Instagram has bagged a permanent slot in most marketing efforts. Because Instagram lets brands promote themselves without sounding too salesy.
Social media statistics reveal that 90% of Instagram accounts follow at least one business, while 89% of Instagramers discover new products and services on the platform.
Despite these impressive figures, marketers often fail to break through the ceiling and end up with a compromised result. The huge competition makes it challenging to improve on their engagements and ROI.
But there’s a way out of this. Businesses that use Instagram tools have raked up their profits when compared to those that don’t.
We did our drill and have curated the top 8 Instagram tools for impactful change to your social media presence.
Let’s plunge in!
Best Instagram Tools To Grow Your Following
Price : $50 for 3 users
SocialPilot is an Instagram tool that will increase reach by improving your visibility. At the moment, more than 101K businesses, enterprises, and social media managers use SocialPilot to enhance their digital presence.
This tool covers the most popular social media platforms, Instagram being one of them. You can directly schedule and publish to your Instagram accounts with SocialPilot.
It lets you add all your social media accounts, so you can manage it all from one place. Schedule unlimited posts, track engagements, and improve leads with SocialPilot. Get access to analytics and send White Label reports to your clients right from the dashboard itself.
Features
- Multi-Account Management: Add multiple accounts and keep track of them in real-time with SocialPilot. You can connect up to 200 profiles. This is a deal-sealing feature for a social media marketer with several clients.
- Content Management: With SocialPilot, you can engage with multiple posts and messages on different platforms at the same time. SocialPilot also allows you to work with your team collaboratively.
- Powerful Social Media Analytics: SocialPilot makes it possible to be on the top of your social media page’s performance with its great social media analytics and reporting feature. With the click of a button, you can access in-depth information and even download the PDF reports.
- Automated Publishing: You can schedule and automatically publish your Instagram posts with SocialPilot. Work on your calendar, finalize your time slots, schedule your posts, and you are done. The posts get shared without any intervention at ease.
- Conversion Tracking: This works almost the same way as the Analytics feature, the only difference being that it tracks conversion rates.
Pros
- SocialPilot makes Instagram marketing relatively easy and hassle-free. With the client management tools, post scheduling options, and conversion tracking, SocialPilot gives you the best value for money.
- SocialPilot offers content suggestions based on the selections you make. This is beneficial to marketers who are hard-pressed to find engaging content for their clients.
- The bulk content posting feature is amazing. As an Instagram marketer, SocialPilot aids you to make hundreds of posts at the same time.
Reviews
Luis Ignacio C.
Anyone who works in digital marketing, looking for a reliable tool, is what I have received since I implemented SocialPilot as the main tool for the content management of the accounts for which I work. I have managed to cover so many more accounts only with SocialPilot, similar tools offer similar services for very high costs.
Hannah F.
What I like about SocialPilot is that it facilitates the scheduling of posts in bulk, and it does not seem automated at all. What I mean by this is that we are able to create posts and share them, and have our own brand to gain an audience. Its customization and UI are what I love most about this program since it’s very flexible and allows the creation of hundreds of posts without any issues.
Price : $89 for 3 users
Another Instagram tool to consider is Sendible. If you are a marketer with a large agency interested in Instagram growth tools, then Sendible should work just right for you.
It comes with an intuitive interface, so you don’t have to spend much time learning it. Sendible has a content library feature that lets you store hashtags and responses in one place. Queue your posts, and Sendible will do the rest for you.
Pros
- Sendible allows you to store content for future use, so you never run out of material for posting.
- Sendible has some pretty incredible automation tools. For instance, you can set up automatic replies on Instagram, search for hashtags you are mentioned on, and auto-like those posts too.
LeeAnn B.
Their app is not as intuitive as the desktop platform. Hopefully, it’s in the works, and it more than likely is.
Cons
- Sendible doesn’t offer free plans, and the pricing is expensive for the features it offers.
- You can’t trust geographic keyword monitoring and might need manual checks.
Kaylee P.
Sendible doesn’t always learn quickly; some of the notifications refuse to go away. LinkedIn requires users to log in again through Sendible every 60-90 days, which is tiresome and occasionally forgotten, so it affects our calendar. The tracked metrics could be more specific with more personalization opens.
Sendible’s Comparison with SocialPilot
In comparing the prices of both tools, SocialPilot is relatively more cost-efficient and provides the best value for money. Also, SocialPilot has a higher customer satisfaction rate (100%) than Sendible (97%).
Here’s a more detailed comparison of SocialPilot vs. Sendible.
Price : $129 for 3 users
One of the chief attractions of Hootsuite is its popularity. It is one of the widely recognized social media management tools and is used by more than 18 million subscribers worldwide. This Instagram tool works across several platforms and integrates more than 200 business applications.
Hootsuite allows you to monitor keywords as well as schedule posts efficiently. Its features also allow multiple units to collaborate and work from remote locations simultaneously.
Pros
- The social streams make it relatively easy to keep a tab on happenings on all your accounts without checking each individually.
- You can publish posts from the app itself. This is important, especially when you don’t have access to your computer.
- This Instagram business tool schedules and publishes directly to your accounts.
Thomas C.
I find their integration with Instagram somewhat lacking. During my time with Hootsuite, I have scheduled countless Instagram posts, but the way the marriage between Instagram and Hootsuite works means that you can schedule the post, but you need to open the app on your phone and hit send when the time comes “actually to publish your post.”
Cons
- It might be hard getting the hang of it. You have to dedicate a lot of time and effort to learn its interface.
- Hootsuite is also quite pricey.
Shanna T.
The UI seems a bit dated. The features themselves are great, so it truly doesn’t matter, but it’s just not as modern and beautiful as other platforms.
Hootsuite’s Comparison with SocialPilot
Hootsuite is great for large enterprises and agencies. However, on the whole, if you are looking for one dashboard usage, lower price, and adding more accounts, SocialPilot is a better option. Explore how SocialPilot proves to be a great Hootsuite alternative.
Price : $40 per month for 6 profiles
Later is a marketing tool that is highly focused on visuals, making it a great hit as an Instagram tool. It even has a story button that allows you to schedule Instagram stories for later. You can also use Later to manage other platforms like Twitter and Facebook. Unlike other social media marketing tools that allow you to create a post before attaching a photo, Later requires you to select a picture before drafting it.
Later provides a media library option. This helps you manage the pictures you have. Furthermore, with Later, you can manage comments on Instagram. You can locate and reply to all the comments made on any of your posts.
Pros
- Later makes it relatively easy to upload pictures on Instagram.
- Later provides you with up-to-date information. They send regular newsletters that inform you of the options available and the latest trends you can make use of.
Jennifer M.
As the platform is still evolving, there are (more often than I would like, but this may not matter for some lighter users) errors, which means that my clients’ posts are sometimes late or do not post at all.
Cons
- It may be difficult to schedule automatic Instagram posts on Later.
- Later lacks in-depth features that other Instagram marketing tools like SocialPilot offers.
- Later is not ideal for coordinating with a large team.
Ayo B.
Although I enjoy using Later for posting to Instagram, my only annoyance is not being able to publish videos without the push notifications automatically. I hope this is a feature that Later plans to add soon.
Price : $99 per month
Shortstack is another Instagram tool for marketers. It is built for lead generation and engagement optimization.
Shortstack has several features that help you create effective landing pages and improve social media marketing. Shortstack can be used to run contests and promotions to spread awareness of your social media page. It also collates email addresses and enables you to conduct polls to gather valuable opinions of your users on social media.
Pros
- It is excellent for organizing social media contests. You do not need to have any prior graphic design experience.
- Shortstack is a great way to gather information about users.
Deepti S.
Information retrieval and exportation are rather confined to a tiny amount of applications, as the deficiency of an API implies that there is certainly no workaround.
Cons
- You may be required to do constant updates, which can be tiring and interfere with your work.
- Updates can also be automatic, increasing your billings. Considering the monthly price you already have to pay, it all makes Shortstack quite expensive.
- As an Instagram marketing tool, Shortstack actually falls short.
Jay T.
It’s really simple to set up a competition or landing page quickly, with easy-to-modify templates and the new theme customization. However, data retrieval and exportation are very limited to a small number of apps, and the lack of an API means that there’s no workaround.
Price : $89 per month
Awario is appropriately termed a social media ‘listening’ tool because it gathers information relating to the brand’s mentions and tags on social media. Awario scours social media, blogs, and the whole of the internet to pinpoint locations where you are mentioned, ensuring you don’t miss out on any opportunity to engage in a conversation involving you.
As an Instagram tool, Awario helps you gauge your brand’s health. It also enables you to keep an eye on the competition. This way, you know what areas to improve on to match up to expectations.
Pros
- It is excellent for carrying out keyword searches. It hardly misses anything.
- With Awario, it is easy to set up alerts, and you can have them delivered to your inbox automatically.
- It helps you manage multiple clients at once.
Marco M.
I love that the blog is useful and teaches us how to use the interface to a greater and greater effect each week.
Cons
- The tool can be slow for navigation.
- It may take some time for you to get used to the tool.
Brian A.
It seems to miss a few posts from Instagram that we thought it would and should easily catch.
Price : $199 for 3 users
Keyhole is an Instagram growth tool that keeps track of your hashtags in real-time. This tool lets you keep tabs on what is going on around you and help you make changes in your campaign strategy.
With the constant competition of staying with the trend, Keyhole gives you a competitive advantage with social listening and monitoring capabilities. It can also help you in instant engagement as it scours the web and notifies you whenever your brand is mentioned. This is an excellent tool for reaching out to your audience fast.
Pros
- Keyhole lets you download valuable reports in PDF format.
- Historical data, campaign tracking, and influencer marketing features are available.
- Track conversations about your brand across blogs, forums, and news websites.
Fatima M
The metrics given on Keyhole are unmatched and help us in setting KPIs and measuring results accordingly. The layout is also very user-friendly, and everything is exportable, so that’s wonderful.
Cons
- It is not affordable for small businesses and agencies.
- You have to set up trackers beforehand as changing them later might cost you extra.
Ben K
I felt like it broke A LOT. Sometimes info would not be pulled, and the reports would be screwed up, etc. When I requested help, I was made to feel like I was the one making mistakes when I was a pretty savvy user.
Price : $169 for 3 users
SocialInsider is an analytics tool that helps you collate information on social media. It can go as far back as 5 years before the time of the search to filter content and present it to you.
SocialInsider is a great Instagram tool for competitive research and can help you access information about your competitors. Understand your audience better and create a strategy to win them over with SocialInsider.
Here’s a list of Instagram analytics tools if you just want to opt for an affordable solution to measure your Instagram campaigns.
Pros
- It gives you access to data that’s excellent for comparison and benchmarking.
- It has a great support team that can attend to your needs as soon as possible.
- It shows historical data and spreads the search across various platforms for easier comparisons.
Alexandra M.
It saves time by having everything in one place. Great for benchmarking, comparisons between brands, and quick reports.
Cons
- Social Insider is quite expensive.
- It is too streamlined for a broad marketing experience.
Hunter W.
I’m most disappointed in the reporting. While it gives a good overview, I’d love to see some customization. One specific report I’d like to see is the ability to pull the top x-number of posts from a certain time period. The default report gives the top 5 posts, but I’d love to customize that to see the top 20 or 50+ posts over a period.
Conclusion
Instagram tools will get you out of stagnation and propel your branding in the right direction. They bring you in front of the right audience, so you get engagement each time and score more leads.
While tools can schedule and analyze your content, you can give your sole attention to planning quality content and brainstorm new ideas for upcoming campaigns.
Since posting is the first thing that you can automate, start with SocialPilot as your Instagram growth tool. Take your 14-day free trial to supercharge your Instagram branding.
Frequently Asked Questions
