Instagram marketing presents a unique opportunity for brands to humanize their message by sharing photos and videos on an app beloved by millions of consumers. Savvy marketers are constantly looking for new tools that will help them manage the overwhelming number of social media platforms, and apps are available to address any aspect of Instagram marketing.
Table of Contents
Best Apps For Instagram Marketing
- VSCO (iOS, Android)
vsco It’s been a while since Instagram’s default filters were the bleeding edge of mobile photo editing. In the meantime, VSCO has emerged as the reigning champ of creating beautiful photos on the go. Part photo-editing platform and part social media network, VSCO should be at the heart of every Instagram strategy.
VSCO has an in-depth editing suite and a slew of high-quality default filters that can take your smartphone photos to a completely new level. There’s also a huge library of filters available on the premium plan, giving you endless options for customizing your photos and setting them apart from the pack.
Price: Free for basic presets and standard editing tools; $19.99/year for access to VSCO’s full suite of presets and image/video editing tools.
- Snapseed (iOS, Android, macOS, Windows)
snapseed
Snapseed is another photo-editing app that gives you the option to fine-tune your photos. While Instagram’s default filters edit your entire image at once, Snapseed lets you apply effects with a brush so you can perfect the details of each photo.
Snapseed’s Stacks is another great feature, letting you save groups of filters as a template. These Stacks can then be applied to future photos, giving your entire feed a consistent look and saving you time.
Price: Free.
- Afterlight (iOS)
afterlight
Afterlight is a photo-editing app that boasts a default set of dozens of filters, textures, and frames, giving you lots of different options for tweaking your photos right off the bat. You can create and save your very own filters and work with multiple image formats. Afterlight also includes typography tools to help your images stand out.
With its sleek and straightforward design, Afterlight is an easy-to-use, must-have tool for making your Instagram photos pop.
Price: $2.99/month or $17.99/year after a seven-day free trial.
- Canva (web, iOS, Android)
canva
Canva is an app you can use to create images that stand out, whether it’s in your Instagram feed or in your Stories. You can superimpose text, create multi-image layouts, and pull in a wide range of predesigned graphics to level-up your posts and get your followers’ attention.
It’s especially useful for creating Instagram Stories that stand out, and if you stick to a few consistent image formats and fonts, you can start to make sure your followers always recognize your content.
Price: Free for image design with pay-per-use premium graphics; from $12.95/month for Canva Pro, which includes transparent backgrounds and animation/GIF creation.
- Photoshop Express (iOS, Android, Windows)
photoshop express
That’s right, you can use Photoshop on your phone.
While the mobile app doesn’t come with every feature of the desktop app, it does offer a powerful image editing experience that gives you a lot of control over your photos. It streamlines the work you’d do on your desktop with handy tools like blemish removal, which can get rid of spots, dirt, and dust from your photo with a single touch.
You also get access to multiple controls, filters, presets, and options you wouldn’t get elsewhere, like the ability to add a watermark to your photos.
Price: Free.
The best Instagram video apps
You don’t need to be a professional videographer to create captivating videos for your business’s Instagram account. These Instagram video apps make it easy for anyone to capture quick videos on their phones and turn them into high-quality professional videos without having to whip out a laptop and fire up their video-editing software.
- Vimeo Create (iOS, Android)
Vimeo Create automatically turns your existing product images and text into polished videos. Just answer a few questions about your product and the videos are generated for you — no video experience required.
Price: Free, with options to upgrade for advanced editing tools and templates
- Boomerang from Instagram (iOS, Android)
boomerang from instagram
Boomerang is an app created by Instagram that lets you create a GIF-like looping video from a series of photos. When your video is complete, either publish it to Instagram instantly or save it to post later.
Price: Free.
- Life Lapse (iOS, Android)
life lapse
While Boomerang for Instagram is great for creating quick GIF-like videos, Life Lapse is a more feature-rich mobile app for creating longer, stop-motion videos to showcase your products. You can take as many photos as you want, customize the size of your video, adjust the speed between images, and even add royalty-free music.
Price: Free, with optional in-app purchases.
- HypeType (iOS)
hypetype
HypeType’s large library of fonts and animations makes it quick and easy to create captions for different sections of a video shot with the app or an uploaded video you’ve already taken. When you’re finished, you can post your video on Instagram without leaving HypeType.
Price: Free with video watermark; in-app purchases are available to remove the watermark or purchase additional fonts.
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The best Instagram marketing apps
You’re almost ready to hit Post, but to help grow your following and connect with more people, you’re going to want to engage with your followers and use some hashtags. The best Instagram marketing apps help you do just that.
- Repost for Instagram (Android)
repost for instagram
You don’t always need to be the person behind the lens taking the photos. If you have a community of customers who post user-generated content, you can use Repost for Instagram to curate their images and give them credit at the same time.
To share an image from someone else’s Instagram account on your own, just copy the share URL on the post you want to share and open Repost on your phone. It’ll add a credit icon to the image, copy the description, and have you ready to post to your account in seconds.
Best apps for instagram business posts
- Quik by GoPro
OS Compatibility: Android, iOS, Desktop
GoPro quik app presentation as a video editor for Instagram posts
GoPro is all about spending less time on dull tasks and more time on exhilarating action. The same goes for its Quik mobile video editor. Just a few taps on the screen and your footage turns into an exciting event full of revigorating music, effects, graphics, and font styles.
For those days when marketers are on really bad terms with their deadlines, Quik video presets are a lifesaver. You can select one preset template and a stylish mix of filters, transitions, fonts, and graphics will automatically dress up any clip.
Above al, they charge nothing. Instead, Quik helps creators and publishers pick up speed and edit one jaw-dropping video after another.
Quick by GoPro Alternative: FilmoraGo
A similarly free video editor, FilmoraGo is rich in effects, music, motion graphics and themes. The results are also easy to share and are highly compatible with YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook.
- TouchRetouch
OS Compatibility: Android, iOS, Desktop
You finally get the right angle for a perfect promotional cover. But wait! You suddenly notice that your colleague’s elbow is photobombing the entire project. You have two options: either recreate the frame from scratch or download TouchRetouch.
With TouchRetouch in your toolkit, all Instagram posts will appear sleek, clean, to the point. Unaesthetic cables, smears, pens, and other out of place items will disturb your posts no more.
All in all, this is a simple solution that requires a one-time payment. However, it’s worth every penny and then some Defect elimination makes it one of the best Instagram apps for businesses.
TouchRetouch Alternative: Adobe Photoshop Fix
Adobe Photoshop Fix developed its own erasing feature among others where others can get daunting. Unlike TouchRetouch, Adobe’s alternative requires quite a learning curve. Light the eyes, darken the background, heal burnt pixels, erase unwanted logos, tattoos, hair locs, and much more for a pristine Instagram profile.
- ProductLead – Creative Automation
OS Compatibility: Desktop
productlead content generator tool which creates new visuals for instagram
The creative process behind a content marketing plan requires a lot of time. Often, daily posts on multiple social channels take marketers days to finish. However, it’s not the execution that takes up the majority of the time, but creativity.
ProductLead devised a tool that enables brands to keep the quality of their posts high at all times. It’s called Creative Automation. What it does is similar to a generator that mixes elements (in-house photography, UGC, frames, templates, CTAs, messages, etc.) together and delivers professional and engaging illustrations.
The entire process follows a strategic path through the prism of templates. There is no randomization but everything happens for a reason. Each element finds its rightful place according to templates that proved successful within certain industries: fashion, travel, beauty, etc.
With the help of Creative Automation, publishers spend less time on creating their Instagram posts ahead. Instead of days, their tasks will need a space of a few hours.
ProductLead Alternative: Any Marketing Agency
Broadly speaking, any marketing agency is ready to produce original banners, social posts or advertising material for their clients. However, this process usually entails manual work which translates into a larger need of time, money, and human input.
- Layout from Instagram: Collage
OS Compatibility: Android, iOS
Layout from Instagram: Collage app presentation
One of the best Instagram apps actually belongs to the Instagram umbrella. Collage does something that the standard social network app cannot accommodate: photo combinations.
It’s easier to tell a story when you work with several images at a time. With Layout from Instagram, marketers can combine pictures from their company events for instance into one collage. This way, one Instagram post can render the atmosphere of a 2-hour show easily.
Collage Alternative: PicsArt
More than just a mobile collage maker, PicsArt enriches the Instagram world with basic yet solid collages, but also stickers, templates, backgrounds, borders, etc. Users can make their photos unrecognizable by creating cutouts, stretching, cloning, cropping, and other cool actions. The possibilities are endless.
- VSCO
OS Compatibility: Android, iOS
vsco app presentation as a video editor for Instagram posts
An intuitive photo editor for mobile screens, VSCO earned a pristine reputation among creators thanks to its minimalism. Its presets deliver impactful vibes across social platforms. Few users remain unmoved whenever they stumble upon a VSCO-edited photo or video as they scroll down their feeds.
Filters, frames, and other stunning edits make VSCO worth the annual subscription. Try it out for free for 7 days and see if VSCO fits your style.
VSCO Alternative: Vaporgram
Longing for the glorious days of colorful yet glitchy videotapes? Vaporgram transports your Instagram profile back to the future with its own retro frames and vintage effects.
- Photoshop Express
OS Compatibility: Android, iOS
photoshop express app presentation as a video editor for Instagram posts
Multimedia creation behemoth, Adobe, is gifting the worldwide creative community yet another flawless editing app: Photoshop Express. Over 80 presets are waiting for users to level up their Instagram posts among tons of other features such as blemish removal, frames, image resize, noise removal, crop, auto-fix, etc.
A vast majority of reviews are pointing out to its user-friendly interface. For those familiar with Adobe products, getting around this app is a breeze. Its basic features are free with the option to upgrade to a premium version for a paid Adobe account.
Photoshop Express Alternative: Pixlr
If you don’t want to get too much into detail, a transition from professional to fun might be just for you. Pixlr makes photo editing for Instagram entertaining with a fully adjustable Collage interface, plus other eye-candy effects, overlays, and fonts.
- Canva
OS Compatibility: Adobe, iOS, Desktop
canva app presentation as an image editor for Instagram posts
As one of the first online photo editors, Canva brought a lot of innovation into the mix. Overall, this app resembles many popular editing apps. However, Canva distinguishes itself through unique, eye-catching graphics.
Its core strength lies in an extensive collection of elements perfect for infographics. Therefore, we recommend Canva for those brands that want to leave their mark on Instagram through information-packed yet attractive illustrations.
Canva Alternative: Crello
The guys behind DepositPhotos are bringing to Canva a fierce competitor embodied in the Crello app. This is a sort of Canva 0.2. Same DIY graphic design concept with the added edge of an advanced Animation Maker tool.
- Planoly
OS Compatibility: Android, iOS, Desktop
planoly app presentation as a post planning platform for Instagram posts
What’s an Instagram business profile without a plan? Take one day per week to create beautiful concepts and schedule them 7 days in advance with Planoly.
This is the first planning app that took advantage of Instagram’s permission for third parties to post on their users’ behalf. However, Planoly can post automatically only for those with an Instagram Business Account. Nonetheless, the switch is easy to activate in Settings.
The free version allows marketers to link one Instagram account and up to 30 photo uploads per month. As a bonus, users get access to some basic analytics that reveals stats about traffic and fluctuations in the number of followers.
Besides post scheduling, Planoly offers users perspective by arranging their grids before going live. You can simply drag and drop photos and see how well they go together in the app’s grid.
Planoly Alternative: Preview
Thinking of color grading your Instagram wall without breaking a sweat? Preview makes it fun and easy through an intuitive dashboard where you can rearrange posts any way you like it.
- AutoHash
OS Compatibility: Android
autohash app presentation as a hashtag generator for Instagram posts
Instagram allows for up to 30 hashtags per post. In its turn, such an opportunity opens 30 portals to new pools of leads. Why not taking advantage of this? However, some marketers are skipping this step due to the lengthy efforts they need to put in their hashtag research.
This makes AutoHash one of the best Instagram apps out there for marketers. It offers the easiest way of choosing relevant keywords for each of your posts. Powered by AI, AutoHash identifies elements in photos and selects appropriate hashtags.
Your job is to select the hashtags you deem relevant, copy them from the clipboard, and paste them into captions. Unfortunately, this mobile app is only available on Android.
AutoHash Alternative: In Tags
While missing the AI element, In Tags resorts to a more traditional yet still effective implementation method: categories. Choose your industry (Animals, Food, Beverage, etc.) and hit the generator button.
- Write Behind
OS Compatibility: iOS
write behind app presentation as a text editor for Instagram posts
One app for one dramatic effect: text placed behind an object in your photo. This feature alone makes invitations, posters, and product promotions stand out from the crowd.
Write Behind offers over 80 different fonts and allows users to adjust color, depth, shadow, and saturation of their typography. In the end, users get an impactful visual that catches people’s attention on social media.
Write Behind Alternative: Text on Pictures
In the absence of an equally innovative opponent, do you accept a Write on Top alternative? Text on Pictures brings forth a simple solution to add an explanation or an inspirational quote to your Instagram photos. An amazing selection of pixel fonts with editable colors coupled with expressive stickers lends a creative voice to your Instagram feed.
Conclusion
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