Instagram is not usually the first platform that social media marketers focus on, but it’s proven to be integral if you want to maximize your brand’s social presence. Statistics show that it now has over 500 million active users monthly. On top of its amazing reach, Instagram has a 75 per cent engagement rate for branded content.
If you’re still not using Instagram for social media marketing, then you’re missing out big time. Without further ado, below are five Instagram tools you should use for marketing:
1. Iconosquare
Iconosquare is a powerful Instagram analytics tool that allows you to track important metrics about your account. By identifying the type of posts that get the most engagement, you can tailor your future content to suit your most active followers. Doing so will enable you to save time and money when creating Instagram posts.
Thanks to visual reports, Iconosquare makes it easier for you to gauge the performance of your account, skip the number crunching, and focus on getting results. The gained & lost followers view allows you to quickly scale the growth of your account over time. The tool also automatically suggests the best time to post based on the performance of your previous uploads. All you have to do now is to focus on content development as Iconosquare takes care of analysis.
2. Minter.io
Minter.io is another Instagram analytics tool and is one of the best alternatives to Iconosquare. Just like the former, it also offers in-depth data such as your audience engagement rate, hashtag popularity, and the best times to post content.
For a quick view of your Instagram marketing efforts, go to the Engagement tab and measure the total number of posts, likes, and comments that your account gets over the months. For actionable insights, go to the Optimization to determine posting strategies that generate engagement.
3. Wishpond
Instagram is perfect for leveraging user-generated content. By encouraging users to post about your brand, you leverage their social reach to raise brand awareness and win the trust of other prospective followers. Wishpond can help you do all of these with its Instagram hashtag contest feature.
For a list of hashtag contest ideas from Wishpond, click here.
Aside from hashtag contests, you could also use Wishpond to run sweepstakes, photo caption contests, Pinterest contests, and referral programs across different networks. By diversifying your social media contest strategy, you can maximize your online reach and supercharge the creation of UGC for your brand.
4. Endoyin
One of the keys to maximizing social media engagement is to provide content that’s relatable to your audience. To stay “in the know”, you can use a lightweight hashtag search engine like Endoyin. In addition to looking for specific hashtags, it can also help you stay ahead of content trends and track the top users in your areas of interest.
Remember that hashtag search is a useful function that can help you accomplish different things. For example, Endoyin can help you launch your own hashtag contest without spending money on a platform like Wishpond. You just to put in the extra work of designing your landing pages, promoting your contest, and designing the contest mechanics.
On the plus side, hosting a hashtag contest independently will allow you to funnel your audience to your mailing list or sales pages as they learn more about your contest. You can refer to this post from Sprout Social for some ideas.
5-6. PicPlayPost / Vidstitch
It’s no secret that Instagram thrives on visual content that gets the attention of the online audience. Aside from simply adding filters to your photos, you can use tools like PicPlayPost and Vidstitch and to take storytelling to a whole new level.
Both tools can help you create multimedia collages that contain video clips, GIFs, images, and music. Although there are alternatives that help you create multimedia collages, PicPlayPost and Vidstitch are some of the few that integrate directly with your Instagram account.
Looking for more tools to spice up your Instagram marketing? Here’s another Lifehack post about five Instagram marketing tools that your business needs. If you need more tips for a successful social media marketing campaign, you can refer to the social media marketing infographic below from Infobrandz.
Featured photo credit: pixabay.com via pixabay.com
