By Susan Goodwin

We all love Instagram, those pocket-sized sneaky peaks into other peoples lives, giving us the opportunity to travel the world, eat all the good things, and see abundant creativity.

It is also a great way to share your own creativity, and if you want to grow an audience for your creative business, then Instagram can be a useful tool to achieve that.

First, a few things to consider:

• Is your account a business account? Are you using it to drive more sales/awareness/and audience to what you do?
• What parts of your life overlap with your business, that add character and richness to your creativity and bring your story to life?
• Is your account name the same as your Twitter/Facebook/blog/Pinterest name?
• What other Instagram accounts do you really enjoy, and why? Do they have beautiful composition, amazing styling, gorgeous photos?

Being strategic about what you post may sound a little less "insta" than you are used to with an Instagram account. However, if you want to use it as a tool to grow your business, then a crazy mash up of last night's leftovers, photos taken in the dark and endless photos of your family or your pets may not necessarily drive sales to your door.

Having a goal and finding the steps to reach it starts with analysis. Enter Statigram. Here, you can find statistics on your Instagram profile, such as who has started following you and who has jumped ship, your 'like' rates, which posts get the most interaction, and it even gives you a handy little graph which shows when the people in your Instagram community are most likely to be online.

Now that you have all this data you can start to use Instagram more effectively.

• Post at the times your community is around for maximum effect.
• Post more of the images your audience likes to see.
• If the images of your work are not getting the most love, then consider different angles of photography, styling in an unusual way or using videos to show how you do things.
• Hashtags may look ugly but good ones can bring a new audience to you. Try searching for your tag and using it occasionally to bring in a new crowd.

You will soon find Statigram as addictive as Instagram. It will place all the information to grow your audience at your fingertips.

(P.S. This post was NOT sponsored by Statigram or Instagram, we just like their websites.)

Susan Goodwin is the designer, sewer and creator of Rocket Fuel, ensuring you are decked out in style while cycling. Read her blog or follow her on Twitter @rocketfuelstyle.

Photo credit: images from Measure Twice Cut Once