10 Popular Instagram Tools to Up Your Marketing Game You want consistency, engagement and results. Here's how to accomplish all three.
By Rotem Gal Edited by Heather Wilkerson
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
For businesses running social media marketing campaigns and influencers looking to build their audience and get clients, just having a popular account is not enough. Instagram tools are an absolute must if you want to gain traction on the platform.
Building a successful social media presence requires both strong analytics to inform your campaigns and powerful automation that keeps your content fresh even if you don't have the time to create and publish it yourself.
Your business is unique, and so is your audience. Thus, not every business is going to benefit from every Instagram tool on this list. As a matter of fact, your company may only need one or two of these Instagram tools to accomplish your goals.
Related: Could You Be Making (or Multiplying) Your Income With Instagram?
The three metrics that matter
Regardless of your company's industry, goals or audience, there are three things you need to focus on, no matter what: consistency, engagement and results.
Consistency
Find out how often your audience likes to see posts — usually at least once a day, but sometimes more — then keep a schedule of posts coming at the pace they expect. This sends the message that your brand is dependable, and it also keeps your company on people's minds as much as possible. Automated publishing software can help you with this.
Engagement
Your followers want to be heard, and Instagram has some of the most engaged users on the internet. If you're going to have a successful account, you need to stay engaged. Follow people back, like their posts and mentions, and always reply to their comments on your posts. You can find software on this list that will help you build meaningful relationships with your audience that expand brand loyalty and awareness.
Results
Social media is constantly upgrading and changing. Performance metrics are an important way to discover what your audience loves, how their sentiment is changing, and what to do next. Analytics tools provide data that inform your company's current and future social media success.
Without further ado, here are the 10 best Instagram tools marketers should be using:
1. SocialFox
Numbers are the name of the game when it comes to Instagram marketing, and SocialFox is a star player in this area. It's straightforward and ready to help your business grow through a proven data-driven strategy.
Use this analytics tool to uncover facts about your audience, such as what time of day is best to reach them, their favorite content, and even the most popular of your filters. Get ahead of the competition with metrics that show what's working and what isn't.
2. Later
Later helps you stay on top of your content with a publishing calendar that posts automatically at the time and day you schedule. You can create all your content for the week (or even month) using Later's performance-based guidance, then let Later do the rest. This Instagram tool also works on Pinterest, and it's great for businesses working on a budget.
3. Rival IQ
Keep a close watch on your competitors with Rival IQ. This tool gives you in-depth intelligence that helps get your company to the front of the race and keep it there. Set benchmarks based on your rivals' metrics, then keep track of how you measure up in real-time.
4. Short Stack
Engagement is pretty much the whole point of using an app like Instagram to reach your audience. Getting your followers engaged by giving them regular incentives is an immediate way of building brand presence and awareness. Short Stack gets people paying attention and talking about your business by automating content management.
5. Phlanx
Phlanx is kind of like Tinder for influencers. When you subscribe to Phlanx, businesses have access to a marketplace of Instagram influencers, and influencers have access to businesses that are hiring. You can check out each other's stats and profiles. There are contract templates available in Phlanx's resources. And businesses have all the information they need to choose the right influencers to make their campaigns pop.
Related: This AI-Powered Growth Tool Helps In Getting Instagram Followers
6. BuzzSumo
When you want to keep an eye on your company's reputation, find leads, and build hype around your brand, BuzzSumo is the app for you. BuzzSumo is a social listening tool that notifies you when your company is mentioned or when someone links to your site. Linking this tool with your Instagram gives you the ability to join the conversation about your brand right from BuzzSumo's dashboard, making it easy to grab every opportunity to gain another follower.
7. Revive Social
Revive Social is one of the best Instagram tools for businesses that may have an archive of content, but are running tight on time. If your company is struggling to keep up with its Instagram growth, Revive Social can help in the content-creation department. Set it to automatically search your old posts for relevant, popular content, then repost. This saves you time on content creation, and more people get to see the posts that work for your brand.
8. LastPass
Cybersecurity keeps getting harder and harder, with new challenges arising all the time. Keeping all your social media account passwords straight (and yes, you should have a different, secure one for each) can be a real headache. LastPass has you covered, with its super-secure password creation and storage capabilities that keep everything in one place and away from hackers.
9. IFTTT
IFTTT is among the top Instagram tools because it is so versatile. An acronym for "If This, Then That," IFTTT joins up with your other applications and software to create mini applets that act autonomously when they are triggered. This means you can set IFTTT to post to Instagram automatically every time you add something to your shop, publish a post to Facebook or even order a pizza. This is one of those fun apps that you just have to see in action to believe.
10. Bitly
Bitly allows you to customize and brand your links, making them easy to recognize and remember. When you share them on your Instagram profile — or any other place — they are marked for tracking, and you always have access to their performance metrics in real-time. You never have to wonder if your links are working when you keep track of them with Bitly.
2021 is already shaping up to be quite a year, and with the continued pandemic and political frenzy, it's more important than ever to cut through the noise on social. Use these tools to stand out and set your content apart from the endless memes and viral videos.
