There is no debate about Instagram as the most popular social media platform. Today, about 70% of businesses use Instagram. Whether you’re just getting started or have been on Instagram for years and are ready to take your business’s Instagram presence to the next level, here’s how to utilize the platform to its full potential for your brand.

Build Connection, Not Just Followers

Nowadays, having millions of followers on your brand's Instagram account is not more valuable than having thousands of followers who regularly engage with you and your content.

Although it seems so cliche to say that “don’t leave the social out of your social media presence” the beauty of social indeed is that you can form relationships in an instant with followers from anywhere.

Pro tip: Connect with your audience,

include your audience as much as you can in your Instagram posts or Instagram stories. Most of your followers want to feel like a part of your story. Talk with them through captions and reply to every comment you can on your posts.

Interact Actively in The Instagram Community

Instagram is an active community, to have actively interacted with your prospective and existing audience, you should connect with other Instagram accounts and businesses. Engage with your audience. Try to reply to comments that you get on your posts. Utilize Instagram story features such as questions or polls stickers to let your audience interact with you. These will also improve your Instagram engagement rate.

Instagram is one of the best social media platforms for showcasing your business and what you offer. It is impossible to become an Insta-sensation overnight, you need to grow your account day by day, although it takes hard work and dedication, by putting the above-mentioned steps into action, you will be able to improve your presence and build your influence on the platform.

Post Consistently to Engage with Your Audience

Keeping your regular posting schedule helps you show up in your target audience’s timelines. Instagram algorithms allow you to show each user the content they’re most likely to enjoy, so it looks for content that is recent and relevant based on each individual's interests.

The Instagram algorithm uses artificial intelligence which continuously studies each person’s activity and customizes their timeline accordingly. To improve your presence on Instagram, you need to post regularly. It will help you show up in people’s feeds and give them bigger chances to interact with you. The higher your Instagram engagement rate is, the broader reach your content can get. When the audience interacts with your content, they will more often see it in their Instagram feed.

Create Partnerships with Other People

Creating partnerships with Instagram influencers is one of the fastest ways to increase your reach and improve your presence on Instagram. By organizing a partnership with the right Instagram influencers that resonate with your brand's value, you can get your business’s products and services in front of a huge audience of your targeted customers. This way, you can run strategically planned campaigns that boost your Instagram presence and drive sales.

The key, however, is to set clear strategies, and authorization procedures, and ensure you’re clear on the messages you want to communicate before the campaign.

Pro tip: There are many Instagram influencer marketing ideas that you can try, for example: running giveaways and contests. These two are powerful ways to grow your audience on Instagram. Set up the contest such as running a user-generated content campaign, sharing a branded hashtag, and offering an appealing prize to boost entries. Try to make “following” your brand a condition of entry to growing your Instagram followers.

Analyze Your Results

Look into your Instagram analytics regularly. If you want to gain more followers, keep your audience engaged, and promote your business on Instagram, to improve your brand's Instagram presence you have to monitor how your content and campaign perform.

Try to dig deeper and look at the analytics more thoroughly, you’ll need third-party tools. For example, you can use Analisa.io analytics to help you analyze your profile and competitor social activity and performance, followers' demographics and authenticity, historical data, content, and influencer optimization, and campaign reports around the metrics you care about most.