It has been a few weeks, and we’re still in the afterglow of Instagram adding videos to the popular photo sharing app, and the jury is still out on whether these changes were well received by the majority of users. The question now becomes— is Facebook taking too long to recover some of their $1 billion dollar investment? According to Forbes, there are still no plans for formal video ads, despite Facebook adding the 15-second videos totheir arsenal of advertising mediums.

I think Instagram is missing a tremendous advertising opportunity that could significantly impact the way users consume video, as well as how brands interact with existing and potential customers. According to early numbers, over 5 million videos were uploaded within the first 24 hours of the video launch, with brands like Burberry, Red Vines, and Tony Hawk leading the boards.  Instagram can not only reignite the age-old digital strategy of user-generated videos, it could also propel Facebook into the number one spot for video platforms, beating Youtube.

How to Build Your Instagram Following

Be Active:

I’ll start out with what I’ve already told you about. If you want to build your following you’ve got to be active. To get popular on social media try to buy real Instagram followers and then post a lot. Check out your feed daily and interact with the people you are following. Follow people back if their feeds are interesting to you, like and comment on people’s images, check out hashtags that interest you, and just have fun. You’ll get your Instagram name out there more and you will become more familiar to people which will get them to stop by your feed or comment on yours more frequently.

Hint: Want to find posts you’ve liked in the past? When you’re on your profile page, click on the settings gear in the upper right corner. Under the account section you should see a section called Posts You’ve Liked, click on it to expand it and there is a full list of all the posts you’ve liked!

Make Your Account Public:

If you are a blogger who wants to be found, you need to have a public Instagram account. If you want a separate one to keep private for pictures of your kids and things only relevant to family and friends, then please make a separate account, but keep your blog account public. You will get less followers if people can’t see the content of the account they’re trying to follow

Additionally, for brands like Burberry, the direct impact on sales could be harder to gauge. However, sponsored ad content could have great impact for mass-consumer brands like Tony Hawk. His brand could easily showcase new product demos, which according to a study by Invoodo, 52 percent of consumers say that watching a product video makes them more confident in online purchase decisions.

The implications for sponsored videos are pretty clear for the still-young social network. Whether it’s demoing a product, asking for customers to show off their skills with a product, or simply brand awareness,  hopefully they’ll show up to the party sooner than later.