Instagram business account: how to switch and pick a category

To switch, open your Instagram profile, go to the settings menu, tap Account type and tools under For professionals, and switch to a professional account. For a shop, a salon or a contractor, choose Business rather than Creator. Then pick the category that a customer would use to describe you, not the most impressive-sounding one. You can change both later, and you can hide the category label if you do not like how it reads.

Business or creator

Both are professional accounts, and both give you insights and contact options. The difference is who they are built for: business accounts for companies that sell products or services, creator accounts for people whose personal brand is the product. A local business is almost always a business account.

One detail from Instagram's help center saves a lot of second-guessing: the category you choose does not decide whether you set up a business or a creator account. Those are two separate choices. So pick the account type first, then the category.

The steps

1. Open your profile and tap the menu at the top right.
2. Under For professionals, tap Account type and tools.
3. Tap the option to switch to a professional account, and choose Business.
4. Select the category that best describes what you do.
5. Review your contact details: email, phone and address, the way customers should reach you.

Already professional and want to change the type? Instagram lets you switch account types at any time: Account type and tools, then Account type, then Switch account type. You can also go back to a personal account, though for a business there is rarely a reason to.

How to pick a category

• Be specific. "Bakery" tells a passerby more than "Food and beverage". "Hair salon" beats "Beauty".
• Match what people search for. Use the word your customers would type, not your internal job title.
• Match your Google profile. If Google lists you as a bakery, Instagram should not call you a cafe.
• Do not chase a category that sounds bigger. A category is a label for humans, not a ranking trick.
• Look at it as a customer would. After you save, open your profile on your phone and read the line under your name. If it would puzzle someone seeing you for the first time, choose a plainer category.

Show or hide the label

Your category can appear under your name on your profile. If it reads oddly, you can hide it: in your profile settings, under the public business information, Instagram's help center describes a Display category label checkbox that hides or shows it, along with your contact info.

After the switch

The switch takes a minute. The part that makes people stay takes a little longer:

• The bio: up to 150 characters that say what you do, where, and what to tap. Our guide to writing an Instagram bio for a business has examples.
• The links: you can add up to five, so order them by what customers need first, as in what a local business should put in its link in bio.
• The connection to your Facebook Page, if you have one, so messages and ads work in one place. We covered that in how to link Instagram to your Facebook Page.

If you want it done properly in one go

Our Profile Makeover tidies all of this up on every network in your plan: a clear bio that says what you do, where and how to reach you, the right profile picture and cover sizes, one link that sends people to the right place, and story highlights with matching covers. If you have a quiet evening, the steps above are all you need. If not, it is with our one-time jobs on the pricing page.