Utilizing Instagram Tools for Business

Instagram is slowly growing as one of the top socially enabled mediums for Brands as well as individuals. With the cries of teens getting tired of Facebook over time and Instagram providing an alternative, Brands are slowly waking up to the fact that Instagram can also be leveraged as a visual medium to assist in their awareness/reach campaigns. According to SumAll’s latest report , Instagram beat Facebook as well as Twitter in terms of engagement and return on social investment.

Instagram being a mobile first social network, there are many tools which can be utilised by individuals/marketers & brands alike when they are looking at Instagram for building up authority on the platform. We list down Instagram Tools which you can utilise to begin your Instagram journey

TOTEMS Analytics

Totems Analytics (Previously Nitrogr.am) is one of the first analytics platform designed for Brands/agencies to focus on their Instagram presence. The tool provides some basic features including tracking of your Instagram account for engagement as well as competitive benchmarking. Instagram contests can also be monitored with the hashtag monitoring feature along with multiple account support for agencies and brands.

Key Performance Indicators which can be tracked on Nitrogr.am include:

Follower Growth (Trends by Day/Week)
Location & Country wise breakup of Followers
Male-Female Demographics
Top 10 Followers Gained/Lost for your Instagram Account
Engagement Stats with Post level drilldown available
Engagement Trends
Hashtag Analysis

Instagram Tools: Nitrogram — Nitrogr.am offers engagement and content level analysis of your Instagram account

Iconosquare

Iconosquare (previously Statigr.am)works on the similar lines as Nitrogr.am providing you a user friendly interface for managing your Instagram account with your friends activity to look at from a web based platform. You can preview your instagram pics, follow your friends feed along with which people are following you and what’s hot currently on Instagram. Great way to discover new content.

Dig in to the ‘Statistics’ section to know more about your profile including Engagement, Content & Community Growth. You can manage new comments through the ‘Comment’ section at the top and the ‘Contest’ tab lets you explore the ongoing contests by Brands which you can participate in. The Statigram Index also provides a scorecard of some top brands on instagram and their growth statistics which is always a useful tool to benchmark and assess your competition.

You can also try out the various add-ons you get with Statigr.am including the RSS feed of your acocunt and Instagram widget which you can embed to your blog. It also gives you an option to create a Facebook Cover with the latest Instagram photos you have posted. For business pages, Statigr.am also provides Facebook Custom Tabs which can be integrated with their Instagram accounts allowing full customization and analytics. Brilliant and a must have tool for any Instagram user.

Instagram Tools:Statigram — Statigr.am provides your Community and engagement stats along with various add-ons to be leveraged with Instagram

Followgram

Followgram is another web tool providing you with free statistics related to your Instagram presence. The web interface is similar to Statigr.am providing the feed of your friends when you login with Instagram. The stats section provides you with the basic overview about your account activity. Followgram has a paid plan for Brands looking to extend their reach on Instagram which feature no advertisements and a whole lot of customization options.

The ‘Explore’ section takes your computer’s location and gives you geo based recommendations on new people you can connect with on Instagram (If the person has geo-tagged his/her picture on Instagram) and can be a great tool to build on local communities.

Curalate:

Curalate monitors your brands performance. This tool provides analysis for Pinterest, Tumblr and Instagram. For Instagram you can find your most popular #hashtags as well as track your most successful images. Thus with these results you can share the most well received ones on your other social platforms to increase engagement.

This tool is also incredibly useful for monitoring conversations about your brand on Instagram as well as tracking brand images shared by users. This can be a great tool for brands to see who is talking about your brand and sharing your images and thus in turn be able to make connections with key influencers of your industry. This tool is a paid service as well which provides a demo.

Piqora:

This tool helps analyse your Instagram performance in comparison with competitors – you can compare your metrics, trending photos and audience data as well as analyzing their top content and influential users. Another key feature of this tool is #Hashtag tracking, with this you can analyse a hashtag campaigns potential reach. There are also virality metrics to predict which users have the most potential to become an influence. And this prediction could be used for brands advantage to increase awareness and be exposed to mass viewers. Piqora is a paid service which provides a free trial as well

Ink361:

On Ink361 you can view your images and feed on your desktop v/s mobile phone. This free tool also allows you to create albums of images and share these with non-Instagram users. One unique feature of Ink361 – You can turn any of your images into fine art, canvas or metal prints as well as photo cards and even accessories for your phone/mobile cases. It is a great way to sell products to your audiences for businesses!

Bonus Mention:

If you would want to backup your Instagram photos all in one go, Instarchive can be of great help to you which can send you your Instagram Photos in a zip file to be stored on your local drive.

When it comes to my personal usage, i prefer Statigr.am for it’s cleaner and detailed interface. Which is your pick out of the lot? Are there any other Instagram Tools you use to make your life easier? Share it with us in the comments below

Additional Inputs from Harsh Ajmera