Instagram Marketing Technology Tools

With 800 Million monthly users, Instagram is growing and changing rapidly. Like other social media platforms, Instagram is always changing the algorithm and updating the way things are done. The new features are exciting and often make the platform more engaging. But, there’s so much news to keep up with and so many new things to try, that it is difficult to find the time to explore and engage with followers. Aside from keeping up with all those changes, you also need to keep up with the latest tech.

If you’re like most Instagrammers, you just love it. There’s no real strategy behind your posts. However, with a thoughtful process, you can make Instagram a game changer for you business. Tech is your best friend. Are you tired of seeing older posts from the same friends in your profile? 

Do you want to see the latest and greatest Instagram activity? Simply be more active. Post every day or login several times a day and interact with your feed and followers. Before you know it, you’ll start seeing posts that were posted in the past hour or even more recently than that. But, if you post every day, it is time consuming and painstaking. There are techy ways to ease that pain. 

For other social media platforms, there are many social media management tools. Pinterest users tout Tailwind as the most popular. Recently, Tailwind started offering Instagram management tools too. 

So, what are the best Instagram management tools? Here’s a list of the best tech for the Instagram platform. First of all, this just in, you can now mute your Instagram followers! It’s not mean, it’s beneficial. Those friends who are always posting their dinner or step by step images of their lives clogging your feed? Yep, mute them so you can see posts that are more beneficial to you and to your followers.

And if you’re a tech company, you can still rock instagram. Adrian Rubin offers a great list of tech companies that rock Instagram. You’ll need a clear strategy with actionable tasks that get  results. With Instagram, consistency is key. Sure you plan to post every Wednesday and Sunday at 5 p.m. but life gets in the way. When you sit down to post, a quality post that utilizes all 27 hashtags and has inspired keyword descriptions, can take over 30 minutes to text out. That doesn’t even include creating a memorable, branded image. What’s a driven Instagrammer marketer to do?

You’ve heard of Hootsuite and it’s competitors. It can be a bit mind boggling. Instagram is light and fun, keep your Instagram marketing technology simple! Market your Instagram by staying consistent and posting several times per week at the same times. Let your followers know when you’ll be active so they have something to look forward to and will pop back over to check out your latests post.

Set Goals

First, Build your community by following real people, real profiles just like yours. Always follow the most recent 25-100 followers (no more, you can get into dead accounts) and the people who like their most recent posts. This keeps you current and relevant.

Build a quality profile that will attract the type of people you want to attract. Demographics are important.

Once you’ve got a solid base, it can be as little as 500 engaged followers, increase awareness of your brand by showcase your products or services and the things that are near and dear to your heart. If you build it they will come. When you’ve created the best atmosphere and share your passion, your base will embrace it.

You’ve built it, they’ve come, now, it’s time to turn to Instagram Management Technology. Tech for Instagram management should be easy and fun to use. Here are quick highlights of 3 of our favorite management tools.

Buffer

With Buffer you can schedule your posts to auto publish and plan Instagram posts in advance, just pick the time you want to post and it will do it for you. This is included in free plans! Make sure your images are Instagram ready. 

In order for a post to be directly scheduled to Instagram, the image has to have an aspect ratio within the range of 4:5 (portrait) and 1.91:1 (landscape.)

Schedule single-image posts on desktop or mobile to any of your Instagram business profiles, and Buffer will automatically publish for you at your preferred times.

Video Reminders: Upload video posts to your Buffer queue, and we’ll send a notification to your phone at your scheduled time. We’ll automatically load your post into Instagram with your pre-written caption, ready to be pasted, and you can customize and publish.

There are some drawbacks to Buffer, you can’t add filters and geotags and user tags, but you can go edit them once the image has posted. 

Who needs Instagram Reminders? Not me. Instagram Reminders as set up as a backup due to limitations on 3rd party tools. So if you try to send videos, multiple images, or images outside the allowed size then you will receive a reminder. The extra step is a drag. Sure, it's really simple to open your mobile notification, and copy the description, and click paste, but work.. That’s more work and it interrupts your day. Who needs that?

Another drawback is you can only have one Instagram profile connected to Buffer, but you can upgrade to a business plan to add more instagram profiles. Then, just click the ones you want to use.

Tailwind and Later both use drag and drop technology, making is super easy for you to schedule your photos. They also both populate hashtag recommendations.

Later.com - The free version of Later offers everything you need to market yourself and stay consistent. Each month you have 30 free posts. This is for all platforms so be careful when sharing to various platforms. It can go fast.

Like Buffer you can only have one Instagram profile connected to one account. Unlike Buffer, no reminders are required! After initial setup, just post on Later and voila!

TailWind helps you learn the best time for your posts to go live. You can even bulk upload (photo dump) your images.

Each Pinterest or Instagram account you track is a unique account in Tailwind. You can manage many different accounts under a single Tailwind login, and you can access them all on the mobile app and the desktop web dashboard.

But for me, it’s Later for the win! And that’s the free version!! Of course, it all comes down to personal preference and what you know. But as a social media marketing management team, we agree that Later is the easiest tool to use. Just be careful that you’ve clicked the correct social media platform to schedule.