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According to Instagram, over 2 million businesses use their platform to connect with their audiences. While other social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, are great for sharing and promoting content, Instagram is a way to humanize your brand.

It's not too late to get your business set up with Instagram, but when you do, it's important to go about it in the right way. Initial steps like writing your bio, experimenting with the best times to post, and which hashtags to use are all important to a successful Instagram account. You will also need to consider what the goal of your business' Instagram account is and be willing to experiment with different features like Instagram Reels and Stories.

AI-Referred Traffic Trends

See how much traffic answer engines are sending to websites.

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A traffic dip isn't always your fault. This chart helps you find out.

The numbers here show what's happening across the industry, not for your brand specifically. The way to get the most out of this chart is to compare it to your own traffic data — once you know what the industry is doing, you can figure out what it means for you:

Industry traffic is up, but you're flat or declining: You may be losing traffic share compared to your competitors. That's a signal to audit your AEO coverage, specifically looking at which engines are sending traffic, and whether your content is showing up in their answers. A good next step is to check the Citation Share Trends chart to see which content types are earning the most citations right now. Compare that against what you're actually publishing.
Industry traffic is down, and so are you: Likely a market-wide shift rather than a strategy problem. Check the Answer Engine Volatility Tracker to see if conditions changed that week. If they did, that context is probably your answer.
Industry traffic is down, but you're holding steady or growing: Your strategy is outperforming the market average. Take note of what you've been doing differently, because it's working.

Review each answer engine to see whether one is driving the traffic trend more than the others. Sometimes the picture looks very different depending on which platform you're looking at.

AI Visibility Benchmarks by Industry

See how often brands in your industry are appearing in AI search results, and whether that’s changing over time. Get insights into a company’s and across multiple weeks.

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Use the brands you recognize to calibrate what's realistic in your industry.

The companies shown aren't necessarily competitors — they're familiar names chosen to give you a meaningful benchmark. When you select your industry, you're not watching a race. You're getting a baseline for what typical AI visibility looks like and how wide is the spread between brands.

In some industries, the top performers sit well above 70% visibility while others cluster around 30%. In others, the field is much tighter. Once you know the range, use it as a comparison point for your own brand. Pick a company in your industry that you'd consider a household name and note where they're sitting. If your own visibility score is tracking close to theirs, you're in the conversation. If you're well below them, you have a clear sense of how much ground there is to make up. And, if you're above them, that's a meaningful signal that your AEO strategy is working.

Toggle between Visibility Score and Citation Share to see both sides of the picture. A brand can be frequently named in AI answers without being cited as a source, meaning they have a strong, reputable presence across the web but a weaker content strategy. Inversely, if a brand is cited heavily without being named, they have a significant catalog of well structured content, but they need to improve their authority — or why someone should choose to buy their products & services.

Answer Engine Volatility Tracker

Track how AI answer engines are changing brand visibility. Get a daily snapshot based on mention, citation, and AI-referred traffic data to understand whether visibility shifts are market-wide — or a sign that your own AEO strategy needs attention.

.aeo-tt-chart .aeo-chart-loading, .aeo-tt-chart { display: none; }

Calm (0–29)

Moderate (30–59)

Elevated (60–89)

Extreme (90+)

Your weather report for AI engines.

When something looks off in your own AEO metrics, check here for what the market is experiencing. A spike in volatility means the engines have changed. How many links they show, how often they name brands, what sites or content they reference most, and how much traffic they send can all be shifting.

Use the score alongside your own data to diagnose what's actually happening:

Score is Elevated or Extreme, and your metrics dropped: Likely a market-wide shift. Focus on understanding what changed before making any adjustments to your strategy — reacting too quickly to engine-level changes often creates more disruption than the change itself.
Score is Calm, but your metrics dropped: This is worth investigating. The market is stable, which means the shift is more likely specific to your brand or content. That's the moment to look at your citation share and visibility data more closely.
Score is Elevated or Extreme, but your metrics are holding: Your content is weathering the shift better than average. Take note of what you've been doing, because it's working.

Watch for what's shifting, not just what's dominant.

Content Type:

This view shows which formats of content — blogs, comparison pages, documentation, guides, and others — are being cited most in AI-generated answers each week.

The content types holding the largest share tell you what AI engines are currently treating as authoritative. But another actionable signal is movement. A content type steadily growing its share week over week is one the engines have started favoring more recently — and a format potentially worth investing in if you're not already publishing it regularly. Equally, a content type that's shrinking is one losing favor, which may mean deprioritizing it isn't as risky as it once seemed.

When you see a significant shift, cross-reference it with the Volatility Tracker. A sudden change in the mix during an Elevated or Extreme week usually means the engine updated how it weights certain content. That shift is likely affecting everyone, not just you.

Channel:

This view shows which types of sources AI engines are pulling citations from — owned content (your website), earned media, review sites, affiliates, UGC, and others.

The most important thing this chart communicates is that AEO isn't just about what's on your website. AI engines pull from the entire web when deciding what to cite. In many cases, third-party sources like review sites, affiliates, and others carry significant weight in what gets surfaced.

If you look at this chart and see review sites or affiliates holding a large or growing share vs. owned, that's a signal that AI engines in your space are trusting what others say about brands more than what brands say about themselves. If your current strategy is focused entirely on your own content, this chart is telling you there's a meaningful piece of the picture you're not influencing.

On the flip side, if owned content is consistently strong in your industry, that's validation that investing in your own site — your blog, your product pages, your documentation — is the right place to focus.

Use this view to pressure-test where your effort is going. If the channels gaining share are ones you're not active in, that's the gap worth closing first.

Affiliate: Affiliate sites, where you can pay to have your content published
Competitor: Competitor domains, from the competitors set up during onboarding
Earned: Earned media, including news or PR
Owned: Your own domain
Peer: Peer sites are product/service companies that are not your direct competitors
Review sites: Third-party platforms where users rate and review products, such as G2, Capterra, and Trustpilot.
UGC: User Generated Content sites such as Youtube / Reddit

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AI-Referred Traffic Trends

See how much traffic answer engines are sending to websites.

.aeo-ai-traffic-tracker-chart .aeo-chart-loading, .aeo-ai-traffic-tracker-chart { display: none; }

A traffic dip isn't always your fault. This chart helps you find out.

Industry traffic is up, but you're flat or declining: You may be losing traffic share compared to your competitors. That's a signal to audit your AEO coverage, specifically looking at which engines are sending traffic, and whether your content is showing up in their answers. A good next step is to check the Citation Share Trends chart to see which content types are earning the most citations right now. Compare that against what you're actually publishing.
Industry traffic is down, and so are you: Likely a market-wide shift rather than a strategy problem. Check the Answer Engine Volatility Tracker to see if conditions changed that week. If they did, that context is probably your answer.
Industry traffic is down, but you're holding steady or growing: Your strategy is outperforming the market average. Take note of what you've been doing differently, because it's working.

Review each answer engine to see whether one is driving the traffic trend more than the others. Sometimes the picture looks very different depending on which platform you're looking at.

AI Visibility Benchmarks by Industry

See how often brands in your industry are appearing in AI search results, and whether that’s changing over time. Get insights into a company’s and across multiple weeks.

#industry-aeo-performance-chart .aeo-chart-loading, #industry-aeo-performance-chart { display: none; }

Use the brands you recognize to calibrate what's realistic in your industry.

Answer Engine Volatility Tracker

.aeo-tt-chart .aeo-chart-loading, .aeo-tt-chart { display: none; }

Calm (0–29)

Moderate (30–59)

Elevated (60–89)

Extreme (90+)

Your weather report for AI engines.

Use the score alongside your own data to diagnose what's actually happening:

Score is Elevated or Extreme, and your metrics dropped: Likely a market-wide shift. Focus on understanding what changed before making any adjustments to your strategy — reacting too quickly to engine-level changes often creates more disruption than the change itself.
Score is Calm, but your metrics dropped: This is worth investigating. The market is stable, which means the shift is more likely specific to your brand or content. That's the moment to look at your citation share and visibility data more closely.
Score is Elevated or Extreme, but your metrics are holding: Your content is weathering the shift better than average. Take note of what you've been doing, because it's working.

*Daily volatility based on mention rate, citation rate, citation type, and AI-referred traffic compared to rolling averages from ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity. This data represents directional trends of how brand visibility changes within AI responses. Daily volatility scores may fluctuate slightly for three days from the current day.

Watch for what's shifting, not just what's dominant.

Content Type:

This view shows which formats of content — blogs, comparison pages, documentation, guides, and others — are being cited most in AI-generated answers each week.

Channel:

This view shows which types of sources AI engines are pulling citations from — owned content (your website), earned media, review sites, affiliates, UGC, and others.

Use this view to pressure-test where your effort is going. If the channels gaining share are ones you're not active in, that's the gap worth closing first.

Affiliate: Affiliate sites, where you can pay to have your content published
Competitor: Competitor domains, from the competitors set up during onboarding
Earned: Earned media, including news or PR
Owned: Your own domain
Peer: Peer sites are product/service companies that are not your direct competitors
Review sites: Third-party platforms where users rate and review products, such as G2, Capterra, and Trustpilot.
UGC: User Generated Content sites such as Youtube / Reddit

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Discover

We expect to see a significant shift from traditional methods of searching and clicking to a more interactive and personalized approach on social. Customers will no longer rely on manual searches to find information from companies. Instead, they’ll prompt AI systems to provide them with tailored information that precisely matches their specific needs. This shift towards a more personalized and dynamic content experience empowers customers to receive tailored information that precisely matches their specific needs. As a result, the discovery process has become more efficient and meaningful, enhancing the customer journey from the very beginning.

Where people spend their time, how people buy, and how people share information is all different. Plus, what consumer data companies have access to, the quality of data that’s available, and the ability that companies have to act on that data has all changed. Folks are no longer meeting customers where they are at or with the context they need. As a result, we see in the market that lead generation is slowing, sales response rates are declining, and retention rates are dipping.

In fact, 93% of business leaders report less-than-ideal connection with their data, system, internal teams, and with their prospects and customers.

That's why HubSpot and Agorapulse have paired up to bring you this guide, where we look at all of the steps to getting started with Instagram for your business, from determining your brand guidelines to the anatomy of the perfect Instagram post. We also have a special guest chapter from world-renowned Instagram expert Jenn Herman to help you navigate Instagram's algorithms as they update.