How to Grow Your Business Using Instagram: 2023 Ultimate Guide

With around one billion users and 500 million active daily users, it seems like a no brainer that Instagram is one revenue-generating platform you shouldn’t be skipping out on. Brands are flocking to Instagram in 2023 and beyond to grow their business and connect with their customers.

Whether you’re selling physical or digital products or running a service-based business… Instagram comes with endless monetization potential. It goes without saying that no matter what you sell, you should be using Instagram to grow your business.

How to Grow Your Business on Instagram

Even if you’re starting out with zero followers and a brand new brand, the opportunity for businesses is limitless on Instagram. Ready to find out how you can monetize its potential? Let’s dive in!

Set-Up + Optimize Your Business Instagram Account

It’s a no brainer that the first step to growing your business with Instagram is to set up your business Instagram account, right? If you’re reading this and your account is still set up as a personal account…

Stop here. Go switch it to ‘business’, pronto!

Why is this important? Without having a business account, you miss out on key insights that will help you grow your account and maximize engagement.

Below are examples of the insights you will get in your dashboard which will tell you:

Follower demographics and behavior

Once you have at least 100 followers, you will be able to see demographics and behavior of your audience such as:

• Gender

• Age Group

• Location (top cities and countries)

• Active Online Time (so you know the best days and times to post and engage)

Do I even need to explain how helpful it is to create content when you know exactly who your audience is?

For example, your content is going to vary greatly if your audience is mostly women opposed to men or thirteen-year-olds vs. forty-year-olds. Make sense?

Individual Post Insights

Not only will you get analytics on your audience, but you will also get analytics for all of your Instagram posts and stories.

When you go to the ‘Insights’ tab, the first screen will be ‘Content’ where you can view the insights on all your recent posts and stories.

If you tap ‘see all’ under feed posts, for example, it will show you all of your posts within the last year sorted by engagement:

Being able to see your highest performing posts right in front of you makes it clear to see what types of content your audience engages with and loves the most.

Next, you can tap ‘view insights’ on each individual post from your profile as seen below:

Interactions and Discovery

Once you tap that blue button on the left, here is the analytics Instagram gives you for your post:

By being able to analyze each post’s insights, you can see the direct impact your content has on your audience.

Check out the top section under Interactions:

You can see above how many people clicked through to my profile or website and/or followed me from this single post.

Do I even need to mention how helpful this is if you’re setting KPIs or goals for your content?

For example, if you’re trying to drive more clicks to your website… You can see exactly how each post is performing against that goal.

Now let’s look at the second half of the photo under Discovery:

You will see the percentage of people who saw your post and weren’t already following you.

Below that is the reach and impressions for your post. Luckily, it comes with a breakdown of the impressions:

• Home: The number of people who saw this post on their feed
• Hashtags: Amount of people who found your post under a hashtag
• Profile: People who saw your post on your profile page
• Other: This includes posts that were shared in a DM, posts that were previously saved, posts you’re tagged or mentioned in, and posts that show up on the ‘following’ tab in notifications

If your current focus is on growth, these metrics will be a huge help to determine whether or not your strategy is working.

Optimize Your Instagram Business Profile

Next, it’s time to optimize your business profile so when potential customers land on your profile… They know exactly what they’re there for.

It all starts with the name. By name, I’m talking both username and the actual name field.

See an example from GetResponse’s profile below:

When you land on their profile, you know exactly who they are and how they serve their audience.

If you’re familiar with SEO, then I want you to translate that knowledge over to Instagram. For example, notice the use of hashtags in the bio?

Whenever possible, include keywords in your name and in your bio so that your profile appears in the search results when someone searches ‘Travel Blogger’, for example.

Next, you want your bio to be clear and call-to-action oriented.

Running a free challenge or webinar? Include a call-to-action above the link in your bio so that your audience knows where to go from there.

See this example from @hellofresh and how they use their bio to redirect users to try it now for $30 off their first box:

Your Instagram bio is just one piece of the prime real estate on Instagram, and when it comes to monetizing your Instagram, it is the most important place to start.

Content Strategy is Everything

While it’s easy for anyone to just throw up a business Instagram profile… That alone isn’t enough.

You need a strategy. Not just a strategy, but a content strategy.

“Without a strategy, content is just stuff. The world has enough stuff.”

I think we’re finally in the era of taking Instagram seriously and realizing the major money-making potential through the gram. So how do you create a killer content strategy?

One option is to hire a consultant (hey, I might know someone;).

The next would be to rely heavily on Google, Youtube, maybe invest in an online course or two and DIY.

One key aspect of your content strategy is going to be the frequency (how often you’re posting) and at what times.

For this, the insights we talked about above are going to be incredibly valuable to ensure you’re posting when your target audience is actually online.

After all, you don’t want to post at midnight when noone is online to engage with your content, right?

The easiest way to get a head start on your content strategy is to look at what the competition is doing.

It seems obvious, right? Check out what your (successful) competitors are doing and model that.

Note that I did not say to copy anyone. Just model their methods. By this, I mean to analyze:

• What type of content are they sharing?
• How about the images? Are they sharing informational, quote graphics, promotional, or more personal images?
• How often are they posting?
• Where are they showing up the most — on their feed, stories, IGTV?

For example, if your target audience is digital entrepreneurs, you might look at someone who shares this target audience like Melyssa Griffin, with a following of over 50K on IG:

Using Melyssa as an example, you can see that this target audience responds well to lifestyle type content.

Even though she teaches various courses on growing an email list or starting a blog, her content is mostly personal rather than a bunch of infographics.

Once you analyze these things, you’ll have a clear picture of what your target audience wants and is engaging with.

Now you can model what is successful and proven to work… with your own twist, of course!

Wrapping Up

Now that we’ve gotten the essentials out of the way to grow your business through the powerful tool known as Instagram…

What are you waiting for? Time to get out there and start driving in more customers and revenue!

Got any questions about setting up your business profile on Instagram or using it to generate customer leads? Let me know in the comments!

P.S.: Check out this post for some of my top tips to grow your Instagram following organically (without ads!).