Hey friends! Have you heard about Instagram’s “About this Account” feature? There are so many ways we can use this as marketers and creative freelancers, that I felt like it deserved a shout. It was originally released by Instagram back in August, so if you’ve heard about it and have more to add… please comment below!
What is it? A section under the profile that gives additional insight about large account as well as all ads currently running under the profile. (Ads?! Yes, ads! A marketer’s goldmine!)
What exactly can you see once clicked into the “About this Account” section on Instagram?
- Date the Instagram profile started (or, the date that they “joined” Instagram”)
- Location: By Country (I’m curious how this will work for the constant traveler…)
- Ads
- Former usernames (within the last 12 month)
- Accounts with Shared Followers
How can you use it? Oh, let’s count the ways! With this feature, you can learn more about similar people and brand in your industry for insight into your own plans, key learnings, and even just some fun inspiration!
- Network Research: Review their network with the “Accounts with Shared Followers” section for insight into how some of your faves are connected.
- Personal Changes: Get insight into how their username may have changed over time.
- Date the profile started: See how long some of your faves have taken to climb the mountain.
- Key Advertising Intel: Or, my favorite, get deep-dive insight into the advertising that a brand or person is currently running. This can help you shape your own advertising campaigns by seeing what works well for big brands or others in your industry, or learning more about testing strategy! I can see a feature like this really helping to shape advertising trends.
- Trend Research: Just like Buzzsomo, Google Correlate, or Google Trends and Keyword tools, I can see using this for trend research. Think about it, ad campaigns have money backing them, so whatever a brand or person is promoting is most likely something that they think is either super relevant, super important, or super trendy. Check out the Target unicorn example below! Unicorns are STILL here to stay!
Using Instagram’s Newest Feature for Advertising Insight
Even though most of my clients (and I myself) are not and don’t aspire to be a big brand (not even talking Target status!), I like to look to some big brands out there to learn about marketing. Let’s take Target for example. Here, we have some major insight into their ad testing! We see the same image advertising the same thing. (Can you catch the change?)
Using Instagram’s Newest Feature for Trend Insight
It’s also fun just to see what brands are doing and want to talk about. Target really wants people to come in and remember they sell Icees (among other treats, I’m sure!). Guess they’re clued into the huge #unicorn craze going on right now.
How do I access it? It seems like it’s only accessible on your mobile phone, but it’s simple!
- Find the account you want.
- Click the “…” next to the account name, on the top right corner.
- Then, right below the Red commands, you’ll see “About This Account.” Click and done!
- Click “Ads” to see a visual of the ads as well.
So next time you have a few extra minutes to perouse on Insta’, give it a try! How are you using it? Tell me over on Instagram or Twitter!
(FYI: I believe it’s only for brands/people with more than 10k followers, but I’m still trying to determine the exact number. Comment below if you know!)
