It’s no secret that Instagram is one of my all time favorite social media platforms. I’ve been working hard over the past few months to build up both my following and engagement on Instagram. It’s been a lot of trial and error, but I think I have finally found my groove to continuously growing my followers and engagement. I am always working to find ways to maximize Instagram especially since the algorithm change a few months ago so I thought it was about time that I shared the best tools for Instagram with you.
Best Tools for Instagram
Plann
I mentioned this app in my post about the best tools for running your business but it’s honestly so good it needs to be mentioned more than once. I use this to plan out my Instagram feed for both Confetti Social and Breakfast at Lilly’s. Unfortunately it doesn’t manually post for you because that’s against Instagram’s terms of service to do this but it sends a push notification to your phone when its time for you to post. It also has a place to store hashtags which really saves me because it was so irritating to constantly copy and paste my hashtag sets from my notes section of my phone. While I use Plann for my accounts, I use either Later or Planoly for my client accounts. I have heard decent things about UNUM from others but wasn’t exactly a fan myself when I tested it out but it could work well for you.
When to Post App
I use the aforementioned app to figure out when my audience is online so that I’m posting at the optimal times and maximizing my chances of getting my photos and account seen. WhentoPost allows for you to add multiple accounts so that’s always handy since some of us have more than one Instagram account to our name. I’m currently managing 3+ Instagram accounts (with a 4th to come soon) so any app that lets me add multiple accounts without any extra fees is a winner in my book.
Followers+
This is the app I use to track my engagement and followers/unfollowers. It shows me how well each individual photo performs so I am able to gauge what’s working and what isn’t in terms of hashtags and all of that jazz. Followers+ also shows me who’s following me and who isn’t along with my lost followers and people blocking me among other things so to say that this is a handy app is certainly an understatement.
Photo Editing App
I typically use a few different editing apps to get my images exactly how I want them. The ones I use regularly are Afterlight, SnapSeed, A Color Story, and FaceTune for whitening my photos. I will be the first to admit that I am still not very happy with my photography skills but I’m working to improve them each and every day. By the end of 2017, I want to feel extremely confident with both my photography and editing skills.
Telegram
Although this app isn’t specifically for Instagram, I have been experimenting with Telegram lately to manage some Instagram engagement groups (which is something I will be talking more in depth about in the near future). Because Instagram DMs only allow 15 people in a group, moving some of my engagement pods to Telegram has been helpful because there isn’t a max amount of people per group so you only need one or two groups versus ten.
Your Turn:
What are your best tools for Instagram? Please feel free to let me know down in the comments.
PS-I’m doing some market research on social media and would love to have you guys input. Please fill out this survey to the best of your ability. It will really help me shape my products and services to your wants and needs.
[typeform_embed url=”https://confettisocial.typeform.com/to/RWTsYK” type=”embed” style=”link”]
