Safety on Instagram: How to Keep Your Business Account Protected

Keeping their business account safe is often the last thing people worry about on Instagram. And that’s a problem! Because if your account is hacked, it might take time to get it back up and running. In the meantime, this can hurt your reputation, and therefore also your business. However, there are ways to keep your account protected. In the following, we’ll show you what you can do to make your Instagram account more secure.

When you are promoting your business on Instagram, you probably think about how to gain new followers, how to increase your brand’s visibility, and how to sell more products.

Unfortunately, many businesses forget to also think about security, which leaves their Instagram accounts vulnerable to attacks. Having to deal with a hacked account can be time-consuming and bad for business. However, there are precautions you can take to keep your Instagram account better protected.

Getting hacked is bad for business

With one billion active Instagram users, having a popular brand on the platform can do great things for your business. It can help you build a loyal community, gain new customers, and grow your company. However, the more popular your brand becomes, the more hackers it will attract.

One of the most common schemes is to hack a popular account and sell it to somebody else. If this happens to your account, the first thing you’ll notice is that a stranger will start posting a lot of random (and often inappropriate) content from your account. And things will only go downhill from there.

Until you get this issue sorted out, your followers will see the stranger’s posts, and in some cases, they might get so annoyed that they will unfollow your account. Even if your fans don’t unfollow you, it’s not a good look for a business to get hacked, since people will start questioning how safe it is to do business with you.

Customers might wonder whether their data will be safe if they send you a message. They might also question the safety of buying products from your Instagram shop.

Of course, you can assure your customers that you run a safe business and possibly regain their trust. However, this will take time, and until then, the lack of trust will hurt your reputation and your bottom line. This is why it’s so important to make sure that your Instagram account is protected.

Obviously, there is no such thing as being totally safe on the internet. Still, there are measures you can take to increase your account’s safety.

Choose a secure password

Secure passwords make it a lot harder for hackers to get into your account. If you use a secure password, chances are, hackers will give up on hacking your account and move on to easier targets. A secure password usually includes a variety of upper and lower case letters, symbols, and numbers. Random combinations are a lot safer than using a predictable password, such as the name of your business or your zip code.

Use two-factor authentication

With two-factor authentication enabled, Instagram will ask for a specific security code that will be sent to you each time you log in to your account. You will only be able to log in if you type in your password and the correct code. This additional security step makes it harder for hackers to get into your account.

You can activate two-factor authentication by tapping on the menu, going to settings, then tapping on “security” and choosing two-factor authentication.

Instagram gives you three options for receiving the security code: having it sent to your WhatsApp, to an authentication app, or directly to your phone.

If two-factor authentication becomes too tedious, you can also mark specific devices as trusted, so whenever you log in from these devices you won’t have to type in a code.

Monitor log-in attempts

Instagram also allows you to keep an eye on suspicious activity on your account. If you choose to monitor log-in attempts, Instagram will notify you every time somebody tries to log in to your account from a new device or browser.

In order to receive warnings about suspicious logins, go to two-factor authentication in your security settings and choose “additional methods.” You will then see the option “login requests.” If you have login requests activated, Instagram will alert you whenever there is a new login attempt to your account. You can check your login activity at any time in your security settings under “logins.”

Log out of your account

Most hackers will try to get into your account online. However, if your phone gets stolen, it would be very easy for somebody to get access to your Instagram account if you are still logged in on your phone. The easiest way to prevent this is to make sure to log out every time you leave the app.

Act fast if you think your account has been hacked

If you think your account might have been hacked, you need to act immediately. The less time hackers have to do damage to your account, the better.

Change your password

If you still have access to your account, the first step is to change your password. To change your password, go to your security settings, tap on “password,” and enter first your old password and then a new one.

Remove suspicious accounts

Now, go through all the accounts that are linked to your profile, and remove any accounts you don’t recognize. Make sure to check if there are any suspicious third-party apps activated, and if so, turn them off in your security settings.

Request a login link

If you don’t have access to your account, check your emails, and see if you have received a warning from Instagram about security changes made to your account. Follow the instructions in the email to revert these changes. If you didn’t receive an email, request a login link to change your password.

Recover your account

In case this doesn’t work either, instead of requesting a login link, tap on “need more help” to start the process of recovering your account. Instagram will then send a security code to your email or phone with which you can start the recovery process. If you don’t get the security code, tap on “I can’t access this email or phone number,” and follow the instructions from there.

You can also submit a security claim to Facebook. The platform will then try to confirm that you are the account owner by asking you questions about your device and your email, or by having you send in a video of yourself to confirm your identity.

Keep in mind that recovering an account this way can take some time. So, putting safety features in place, such as choosing a strong password and enabling two-factor authentication, will not only keep your account safer from hackers, it will also make it easier to recover your account in case something does happen.

This is also important if you are using external tools with your Instagram business account.

Being safe using scheduling tools

Since in many cases, Instagram and Facebook don’t allow businesses to schedule content directly on the platform, a lot of businesses use external tools to create and plan their posts. Does this add an extra security risk for your account? It all depends on the platform you are using. So, make sure to take a look at the security settings of the external services you are using.

Are your credentials encrypted when you sign in? Does the scheduling platform support Instagram’s two-factor-authentication? Are there additional safety features you can activate? A platform that offers these features is usually very safe to use, and in fact, does not present a higher risk for your account than logging in directly through Instagram.

Storrito is one scheduling tool that provides all of these safety features. You can use Storrito to create, edit and schedule Instagram posts without having to worry about security risks.

Storrito automatically integrates your Instagram account with your Storrito account, so logging into Storrito is essentially the same as logging into the app. Storrito also encrypts your credentials to make logging in as safe as possible, and the platform also supports Instagram’s two-factor authentication. In addition, Storrito allows you to log in to Instagram by using a special session ID on your local browser, which means you don’t even have to use your Instagram password at all.

Find out how Storrito’s safety features work and how you can use the tool to keep your account safe and grow your business on Instagram.