourage communication when and how they like it.
Advanced system of statistical data. Daily “follow” and “unfollow” data helps influencers determine what content works best for their audiences.

Сreator Profile vs. Business Profile

If you’re a business or public figure, the personal account definitely leaves something to be desired. Both Business and Creator profiles have extended features to help you drive sales and build engagement. Not sure which profile’s right for you? Check out our comparison below:

Analytics

Both Business and Creator profiles provide statistics about your followers: gender, age, location by city and country, and when your audience is most active. But in the Creator profile, users can track follower growth and engagement more accurately with enhanced data on following spikes and dips to let creators know what content their audience prefers.

Follower stats: gender, age, location, and activity (both business and creator profile)

Growth insights: followed and unfollowed (Creator profile)

Contact Button

Both Creator and Business profiles offer a contact button. With a Business profile, anyone can contact you at any time, which is useful if your goal is gaining new leads. The Creator account, however, offers more privacy, allowing influencers to show or hide a preferred contact method with category labels (musician, artist, director, blogger.)

Profile display options (Creator profile)

Direct Message Management

The Creator profile has filtering options for direct messages. This helps users sift through and locate specific messages (like requests from potential partners) amidst their sea of fan mail. Learn more in the Instagram Help Center. Direct Messages in Business profiles can’t be filtered.

2 inbox tabs in the Creator profile

So, back to the question: should you use a Business, Personal, or Creator profile? Here’s our take:

If you mostly use your IG account to connect with friends, stay on Personal. No big deal.
If you want to promote your business and increase sales through Instagram, check out the Business profile.
If your brand is your name, and people want to watch your every step, Creator’s probably the way to go.

Selling Your Products through Instagram Influencers

Creators can now cooperate with account useful both for merchants and influencers is. With little shoppings tags right in the Instagram pictures, every follower can buy your product without leaving Instagram.

Once upon a time, shoppable posts could only be used to tag products from your own Business account. But thanks to the wonders of the Creator profile, businesses can now partner with influencers to tag and sell products through the influencer’s posts as well. Talk about getting your products in front of the right audience. Using shoppable posts, an influencer’s followers can buy any tagged product from a partner profile.

Shoppable posts from creators

And there are already 500,000 active influencers on Instagram right now! Influencers make up 39% of all Instagram accounts with over 15,000 followers, so roughly one-in-three popular profiles is also an influencer. In 2018, influencer marketing on Instagram reached $2 billion in annual spend with growth projected to reach $5-$10 billion by 2020.

Instagram is testing shoppable posts for Creators with a limited group of influencers now, but this new feature will hopefully be available to all influencers and businesses in the near future.

How to Enable Shoppable Posts

To allow followers to purchase products from your posts, you’ll need to upload your product catalog to your Facebook Business manager and connect it to your Instagram. With Ecwid E-commerce, you can do this in just a few clicks —- just follow our instructions to get started.

Don’t have an Ecwid store? Sign up to start selling on Instagram, Facebook, Amazon, eBay, in person, and everywhere in between.

Here’s the Wrap-Up

Instagram, as the most popular social platform for photo sharing, has now become the ideal visual platform for showcasing your products as well. With new features like Creator profiles, Instagram has embraced the world of e-commerce marketing, capitalizing on its 1 billion monthly active users. If you’re ready to expand your online business, Instagram might just be your next adventure. And with Ecwid E-commerce, selling on Instagram has never been easier.