One of the first things you see when you go to Instagram’s website is the following:

“1 billion Instagram accounts are active every month.

90% of accounts follow a business on Instagram.

500 million + users use stories every day.”

This means that there is an incredible opportunity for your business to interact with customers online with Instagram.

Maybe you’re a little overwhelmed with where to get started. Maybe you’ve already been on Instagram and haven’t had any luck with building a community. Or maybe you’re a seasoned veteran looking to continue to delight your followers on Instagram.

No matter where you are in your Instagram journey, here are three steps to take today to watch your Instagram page for your business soar.

1. Create a Business Account on Instagram.

If you haven’t already, take the time to make sure you are managing a business profile on Instagram. It may not seem like much of a difference, but the rewards definitely pay off!

An easy way to check and see if your account is a business profile is to look at your profile.

You’ll get there by clicking on your little round profile picture in the bottom right hand corner.

You’ll notice that the first option above does not have any buttons (other than “Edit Profile”) under your bio while the second one does. The first picture is a personal Instagram profile while the second one is a business profile. Do a quick check on your profile to see if you have those three little boxes that say “Promotions, Insight, and Contact”.

If not, you’ll want to take steps to setting up an Instagram account for a business. Here are the steps on Instagram’s website.

Now, you may be wondering: Why do those buttons matter? How will they help me?

They give you access to incredible data and analytics on your profile.

Content summarizes the posts you’ve made this week and take a look at any promotions that you have going on.

Activity shows you how many people have seen your posts this week and which days of the week have been most successful with getting your posts in front of more users. Activity also has a section called “Interactions” where you can see how many users have visited your profile or clicked on your website.

Audience gives you an idea of how much your profile has grown (or decreased), where your followers are located, their age, gender, and what days of the week they are most active on Instagram.

The next step will show you how to use this information to your advantage.

2. Post at the Best Times Using Insights.

After you’ve ensured that you can see all of these features on your Instagram profile, you’ll want to start digging deeper into the analytics.

Start with the “Audience” tab under Insights.

Look at the section at the bottom of the page called “Followers”.

Toggle between the days and hours tab under the Followers section. This chart shows your followers activity on Instagram.

Take note of the days that your followers are most likely to be on Instagram. Then, see what times of the day they are online.

You’ll want to get your posts in front of as many people as possible so choosing post days and times when most of your followers are online will help your odds.

3. Interact with and grow your audience.

After you’ve gotten your strategy nailed down and know how and when to post, you’ll want to bring in more people to the online community that you have developed.

Know the kinds of posts that your followers respond best to.

Do they like videos?

Do they like photos with text?

Do they like photos without text?

The best way to figure this out is to take an audit of your content. You can go into as much detail as you’d like, but you’ll want to analyze at least the last 30 days of content to see where your followers were the most engaged.

What posts did they like and comment on the most? Create a spreadsheet to show your findings or simply take notes on a piece of paper or app on your phone, works too.

Once you have your answer, continue to develop content that they want.

You can also use the Explore feature on Instagram to find accounts similar to the ones that already follow you.

Start with taking one of your top performing hashtags or keywords that describe your audience and typing them into the Explore tab. Start by clicking on the magnifying glass at the button of the screen and it will take you to a page.

Suppose your target audience is a vineyard owner. You can focus your search by typing “vineyard” into the search bar and then clicking over to “tags”. You can either explore the top posts for this topic or the most recent.

Like the posts of accounts that could benefit from your service or fit your target audience, but do not start hard selling them.

Start by liking and commenting and adding value to their social media feed. After several days or weeks of interacting with and building genuine connections online, you will see more and more people turning to your profile with genuine interest in what you have to offer.

Keep This In Mind Before You Go

These three steps are just a quick introduction to how to freshen up your Instagram account for your business. Instagram is growing and changing daily. Don’t be overwhelmed by what you aren’t doing, but take proactive baby steps to get on the right track.

It’s only a matter of time before you see growth and engagement on your business’s Instagram account.

Have any more questions? We’d love to hear from you in the comments below.