Five Reasons Why Baseball and Softball Coaches Should Switch to an Instagram Business Account

Before addressing why baseball or softball coaches should switch to an Instagram business account, let’s acknowledge that the social media platform has taken our games by storm.

It touts the most extensive user base while offering a full suite of features to facilitate all sorts of meaningful interactions between ballplayers, parents, and coach entrepreneurs. 

It used to be really simple to get up and running on Instagram when it first launched. 

You just created an account, added a profile image and a short description, and you were on your way to sharing and posting content regularly – and quickly generating consistent followers.

Over time, the platform introduced different mechanics and constraints that complicated both the setup and what used to be easy growth for new accounts.

To thrive on the platform, ambitious users begin needing to analyze what was working and what wasn’t with their content.

Tracking engagement rates such as likes, comments, shares, and saves on their posts, using trending hashtags, setting up consistent posting schedules, and creating content specifically tailored towards a target audience, soon became prerequisites for success.

Around this time is when “Instagram for Business” was released, which introduced a set of tools and features capable of monitoring progress and unlocking opportunities.  

Baseball and softball coaches should switch from personal Instagram accounts to a business account in order to access tools and insights that make growing their personal brand and coaching business much faster and easier. 

Below we’ll explore five reasons why this is the case and learn which Instagram business tools you’ll want to focus on for your coaching business or personal brand. 

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#Reason #1: Unlock Instagram Analytics and Insights for Your Coaching Account

Just like when a private lesson client is brand new to baseball and softball, once you start on any social media platform, there’s a learning curve, and you’ll need some practice before you’re any good at it.

But first and foremost here, how exactly does creating an Instagram business account help you progress and rise to popularity on the platform? 

One of the best and most obvious reasons to switch to an Instagram business or creator account is access to what’s called the “Instagram Insights” feature.

These analytic insights tell what you are doing right or wrong and allow you to strategize future content choices based on the feedback of your actual audience.

Insights sheds light on your Instagram account’s performance, as the name itself implies.

This includes how many followers you are gaining or losing in a given period and how many people view and engage with your posts or profile. 

It also gives a detailed scale of the most successful posts you currently have on the platform. 

Insights also offers other essential information, such as how much reach each post has gotten and how many clicks you’ve earned on your website, SeamsUp profile, or any other link in your bio.

Finally, Insights shares a detailed graph of your discovery rate, which gives you information on the level of reach your posts are getting on a daily basis, along with how many impressions, interactions, and engagements they are receiving. 

Here’s a breakdown of what all these terms (and more) mean in Insights:

Discovery shows you the total reach and impressions of your content this week.

Reach is the total number of unique Instagram accounts that have visited or seen your posts.

Impressions refer to the number of times your content – such as a Feed post, Story, or Reel – was shown to users.

Interactions tell you exactly how many people have visited your profile as well as how many people have actually clicked on the link you have posted on your bio. 

If you do lessons at or own a brick-and-mortar business, you can determine how many people have asked for directions to your business location.

Another useful feature that will help you improve your content is demographic data.

Through Insight’s demographic data, you will gain access to information about your audience, such as their age, location, and gender.

These details help you to tailor your posts and experiences to be most attractive to your target audience. 

Or, if you’re attracting the wrong audience, too old or young, just as an example, this knowledge can help you right your social marketing ship before it hurts your overall entrepreneurial goals. 

This was just the Spark Notes to help you get started fast when it comes to Instagram analytics. 

Don’t miss our in-depth guide to all things Instagram analytics for baseball and softball coaches.

#Reason #2: Help Your Instagram Audience Contact Your Baseball or Softball Business

Another benefit of switching to a business account is the ability to add contact buttons to your profile, which help interested prospects reach out to you directly with just a tap.  

The “Email” or “Contact” buttons in the screenshots below are three examples to follow. 

Such buttons separate you, as it puts your business goals top of mind to visitors, informing them how to contact you for business-related inquiries – like private hitting lessons. 

It also makes your life easier, as you might avoid being flooded with hundreds of unwieldy and hard-to-track direct messages (DM’s). 

And there are more robust customer relationship management, AKA CRM, tools available for organizing – and setting up fully automated responses to – prospect and customer requests and questions coming in from emails, calls, or texts than from DMs. 

If this last point is a bit over your head, don’t worry at all. 

Coaching entrepreneurship is a journey, and it’s best to take it one step at a time. So, for now, let’s focus back on why you shouldn’t run your business with a personal Instagram account. 

#Reason #3: Add Money-Making Links to Your Instagram Stories

@mattlopesbaseball can help us illustrate our next point – make sure to always link out to a website or other revenue-generating URL from your bio. 

His is website URL is grindhousebaseball.com.

To be fair, you can add a link in your personal Instagram bio as well.

But, when you have a business profile, you gain the ability to link people directly to your website or to your SeamsUp profile through your Instagram Stories – where people can just tap on it and be redirected through the browser.

You have probably read the commonly used phrase in a lot of Instagram post descriptions known as “link in bio.” 

This is due to the fact that Instagram, unlike other social media platforms, does not allow direct linking from the posts themselves, or for you to place a working link in the description of your post.

Of course, this constraint makes it a challenge to put your website’s or sales offering content in front of your audience easily. 

Having the ability to put links that send potential clients or customers off of Instagram in your Stories is a valuable tool in your toolkit that’s enabled by having a business account.  

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#Reason #4: Post Scheduling Is a Must for Busy Instructors and Entrepreneurs

Batching and pre-scheduling your Instagram Feed posts, Reels, and Stories is a massive  time-saver and productivity hack for busy baseball and softball instructors. 

So much so that we wrote an entire ultimate guide on exactly how to batch and schedule baseball and softball posts and which software works best for our industry. 

But, the point here is that many of these scheduling applications require a public business Instagram account to use their software. 

This means that if you want to take advantage of an awesome third-party application and schedule your posts for the entire week or month within a single afternoon – without you having to do so manually on a daily basis – it's only possible through a business account.

#Reason #5: Enable Baseball and Softball Product Sales and Promotions with an Instagram Business Account

In any business, profitability is king. 

And the more diversified your product offerings and revenue streams, the better.  

For example, if you gained a large Instagram following based on content such as analysis breakdowns of famous swings or pitches, or from posting innovative drills and clips of your clients thriving, your goal might be to drive more online or in-person private lesson sales. 

But, you may also want to try the wonderful world of affiliate marketing – which involves getting a commission to sell other people’s physical or digital products to your audience. 

P.s. If you're interested in finding out exactly how to succeed in affiliate marketing in the baseball or softball industries, we penned the definitive guide. 

But, the point of this article is why having a business account is the way to go and another reason for this is that Instagram has created a function that allows you to link and tag products directly on your posts. 

Basically, you can create an entire online store to make sells to your customers without them ever having to leave Instagram.

So if you are a baseball hitting coach, for example, you can link and tag the newest hitting gadget or bat that you’re an affiliate for. 

Of course, if you’ve created your own new tool or any branded merchandise, this same feature will be a no-brainer for you to use.

#How Can Baseball and Softball Coaches Switch to an Instagram Business Account?

Okay, by now, hopefully, you’re convinced to switch.

If you want to take advantage of all of the features that an Instagram business account provides to you and your business, you need to set up the account correctly and make the switch efficiently and effectively.

Here are the steps you need to take in order to make a successful transition:

#1. Find Account Settings

First off, start by opening up your profile page, and tap on the menu on the top right corner of the screen that looks like a tiny hamburger. 

Next, tap on the Settings option, followed by the Account option. 

#2. Switch to a Professional Account

When you have successfully entered the account settings, the next step to take is to slide down to the bottom of the page and tap on the Switch to Professional Account option.  

#3. Select the Business Account Option

You will be greeted by two options, a Creator account, and a Business account.

Once you select an Instagram business account, you will gain access to features and analytics we’ve enumerated above.

If you're curious, selecting an Instagram Creator account gives you access to tools such as the Instagram Creator Studio for desktop, follow and unfollow metrics, direct message filtering, and general tools designed for individuals, not for businesses. 

Most professional coaches should stick with the Business option though, in our humble opinion. 

You can create your unique and interesting content, analyze it through the different analytical tools, and see clearly what kind of posts get you the most engagement rates. 

Once you know what works, fully commit to those kinds of posts and take your profile to the next level.