Businesses have had an awkward start at attempting to captivate consumers on Instagram. Marketers were quick to jump on the platform; but as a business, there wasn’t much to differentiate a business Instagram profile from a personal one. Our team certainly has a wishlist of features we’d love to see added on to the platform (*cough* better e-commerce integration *cough*) but for now we’re pleased to see the folks at Instagram are taking note of what businesses want and rolling out updates.

Last week, on June 2nd, Instagram announced the launch of their New Business Tools. Now, companies will have much better B2C communication, the ability to optimize ads, and insights all within the app.

So what does this mean for your business?

1. Get Insights Along with these new options is a built-in Insights feature that provides real time analytics. Instead of using external analytics programs, businesses will be able to track their reach and impressions from within Instagram’s mobile app (YAY). Any company that is as obsessed with analytics as we are knows that having built-in analytics into any platform is essential (a reason we love Facebook’s Business Manager for making this readily available).
2. Promote Instantly Most interesting for businesses is the promoted posts option — which allows you to turn regular posts into promoted ones with the click of a button. If a post is doing especially well, you can give it a boost, or if your content is better suited for a specific audience, Instagram enables target marketed sponsored posts. This is a big (and necessary) step for Instagram, and a huge help for businesses. Hyper-targeting is increasingly becoming a huge part of marketing strategies, especially with insights gained from social media platforms. Over 90% of millennials use smartphones and social media, and millennials are now the biggest consumer generation in existence. This combination means big things in terms of companies connecting with their audiences.
3. Communicate Effectively Instagram will now offer better communication through text, phone calls, and email from customer to company, and vise versa. The issue of sifting through comments will become a thing of the past.

With more than 400 million active users, Instagram continues to be one of the most popular and influential social platforms for any business to have a presence on. We’re excited (and ready) to see what they roll out next.