Instagram Just Made it Easier for Users to Locate U.S. Black-Owned Businesses

Let’s face it, the way most people find new brands to buy from has changed significantly.

Social media offers a fresh supply of potential customers within a sea of hashtags, retweets, tags, or shared stories. Instagram paid close attention to who is using the platform and how they are doing it. And now, Instagram is lending a hand to U.S. Black business owners with shops on Instagram by allowing them to display a “Black-owned” label on their profiles.

Per Instagram’s announcement, these businesses may even be “highlighted” in locations such as the Shop tab, to assist “potential customers” with finding them. Curated collections of Black-owned businesses will be available in the @Shop tab.

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A new way to discover Black-owned businesses on Instagram.

Starting today, US businesses with Shops can display a “Black-owned” label on their profiles, making them easier to find. pic.twitter.com/kzw8dHirFp

— Adam Mosseri 😷 (@mosseri) June 30, 2021

Additionally, Instagram accounts such as @blackownedeverything, @ghettogastro, @alexandrawinbush, and @browniepointsforyou have partnered with Instagram to raise awareness about Black-owned businesses which have Instagram accounts.

Sprout Social, a company which builds social media software for marketers, identified Instagram as a top five most-downloaded app “in both the App Store and via Google Play last year.” According to Sprout Social, Instagram users totaled over 1 billion in 2020.

And some people still do not realize that Facebook owns Instagram.

“Facebook purposefully tries to keep the Instagram brand as separate as possible; they even operate a separate office. There’s no Facebook branding in the Instagram app. You really have to be a savvy tech insider to get that,” Josh Constine, TechCrunch’s editor-at-large said in a 2018 CBS News interview.

Although some users may not like that “photos, videos, messages, and stories” users shared on the platform can be archived, business owners may use this feature to help them repurpose content, too.

Please click here to find out how to add a “Black-owned” label to an Instagram account.