What Is A Creator Account On Instagram?
Follow along in this article, where we’ll unpack the in’s and out’s of creator accounts, how they differ from the other types of Instagram accounts, and what happens when you switch to a creator account (aka, some of the benefits that come from stepping into the world of influencer marketing).
Brands we’ve worked with
What Is Lionize?
Lionize helps brands and agencies unlock the full potential of Influencer Marketing. Our A to Z solution manages every aspect of the Influencer Marketing process for you. With our software, you will save time and money while improving results. Our AI powered tech manages the entire partnership lifecycle for you within one easy-to-use platform.
Influencer Marketing. Simplified.
1. Recruitment
Kickoff the Lionize recruitment process by defining your strategy.
The first step is figuring out what type of Influencers will tell your story best. With Lionize, you’ll find authentic and unique partners that fit your brand. Our proprietary search engine identifies talent from the entire world of social media based on an ideal Influencer profile you’ll create with the help of your Account Manager.
2. Selection
Once your program goes live, Influencers will apply and enter a selection queue available on your dashboard.
At this stage, Lionize becomes a ‘digital match-maker.’ Much like a dating app, you’ll be presented with a list of targeted Creators that fit your parameters and want to work with you. You’ll approve and deny based on who you feel is the best fit. These selection decisions are under your complete control.
3. Management
As you select your desired partners on a rolling basis, Lionize activates and manages them for you!
Lionize manages the status of each relationship on your behalf through its automated communication and reminder system. No more juggling hundreds of emails back and forth or messy tracking in spreadsheets.
4. Reporting
Finally, you can just sit back and enjoy watching your team of Influencers promote your brand. Tracking, reporting, payment, reactivation – Lionize handles it all.
On your Lionize dashboard, you’ll be able to track your top performers and all post activity. We share a wide variety of data and metrics behind each piece of content created by your Influencers including engagement and reach.Want to repurpose these posts for other digital efforts? No problem, we make it easy to export all of your campaign data and UGC.
What Is A Creator Account On Instagram?
In the early days of Instagram, long before it was to become a top 5 most used social media platform and the best platform for influencer marketing with huge influence over the creator economy – there were just normal users posting pictures from personal accounts.
Eventually, businesses realized that Instagram was not just a fun space for sharing photos, but a strong marketing channel that could effectively reach and engage millions upon millions of people. Thus, business accounts were born. These accounts operate largely like personal accounts but also have access to sophisticated audience insights such as demographics, follower counts, reach (how many people saw your content), and impressions (how many times your content was displayed).
While content creators used to get by as business accounts, a few factors, such as changes to Instagram’s API disabling many third-party analytics tools and the growth of influencer marketing as a whole, pushed the platform to create a new account option: creator accounts.
Launched in 2018, the purpose of a creator account on Instagram is to allow public figures, artists, and other influencers to more easily utilize the platform to build their personal brands and do Instagram influencer marketing. Creator accounts are free to set up and come with a host of tools and capabilities, such as scheduling posts ahead of time, more easily tagging partners in branded content, and gaining access to in-depth audience and profile analytics.
Essentially, creator accounts are a profile classification that influencers and other figures can use to improve their digital presence, grow their following, and monetize their accounts through sponsored posts and brand partnerships. While the platform is constantly changing, Instagram relies heavily on influencers and other content creators to keep their social media space a vibrant place to be, and thus, creator accounts will probably not be going away any time soon.
Follow along in this article, where we’ll unpack the in’s and out’s of creator accounts, how they differ from the other types of Instagram accounts, and what happens when you switch to a creator account (aka, some of the benefits that come from stepping into the world of influencer marketing).
Instagram Creator Account Vs Personal Account
All users who sign up for an Instagram account default into the “personal account” category. If you have an Instagram account and haven’t done anything to change its status, you have what they call a personal account.
Personal accounts come with all of the basic Instagram features, including the ability to post pictures and videos on your profile; the ability to post Instagram stories, reels, and Live videos; and the ability to message and interact with other accounts on the platform.
There is one major benefit of personal accounts over creator and business accounts: the ability to set them to private.
If you’re an individual wanting control over who gets access to view and interact with your content, you can set your account to private. This means that most users who stumble upon your profile will see your name, picture, and bio, but will have to request to follow you to see your content. Private personal accounts can then manually approve follow requests from people who want to follow them. People utilize this option a lot when they’re applying for new jobs, going through major life changes, or experiencing online harassment.
Creator accounts are pretty much as opposite as you can get from private accounts. While you don’t have to have a large following to become a creator account (in fact, there are no minimum follower numbers to set one up), the goal of these accounts is typically to increase one’s following.
By gaining an understanding of the analytics tied to your posts with the tools that come with a creator account, you can adjust the way that you post in order to better engage with your audience, as well as earn money from your posts with brand partnerships.
Instagram Creator Account Vs Business (Brand) Account
Now that we’ve talked about the differences between creator and personal accounts, let’s discuss creator accounts vs business accounts on Instagram.
Business accounts are designed to be used by actual businesses, such as restaurants, consumer packaged goods, and online storefronts. They’re typically operated by a few individuals at the company, as opposed to a single individual in the case of most creator accounts.
Like all profiles, business accounts have the capability to post photos, share things to their story (along with creating profile highlights to showcase past stories), and send and receive messages from the direct message (DM) inbox.
However, there are also some special features that business accounts are given, including:
- A business category on their profile
- Analytics and insights for all posts
- The ability to promote posts and run ads
- A sortable DM inbox
- The ability to use third-party apps to schedule posts
- A “Contact” button and other CTA options
Creator accounts are also professional Instagram accounts and fall somewhat in between personal and business profiles. Both creator and business accounts are set up to allow for deeper analysis of how a profile is performing, offering detailed insights about posts, followers, and overall profile statistics. They also both allow for a sortable inbox and integration with Facebook for more tools.
What Happens When You Switch To A Creator Account On Instagram?
What happens when you switch to a creator account on Instagram is simple: you get access to creator settings, you get an updated inbox style, and you choose whether or not you’d like to display your creator category. From there, you have access to tons of tools that encourage brand building and allow for faster monetization of your Instagram marketing efforts.
There are many benefits that come with having a creator account on Instagram. Here are some of the features that Instagram grants to these accounts:
- Shoppable posts. One of the biggest benefits of setting up a creator account is that you can promote products and services directly through the app. These posts are typically sponsored posts, a collaboration between an influencer and their brand partner, and have a highly engaging post format that encourages purchases via an easy-click link.
- Improved inbox. Because as a creator, you have the possibility of receiving a high number of messages from followers and non-followers alike, Instagram has built a more robust inbox tool for creator accounts. Within your new DM inbox, you’ll get to sort messages into different inboxes, keeping your “primary” messages from friends and mutuals separate from the “general” influx of messages and the “requests” from people you don’t follow. You can also customize your notifications, and even use Instagram’s “saved reply” tool to quickly respond to frequently asked questions.
- Branded content and paid partnership tags. You’ve probably seen sponsored posts on Instagram before, featuring the “paid partnership with [brand]” label at the top. Not only do paid partnership labels help build transparency with followers, but the more of these sponsored posts an influencer has, the more it establishes them as an in-demand content creator. Creator accounts make it easy to utilize branded content, too. Within the creator profile settings, under “branded content,” you can begin tagging brand partners in your content and posting with the paid partnership label.
- Scheduled posts. Within Instagram’s Creator Studio, influencers or public figures can schedule posts ahead of time. In the Creator Studio dashboard, you can simply upload your content, write your caption, tag other accounts or include any other info you’d like, and select when you’d like to schedule it.
- Professional dashboard and robust analytics. Content creators don’t just make content in a vacuum – they want to know that they’re continuing to engage with their audience and grow their following. Within your professional dashboard, you can access all kinds of insights about your posts, your audience, and key metrics like following and reach.
As a creator account on Instagram, you’ll have many tools at your disposal to truly build your brand. You can find out what works and what doesn’t for your audience, focus on the types of posts that your audience engages with the most, experiment with posting time and frequency, and so much more!
Ultimately, Instagram’s creator accounts and associated tools make it much easier for people to monetize their presence on the platform, whether it be through sponsored posts, affiliate links, brand campaigns, or other paid partnerships.
How Lionize Can Help
Companies around the world today are leveraging their business accounts on Instagram to form and keep solid partnerships with influencers via creator accounts. Ready to turn hours of work per week into minutes while kicking off an influencer marketing strategy that works for you?
Our technology uses your strategy to identify the best influencers for your brand through a hyper-intelligent search engine. Then, we activate, manage, and report on your partners for you throughout your campaign. Real results, here we come.
Take advantage of our pilot partnership offer by Booking a Discovery Call. You’ll love the Lionize way.