Instagram launches a ‘contact’ button linking consumers with brands

Instagram has expanded its offer for advertisers by launching an insights tool and a ‘contact’ option for business pages as it continues to shape its ecommerce offering

In a bid to improve the features on offer for its 200,000 advertisers, Instagram has today (August 15) launched unique business profiles – which includes features such as a contact button so customers can reach out with queries directly to brands – and an insights tool.

By adding business profiles, Instagram is hoping to make it more obvious to users which accounts constitute as businesses. By signing up for a business profile, brands can also choose how they want their customers to get in touch and a ‘contact’ button will link directly through to a phone number or email address.

Instagram is also expanding the data it provides to advertisers. Its new Insights tool will give brands and marketers more information about the personality of their followers and advice on which type of posts will resonate best with their core audience.

The Facebook-owned photo sharing social network is also adding a ‘Promote’ tool for brands. It will mean popular posts can be promoted and placed higher in user feeds.

“We want to make Instagram work even better for small businesses, so we listened carefully to their feedback to understand challenges they face, and the tools they need to drive real business results,” said Amy Cole, Instagram’s head of brand development for the EMEA region.

“And with Business Tools now available across Europe, it will be even easier for small businesses to get insights, connect with new customers and promote their favourite posts straight from a mobile device.”

Online stylist brand Grabble was one of the first businesses to beta test the new Business Tools. And, speaking to Marketing Week, its head of marketing Jack Rogers says the new features will allow brands to better engage with customers.

“The insights from Instagram’s Business Tools have had an immediate impact on our content strategy, and will likely influence our approach long-term. We’d always thought the majority of our audience was female, so we’ve tended to post female-focussed content,” said Rogers.

He added: “However, the insights in Instagram Business Tools have shown us 21% of our followers are in fact male. So we’re going to trial some new content. It’s great to have a tool which gives us instant insight, direct from the app,” said Rogers.

“With a business profile, it’s also a smoother process for customers to get in touch – everything is in one place so they don’t have to go elsewhere to look up our details. Everyone in our team now has access to the new tools – including Promote. It means we can react quickly to well performing content and instantly boost it to a wider audience.”

The new features follow the recent addition of ‘Instagram Stories’, a feature Instagram has admitted was inspired directly by rival Snapchat.

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