From giving users a chance to add their preferred pronouns to their bio, to focusing on mental health by granting the ability to hide likes, Instagram is zoned in a unique user experience. Their most recent unveiling is specifically for Black business owners.

“We’re allowing businesses who have shops to be able to identify as Black-owned,” says product leader Rachel Brooks. “So this essentially means if they have the feature on, they’re able to have a label on their profile that says ‘Black-owned’ also on their product pages.”

After the police killings of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Tony McDade and Rayshard Brooks, public interest in pouring into the Black community spiked. We saw fashion brands like Phlemuns and Brandon Blackwood experience a visibility they hadn’t been privy to before, which actually was the case for a number of businesses and creative offerings.

“Ultimately, people on Instagram are what inspire a lot of the things we do,” Brooks says. “We see naturally how communities rally together and around this time last year there was a lot of social and racial unrest…[O]n top of that we’re in a global pandemic and there were a lot of businesses that were really at risk or disproportionately closing, particularly Black-owned businesses.” Hopefully, through this new add on, brands will get the continued assistance they need.

How to Set Up Your Business As ‘Black-owned’ on Instagram

First, click “Edit Profile,” and choose “Business Diversity Info” for more insight. Then tap “Get Started” and you’ll be taken to the “Diversity Info” page. Turn on the “Show Black-owned business label” feature, which will activate a “Black-owned” label on your business profile and product pages. 

Once your business is publicly displayed as Black-owned, there’s a chance it’ll be highlighted under the Shop tab. This will potentially increase the amount of traffic your business page receives.

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