Are you looking to get better results in your business using Instagram?
According to Wikipedia, Instagram’s users are divided equally with 50% iPhone owners and 50% Android owners. While instagram has a neutral gender-bias format, 68% of Instagram users are female while 32% are male.
Instagram’s geographical use is shown to favor urban areas as 17% of US adults who live in urban areas use Instagram while only 11% of adults in suburban and rural areas do so. While Instagram may appear to be one of the most widely used sites for photo sharing, only 7% of daily photo uploads, among the top four photo-sharing platforms, come from Instagram.
This means that there is a huge opportunity for you to leverage Instagram for your business.
Top 5 Instagram Tools
Here’s a really cool list of Instagram tools recommended by SocialMediaExaminer.
#1: Filter Your Images for a Signature Look
The first step to any successful Instagram account is to tell your company’s story. Your images are a reflection of your business, and you want them to appeal to your target audience on an emotional level.
It’s important to have a cohesive look to your images that unifies your brand assets. One tool that can help with that is A Color Story. This app makes it easy to fine-tune your photos and give them a more professional look before posting them to Instagram.
A Color Story comes with five free filters or you can purchase all of the app’s filters for $7.99.
The app’s filters will help enhance your images and make them pop; they won’t overexpose them or make them look grainy. You can use the app’s five basic filters for free or buy all of the filters for $7.99. It’s best to stick to one (or two) filters to give your photos a consistent look. Choose an attractive filter that unifies all of the images you post to Instagram.
A Color Story can help you develop an attractive, unified look to the images you post on your company’s Instagram account.
Tip: Avoid posting images on Instagram that are unrelated to your business or the story you want it to tell.
#2: Embed Your Instagram Feed for More Visibility
You want your Instagram feed to get in front of your target audience as much as possible. One way to do that is to embed it on your website or blog with a tool like SnapWidget. Embedding your feed on your site gives you free advertising and social real estate. You can also use this opportunity to ask website visitors to follow your account on Instagram.
SnapWidget lets you embed your Instagram feed on your website.
With SnapWidget, you can opt for a grid layout, slideshow, or photo map that lets users explore the places you’ve Instagrammed. Once you add the code to your website or blog, SnapWidget will automatically pull the latest photos from your Instagram account, and it will continue to update on your site automatically.
#3: Share Photos From Other Instagram Accounts
If you want to have a successful Instagram feed, it’s important to develop a supporting, sharing, and engaging community. This is one of the best things you can do for your business. If you interact with and support other Instagram users, they’ll likely reciprocate your actions and become active and engaged followers.
Sharing other users’ photos is an excellent way to build relationships with your followers and within your industry. Repost for Instagram, available for iOS and Android, makes it easy to repost Instagram images from other accounts and share their stories while giving them credit on your feed. This lets you develop relationships and at the same time share relevant and interesting images with your followers.
Reposting photos from other users on your account is a great way to develop relationships with them and share interesting images with your followers.
#4: Schedule Your Instagram Posts
Even though Instagram is life on the go, sometimes life gets in the way. You can’t always be glued to your phone and occasionally you need a few days off from the world of social posting. Maintain an active presence online with a tool like ScheduGram.
This web-based tool lets you post immediately to your Instagram account or schedule posts for later. You can manage multiple Instagram accounts so you don’t have to keep logging in and out of individual accounts. You can also grant access to multiple users so everyone on your team will have access to your Instagram posting schedule.
#5: Track the Performance of Your Instagram Content
You want to have a strategy behind every Instagram post. Are you trying to drive people to like your photo, leave a comment, or check out your website? Once you identify clear goals for your Instagram marketing, it’s important to monitor your analytics to see if you’re meeting those goals.
Use an Instagram analytics tool like Iconosquare to track your stats so you can see if your marketing tactics are working. You can view account metrics such as likes, comments, and engaged followers.
Iconosquare lets you monitor the success of your Instagram marketing efforts and see if they’re paying off.
Iconosquare will reveal which of your posts received the most engagement on the platform. This lets you quickly see what’s working for your account and then create and post more of that type of content. Viewing analytics and monitoring what your followers like or don’t like is important for building an engaged Instagram community.
