Instagram only continues to grow in popularity for sharing images and videos, which means it’s a great platform for your brand to reach a larger audience.
About 1.22 billion people use Instagram each month, and Instagram is the ninth most-Googled search term, which is a signal that the platform’s content is being viewed in browsers outside of the app as well.
So, what does your brand’s Instagram audience look like? Are they engaged? Do you have a strong reach?
Using the right Instagram tools can help you be more efficient and effective on the platform and boost your followers. The following are some of the best Instagram tools we recommend you check out to see what works best for your social media marketing strategy.
Repost
Instagram doesn’t have what some would consider more traditional sharing features, so Repost is tool that not only satisfies that need but helps you automatically credit the original poster.
It’s a free app with available in-app purchases (if desired) that does not have a desktop interface.
The value of interacting with user-generated posts by sharing and providing credit at the same time shows that you as a brand value them and their input. Other features include the ability to bookmark content and search for images by hashtag or a specific user’s name.
Crowdfire
Crowdfire is part social media management tool and part content-discovery engine. While the free version only allows you to manage one platform through the app, its premium subscriptions can manage up to 50 social media profiles across multiple social media platforms.
Crowdfire also features a Chrome browser extension that helps you quickly share articles and curate content for posting. A great feature for Instagram is Crowdfire’s image curation feature, which gives recommendations of images to share on your Instagram account. The recommended images are already approved by creators, so you don’t have to worry about copyright.
In addition, you get hashtag recommendations, analytics and the ability to custom tailor posts by platform.
Combin
Complete focused on Instagram account management, Combin offers both follower-growth and scheduling features. You can test the main features with its free version, but the paid subscriptions offer more for engaging Instagram users.
Combin allows you to search through Instagram by hashtags, location and followers. This allows you to keep an eye on your competitors’ comments as well. (See more about how to conduct your first competitive analysis plus 16 recommended tools.)
Therefore, Combin helps you target specific users and get insight into what your target audience engages with most as well as how your competition is engaging with their followers. You can see various comments across multiple accounts in one place. Plus, Combin offers analytics.
Woobox
Woobox is a great tool for creating engagement opportunities for your Instagram audience. However, keep in mind that the free version only allows limited Facebook interactions. You’ll have to choose a paid subscription to access the Instagram features.
Woobox enables you to promote polls, giveaways, coupons and more. In other words, it helps you become even more social on social media. For example, you can even age-gate your contests and feedback if your brand is not geared toward a particular age group.
Truly, this tool is about bringing gamification to your Instagram presence.
Hootsuite
A powerful social media management and social listening tool, Hootsuite has a hair more options in its free version than most tools, but the most powerful features are available in its paid subscriptions.
Hootsuite gives you the opportunity to manage multiple profiles, monitor interactions and hashtags (among other conversations) and more by setting up tabs to organize your social media management.
Additional apps can be integrated (such as Asana) into your Hootsuite account to streamline your workflow.
For Instagram, Hootsuite empowers you to now only create and schedule posts but monitor popular hashtags and search terms on the platform, all in one place, where you can comment and reply as well.
Foursixty
Looking to make more sales from your Instagram audience? Consider Foursixty, which is a tool that can turn your feed into a gallery where users can view and shop through your images. You can try it with a 21-day free trial, but otherwise it is a paid tool.
A strength of Foursixty is its ability to monitor anytime anyone tags or mentions your brand or product and curate all of that and sort by performance, which can be a time-saving method for gathering user-generated content.
Check out our 10 tips to generate more user-generated content.
Other features include Digital Rights Management so that you don’t have to worry about copyright and its ability to track influencer marketing, which helps you discover new influencers through Instagram while getting a better understanding of their engagement. Partnering with high-quality influencers can definitely help you grow your Instagram following.
See our seven tips you should know before starting your first influencer marketing campaign.
Later
Later is a social media management tool with a visual focus, perfect for Instagram. Its free version allows you to explore, but some key features are tied to its paid subscriptions.
You can use it to schedule photo and video posts while tagging locations and users. Later also includes hashtag suggestions and Instagram Story management.
Part of its analytics capabilities has hashtag monitoring. This means you can see the statistical information about tags and identify the ones that work best for your brand and/or campaign. In addition, Later shows the best times to post according to the activity of your target audience.
If you’re in the retail industry, consider Later’s Linkedin Bio landing page. This feature resembles your Instagram feed and enables users to shop easier. This integrates with Google Analytics so that your can better understand the relationship between your Instagram posts and sales.
Check out the 14 biggest mistakes businesses make on Instagram (and how you can avoid them).
