8 Powerful Instagram Tools To Boost Your Social Media Presence
August 15, 2019
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So you finally decided to take this whole social media thing seriously for your business.
Nobody wants to be left behind, and there’s no doubt – your business needs to be on social media. You’re probably already on Facebook and Twitter – and maybe Pinterestand LinkedIn – but what about some of those other networks you keep hearing about, specifically Instagram?
Isn’t it just for teens and photographers?
There’s a lot of buzz around Instagram these days, but the last thing you want to do is spend your time learning a new platform, only to find that everyone has moved on to the latest and greatest social network that you aren’t on.
Well, Instagram is owned by Facebook, and they paid a billion dollars for it in 2012 – so unlike some networks with an uncertain future – it’s a safe bet they’re going to be around for a while.
But with running a business, dealing with clients, customers, non-billable tasks and quite possibly employees, who has the time to dedicate to yet another social media platform?
Fortunately, Instagram has changed its stance on automated scheduling tools. So, below you’ll discover a bunch of scheduling tools that support direct publishing to Instagram, and some other great tools to boost your social media presence.
1. InstaRocket for Instagram
InstaRocket is a wonderful time-saver when it comes to managing your social media accounts. It lets you publish and schedule upcoming posts on Instagram.
This company offers automated Instagram promotion services for $7.95/month for up to two accounts. It handles likes, comments, posts, direct messages, follows, and unfollows for your accounts. Other plans are available for those with more accounts, priced at $19.95 for up to five accounts, and $39.95/month for up to 10 accounts.
2. Sendible
Sendible is a complete social media management tool so it goes far beyond simply allowing you to schedule & publish content directly to Instagram (and other social networks).
It’s a fully fledged Instagram management tool.
You can use Sendible to schedule updates, reply to your followers via a social media inbox, create analytics reports, or collaborate with your team.
And it’s a great solution for agencies too.
Want to schedule Instagram posts while you’re on the go? No problem. Sendible have a mobile app for that.
Just open the Compose box, select which Instagram account you want to post to, write your message, and then select the time you want to publish the post.
Sendible also makes it easy to create your own Instagram image or motivational quote by using their Canva integration. And you can publish videos direct to Instagram from Sendible.
For one user and up to 12 services, pricing on the Starter package starts at $25/month when billed annually (ideal for solopreneurs). If you run a large team or agency, you’ll find one of their higher tier packages more suitable.
Get a 30-day free trial of Sendible Read Review
3. Hootsuite
Hootsuite is similar to Buffer in that it allows you to publish directly to Instagram. But, this popular social media tool goes far beyond simply scheduling your posts.
Let’s look at a few other ways you can use Hootsuite:
1. Look at your competition
If you’re new to Instagram, one thing you can do is start following bloggers in your niche and those you admire and look up to.
By following your “competition,” you can gain insight into their marketing strategy. How many followers do they have and will it be realistic for you to achieve the same?
What types of posts does your competition publish? Is their Instagram feed full of personal posts of themselves or behind-the-scenes images of their business?
You can also see how engaging their posts are and how they are using hashtags to reach more people.
Hootsuite can help you monitor your competition easily, right on your dashboard.
2. Grow your engagement on Instagram
Growing your brand and presence on Instagram relies on how well you engage on this platform. It isn’t just all images and hashtags.
Hootsuite’s search streams make it easy to work on building a community of followers.
For example, if you create a branded hashtag like #myblogname or #myphrase, you can set up a hashtag search stream and easily see who is using your branded hashtag and like and comment on their posts.
If you want to find and follow influencers in your niche, you can set up user search streams for their profiles.
Hootsuite offers a free 30-day trial for 3 social profiles and paid options start for as little as $9/month for 10 social profiles, all the way up to $99/month for 50 social profiles.
Get HootSuite
4. Later.com
Later is another powerful scheduling tool for Instagram.
Later boasts that they are used by,”600,000 of the world’s top brands, agencies and influencers,” making it a very popular tool used by many bloggers, small businesses and entrepreneurs.
And they also provide an easy way of managing your comments on Instagram.
They offer a $0, Free Forever plan that lets you schedule up to 30 photo posts (no video) for one social profile per month. Paid options start at $9/month going all the way up to $49/month for unlimited posts for up to 5 social profiles.
Get Later
5. Tailwind
Tailwind is mostly known as an automated scheduling and analytics app for Pinterest, but they recently expanded their feature set to include Instagram scheduling.
With these new updates, Tailwind makes it easy to bulk schedule your Instagram posts using their drag-and-drop functionality.
One thing Tailwind’s Instagram scheduler has over other competing apps is their unique Smart Schedule functionality. Tailwind automatically recommends the optimal times to post, uniquely tailored to your Instagram account. This means posts are scheduled to go live when your audience is the most engaged and most likely to interact with your content.
And, just like Tailwind is an official Pinterest partner, they are also partnered with Instagram. This means you can feel confident your account will remain in good standing as they abide by Instagram’s Terms of Service.
Tailwind for Instagram Plus Plan is available for $15/month. If you already have a Plus Plan with Tailwind – most likely you do if you use their Pinterest functionality – you can trial the Instagram scheduler for free for up to 30 posts.
Get Tailwind
Okay, that’s it for the scheduling, management & analytics tools. Now, let’s take a look at other types of Instagram tools that you could find useful.
6. Shorby
Shorby is designed to help you get more out of your Instagram bio link.
Instagram is a great platform but that single bio link is somewhat limiting.
So, with this tool, you can add multiple clickable links via a mobile optimized landing page. Setup takes a few minutes. This could be links to your website, shop, specific blog posts, or something else. This type of tool has become extremely popular recently, and for good reason.
At Blogging Wizard, we use Shorby to promote content tailored specifically to our Instagram audience, whilst drawing attention to our recent posts and profiles on other social networks.
We also get analytics to track the traffic that Instagram is sending back to our site.
You can see an example of how this works by visiting @blogging.wizard on Instagram.
Shorby starts at $9/month. Higher plans are available which add features such as team members & Google Analytics integration.
Get Shorby
7. Hashtagify.me
While Hashtagify is more focused on Twitter hashtags, that doesn’t mean you can’t use their data to gain an advantage on Instagram.
Hashtags are hashtags, and what’s trending on one platform can easily be trending on another. Remember, your competitors might not be looking here too, so that’s another bonus.
Start by searching for your niche, blogging for example – it’s free. You’ll then be presented with a tag cloud, and each item is clickable, letting you go deeper into your niche to gather popular tags.
If you’re into numbers rather than visual representations, Table Mode supplies you with the data on how popular each hashtag is, the correlation between your search, and their weekly and monthly trend.
Hashtagify also offers Instagram tracking and helps you find the top related hashtags and influencers in your niche. There’s a 10-day free trial and if you want to upgrade, it’s $59/month for access to the hashtag library and labs, and tracking for Instagram.
Get Hashtagify
8. Iconosquare
Iconosquare gives you insights into your Instagram account and allows you to manage your Instagram activity.
If you really want to use Instagram as a marketing strategy for your blog or business, then Iconosquare can give you deep analytics into your account or accounts.
It measures follower growth, location, daily follower gain/loss, unfollows, and much more.
On top of that, you can see how your posts are performing by tracking comments and likes – as well as hashtags – to see how successful your posts are at engaging your followers and attracting new followers.
If you’re stuck trying to find the best hashtags for your post, Iconosquare’s got your back. You can use their service to search for hashtags as well as users so that your posts can reach more people.
And if you’re stuck with marketing tactics, Iconosquare can help you run Instagram contests.
Prices start at $9/month (per Instagram account) for the Plus package, which excludes hashtag and competitor tracking, and goes up to $990/year for the Corporate package which can track up to 5 hashtags and 7 competitors – with data export and the ability to run contests available.
Get Iconosquare
Wrapping it up
If you’re on the fence about using Instagram for your business, now’s the time to get started. With more users than Twitter and an increasing set of features like Stories, Instagram is becoming more popular than many established social media platforms.
And there are tools you can use to get started on Instagram quickly and effectively. You’ve got simple scheduling tools like Buffer with a free plan available, then you’ve got the more robust social media platforms like Sendible* that can take care of as little or as much as you want them to.
And if you’re struggling to find the best hashtags, Hashtagify give you the most popular, trending hashtags for your Instagram posts. Want in-depth analytics? try Iconosquare for your Instagram analytic needs.
Finally, if you want to get more out of your Instagram bio link, be sure to check out our post on tools to optimize and expand your Instagram bio link.