Instagram: 3 Must Have Tools to Grow Your Strategy

instagram

Are you using Instagram for your social media marketing strategy?

Do you need better tools to manage this platform?

If you need to start from square one with using  Instagram for your Social Media Marketing, check out our beginner post here: .

Instagram has made a huge impact  since launching in October 2010. There are now 200 Million Monthly Active Users who have shared a combined total of 20 Billion photos on this platform to date.

More and more marketers are seeing the value in using Instagram for social media marketing.  This social networking site has proven itself as a major platform to be on in order to reach leads, identify prospects and build relationships with key target market audiences.

Savvy brands are realizing that it’s not just a popular image sharing platform, but is also a key medium for brands to get their communication across to a huge number of followers. According to Ekaterina Walter on ClickZ67% of the world’s biggest brands now use Instagram.

If you’re  not listed among this substantial number, it’s time to get started! I have outlined a few tools that will keep you on course with using Instagram with ease:

1. Iconosquare – Formerly known as Statigram, the founders of  Iconosquare were among the first to get on the Instagram crazy  train. Iconosquare is a tool that  helps marketers drill down on key metrics about their Instagram accounts. It provides insight on the number of likes that you have, how well your community likes a particular photo and the number of followers that you gain or lose day by day. This tool can also help you  manage your Instagram conversation better, by allowing you to send private messages. It also provides tips on optimizing your posts like the best time to post for the most engagement.

2. TOTEMS – Formerly Nitrogram, this is another tool that helps with weeding through your Instagram analytics. The tool takes things a step forward and provides key insights into understanding your audience and tracking specific Instagram campaigns. TOTEMS is great for helping brands to better understand their audience. You can also use it to get insight into your competitors and their campaigns.

 

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3. Websta – Formerly known as Webstagram, Websta is an Instagram web viewer. It allows you to experience Instagram on your PC. You can follow and unfollow users, browse pics, see your followers and get feeds. I love this tool because it makes it so easy to navigate Instagram . I also like the Top 100 Tags feature (pic above). Websta can show you the trending hashtags of the moment. A smart strategy would be for you to use relevant hashtags from their list when posting on Instagram. This will help more people find your content better.

I hope this list helps! Hopefully, you will be able to use these tool to take Instagram by storm in no time!

Are you on Instagram? What tools do you use to be an Instagram Rockstar?

Leave Comments below and let me know!

25 Comments

  1. Sharon Rowe on November 13, 2014 at 1:29 pm

    I am just starting with instagram and have marked this page to read each one more in depth. thankyou



    • Shantha on November 13, 2014 at 1:32 pm

      Thanks Sharon! Check back in and let us know how things go.



    • Shantha Wetterhan on November 13, 2014 at 6:34 pm

      Awesome Sharon! Check back in and let us know how it goes.



  2. Britnee on November 13, 2014 at 2:24 pm

    I have to admit that I haven’t really been utilizing Instagram for my website. This is something that I will have to work on. Thank you for sharing.



    • Shantha Wetterhan on November 13, 2014 at 6:33 pm

      Welcome Britnee! Just make a goal of using Instagram 10 minutes each day and grow from there. You will be amazed at how much your strategy will grow.



  3. Farrah on November 13, 2014 at 2:27 pm

    Yay! Glad your comment thing is working again! I had my instagram on private until fairly recently (I used my very first hashtag in March/April-ish, hahaha 😛 ). Will check these out!



    • Shantha Wetterhan on November 13, 2014 at 6:32 pm

      Thanks so much Farrah! So exciting that you are embarking on the world of Instagram. You will be amazed on how much it can do for your branding.



  4. It's A K Life on November 13, 2014 at 5:01 pm

    I am going to have to check these out! I would love to be able to boost my Instagram!



    • Shantha Wetterhan on November 13, 2014 at 6:35 pm

      Awesome K! Check out our other post: 5 Instagram Tips for Marketing Your Business. There are some tips there that can set you in the right direction.



      • It's A K Life on November 14, 2014 at 2:35 pm

        I will be sure to do that! Thank you! 🙂



    • Shantha Wetterhan on November 14, 2014 at 4:10 am

      You can do it! A great way to start is to do themed postings. You can post similar eye catching pictures. The holidays are a great time for this!



  5. Tiffany Khyla on November 13, 2014 at 7:09 pm

    I’m still working on transitioning my Instagram as a tool for my blog. As a lifestyle blogger, I’ve found it hard to use it to post relevant things for my blog. I do love Iconosquare and use it both for my job and for blogging.



    • Shantha Wetterhan on November 13, 2014 at 8:04 pm

      That’s awesome Tiffany! Bloggers like you that have something beautiful to share do well on Instagram. It’s all about the pictures and there is a world of wealth when it comes to visually pleasing pics in the lifestyle arena.



  6. Olivia Schwab on November 14, 2014 at 1:54 am

    These are great tips! I’m going to have to check these out! Thank you!



    • Shantha Wetterhan on November 14, 2014 at 2:23 am

      The trick is not feel like you have to do this all at once. Little by little is the key!



  7. Ashley on November 14, 2014 at 2:35 am

    I am so happy to have these tips now. Instagram has always been a little bit on an enigma to me.



    • Shantha Wetterhan on November 14, 2014 at 3:25 am

      You can do it Ashley! It’s super easy once you get used to navigating it.



  8. Amanda Wooldridge Haney on November 14, 2014 at 7:21 am

    I definitely need to check these out because I promote my small business through Instagram.



    • Shantha Wetterhan on November 14, 2014 at 12:52 pm

      That’s awesome that you’re using Instagram to promote your business! Wishing you many successes wit it.



  9. Purfylle on November 14, 2014 at 12:42 pm

    I need to look into instagram, I’m slowly working my way through the different social media platforms.



    • Shantha Wetterhan on November 14, 2014 at 12:53 pm

      It’s smart that you’re taking your time site by site. There is no need to get overwhelmed with more than you can chew. It’s a marathon and not a sprint.



      • Purfylle on November 14, 2014 at 1:17 pm

        Thanks, I really needed to hear that. It’s a marathon not a sprint’ is the best advice I’ve heard all week!



  10. Ariana Fotinakis on December 9, 2014 at 5:18 am

    These are awesome! I have briefly used Iconosquare, but definitely not to its full potential. I have a fairly decent following on Instagram but I’m not really using it as an effective marketing tool, which I should be! One of the tasks on my to-do list this week is to create a solid social media plan for the first quarter of 2015, and Instagram is at the top of that list!



    • Shantha Wetterhan on January 14, 2015 at 11:07 pm

      Great goal Ariana! Let us know how it goes.



  11. Samantha Grain on May 18, 2015 at 8:54 am

    First of all don’t consider this an advertising or spam, I’m trying to be helpful=) There’s a quite new, very efficient way to manage your account, especially when it’s linked to your business – fast-unfollow.com. When you add a large amount of users, some them won’t follow you back anyway, we all know that from twitter. So you have to unfollow unnecessary ones and keep those who liked you. If it’s a business scale than it’s usually impossible to accomplish manually. That’s why you need this service: it supports up to 5000 unsubscriptions per day, which is a unique result for such features. There’s also a free “trial” – you can unfollow 1000 people for free. With it I managed to increase the amounts of followers significantly, preserving high level of user engagement.