How To Take Off Professional Account on Instagram: Step By Step Guide -

Some of the most successful brands today use Instagram for business. They have a solid Instagram marketing strategy to reach new audiences and engage with existing customers. They create engaging content regularly, run ad campaigns, and sometimes partner with influencers.

As a result of these efforts, they get more out of Instagram and build a strong presence on the platform. This makes a significant difference since other people use it to research brands and plan their purchases. According to the latest Instagram stats, 70% of shoppers on the platform look to Instagram for their next purchase.

However, a situation might arise where you need to take your professional account off Instagram. It could be temporary or permanent. Whichever it is, I will show you how to do it in this guide.

Key Points

To take a break from Instagram, you can either disable your account or delete it for good.
Deleting your Instagram account means you are prepared to let it go permanently.
Before deleting your account, it’s a good idea to download your data through the Instagram app.
Once you’re ready to delete your account, you’ll have to do so through a web browser.

What Is A Professional Account On Instagram?

A professional Instagram account enables brands to track their engagement and interactions. This type of account offers more analytical tools than personal accounts, with tools that can help you better understand your customers and improve your business’ reach.

Features of a professional Instagram account include:

Category labels: Introduce your business using a label under your name. It helps people quickly understand what you do.
Call to Action options: Make it easier for your audience to reach out with buttons for email and website access.
Sell through posts: Make shopping easy by linking your online store to Instagram. This way, your followers can buy from your posts.
Integrate: Save time by connecting with other tools that can automatically post on Instagram for you.
Insights: Learn more about your audience – who they are, their active times, and other handy information.
Turn posts into ads: Capture more attention by changing your Instagram posts into ads.
Targeting: Find the influencers to amplify your business and the audience members who will love your content.

By switching your personal profile to a business account, you unlock a treasure trove of tools to boost your business. You get free access to features like Instagram Insights, which lets you peek into who’s engaging with your business on Instagram.

There is also Commerce Manager, which lets you tag and sell products directly on Instagram.

Advantages of a Professional Instagram Account

If you’re using Instagram as part of a marketing strategy, an Instagram business page also offers premium features to help your business grow.

Here are some key features that separate an Instagram personal vs business account.

1. Instagram insights

Analytics tools are an essential part of any digital marketing strategy. If you want to improve your performance on Instagram, you need to be able to measure it. In addition to contact information, Instagram Insights is one of the main perks of having a business account.

Instagram business accounts provide analytics about your posts’ performance and audience. You can view your insights on the Instagram app on desktop or mobile.

Instagram analytics include metrics such as:

Reach and impressions
Content interactions
Total followers
Audience demographic information

2. Ability to boost posts

If you want more engagement with your content, you can boost business posts to increase your reach.

When you boost your post with Instagram ads, you can select a target audience and set a budget. Instagram then promotes your post and includes the results of your ad spend in your Insights tab.

3. Swipe up links on Instagram stories

Another perk of the business Instagram account is to include links in your Instagram stories. This is great news if you want to include visiting your website as your call to action.

However, you need more than 10k followers for this feature to be activated.

4. Instagram shopping

Instagram offers online shops and shoppable posts, perfect for e-commerce websites and retailers. Users with business accounts can activate the Shop tab on their profile and leverage Instagram as a mobile storefront. They can also create shoppable Instagram posts for users to buy products or even save them for later.

5. Auto-publish content

One of the other benefits of Instagram business vs personal is that you can schedule content to auto-publish.

You need to post your content manually if you are posting for a personal profile. You can schedule it in advance, and the app will send you a push notification to remind you when it’s time to post.

6. Contact button and quick reply

You can add your contact information to your Instagram profile with an Instagram professional account. Current and potential customers can visit your profile and use this button to reach you.

When you create your IG business account, there’s a “Public Business Information” section that allows you to include a phone number or email address. You can even include your business’s physical address if you have a brick-and-mortar store.

If you don’t have the time to answer every single DM, creating a business Instagram gives you the convenient option of setting up quick replies. These are pre-written replies to common questions that you can send to customers. In your account settings, you should see an option for ‘Quick Replies.’

Your business account also allows you to categorize your inbox, which is great for keeping track of your most important leads. You can filter messages between different tabs.

Strategies For Using A Professional Instagram Account

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How To Take Off A Professional Account On Instagram

Taking your account offline for a little while is not a complicated process, but unfortunately, it cannot be done via either the Android or iOS Instagram apps.

Instead, you’ll have to head on over to Instagram.com in your mobile browser or via desktop.

Once you’ve logged into your account on your desktop, visit your Profile page. You can find it by clicking on your small image in the upper right corner. Here you can see your page’s biography, posts, and other content.
At the top, in the middle next to your username, click “Edit Profile”.
On the next screen, on the bottom right in blue text, you will see “Temporarily disable my account”. They naturally try to hide this a little bit, so keep in mind that it is found, as of 2023, on the same page as your username, password, website, and other basic information, and you may have to scroll down to see it.
After clicking that, you’ll be asked to provide a reason for disabling your account from the dropdown window. You must select a reason from the list, after which you will be prompted to re-enter your password.
Finally, click “Temporarily Disable Account” and poof, your account will disappear!

To undo this and reactivate your Instagram account, all you must do is log in again. Your social media team must be aware of this so that any “accidental” logins do not trigger an unwanted reactivation.

Tip: If you want to confirm that your account is no longer visible, have an employee search for your company’s page using their personal account. The deactivation should be immediate, but if it is still visible, check back in 30-60 minutes.

Why You Might Want To Temporarily Take Off Your Professional Account On Instagram

Why did I take my account off Instagram then? Oh, right… I was preparing for an exam, and I wanted to focus and eliminate all forms of distractions. Now, it might not have been a professional account, but the reasons aren’t far from the same.

A few reasons why deactivating your IG account for a little while might be useful to your company can include but are not limited to:

Your company is undergoing significant changes such as rebranding, a merger, or other activity that could affect your public image and the future status of your social media accounts is unknown.
Your social media team is devising an entirely new Instagram strategy and you decide against leaving old, outdated content public during this development process.
Your business has opened multiple accounts for different purposes or by different employees over time, and you are consolidating or seeking official verification, but don’t want to delete them yet.
The company has decided against using Instagram as a platform at the present time and does not want public content visible, but also does not wish to relinquish its username by deleting the account.
Negative PR or other unfortunate events have driven the company away from Instagram for a temporary period.

Whatever your reason for deactivating your Instagram business account, the process is not hard and is extremely easy to reverse when the time comes to get back to it.

Alternatives To Taking Your Professional Account Off Instagram

Under several circumstances, there may be better alternatives to deactivating your Instagram account.

A few ways that you can do this include deleting certain unwanted or outdated content, maintaining your branding despite hardships, or simply reconsidering its value, revamping your strategy, and building your account bigger and better than ever.

One mixed alternative to an Instagram deactivation is to simply make your page “private”. This means that only followers can see your content and anyone who wishes to become a follower must request your permission and be approved.

However, Instagram business accounts cannot be made private, so you will have to switch to a personal account first. You can do this in the desktop browser or mobile app by accessing your privacy settings.

At the bottom of your Account page in Settings, you can simply tap “Switch Account Type”.
In your browser, you can find the option on the left side of your profile settings page.

Unfortunately, changing your IG business account to a personal account also removes in-app insights about content and promotions irreversibly, so this is best done when you’re really looking for a clean slate or your data really isn’t essential.

You can switch back to a business account whenever you wish and make your account public once again, but you’ll be starting off with fresh new insights.

Other Types of Instagram Accounts

Other types of accounts on Instagram include:

A personal account. Ideal for individuals looking to share their daily life, interests, and experiences with friends and family. This type of account offers privacy settings that allow users to control who can view their content. From posting stories to engaging with followers through DMs, personal accounts are perfect for those seeking a more private and intimate social media experience.
A creator account. Designed for influencers, public figures, and content creators, the creator account caters to individuals who want to grow their online presence and connect with a larger audience. This account type provides access to performance metrics, growth insights, and follower demographics, allowing creators to optimize their content to maximize engagement and reach.