Instagram launched its business account feature back in 2014, and as a result, a lot of influencers and brands quickly made the move from a personal account to a business account.
There were many benefits that a business account on Instagram had, including detailed analytics and insights that could be used to get closer to your target audience. There were also tools that you could use to promote your content on Instagram.
However, you might have been working with a business account on Instagram for a while, and you have decided that now’s the time to take it back to a personal account.
This is completely understandable. Perhaps you want to reduce your community to just a handful of loyal followers, or you might be trying to leverage the algorithm on Instagram, and increase the reach of your posts in a manner that is organic.
Either way, there is a chance that at some point you are going to want to switch your Instagram business account to a personal account.
Let’s take a look at how to turn off your business account on Instagram, and while we’re at it, we will also weight up the pros and cons of having a business account vs. a personal account.
How to Turn Off Business Account on Instagram
The good news is that it’s not going to take a lot of know-how to work out how to change your business account on Instagram to personal. In fact, it’s only going to take a few steps, and a few minutes. Let’s take a look at these steps below:
1. Open the Instagram app on your smartphone
2. Find your Instagram business profile
3. Select the menu button that you will see at the top of the page to the right
4. Select ‘settings’
5. Select ‘account’ that you will see on the menu
6. Go down until you see ‘switch account type’
7. Select ‘switch to personal account’
8. A pop up will appear. Confirm that you want to switch your business account to personal
That’s it – now you have switched your business account on Instagram to a personal account.
Should You Turn Off Business Account on Instagram?
As you can see from the steps above, before you are allowed to switch your business profile to a personal profile, you are going to be asked by Instagram if you’re sure.
The reason why this message comes up is because you won’t be able to use some of the features that you get with a business profile with a personal one.
For some, the loss of these features and being able to see insights into their page isn’t going to be a big deal. However, if you are a brand and you rely on these insights for the growth of your brand on Instagram, you might want to think about why you want to switch from business to personal.
Let’s go over the pros and cons of turning off your business account on Instagram:
Pros:
· You can have a private Instagram account, which means that you can limit who sees your content on Instagram
· You are going to be able to benefit from organic growth on Instagram, through the Instagram algorithm which is going to promote your content in a manner that is natural and authentic
Cons:
· You lose the ability to check out important insights into your brand, which is going to potentially have an impact on your ability to connect with your target audience
· You limit your contact options, because you aren’t going to be able to put a contact button on your personal profile. This is a big feature that a lot of brands make the most of on Instagram – the ability to share with your audience important brand details, like your website, email address, and even other social media handles
Final Thoughts
As you can see, it’s pretty easy to make the switch from business profile to personal profile on Instagram. However, just because it’s easy, doesn’t mean that it’s the right decision for everyone.
It’s completely understandable why you might want to do so – if you want to tighten your circle, for example, or you want to focus on more organic engagement.
At the end of the day, you need to figure out what’s right for your brand, and whether this switch is going to have a negative impact on it or not. When you turn off your business profile on Instagram, you have the ability to make the most of a private Instagram profile, which has its advantages as well.
Good luck growing your Instagram profile!