11 Best IG Tools to Get More Followers, Engagement, & Sales

The advent of social media has connected people across the globe in a way that was never possible before. Over 57.6% of the world’s population uses social media, with around 13 new users every second. Instagram alone has over a billion active users. It’s the second most popular social media platform for marketers and has […]

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The advent of social media has connected people across the globe in a way that was never possible before. Over 57.6% of the world’s population uses social media, with around 13 new users every second.

Instagram alone has over a billion active users. It’s the second most popular social media platform for marketers and has a much higher engagement rate than Facebook. It allows marketers to focus on their visually appealing products and content to connect with customers better. 

But posting and ghosting is not the way to go about on Instagram. You need to engage with your audience regularly with content that appeals to their interests, and doing this manually can get tedious and is unnecessarily time-consuming. 

Good thing many Instagram tools can do the heavy lifting for you by automating tasks like scheduling posts, measuring analytics, creating stunning design templates for your content, and optimizing your profile for greater results.

However, with the overwhelming number of IG tools available online, it isn’t easy to decide which one you should go for. So we’ve picked some of the best tools to help you get started on your journey to a more seamless Instagram experience optimized for the results you desire. 

11 best IG tools you should consider

Here are the best IG tools you should check out. We’ve covered the pros, cons, and more details.

1. Tailwind

Tailwind is mainly known for its ability to schedule Instagram posts, but it does a little bit of everything. It helps you plan your content ahead of time while also optimizing your content to get the best results. You can create incredible designs with ease. It also comes with an intelligent recommendation feature if you’re stumped for ideas.

It’s one of the most intuitive apps for curating your Instagram page. It’s your social media marketing team, and growth partner rolled into one neat little app.

The app (for Android and iOS) is easy to use, thanks to the simple visual interface. For creatives that often fall prey to writer’s block, caption templates in the app can be a lifesaver. All in all, it’s an excellent solution for small businesses and individuals.

Pros:

• Automatically publishes content at the optimal time
• Pre-made caption templates
• Instagram hashtag finder helps you quickly find hashtags
• In-built bio creator
• User-friendly interface

Cons:

• You can only schedule to one Instagram account with the Pro plan

Best suited for: Small businesses, startups, individuals

Pricing: You can get the essential tools to use for free for an unlimited period. The priced subscriptions offer more features and start with the Pro plan at $19.99/month. This is followed by the Advanced plan at $39.99/month and the Max plan at $79.99/month.

You might also want to check out our guide on how to use Tailwind to schedule to Instagram and Pinterest. 

2. IconoSquare

Iconosquare is a great app that helps you understand your audience’s behaviors. It’s an Instagram analytics tool that’s perfect for the needs of medium to large-sized businesses looking to amp up their Instagram marketing processes.

The app displays IG post metrics in an easy-to-understand manner to help you analyze post-performance and tweak your strategy for better results. It also has some other stunning features like multi-profile management from a single dashboard, a highly intuitive post scheduler that recommends best posting times, and geolocation tagging.

Pros:

• Detail analysis for Instagram stories
• Tracks competitors
• Helps you figure out what drives engagement
• Creates detailed and simple performance reports

Cons:

• Filter options are difficult to navigate through
• Doesn’t differentiate clearly between promoted posts and organic ones
• Servers tend to lag in some regions of the world

Best suited for: Mid-size and larger businesses

Pricing: The Pro plan costs $49/month, while the Advanced plan costs $79/month. It has a third, Enterprise plan offered at a customized price per your requirement.

3. Canva

Canva has quickly gained popularity in the general marketing sphere due to its vast collection of templates and designs that are incredibly easy to use. It has template designs specifically for the dimensions of Instagram’s posts and stories, making it super convenient for you to create professionally-looking posts in minutes. 

Its most unique template is the “carousel” for multi-photo posts, which gives an almost panoramic feel when swiping between photos.

Canva is entirely a content design platform where you can edit videos, icons, stories, and photos so that the dimensions fit perfectly in the social media app. The templates are also inspiring and helpful if you require a specific theme or layout.

It’s perfect for beginners that want to gain experience in designing attractive content that captures the brand image. Additionally, it’s also a budget-friendly tool that can easily be employed by small businesses or even freelance digital marketers. It recently added scheduling features that let you publish on Instagram.

Pros:

• Templates are easy to edit
• Create a color palette so you can stick to your brand’s theme
• Scheduler lets you directly schedule to Instagram business accounts and other social networks like LinkedIn and Tumblr
• Ideal for beginners who lack experience with editing software
• Create original stickers for your stories

Cons:

• Isn’t ideal for advanced editing
• Lacks vector designs
• The mobile app is not very precise and intuitive

Best suited for: Freelance digital marketers, small businesses, startups

Pricing: Canva’s free plan lets you use its free templates and elements to create content. The Pro plan comes at $12.99/month, while the Enterprise plan is offered at a customized price.

You might also want to check out our articles on Canva alternatives. 

4. Kicksta

Instagram Tool, Kicksta promises more organic, genuine Instagram followers and engagement than random followers and spam accounts that clog the brand’s Instagram feed. It uses AI-powered technology to steer its users’ social media accounts in the right direction and get more followers and eyes to their profile—all while steering clear of bots and fake accounts.

Pros:

• Organic, targeted engagement
• Clear dashboard console with tabs for monitoring and analytics
• Functions without installing software
• Grow your Instagram following organically

Cons:

• Pricey enrollment fee
• Time-intensive process of establishing the followers’ list
• Lack of transparency in followers, hashtags, etc.
• Unpredictable growth rate

Best suited for:

• Brands that cater to a national or international audience rather than a local audience
• Kicksta can be used as a supplement to organic audience growth efforts by startups 

Pricing: There are two pricing options available: the standard plan for $49 which includes “moderate” growth speed, video onboarding, and ten targets, and the premium plan for $99, which promises “maximum” growth speed, video onboarding, 40 targets, VIP email support, live chat support, advanced targeting, and a blacklist.

5. Agorapulse

Agorpulse is a one-stop platform for agencies that require social media coordination on a single dashboard. It combines features found on social media and project management platforms to truly bring a seamless collaboration experience to you and your team by providing all the features you need for end-to-end social media management.

It offers features similar to Hootsuite but in a way that would be more useful to agencies. The shared calendars and reporting tools are a great way to keep the team on track with your Instagram marketing agenda.

Pros:

• Shared calendars
• Assign user roles to include clients in the process
• Power Reports feature
• Filters negative comments and spam
• Social listening
• Unified social inbox

Cons:

• Lacks Instagram grid preview
• Difficult to reorder photos when scheduling a carousel post
• Can’t reschedule Instagram posts in the queue

Best suited for: Small to medium-sized digital marketing agencies

Pricing: Agorapulse offers four pricing plans: the free plan, the Pro plan at $79/month, the Premium plan at $259/month, and the customized Enterprise plan.

6. Hootsuite

A powerful social media management tool, Hootsuite handles everything from scheduling and monitoring analytics to advertising your page. This all-in-one management platform is one of the most advanced IG tools with intuitive features which help you batch-create and schedule posts at the most optimal time for high engagement, listen to the latest social media conversations and create relevant content along with making brand-consumer engagement easier than ever.

The tool is ideal for larger businesses that need to handle multiple accounts and users across the organization. It also supports easy integration with major marketing apps online, helping you streamline your content plan across different platforms.

Pros:

• Super easy user interface
• Provides influencers suggestions to boost your conversions and followers
• Monitors comments, likes, and messages in one place
• Assign tasks to users

Cons:

• Difficulty tagging people in videos
• Doesn’t offer hashtag suggestions

Best suited for: Large businesses that would prefer integrating their social media with other marketing software

Pricing: The Professional plan costs $49/month, the Team plan costs $129/month, and the Business plan costs $599/month. A customized plan is also available under Enterprise.

7. Crowdfire

Crowdfire is an affordable Instagram management tool that doesn’t overwhelm you with shiny things. It’s extremely straightforward in its functioning and is simple to use with exciting functionality like pre-scheduling and batch-creating posts, content suggestions, and website-to-Instagram integrations. 

The app is heaven-sent for solo entrepreneurs that want to grow their business quickly and efficiently by studying top-performing content and trends likely to get them more traction.

Pros:

• Easy set up and has a chatbot for assistance
• Schedules content to post at optimal times
• Daily reminders and suggestions to help your page grow
• Offers content pre-scheduling
• Lets you publish content to IG from your own blog or website

Cons:

• Mostly suggested content is by other Crowdfire users
• The dashboard gets overwhelming if you’re using multiple Instagram accounts
• Tends to attract the follow-for-follow crowd

Best suited for: Individual entrepreneurs and small businesses looking to grow their ventures effectively.

Pricing: Crowdfire offers a free plan besides monthly subscription plans. The Plus plan costs $9.99/month, the Premium plan is $49.99/month, and the VIP plan is $99.99/month.

8. SocialInsider

SocialInsider equips you with analytical tools that help you better understand your Instagram visitors and the algorithm. You can also use it for competitive analysis, to determine where you stand on the platform, get detailed reports about your Instagram performance and understand brand metrics.

If utilized well, the app can help you improve relationships with your current and potential customers and create the best content for your audience. It’s best suited for digital agencies that work across various industries.

Pros:

• Generates benchmark reports for Insta, TikTok, YouTube, and more networks
• Tracks competitor pages
• Monitors campaign performance

Cons:

• Expensive for its relatively limited features
• Not very useful for brands with a small following

Best suited for: Medium to large business and digital marketing agencies

Pricing: SocialInsider offers three pricing plans, starting with the Social Media Manage plan at $83/month, the Small Agency plan at $141/month, and the Agency plan is customized.

9. Keyhole

Keyhole is an industry-leading social listening and analytics tool along with an Instagram influencer marketing app. It’s used by Netflix, the BBC, and NBC, courtesy of its unique features and individually-vetted influencer suggestions, tailored for each business.

The social listening segment of the app lets you understand what your audience is talking about to give you a gist into potential content topics likely to get more eyes to your profile. It also analyzes your audience’s sentiment and gives you tone-based information, so you don’t send the right social media message at the wrong time.

On the other hand, the influencer marketing segment of the app helps you manage influencer campaigns seamlessly by assisting you end-to-end from influencer vetting to campaign reporting. You can also use the data to improve your influencer outreach campaigns. 

Pros:

• In-depth profile analysis
• Real-time data
• Simplified influencer marketing
• Event marketing tool
• Sentiment analysis and social media listening

Cons:

• The interface can be complex at first
• An expensive investment

Best suited for: Medium to large companies that want to integrate influencer marketing into their campaigns

Pricing: Keyhole uses custom pricing for all its users. You can get in touch and discuss your requirements to determine the price point.

10. Smartly.io

Smartly.io brings automated marketing to your fingertips. You can enhance your Instagram advertising campaigns by viewing thousands of variations from a single ad idea and analyzing and using the one that’s likely to get you the best results. So, you can create, edit, and monitor your ad performance on social media—from a single dashboard with detailed reporting and Instagram insights.

It’s ideal for larger agencies that need to optimize ad performances for their clients. Smartly.io also comes with automated budget allocation and optimization, ensuring you get the best bang for your buck when it comes to ads.

Pros:

• Huge collection of templates for visuals
• Flexible payment options
• Generates thousands of ad variations
• A/B testing

Cons:

• The user interface takes some getting used to
• Very expensive

Best suited for: Established digital marketing agencies and media buyers that cater to clients looking for ad optimization

Pricing: Smartly.io charges a percentage fee on your total ad spending. The platform charges a flat fee of $5,645 for ad spending below $112,845. Beyond that, it charges 5% for spending up to $169,265. The percentage fee reduces by 0.5% after every additional $56,420 spent.

11. Buffer

Buffer is a social media management suite tool that helps you create, edit and manage your Instagram profile from one dashboard. It measures your social media performance in a single click to give you an overview of your growth and engagement over time, helps you collaborate with your teammates, and better optimize your campaigns. Most of all, it enables you to respond to comments at twice the speed.

It has a super intuitive interface and makes social media teams faster, smarter, and efficient in content creation, social media monitoring, and customer engagement for greater Instagram growth.

Pros:

• Powerful Instagram marketing tool with a clean user interface
• Pre-scheduling posts across multiple platforms including Instagram
• Organizing content 
• Customizable posts across different platforms
• Easy posting—even in offline mode
• Seamless integration with WordPress, Pocket, etc

Cons:

• Specialized posts (for instance, carousel pictures) are not supported
• Doesn’t have features of viewing incoming mentions and messages

Best suited for: Bloggers, freelance social media managers, small businesses, and agencies with a versatile clientele base

Pricing:

• Buffer follows a freemium pricing model where you can connect up to three social media accounts with maximum scheduling of 10 posts

• The Pro plan costs $15/month and allows you to connect up to eight social media accounts with maximum scheduling of 100 posts

• The Premium plan costs $65/month and allows maximum scheduling of 2000 post

• For large brands, the Business plan costs $99/month and offers connection with up to 25 social media accounts, six users, and allows maximum scheduling of 2000 posts

Further, Buffer offers compartmentalization of features of Buffer such as analytics, community management, data insights, etc.

Did you find the best Instagram marketing tool?

Social media management tools are the key to keeping your business fresh during the age of mass consumption. They help you optimize your content and feed for a fraction of the cost in time and money.

Without them, you will likely need to invest in a large social media team to manually come up with ideas and analyze data at the same time to pick the optimal time to share that content. And even then, the performance would be relatively less due to error and subjectiveness.

Use this article to pick the best tool or a combination of tools for your Instagram needs, and give your team the features they need to truly grow your Instagram presence and take your brand to the next level with increased exposure and conversions.

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