instagram tools - Kristi Hynes

Did you know that Instagram is getting more visitors per day than twitter?

If you’re using Instagram for business are you using any good tools to help with the management of it?

Instagram is an extremely popular photo sharing application that companies are taking notice off.

You hear of companies sharing out great pictures to build awareness with their audience, running photo competitions and much more.

Kristi Hynes outlines 3 tools that will you grow your presence on Instagram. We enjoyed reading it so we hope you will too!

One of the biggest challenges when it comes to Instagram marketing for business is figuring out how to manage your Instagram account away from your mobile phone. While Instagram is now available on the web, all you can do is edit your profile and interact with those you follow through liking and commenting on their photos. Fortunately, there are tools online that allow you to do more.

The following are three tools that allow you to get more from your Instagram presence.

Collec.to (This app is not longer available)

Collec.to is an elegant web interface that allows you to manage your Instagram presence.

When you sign into Collecto with your Instagram account, you will first see your dashboard filled with the latest photos from people you follow along with quick stats about your account.

instagram tools - followgram dashboard
Collecto provides you with some great statistics on your account

You can engage with other Instagram users by clicking on their photos to like them or comment on them. You can also save your favorite photos from others in public or private albums on Collecto. F

ree users are limited to five albums.

Collecto also gives you a public interface with a vanity URL (a dedicated web address)  you can share with others to show off your Instagram photos.

instagram tools - Followgram
You can provide a public page to share you or your companies pictures

Your public profile includes an RSS feed (standard way of providing information) for your Instagram photos as well as a QR Code (Scannable bar code) you can download and share on your website or print materials to direct people to your public Collecto profile.

What most people will really like about Collecto are the statistics. Free users can view a summary of their Instagram account’s photos and engagement.

instagram tools - Followgram Statistics
View useful statistics within Collecto

They can also get a glimpse of what photos were most liked, commented, and popular overall.

instagram tools - followgram popular photos
Breakdown of which are the most popular photos (think of a photo competition for your company)

Pro users who pay approxminately $13USD per year can also get a summary of the top tags they have used in their Instagram posts, top filters used to edit photos, top locations, and date based archives.

instagram tools - Followgram Top Tags and Venues
More analytics provided for the paid version

Pro users can also see all of the above stats for other Instagram users who use Collecto. The downside of this is that it is hard to tell who is a Collecto user – the only way to find out is to go to their profile and click on the statistics link.

Other features offered to Pro users on Collecto include private messaging between Instagram users also on Collecto, a custom header and background for your public Collecto page, and no ads on your public profile page.

Overall, it’s not a bad tool to manage your Instagram account with. Probably the best feature is the ability to see other user’s top tags and venues, but again, those stats are only available on Collecto user profiles.

Ink 361

Ink361 is a free web interface that allows you to view photos and engage with other Instagram users. When you sign in, you will be greeted with the latest photos by the people you follow.

instagram tools - ink361 dashboard
View details of the people you follow

As you hover over the photos, you will see details about them along with the ability to share them on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Google+.

One nice feature about Ink361 is you can go to your own profile, click on the number of people you are following, and see their profile description, follower stats, and their latest five photos. You’ll also see whether the user is following you back on Instagram.

instagram tools - ink361 following dashboard
View detailed profile information of the people you are following

You can view the same information about those that are following you and use it to quickly determine who you would like to follow back.

As an added bonus, Ink361 has some great tools. You can create a custom Instagram gallery to share your photos with non-Instagram users.

instagram tools - ink361 custom gallery
Create a custom gallery to share with non instagram users

Unlike your public Instagram page, the Ink361 gallery will allow visitors to share your photos via the top social networks when they hover over them.

Other Ink361 tools include a Facebook page app to share your Instagram photos with fans, a Twitter background generator and Facebook timeline cover photo generator using your Instagram photos, and gallery widgets for your website / blog.

Overall, this tool has a better interface for learning more about your followers and those you are following as well as some good tools to enhance your social media profiles with your Instagram photos. All this networks needs is analytics!

Iconosquare

Iconosquare is probably the most popular web interface for Instagram, thanks to its features. When you sign in, you will be greeted with the latest photos from people you follow similar to Ink361.

The individual photo viewer is probably the best of all three tools. You can interact by liking and commenting on the photo as well as sharing it on various social networks.

instagram tools - statigram individual photo page
Great viewer for individual photos

What business users especially will like about Iconosquare is the statistics. When you click on the statistics tab, you will first see an overview of your Instagram activity plus the information for any activity within the last seven days.

instagram tools - statigram statistics
Great for businesses to view detailed statistics

In the left sidebar of your statistics screen, you will also have the option to see your rolling month analysis. This will show you the number of photos you have posted during the month along with the engagement for those photos.

instagram tools - statigram rolling month analysis
View monthly analysis on photos’s

Beneath this, you will see your change in followers along with the most engaged followers from your community.

Under the content section, you will see your posting history including total number of photos and their monthly / weekly distribution.  After that, you will see the density of when you post along with filter, tag, and geolocation usage.

instagram tools - statigram content density
View how popular you content is by day, by hour etc.

The engagement section will be the one businesses want to see the most. Here you will find your growth history showing total likes vs. average likes per photo.

instagram tools - statigram likes history
View photo ‘Likes’ over time

Similarly, you will see a chart showing your total number of comments vs. average comments per photo.

instagram tools - statigram comments history
View comments history over time

If you’re curious about the best time to post, you will find that in the Optimization section along with your photos’ average lifespan and a comparison of tags you use vs. the most popular tags on Instagram which can help your photos receive more exposure in the Instagram community.

instagram tools - statigram optimization
This report will help you work out the best time to post photos

Last, but not least, is the community analytics. Here, you will see a snapshot of your followers and following count along with the number of people who reciprocally follow you.

instagram tools - statigram community
Statistics on your community – followers and followings!

You can use the magnifying icons to click through to see the followers who you don’t follow and those you follow who don’t follow you back.

Overall, Iconosquare definitely has the best to offer for Instagram analytics along with a clean, easy to use layout. Brands also have the added option of contacting Iconosquare to set up Instagram contests to increase brand awareness and community engagement.

Have you tried managing your Instagram with any of these tools? Please share your experiences or other tools you would recommend.


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