8 Powerful Instagram Tools To Boost Your Social Media Presence
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 Pinterest and 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?
Despite what you may have read about Instagram’s stance on automated posting tools, there are still a handful of quality tools you can use to boost your Instagram presence and start recruiting prospects – and sending traffic to your website.
1. Buffer for Instagram
Buffer is a wonderful time-saver when it comes to managing your social media accounts. It lets you publish and schedule upcoming posts on multiple social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest – and provide in-depth analytics on your social campaigns.
Buffer’s Instagram integration is a little bit different, though.
Instagram doesn’t allow services like Buffer to publish posts on your behalf. You’re going to need a mobile device with the Instagram app installed and configured. You schedule your post through Buffer and, when the time comes, Buffer will send a push notification to your mobile device along with a preview of your image and a copy of your caption.
All you need to do is open Instagram, paste your caption and your post will go live.
You can use Buffer for Instagram for free for up to 10 scheduled posts. If you want more posting options, you can sign up for their Awesome plan for as little as $10/month for 10 social profiles and 100 scheduled posts.
2. Hootsuite
Hootsuite* is similar to Buffer, in that they don’t post to Instagram on your behalf. So to use Hootsuite for Instagram, you’re going to need a mobile device with the Instagram app configured.
Let’s look at how Hootsuite (and similar scheduling apps) can help you enhance your presence on Instagram.
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. Find the best times to post
You want to make sure that every image you post on Instagram will reach your followers and target audience. While you can use hashtags to help people find your posts, you can also post during the times your followers and target audience are on Instagram.
According to Hootsuite, 8pm Pacific is the best time for posting on Instagram.
3. 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.
3. Later.com
Later is another tool that’s similar to Buffer and Hootsuite in that it doesn’t automatically post for you.
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.
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.
4. 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.
Like all Instagram-approved publishing and scheduling apps, Tailwind cannot post to Instagram entirely on your behalf – like it can for Pinterest. Instead, it relies on push notifications sent to your mobile phone containing the post details. Therefore, it does require a bit of manual action on your part before a scheduled Instagram post goes live.
At this time, Tailwind has an iOS app available for iPhone users, but not one for Android users. You can, however, use the web based version on your desktop to set up your publishing schedule. This way, Tailwind can then send an SMS message with your Instagram photo and caption to your Android phone.
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.
5. Grum
Finally! An Instagram tool that allows you to post from your computer – Grum.
And while it’s still true Instagram doesn’t allow services to post on your behalf, Grum is somehow able to offer this service to its users.
According to them, “The secret sauce is – Grum works as the native Instagram app like you have the other phone with Instagram. That means you will not be banned because of us.” And Olman Quesada from SumoMe (who has an Instagram following of 92,000) confirmed, “We’ve been using Grum for over a year for our @SumoMe IG account and haven’t had any issues.”
The decision to try out Grum is a choice you’ll have to make. Grum feels they are not breaking any rules because the posts supposedly are made from the Instagram app – just not from your actual phone.
With that out of the way, let’s take a look at how services like Grum can be such time savers.
Grum makes it easy to manage your account since you can post and schedule right from your desktop. They have a user-friendly web interface with two options: upload your image or schedule your post.
One great feature Grum users have is the ability to hide hashtags in their first comment.
Usually, people flood the caption with hashtags since it helps expand the reach of your post. But, some people feel it can appear spammy and juvenile at times.
With Grum, you can place your hashtags in your first comment by clicking on the comment bubble when you create your post.
Other features include unlimited scheduling and images, and the ability to post to multiple accounts without the need to log in to Instagram and switch your account.
Grum has a 3-day free trial and after that, if you decide that it’s worth it (which it is!), prices start at $9.95/month for 2 accounts.
6. 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 to 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.
7. 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.
8. TagsForLikes
Anybody who uses Instagram knows that it’s all about the hashtags. According to Buffer, photos with 11+ hashtags receive the most interactions. Currently, you can use up to 30 hashtags in a comment.
TagsForLikes curates the most popular hashtags from Instagram and organizes them into categories and subcategories like Family, Kids, Art, Photography, Music, Video Games, and much more.
TagsForLikes is also available as an app for iOS and Android, enabling you to quickly search, assemble and copy popular hashtags to your mobile device’s clipboard for easy pasting into your Instagram post.
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. While most of the popular scheduling tools really only send a notification to your phone when it’s time to post to Instagram, services like Grum can actually do the posting for you.
And if you’re struggling to find the best hashtags, both Hashtagify and TagsForLikes give you the most popular, trending hashtags for your Instagram posts.
Finally, if you want in-depth analytics, try Iconosquare for your Instagram analytic needs.
Over to you – are you on Instagram yet for your blog or business? Tell us what your favorite Instagram tool is.
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The post 8 Powerful Instagram Tools To Boost Your Social Media Presence appeared first on Blogging Wizard.
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