Speaking at an Instagram media gathering event in Jakarta earlier this week, Jangkar said he had used the social media platform since he first launched Port Blue in October 2015.

The Surabaya-based company uses Instagram as its main advertising platform, where the handle @portblueshoes is registered as a business account and currently has over 81,000 followers.

Operating without a specialized marketing team or a photo studio, Jangkar said the company took full advantage of the business tools to make an average of Rp 500 million (US$37,518) to 600 million in sales per month.

All the necessary analytics data can be easily accessed when making business decisions, especially for advertising, where he said the company had assigned a budget of Rp 70 million to 80 million per month for Instagram and Facebook.

"With Instagram's Insights tools, we can know which posts are most popular and engaging; and based on that data, we choose the images to use in advertising," Jangkar said on Wednesday, adding that the company had been placing ads on the platform's feeds since June 2016.

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Indonesia has been ranked as Instagram's biggest market in Asia Pacific, making it a lucrative tool for reaching customers and potential buyers.

More Indonesian companies are tapping into the platform, which hosts around 45 million active users in Indonesia each month, to tap into potential markets.

Additionally, Southeast Asia's largest economy also produces on average twice as many Instagram Stories as any other country in the world.

Susan Rose, Instagram headquarters' product marketing director, said that running a business successfully on Instagram started by registering a business account, as this gives access to a range of necessary and informative tools.

With 700 million active users globally on a monthly basis, she said the image-sharing platform had also become a hub to spark exploration through its visual experience.

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People go to Instagram to see something that is relevant to them, Rose added, noting that users follow more than just friends and family, but also a diverse mix of accounts, such as businesses, influencers and publishers.

"And what this means is that they're really crafting their Instagram experience to reflect what their passions are," Rose said.

Online shopping site Blibli.com in February this year became the first company in Indonesia to use the Story platform to advertise by creating eye-catching content to last for the 24-hour time limit.

Lani Rahayu, Blibli.com's senior marketing communications and PR manager, found that the creative and personalized elements used in engaging consumers were key in helping to raise brand awareness and revenue.

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The company had learned from past mistakes in posting images with too much text or hard sell promotions, Lani said, by now crafting content that was more visually pleasing with a personal touch, even involving employees as their models in the stories to create an authentic experience.

Campaign results delivered a 22-point lift in ad recall and a sevenfold increase in message association, Lani said, which means audiences were able to recognize the promotions and found relevance between the product and the message behind the stories that created interest in purchasing.

"The key take-away from this is craft and personalize your content to engage with audiences," Lani said. (kes)

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