Instagram has undergone more changes in the last year than during the previous five. We introduced Instagram Stories – a new way for businesses to share everyday moments – and the use of video exploded. We welcomed a new brand identity and the community grew to more than 600 million globally. At the same time, we were building a thriving business. We now have eight million businesses using business profiles, with the greatest adoption coming from the United States, Brazil, Indonesia, Russia and the United Kingdom.¹ We also have more than one million active monthly advertisers.² – up from 200,000 this time last year. And in the last month, over 120 million Instagrammers visited a website, received directions, called, emailed or direct-messaged to learn about a business.³

The community rallies around passions. People come to Instagram to follow their passions – from travel and fashion to food, entertainment and everything in between. And those passions extend to brands, with 80% of Instagrammers following a business today.⁴

Simplicity matters. Tools such as Boomerang and Hyperlapse help people and businesses to quickly develop compelling content. And with a mobile-first platform, placing an advert is easy too. It takes as little as four taps to create an advert from a business profile.

Visible action. The majority of advertisers and those using business tools are small businesses, such as SpearmintLOVE lead by Shari Lott, CEO and Founder, which is a far-reaching website for infant and toddler clothing and accessories. "Instagram gave us a chance to grow the business. From the beginning it was a community of fellow mums to help get the word out, then it was buyers tagging us in photos of products they think we'd like for the shop, to increasing sales through adverts that reach people who were interested but had yet to buy."

Then there's Suann Song, founder and creative designer of Appointed, a paper goods company based in Washington DC in the US. A designer at heart, Suann was inspired by paper she came across on her travels and decided to create her own line in 2015. The company started on Instagram by building awareness for its Kickstarter campaign. Most recently, to celebrate its second birthday, Appointed posted a product exclusive on Instagram, using a multi-image post and then selected the best-performing creative for an advert, nearly selling out the product. Appointed now offers more than 50 products and is available in 300 shops. "Of all the tools we use, Instagram's been instrumental in everything we do," says Song, "and Instagram will play an important part in how we double our revenue this year."

This year we plan to do more to help people meaningfully connect with businesses they care about on Instagram. We're starting with more insights on stories, posts saved and multi-post images, so that businesses such as Matchaeologist, a luxury matcha brand, can continue to gain perspective on its followers. Matchaeologist founders shared: "Insights have given us a new perspective on our followers – we thought many were based in the UK but found a significant number are in Hong Kong and Taiwan. We now post our content earlier, so we can catch people before they go to bed. As a result, we've seen an increase in engagement and sales from those regions, helping us take our business to more people around the world." And it's more than just insights that are helping the business – the company is also seeing a lot of people contact them through its profile. "Since switching to a business profile on Instagram, the number of people contacting us directly has increased: by phone, by email and via direct message."

To help Matchaeolgist, along with millions of other businesses all around the world, we plan to continue evolving Instagram business profiles. For example, we will roll out the ability to book a service with a business directly from its profile later this year.

View a preview of our booking feature below:

Video created by origami artist and Instagrammer @white_onrice