What the heck is the difference between a business account and a creator account? Does anybody really know?
Let’s talk about it.
The 3 Profile Settings on Instagram (And What They Mean)
There are three different profile settings you can have on Instagram:
- Personal
- Business
- Creator
Instagram’s Personal Account
Instagram’s personal account is the default account setting everyone starts off with. It’s created for casual users and casual posts.
And that’s it! I don’t need to say much more about the personal account since it’s pretty self-explanatory.
Plus, you came here for the other account settings. So, let’s dive into those.
Business Account vs Creator Account (Similarities and Differences)
Now, the biggest difference people have a hard time seeing is the difference between a Business account and a Creator account.
Both of these are referred to as “Professional Accounts” on Instagram’s website… so then what’s the difference and which one should you have?
First, let’s take a look at Instagram’s definition of both of these accounts:
“A Business Account helps your customers connect to your business.”
“The Creator Account on Instagram gives you a set of tools that makes it easier to control your online presence, understand your growth and manage your messages.”
Well, that doesn’t help! So, let’s get into the similarities because there are more similarities than differences
How Instagram’s Bussines and Creator Accounts are Similar
Both professional accounts come with:
- Professional Dashboard: where you can track your performance and growth
- Linked Permissions: when you link an Instagram account to a Facebook Page, admins, editors and other Page roles will have equal permissions on the associated Instagram account
- Contact Information: if you choose to make your email, address or phone number public
- Insights: Instagram Insights provide information on who your followers are when they’re online and more.
- Scheduling abilities: you can schedule posts to go live on 3rd party apps
- Secondary Inbox with Primary and General tabs: you can use this inbox to organize your messages and control notifications. You’ll only be notified for Primary messages when your notifications are turned on
- Ranked Requests: you’ll be able to sort your requests by received date or by top accounts.
- Saved Replies: use shortcuts for common responses.
- Action buttons: fun Call To Action buttons like “order now”, “schedule now”, etc.
How Instagram’s Bussines and Creator Accounts are Different
That’s certainly a lot of similarities… so then what’s the difference?
- You can’t set a Business Account to private
- The category labels. Each account gets different labels to choose from
- As an example, for a Creator Account, you get to choose your title: Blogger, Public Figure, Musician, etc. For a Business Account, you can only choose your industry: Nonprofit, Shopping & Retail, Medical & Health, etc.
- The music option is limited on Business Accounts
- The last difference is probably the biggest one. With a Business Account, you are able to run retargeted ads (where Instagram tracks who has visited your account and shows your ads specifically to those people). A Creator Account is not able to run those ads.
Yup… that’s really it!
Now, the question is, which one should you have?
Which Professional Instagram Account Should You Have?
If you’re growing a personal brand or you consider yourself a blogger, Influencer, content creator, entrepreneur, or any of these category labels, I would 100% recommend the Creator Account.
If you’re a business that isn’t easily identifiable as a single person or face and is more easily categorized as an industry rather than a title, then the Business Account is right for you. A Business Account would also be for you if you plan on running a lot of ads, specifically retargeting ads.
For me, I use the Creator Account because then I’m not limited to music. This is especially helpful for Reels.
HOWEVER, just make sure you’re never selling anything or posting sponsored content on a Reel with copyrighted music!
That is where you can get in trouble with Instagram. (Take a look at this post here for legal tips all Influencers should know.)
Lastly, all you need to know is how to set up your desired account.
How To Set Up Your Professional Instagram Account
So, how do you set up a creator account if you don’t have one yet? Let’s do it!
(If you’re a visual learner, feel free to follow along with this screen-recording I made for you!)
Go to your profile and tap in the upper right corner.
Tap Settings.
Tap Account.
If you have a personal account, it will say “Add New Professional Account.”
Tap Business or Creator (whichever you decided was more appropriate for you) and follow the rest of the steps from there!
Setting up a Professional Account on Instagram, whether it’s Creator or Business, is incredibly easy and beneficial for the goals you have for your brand.
Set it up to unlock all the amazing perks and watch your brand grow!
Follow your joy!
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