How To Increase Your Instagram Reach In 2025: A Guide For SMBs

Instagram is not just a place to post pictures anymore; for small and medium businesses (SMBs), it is a strategic channel to boost awareness, engage audiences and drive growth. If you are wondering how to increase your Instagram reach in 2025, you are in the right place. With ever evolving algorithms, shifting content formats and intensified competition for attention, having a deliberate, up-to-date strategy is more important than ever.

So what exactly does it mean to increase your Instagram reach? Simply put: reach is the number of unique accounts that see your content. For SMBs, increasing reach means delivering your brand message to more of the right people and not just more people in general. 

With that in mind, the rest of this guide will walk you through actionable strategies designed especially for SMBs: from optimising your profile and content, leveraging new features, to tapping into tools and partnerships that expand your footprint. By the end, you will have a clear roadmap for how to increase your Instagram reach in 2025, tailored to your business size and goals.

Let’s dive in.

1. The Basics: Profile, Bio And Branding

Before you start chasing bigger numbers, make sure your foundation is solid. Many SMBs underestimate how much their Instagram profile acts as a first impression and a discoverability engine.

• Optimise your profile name and handle: Use keywords that your target audience might search for.
• Craft a compelling bio: Your bio should convey who you are, what you do, who you serve and a clear call-to-action (CTA). E.g., “Handmade accessories for Nigeria’s bold women. Shop via Link-in-Bio.”
• Consistent branding & visuals: Your profile picture, highlight covers and feed aesthetic should reflect your brand identity. 
• Switch to a Business or Creator account: That unlocks analytics and features that let you see who is looking at your content and optimize accordingly.
• Use keywords in your bio: Instagram is increasingly supporting search via keywords, so including relevant ones helps more people find you organically.

One strong foundation makes everything else much easier when you execute the tactics for how to increase your Instagram reach.

2. Understand Your Audience & Set Clear Goals

You cannot effectively increase your reach without first clarifying who you’re trying to reach and why. SMBs often try to speak to “everyone” and end up speaking to no one.

• Define your target audience: Think demographics (age, gender), psychographics (interests, pain points), location (especially if local).
• Research their behaviours on Instagram: What type of content do they engage with? What hashtags do they follow? When are they online?
• Set clear goals: “Increase reach” by itself is vague. Set specific, measurable targets like “Reach 5000 unique accounts per month by December 2025” or “Grow reach by 20% next quarter”.
• Benchmark your current reach: Use Instagram Insights to see how many unique accounts your posts currently reach, what formats perform best, and when your audience is most active.
• Use analytics to iterate: As noted in the SMB Marketing Hub’s recent guide, optimising your profile, content and performance is key to growth. 

When your audience and goals are clear, your strategies to increase your Instagram reach become much more focused — you’ll spend less time shooting in the dark and more time executing with direction.

3. Content Strategy: Formats, Frequency & Value

Now you are ready to focus on what you post and how often. Great content is the core of any strategy for how to increase your Instagram reach.

• Mix formats: In 2025, focus on a combination of posts (single images), carousels (multiple slides), Reels (short-form video) and Stories. Research shows Reels continue to be a major driver of reach expansion. 
• Quality over quantity: It’s better to post fewer high-value pieces than frequent mediocre ones. According to business.com’s 2025 best-practices guide: “Focus on creating authentic, high-quality content that resonates with your specific audience … rather than trying to appeal to everyone.” 
• Post consistently: Determine a cadence that you can maintain (e.g., 3 posts + 2 Reels + Stories every week) and stick to it. Consistency builds momentum and helps the algorithm.
• Provide value: Educational content, behind-the-scenes, user stories, product use cases, community features — these types of posts perform better than straight-sales content.
• Use hooks and storytelling: Especially in the first 3 seconds of a Reel or the first slide of a carousel. Make your content stop the scroll.
• Repurpose smartly: You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. If a blog post, webinar clip or customer testimonial worked elsewhere, repurpose for Instagram — as a Reel, carousel or Story highlight.

By making your content strategy deliberate and consistent, you’ll be better positioned to increase your Instagram reach effectively.

4. Master Hashtags, Captions & Discoverability

One of the most under-used areas for small businesses looking to increase reach is optimisation of hashtags, captions and discoverability features. These help you break through not just to your followers but to new audiences.

• Hashtag strategy: Use a mix of broad (e.g., #smallbusiness), niche (e.g., #NaijaFashionBlogger), and branded hashtags (#YourBrandName). As highlighted in Sprout Social’s 2025 strategy guide: “A well-researched Instagram hashtag strategy is essential for discoverability.” 
• Use geotags: Especially if you operate locally (e.g., Lagos, Ikeja, Nigeria). Geotags improve visibility in location-based searches.
• Optimise captions for search: Instagram is increasing its internal search capabilities and using keywords within captions and comments helps your content surface. Recent commentary from Instagram’s head emphasises growing focus on search as a driver of reach. 
• Caption length & style: Write captions that encourage engagement and sales, ask a question, invoke emotion, include a clear CTA (“DM now”, “Comment your favourite”, “Save for later”).
• Tag relevant accounts/creators: If you mention collaborators, brands, customers, tag them. Their shares help expand reach.
• Use alt-text & image descriptions: For accessibility and search signals.

Optimizing how your content is labelled and surfaced can make a big difference in how many people see it which is central to increasing your Instagram reach.

5. Engage Deeply: Community, Partnerships & UGC

Reach is not just about broadcasting, it is about connection. The more genuinely you engage with users, collaborators, and your community, the more your reach will benefit.

• Reply to comments & DMs quickly: The faster and more meaningful your responses, the more the algorithm will favour your content because it sees strong engagement.
• Encourage sharing: When someone shares your post in DMs or to their Story, Instagram sees that as a strong signal for reach. 
• Collaborations & influencer micro-partnerships: Partner with creators or other SMBs whose audiences overlap with yours. This introduces your brand to new eyes. 
• User-Generated Content (UGC): Encourage customers to tag your brand, share their use of your product/service, and repost that content. This builds authenticity and expands your reach to their network. 
• Participate in niche conversations: Comment on posts from creators in your niche (not just your competitors)
• Run engagement-driven formats: Polls, Q&As, quizzes in Stories, “tag a friend” posts; these prompt actions help boost reach.

Community-centric engagement is one of the most sustainable ways to increase your Instagram reach rather than relying only on paid ads.

6. Leverage Instagram Ads, Reels & Emerging Features

To increase your Instagram reach in 2025, you’ll need to lean into newer features and consider smart paid strategies where your budget allows. Instagram’s algorithm changes each year, and features like Reels, Live Audio Rooms or Affiliate Shops offer new reach opportunities.

• Prioritise Reels: Instagram continues favouring short-form video, which has surfaced in multiple places (Feed, Explore, Reels tab). 
• Use Instagram Live & Guides: Lives generate strong engagement signals; after a Live, repurpose it into a Reel or IGTV for extended reach.
• Try Instagram Shopping & Affiliate Links: If you sell products, switching on shopping features makes you discoverable via product tags and Explore.
• Paid ads with optimisation: With small budgets, target custom audiences and promote content that already shows strong organic performance. Paid reach helps your content get into new feeds and the algorithm may then treat it favorably for organic distribution.
• Explore new features early: Instagram rewards early adopters of new feature sets.
• Cross-promote other channels: Use email marketing, website, other social platforms to drive traffic to your Instagram posts; this external momentum helps reach. 

By combining organic and paid tactics, and using newer features strategically, you’ll cast a wider net while ensuring the right people see your content.

7. Measure, Analyse & Iterate for Continuous Growth

The final piece of the puzzle in how to increase your Instagram reach is data-driven iteration. Reaching new audiences is not a one-time event — it is an ongoing cycle of measure → learn → optimise.

• Use Instagram Insights and/or external analytics tools: Look at reach (unique accounts), impressions, profile visits, content saves, shares, follower growth. 
• Track what type of content delivers the highest reach: Is it Reels? Carousels? Single image posts? At what times? Which hashtags?
• Use A/B testing: Try different formats or captions and compare reach.
• Monitor audience activity: Learn when your audience is most active and schedule posts accordingly. Story-reach research shows timing matters. 
• Adjust your strategy based on data: If certain hashtags are not delivering, change them. If engagement drops, revisit caption strategy or visual format.
• Document your learnings and update your content calendar: For SMBs, having a repeatable process is key. Small teams benefit from streamlined workflows. Hootsuite’s guide for small business social media strategy emphasises the importance of tactical planning and analytics for SMB success. 
• Set realistic KPIs: Reach growth might be slow for SMBs but you will get there. Celebrate small wins and compound them over time.

Continuous improvement keeps your growth sustainable. You are not just trying to increase your Instagram reach once, you are building a system that does so repeatedly and reliably.

8. Use Smart Growth Tools to Amplify Reach

Since you are reading this as an SMB ready to scale intelligently, one more lever worth mentioning is the use of growth tools. Platforms like Owlet offer features designed to help businesses buy likes, views and boost engagement. By increasing early engagement on key posts, you give the algorithm a stronger signal, which can translate into extended reach.

However, the real power comes when you combine tool-driven support with high-value content, authentic community engagement and analytics driven iteration.

Conclusion

Increasing your Instagram reach in 2025 is not about going viral overnight, it is about a smart, consistent approach tuned to your business, your audience and the platform’s evolving dynamics. By laying the foundation with an optimised profile, understanding your audience, creating valuable content, leveraging hashtags and features, engaging your community deeply, and continuously analysing your performance, you will be well on your way to substantial reach growth.

If you have already read our article on How To Make Money On Instagram In Nigeria, you will recognise that strong reach is the first step towards monetization; when more people see you, more people engage, follow and eventually convert. Bringing those pieces together is what turns reach into real business impact.

For SMBs, the advantage lies in agility and authenticity. Big brands may outspend you, but you can out-connect them. Use your community, your story, and your niche to build real relationships. Keep iterating, keep learning, and keep showing up. Your next level of Instagram reach is right around the corner.