A lot of people involved in micro, small and medium enterprises, MSMEs, are not aware that their businesses can become big brands just by posting it on the Instagram. Instagram is a social network that provides a great marketing platform to reach potential customers from every corner of the world.

In order to improve your Instagram marketing, you need to increase your following on a steady and consistent basis. After all, the more people come in contact with your brand and follow you on Instagram, the larger your audience is that you can potentially reach every time you post.

*Take advantage of free Instagram tools.

Instagram just started to roll out business profiles, which looks like Facebook’s business profiles, complete with a huge “contact’ call-to-action, allowing users to email, call or text the business.

Along with the contact option, business profiles have access to analytics, giving users access to impression and engagement data. If you use your Instagram account for your business, you might want to consider  converting your personal profile to a business profile  in order to take advantage of these options.

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*Cross promote Instagram posts.

If you want to easily add new Instagram followers that already love your brand, then post across all over your other social media profiles such as Facebook,  Twitter,  LinkedIn and invite them to follow your Instagram profile. They are already following you on social media, so they are obviously interested in what you offer, so give them another way to socially connect to your brand.

*Don’t overwhelm your audience.

You want to post often enough that your brand stays relevant, but at the same time, don’t post so frequently that you overwhelm your followers and they begin to feel you are constantly in their face.

Just test and  see how your audience responds. As a starting point, you can start posting twice daily, alternating times of the day to find out when your highest engagement occurs. Then start to experiment with more and less posts per day, really paying attention to engagement. Once you find your sweet spot, the work doesn’t stop- as your following increases you will have to adjust. Post frequency optimization is a never ending task.

*Interact with followers to spark growth.

If someone takes the time to leave a comment on one of your posts, take two seconds to reply and thank them. That simple engagement can create a loyal customer as well as a raving promoter of your brand.

Also, incorporate ways to get your followers to interact with your posts. A simple, “Tag three of your friends that would love this” can quickly put your brand in front of a larger audience as well as attract new followers. Since they are being introduced to your Instagram profile through a friend, there is less resistance, resulting in many of the tagged users following your profile.

*Create an interactive hashtag

Creating an interactive hashtag is a great way to create instant engagement — just make sure you are  using hashtags the correct way.

*Use creativity to connect with your audience.

Being creative with your images is a great way to connect with your followers — it’s much more effective than posts that look like straight up advertisements.