Everything You Need to Know About Instagram's New Creator Profile

With the rise of social media creators and monetization options on various platforms continuing to rise, it's important that all platforms are catering to this user profile. Instagram's creator account is a newer option compared to their business account option and it comes with various capabilities and options compared to personal and business accounts. Learn more about it here!

How Do You Find the New Creator Account?

The creator account is available to all users. Here's how to find it.  

• Step 1: Tap the three horizontal bars at the top right corner of your Instagram Profile

• Step 2: Then tap 'Settings' and then 'Account'

• Step 3: Tap 'Switch to Professional Account' at the bottom of the screen, then continue through the next couple of windows.

• Step 4: Tap which type of professional account describes you. Then tap 'Creator' and you have successfully set up your creator account on Instagram. 

What Is a Creator Profile?

The idea behind the creator account is to give Creators more control over their accounts. According to one of Instagram's Product Managers, Ashley Yuki - "The idea is to create this space where we can now start to specialize the experience for the needs of creators." This means this new account will cater mostly to the big creators within the space. She also goes on to say that creator profiles "are best suited for public figures, producers, artists, and influencers." Instagram's newly launched creator account will give you access to a few different features that you might not find on your business account as well. For example... with the creator account, you'll be able to filter direct messages (meaning you can limit who has the ability to contact you). As an influencer, you can also see more in-depth analytics with your follower counts, like how many people are following or unfollowing the account.

What You Need to Know

While it's exciting to see this new account, there are a few things that are limited once you switch over. With it still being in beta testing, some features that you previously had are no longer available. For example, with PLANOLY - auto-posting has not been supported yet through the creator account. What does this mean: if a user still wants to use certain PLANOLY features, your IG Profile must remain a business profile for the time being until Instagram rolls out access to the same features within the creator profile.

Other Things to Note

With the creator profile limiting specific features, it also limits big perks of having a business profile. For example: When you're trying to connect to third-party platforms, Facebook isn't recognizing a creator account as a business account and will not give you access to certain features. This could prove to be difficult when it comes to granting social access to the brands you're working with for sponsored content or completing paid campaign deliverables. Another thing to keep in mind too - When switching, some analytics and stats from previous posts might even disappear too!! (This is definitely no fun if you're in the middle of a sponsored post or collaboration that you need to show stats for. Yikes!)

Takeaways:

We're excited to see how the creator profile continues to develop over the next few months with new tools and features in the works. It's too early to say if making the switch to a creator profile is the way to go, but it's safe to say that it might be best to stick to a business profile for now. Once you start to see this feature outside of beta testing, you'll be able to better gauge which profile works best for you.

In the meantime...We'll keep you in the loop with any upcoming new features for the creator profile, and will let you know as soon as IG makes more updates!