How to fix Instagram error Business account can't be private
How to fix Instagram error Business account can’t be private:
You will face this error ‘Business account can’t be private’ if you are trying to change the visibility of a business Instagram account to private. Business accounts are different from personal accounts. This error message also gives another message: ‘If you want to make your account private, first switch back to a personal account.’.
If you have a personal Instagram account, you can switch it to private. But if you have a business account you can’t.
How to switch to Instagram business account:
If you create a personal account in Instagram, you can switch it to business. To do that:
- Go to your profile and click on the menu icon on top-right corner.
- Tap on Settings. Check if ‘Switch to professional account’ is listed under the options or not.
- Tap on Account if ‘Switch to professional account’ is not listed under Settings.
- Tap on ‘Switch to professional account’.
- Tap on ‘Continue’.
- It will show you a list of business categories. You need to select one for your account. Select it and tap ‘OK’.
- Tap on ‘Business’ and tap on ‘Next’.
- It will ask you to add contact details. You can either skip this step or add contact details on this step.
You can also connect your Instagram business account with your Facebook business account. It will link both of these accounts and you will get all reporting, comments, analytics etc. under one single tool.
Once you move to a business account, you can also move back to personal account if you want. Instagram business provides different tools like insights, options to use advertising on your content etc.
Instagram insight is the most useful feature of Instagram business. It is an analytics tool. You will get different performance metrics under insight.
It shows different options like account reached, account engaged, followers, insight for individual posts, feed, reels etc. Few features are only available on the mobile app and others are available for both mobile and desktop.
Fix for ‘Business account can’t be private’:
The business account is meant for businesses. If you want to keep something private, you need a personal account. On a business account, you can’t keep any post private.
So, if you are getting this error message ‘Business account can’t be private’, you need to move your account to personal. Note that if you move to personal, your insight data will be lost. You can move back to business any time you want but you will not get back your insight data.
If you want to make the account private temporarily, I would ask you to think about it one more time. If you don’t mind even if your insight will be erased, you can do it.
I will show you the steps to move from business account to personal Instagram account in this post below. You can follow the exact same steps and once it is converted to a personal account, you can switch to private.
Step 1: Go to your profile and open menu:
This can be done only in the Instagram app or from the website. But the app is preferred over the website. Even while writing this post, when I tried from the Instagram website to convert it from business account to private, it was showing some error. But it worked on the app.
You can download the app on PlayStore or on AppStore. The UI of both apps is similar. I use an android phone to take the screenshots for this post.
Download the app, log in to your account and go to the profile tab. It is the rightmost tab on the bottom bar.
Step 2: Go to settings:
Once you open the settings menu, it will show you different options like Settings, Archive, Insights, Your Activity, QR Code, Saved, Close Friends, Favorites, Discover People, etc. This list might be different on your phone.
Click on the Settings tab.
It will redirect you to the settings page.
Step 3: Go to Account:
Under the settings page, it will show you different settings options like follow and invite friends, Notification, Creator, Privacy, Security, Ads, Account, Help, About, Theme, etc. Click on Account.
This will open your account screen. You can switch your account type under this screen.
Step 4: Switch your account type:
Under Account, you can switch between your account types. Scroll to the bottom of this page and you will see an option Switch account type. Click on it.
It will show you two options:
- Switch to business account
- Switch to personal account
You need to click on Switch to personal account to switch back to a personal account. Once you click on it, it will show you a popup with the following content:
When you switch back to a personal account, in-app insights will be turned off and insights from all your content, including your ads, will be permanently removed.This is exactly the same thing I told you before. If you move back to personal account, it will remove all insights from all your content. So, if you are running any ads, it will remove all insights of that as well. Even if you move back to a business account later on, it will look like a new account without any insights for any posts.
So, please think twice before you switch back to personal account.
Click on Switch to personal account to switch the account to a personal account. Once done, it will show a message that the account is switched to a personal account.
Step 5: Switch to private account:
Under settings, click on Privacy and you will see an option to switch the account to private. Click on the switch to turn it on, i.e. to convert it to a private account.
It will show you a popup that will ask you if you want to switch to private account or not. It will also show that:
- Only your followers will be able to see your photos and videos.
- This won’t change who can tag, @mention or message you.
You need to click on Switch to Private to switch the account to private. Once it is done, only the followers can see your content.
If you want to move back to business account, you can always do that under the settings. You will have to follow the same steps and it will migrate the account to business.
Conclusion:
It is easy to move a business account to personal but you need to keep in mind that it will remove all your insight data. If you need the insight history data, moving to personal account won’t be a good idea. You can switch back to business account anytime you want. If you don’t want insight history, then it will not be any problem.