It's importance can be gauged by the fact that it is the world's largest mobile ad network. Instagram now has a community of over 500 million users liking over 4.2 billion photos and sharing over 95 million pictures daily. The format of Instagram makes it a great medium for visual story telling.
There are multitude of ways used by Brands to connect with fans, drive awareness and generate sales. Following are three key points
Content
Great content sells on Instagram. Check out the channels of Coca-Cola Argentina, Petco, FedEx & Frooti. They produce great content, share what goes on behind the scenes, employee stories etc. In case you are getting started, you can check out these 7 easy Instagram Marketing tips.
Contests on Instagram
Instagram contests are a great way to keep your followers engaged. Contests can be around your brand (such as some trivia), content you are sharing on Instagram, or even can be user generated content where you can ask consumers to take pictures about your product/brand and share it through a hashtag.
User Generated Content
Brand generated content and contests are a great way to engage with users. However remember that social media is not just about you. It is important to share user generated content and re-share posts by your community. You can learn more about it through this free 2 minute e-learning course How to increase engagement on Instagram?
You can also check out this 2 minute free e-learning course on How to Build a Brand on Instagram in 2 minutes. It is rich with examples.
This is an answer to a question on Quora on How do brands use Instagram to connect with fans?