Instagram Brand Pages

First look at Instagram brand pages

Companies and brands may soon have the ability to update their profiles to create Instagram brand pages similar to those already on Facebook. These new brand pages appear to only be available and visible to select users right now but offer some interesting new features that could be of great use to businesses and marketers.

Right now, Instagram’s algorithm has no way of determining a brand page versus a personal page. When a business or brand creates one of these pages they will have the option to categorize their page to let users know what kind of business they are.

Looking at the image to the right you’ll also see a “Contact” button prominently featured. Once this is clicked the option to get directions or email the business pops up. Interestingly, Instagram is giving users the options to email the business instead of using the native messaging feature (at least at this stage of development). There also seems to be a sort of cover photo that will appear above a page’s collection of pictures.

Another feature of Instagram brand pages appears to be the location button that will open up a map with a pin dropped on the address of the business once clicked. This will make it easy to get people directly to the location of a business natively through your phone.

There’s no word on how the new Instagram brand pages would be set up, such as a simple categorization button on an existing page – which seems like the most natural thing – as pages with thousands of followers will not want to start from scratch.

Instagram has confirmed these features, but has not said yet when they will be widely available. We’re likely to hear and start seeing this become more widely available in the coming months.