Free Instagram promotion on your own: techniques and recommendations from experienced analysts. Independent promotion and programs for boosting Instagram.

Promotion on Instagram: free or effective?

Where does self-promotion of Instagram begin? From searching and selecting suitable promotion tools that, in your opinion, can bring your blog to the top positions in the popularity rankings. Whether this is done to achieve publicity or to implement a business project - on at this stage doesn't matter. Search engines still direct you to sites offering to gain subscribers and/or likes. These tools are important for promoting Instagram on your own, but they work in conjunction with other techniques. Which ones? Let's figure it out together.

Promotion on Instagram is free

Step-by-step instructions or algorithm free promotion You won’t find Instagram, because they don’t exist. In return - the conclusions of analysts who have empirically identified effective methods for pumping up accounts. Such experience is provided by studying thematic literature, attending a single master class, training, and then practicing and learning from your own mistakes.

Such thoroughness will require a lot of time, which in a rapidly changing world will only remove you from your cherished success. Today, in order to succeed, it is important to act quickly and accurately. Your progress on Instagram directly depends on the speed of response to system changes.

Promoting an Instagram account requires an integrated approach, which includes:

• competent profile description;
• choosing a page topic;
• publication of photos and videos (optional);
• placement of descriptions;
• adding geo tags and hashtags;
• increasing the audience.

For independent promotion, Instagram is a prerequisite. Thus, hashtags and geo tags will increase the visibility of the blog in searches. Thematic accounts are more attractive to users, which is why they are gaining popularity more rapidly. Compliance with the chosen style and format, information in the profile description using keywords– additional bonuses for promotion on Instagram.

Programs for promotion on Instagram

Today, numerous websites offer tools for getting subscribers yourself. Such promotion programs are available for download for free. These services are responsible for automating work on Instagram, attracting followers, and traffic arbitrage.

They search for the target audience by geolocation, hashtags and other requests, but automatically adding likes and comments and increasing subscribers is far from a panacea. Often such actions result in account owners being banned from pages. Promotion on Instagram requires flexibility and speed of response. Only an individual approach guarantees achievement positive results in upgrading your own blog.

The success of Instagram only confirms the hypothesis that niche delimitation is the future of the social media market. As Western marketers predicted, social networks are beginning to be divided not only by type of users, such as LinkedIn (for professional contacts), but also by type of content, such as the “visuals” of Pinterest and Instagram. By the way, both of the latter are dedicated exclusively to graphic content, but it was Instagram that became an amazing success story.

The number of Instagram followers is growing every second. It would be reckless not to use such a “live” platform in the interests of your business, given that the largest social networks have long been used more than successfully to promote brands. Strategies and methods have been developed, and a real industry of SMM services has been created. Perhaps it’s time to look at the capabilities of Instagram through the eyes of social media specialists, since it is no longer one of the billions of applications, but a social network that, like others, can become a powerful marketing channel for brands.

II. What does Instagram give to brands?

Instagram in its potential is an “untilled field” of various opportunities both for B2C brands (targeted at the end consumer) and for companies focused on a business audience (with a well-structured business strategy). By the way, unlike the methods, the goals that can be achieved using the service are largely identical to those set in a standard social media marketing campaign, namely:

#Recognition

Although there are no advertisements on Instagram, you can grab some of the fame from here: you need to provide such content so that users will follow you (it’s important not to slip into an account with funny pictures). Everything is complicated by the lack of a viral effect, since sharing (posting other people's posts in your feed) requires a special application. In what situation will the user rush to install it? Perhaps, if only you take a photo of him and he wants to get a photo of himself. There is only one way out: to become the very best, the most interesting, the most useful.

#Loyalty

It's like this interesting thing when people love your brand. Not the products, not the employees, but just the brand for what it is. Yes, not every online bearing store will be able to replicate Apple’s success. But you can and should try to make a buyer fall in love with you, and here visual content can help you. Today, when people have no time to read, communication through pictures can be considered the beginning of flirting.

#Reputation management and feedback

Any influence on someone else’s opinion gives rise to instant reaction, as in Newtonian mechanics. You can make the most wonderful product (which we have no doubt about), but there will still be critics. It is necessary to respond to angry reviews (whether fair or not). Answering questions about the company, products and services is your sacred duty and an opportunity to win over a potential client.

The process is hampered by the limited search functionality on Instagram. The “hashtag or nothing” principle applies here, which also gives good results.

#Lead generation (receiving targeted calls to the company)

Let's start with the disappointment: selling directly from Instagram is quite difficult. Of course, the service can indirectly present the product to a potential client, but the issue of proceeding to an order/purchase will have to be resolved by indirect methods (personal appeal to the account moderator, a call to visit the site, call back etc.). The main difficulty is the inability to perform the target action directly from the service.

Link clicks cannot be counted as such. And in principle, there is only one active link - in the account description in the profile. But no one bothers you to sign under the photo that the product has appeared on the website or in any store, talk about the new model, etc.

III. How to maintain an account

The main difference between Instagram is that people come here exclusively for eye-catching content, while other social networks serve several purposes: communication, entertainment, obtaining information (for example, to consult with friends about which frying pan to buy as a gift). That's why to promote a brand you have to do anything but give the user that delicious picture. There are several tools to help you.

Strategy

Before registering an Instagram account, you need to understand what could be your “trick”. If you plan to post photos of your product from different angles, you will not achieve anything (better to immediately give the budget to someone who urgently needs money). At this stage, you cannot do without a clear digital strategy tailored for this social network. Let's consider its main components.

#Idea

Look at successful brand accounts or just Instagram bloggers with many thousands of followers, who may not be famous people. Each of them has some kind of idea. Perhaps the most famous example is the account of photographer Murad Osmann and his project “Follow Me”.

Of course, it would be enough for some Madonna to simply take a photograph of herself in the bathroom mirror. Unless you're Madonna, you're going to have to work much, much harder. You must really provide interesting content, in extreme cases - useful, and at the same time not stray too far from your brand. Suppose you have an online sweets store: no need to photograph the counter or copy the candy catalog. Take a lot of beautiful still lifes with different moods and post a couple a day.

#Content plan

This thing that makes life easier is usually always included when drawing up a strategy. So, no matter what enterprising advertisers promise you, remember: Instagram account- this is when less is more. Just imagine yourself in the place of a user who, yawning, opens his Instagram feed in the morning and instead of friends’ selfies in every second photo he sees, in fact, advertising content of some brand. Remember what the news feed looks like on a smartphone. This is really a feed where you need to scroll through photos from one to another, from interesting to even more attractive, and everything will immediately fall into place. That's right: everything boring and intrusive will only cause irritation and a desire to immediately cancel such a subscription.

Let's take a manufacturer's account as an example. household appliances Korting. According to the concept and content plan, photos of delicious dishes with pleasant wishes were posted to the community several times a week, and only on Thursdays - branded content designed in the company’s style.

#The target audience

It is important to reach your audience so that your content is interesting and useful to them - this rule applies to all social media marketing, and it also applies to Instagram.

Be sure to make your profile photo - your business card - bright and memorable. Whether it is the company logo in its pure form, some variations of it, or an image within the framework of the chosen account strategy is up to you. But remember: the vast majority of users watch the feed from the screen of their smartphones, and they are quite small. Second chance to make a first impression potential clients You definitely won’t have it - think about this moment in advance. Let's take the Forever"21 brand as an example: a bright, recognizable and at the same time laconic profile photo that fits perfectly into the overall concept of the account.

Content

There are two types of content on Instagram: photos and videos. The ability to shoot video appeared not so long ago, the timing of videos is limited to 15 seconds, and there is nothing you can do about it. Undoubtedly, on this moment photo has a huge advantage over video, as it requires less cost both during creation and viewing.

Uniqueness. We have already talked about the uniqueness of your content as a defining characteristic of successful promotion on Instagram. So this is actually very important: the content must be truly original. If you take any existing pictures, at least they should not be hackneyed. Here, various photo banks, of which there are a great many on the Internet, can help you.

Description. It is often useful, in addition to hashtags, to add a description to each photo (some kind of brief explanation, question or comment). Of course, the option of simply posting photos also has a right to life, but it’s still better to express yourself somehow. The main thing is not to confuse Instagram with Facebook and do not write long posts. A couple of sentences is enough. But remember: users prefer to like rather than comment.

#Photo content

It can be interesting to everyone or narrowly themed, useful or purely entertaining. One thing is important without a doubt - it must be of high quality both in meaning and in the quality of photographs. Yes, there are individuals who create content for Instagram exclusively through the camera of their smartphone. Of course, this is a personal matter for everyone, but your branded account should not have any blurry pictures, pixelation and other pleasures of a pseudo-photographer.

Use different options - still lifes, collages, portraits - anything that can attract attention. Don’t limit yourself to photographing your products, think a little broader. Play charades with your brand, act on associations. Look at what the accounts of various Western brands look like, for example, the very “delicious” page of the Oreo company:

But lesser-known, or even local, brands can be as good as the marketing titans. Here's a stunning Instagram showcase for American clothing store Topo Designs. It’s just interesting to follow such an account. Placed here the best photos users, that's why it all looks so attractive. Note that they manage to do this without actively promoting their own hashtags. But there is also a little trick that you can safely adopt. Along with the glossy account that attracts users, there is a second one, which specifically represents the products from the store.

Do not post images of your logo instead of photos. Even if your boss is happy about it, who else is interested? And in general, you shouldn’t overdo it with branding: remember, the viral effect on Instagram is negligible. If a person has subscribed to your account, it means that he has already expressed a certain degree of trust and there is no need to disappoint him. For example, the page for the energy drink Red .Bull reflects the concept and emotional message of the brand:

Now imagine what the account would look like if it contained photos of energy drink cans.

We will talk about competitions, promotions and bonuses further, and as part of the conversation about content, we can mention such a form of interaction as, for example, the publication of photographs of subscribers selected according to certain criteria. The best photo of the month, the hundredth photo, the first photo of the day - it doesn’t matter. The main thing is that a picture from a user’s feed posted on your account is, at a minimum, the joy of the author of the masterpiece and the interest in what happened on the part of all his subscribers.

#Video content

This format, which appeared not so long ago, is, in principle, already popular, especially among brands that have everything necessary to create it. Western accounts of Oreo, Lego, National Geografic, Go Pro, etc. are famous for the most interesting videos.

Additional features

#Hashtags

Hashtags are one of the main magical powers of Instagram, so let's talk about them in more detail. It is with the help of these words, and sometimes phrases, that the inhabitants of a given kingdom communicate.

Why are hashtags needed? This is a kind of cataloging inside social network. When you search for text on VKontakte, for example, you can theoretically find it by the words it includes. With photographs everything is more complicated. Therefore, arbitrary hashtags are placed under each photo: they can relate to what is shown in the photo (#cat), display some mood (#happy), season, weather, event - anything. Top hashtags can be seen here.

Using hashtags, you can both search for images and tag your photos so that people can find you. You can put a hashtag with the brand name under your images or come up with some of your own as part of your current advertising campaign. Each hashtag is an active link. By clicking on it, the user sees all the images that he has tagged.

For example, the famous Western youth clothing brand Forever .21 runs its account under the motto Wear it. Share it (“Wear. Share”), implementing this using your own hashtag #F21xMe. It is also interesting that this hashtag does not just voice the brand. It helps customers feel connected to it, as if saying: “This is Forever 21 by me.”

#Location

Instagram functionality allows you to determine the place where the photo was taken. You can select the current location or create a new one using the suggested options (right in the service interface, at the stage of preparing the photo for publication).

How can this be used in marketing? There are many options. Let's take an example: has a new store opened in your chain? It is very convenient to take beautiful pictures and mark the location. Also, under an interesting photo of the product, you can note in which store it is sold, etc.

#Go Beyond Instagram

Instagram “outside itself” provides ample opportunities to post existing content on other platforms. You can:

• Post photos from your account on the company website
  This is very easy to do directly from the Instagram web interface (namely from the official website, not from mobile application). In this case, you will receive a clickable photo from Instagram with a link leading to your profile. In order to get this link, you need to open the desired photo, click on the button with three dots and select Embed - a window will open with a link that can be inserted into the site page code.

What does this give? Photos from Instagram can be used for a variety of purposes: from summing up the results of a competition to a selection of images to highlight some interesting event, pictures from which users uploaded to the application (with a specific hashtag).

Photos inserted in this way will retain both likes and a link to the profile, and since they are often taken on a phone and are far from perfect in quality, it is better to indicate this separately.

However, you can also save photos directly from your Instagram feed. However, this only allows you to get an image opened in a separate tab (without likes or comments), which can be saved as a picture. On mobile devices this can be done using various applications, for example, InstaSave works on iOS and Android. In the web interface, just open source page and there find a link to the photo itself, for example, //photos-g.ak.instagram.com/hphotos-ak-xaf1/10735041_1480567495564702 _720656284_n.jpg:

An even easier way to download a photo is to use special service, for example, 4kdownload.com.

Be careful: it is extremely difficult to contact social network technical support. Frankly, in Russia, compliance with the rules may not always be monitored or as quickly. However, this does not eliminate the risk, and the likelihood that sanctions will be applied remains quite high.

IV. Instagram promotion techniques

Once you have decided on the strategy, content and other main points, a logical question arises: how to make sure that at least someone sees it all? Yes, advertising will appear on Instagram soon. However, no one gives exact dates, and it is still completely impossible to assess its actual effectiveness. Nevertheless, million-dollar accounts exist. How did they achieve such results?

Strictly speaking, there are only two methods for attracting subscribers to your account. We will conditionally divide them into artificial and natural.

Artificially attracting subscribers

This category can include both effective methods paid posting of posts in popular accounts, as well as senseless boost of subscribers (and likes). Let's take a closer look.

#Increase the number of subscribers

The method, frankly speaking, is controversial. It consists of buying subscribers, or simply bots. These accounts were either originally registered for advertising purposes, or were purchased or stolen from their owners. And if at first glance, especially to a non-specialist, they may seem quite natural, for the most part they are of no use, but your account may be blocked for cheating.

If you resort to this method (for example, to promote a “zero” account, create the appearance of activity), then you must do this extremely carefully, or better yet, refuse it altogether.

Therefore, although such a method exists, it, as in other social networks, at best can be auxiliary, but, most likely, it will bring you nothing but harm, waste of time and money.

#Paid posts on Instagram

If you already use Instagram and follow any public pages or celebrity accounts, you have probably seen paid posts. But even if you haven’t encountered anything like this, pay attention to this promotion format - it has shown itself well in practice.

It's actually quite simple. Advertising is bought in the same way public pages in other social networks, be it Facebook, VKontakte or Odnoklassniki. First, you need to make a list of thematic accounts (find them by hashtags or in the popular list) and contact them. The second option is to use the Instagram advertising exchange - a site that will act as an intermediary between you as an advertiser and the owners of popular accounts that interest you.

Further - easier. IN the desired account a post is posted, you (your account) are tagged in the image (in the description). As a result, you receive coverage, subscribers and other bonuses - depending on your goals, quality of content and the correct choice of site. For example, promoting an account for the Oh, My Master! in the official profile of the famous model, presenter and fashion blogger Victoria Boni gave excellent results (including attracting new subscribers).

The most traditional of paid types of promotion is promotion on blogs, with the help of PR articles, on websites. These are all kinds of promotional materials, inclusion of your account in selections from the category “10 most fashionable Instagram accounts that you need to follow” on some popular resource. This could be an active link to a photo from your profile inside the material or on the website where your target audience is concentrated. It is advisable that the resource on which you are located has adaptive layout for mobile devices.

Natural ways of promotion

If all previous methods were united by the fact that, as a rule, you need to pay for them, here the situation is the opposite: it all depends on your skills and your coolness. But in any case, such methods of promotion require certain labor costs, keep in mind.

#Using popular hashtags

We have already talked about where to look at this list, but you can resort to other methods, for example, using search engines. We won’t risk listing the TOP 100 hashtags right here: it is constantly changing and from the time the book is written to the time it is read, it will become outdated several times over.

Hashtag search works great - users love it, and it’s convenient for brands. When posting any content in accordance with the chosen strategy, it will not be superfluous to put a hashtag from the list of popular ones. This way you can significantly increase the reach of your publication, get new likes and even subscribers if they like your content.

Also, overly common hashtags like #happy may not have a clear effect. It’s difficult to find your target audience when every third user around the world uses such tags.

#Subscriptions and likes

If the mountain does not come to you, then pack your backpack and go to the mountains. Go to subscribers, like their photos found using thematic hashtags, subscribe to their accounts. Too difficult? However, it works and is more than effective: personalizing ads is a great technique. At a minimum, the user will come to see who subscribed to him.

It is also impossible to measure such an important metric as coverage. Here we would recommend using various statistics collection services, for example, J.conosquare, known among SMM specialists. Due to the novelty of this type of promotion, there are much fewer such tools for Instagram than for other social networks, however, from the available ones, you can choose the one that is more convenient for you.

#Competitions, discounts, bonuses

Goodies are still a good way to engage, since everyone loves receiving gifts. Discounts, bonuses for subscribers, prize draws - there are no limits to your imagination here. As for the methods of conducting competitions, at the moment there are two main ones most often encountered:

• Using a special hashtag
  The main condition of the competition is to post any photo (specified by the rules) in your personal account with a specific hashtag.
  It would be great if it contained the brand name. Also one of mandatory conditions participation may be a subscription to a promoted account.
  But in such competitions, significant motivation (a good prize, bonus) and a simple task are required. Few people want to sew a Batman costume and climb high places in it because of the branded lighter.

An example of such a technique could be a competition in the account of the household appliance manufacturer Korting. Participants were asked to upload photos of various dishes with nice wishes and the hashtag #cutemeal. About fifty pictures were posted, and the most active ones took part in a professional culinary master class.

• Using a repost app
  In the wake of the spread of such applications, competitions like “Repost this post and get a pink elephant” began to gain popularity. Actually, this phrase describes the whole point. This way you can get a lot of coverage, but there is one “but”: the user must have the same app for reposting installed.

Instagram has come a long way in just a few years of its existence. Today it is one of the largest social networks with 400 million active users. For most American teenagers, this is the main playground. But not only for them: according to Simply Measured, 85% of brands open accounts on Instagram. To make promotion effective, every marketer uses one or another service. Today we will present 5 effective tools - perhaps among them you will discover something new for yourself.

Former Latergramme, a tool used by Lonely Planet and the Wall Street Journal. There is a function for delayed publishing, uploading photos, videos and quick reposting. The free version provides limited functionality: a maximum of 2 accounts and only 30 posts per month. Paid packages – from $19.

You can work simultaneously with three social networks: Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. There is a function for delayed publishing, managing multiple accounts, and editing photos. Five package options - from Starter for $19 per month (1 account on Instagram, 5 each on Facebook and Twitter) to Enterprise Plus for $179 (20 Instagram accounts, 25 each on other social networks) ). There is a free period of 7 days.

Works with 35 (!) social networks, with Instagram - only since last year. Great tool for analytics, receiving feedback from the audience and assessing their involvement. Also helps ensure the security of accounts. The Hootsuite collection includes 80 applications to improve the efficiency of working with social networks. There is a free one trial version(3 profiles, basic analytics) and paid packages Pro and Business.

Another tool for analytics. Allows you to sort followers by engagement and value to you, determine best time for posting posts and those publications that your subscribers like most. There are three packages: for digital agencies ($299 per month, 20 accounts), businesses ($79, 3 accounts) and ordinary users ($29, 1 account). All three plans have a free trial period.

Do you run a business page on Instagram and don’t have time to keep track of who has unfollowed you and who has become a new subscriber? Comments are lost, and it takes several hours to select a list of hashtags?

Then you will definitely need the tools from this article that will make it easier to work with clients, track comments and likes, analyze your brand’s reputation and plan posts several months in advance.

We have already told you about , but not all of them are suitable for Instagram. That's why I prepared for you new review 10 best apps that will help you run your business on Instagram.

1. Buffer

Instagram does not allow you to customize the display of posts without the participation of the author, so Buffer acts as Instagram alarm clock. It works with other social networks as a service for automatic scheduled posting.

What Buffer can do:

• Prepare posts in advance with photos, descriptions and hashtags. You set the day and time you would like to post it, and the service will remind you of this with a notification. You will only need to confirm the publication (you can edit the post if desired). It's easy, even if you're on the road or at work.

• Work on both PC and smartphone. But notifications will only come to your smartphone.

• Remind you to check which profile you are currently on on Instagram (relevant if you manage several pages). The function can be disabled.

Price:There is a free tariff plan that allows you to work with only one social network and create no more than 10 posts in advance. On the website you can find out about tariff plans .

2.Hootsuite

Hootsuite began supporting Instagram recently, but has already proven itself to be a good tool for planned posting, monitoring your audience and their preferences. You can publish posts on several social networks at once. The application supports not only Instagram, but also Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, etc.

What Hootsuite can do:

• Prepare content in advance. You can create Instagram posts (daily, weekly, monthly) and specify when they should be published. Hootsuite will send you a notification on the designated day and time. By clicking on it, you will be taken to a field with a post template - here you can edit an image already uploaded for posting, insert another one and hashtags with one click.

• Analyze audience behavior. You have access to lists of users you follow and a list of followers. Plus, you can set up monitoring of all uses of your brand’s unique hashtags.

• Monitor mentions of the company. Set up streams based on your company's geolocation. This will help you track posts from customers who take photos of your product and geotag them, but forget about the branded hashtag. Another plus is that you can find that are often posted near your company.

Price: e There is a 30-day demo, all others tariff plans — paid (from $19).

3. Crowdfire

This service will greatly simplify your work with subscribers: you can see everyone who has subscribed or unsubscribed from your profile, create white/black lists and even find clients who are definitely interested in your business by analyzing the feeds of profile subscribers with similar topics.

What Crowdfire can do:

• Show people who haven't followed you back. Convenient buttons to the left of each user in the application menu will allow you to quickly remove them from the unfollowers list.

• Generate lists of those who have subscribed to your profile, but whom you have not added to the following. This will make it easy to follow new users and follow them back with one button (also located to the left of each profile in the list).

• Copy lists of users who are subscribed to profiles similar in topic to yours. This will help you quickly find “warm” clients. The application shows you a complete list of subscriptions of any brand, and directly from this window you can add any pages to the following in a couple of clicks.

• Publish pending posts to specified time. Each post prepared in Crowdfire will have the hashtag “via Crowdfire” (regardless of the tariff plan).

Price:There is a free plan, the others start from $10. You can see all prices only after registration or on the screen below :)

Business Academy participant? Everything you need to know about attracting new subscribers and. Follow the link: how to switch to a business profile, protect your account from hacking, create a content plan, connect an auto-mail list in Direct, etc.

Find all the information about the Business Academy

4. Social Insight

This service offers mainly analytical functions. With Social Insight, you can easily create posts in advance, develop a content plan independently and in a team, select the best time for posting based on service analytics, monitor your most active fans and analyze what content works best.

What Social Insight can do:

• Monitor complete statistics on your profile. The service even provides statistics on the most popular photo and video filters. You will see:
  • who subscribed/unsubscribed;
  • when was the biggest increase in subscribers;
  • total number of comments, likes;
  • what content your subscribers liked the most, etc.

• Give advice on the best time to post based on your profile statistics.

• Compose on your PC and post the required content on time.

Price: there are 3 paid plans ; You can evaluate for free whether the application is right for you within 14 days.

5. Sendible

Sendible will help you plan the release of posts in advance, choose the optimal posting time, work on tasks on Instagram as a team, publish content on several channels at once, and even monitor mentions of your brand on social networks.

In addition, the service supports not only Instagram, but also Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and integrates with Google Analytics, Slack and Dropbox. The application includes CRM manager who will help control email and SMS messages.

What Sendible can do:

• Combine all social media channels on one display. This makes it easier to watch content streams so you don't miss out interesting posts and comment on them in time.

• Monitor your online reputation. The service automatically generates statistics on positive, negative and neutral reviews about your brand by analyzing keywords.

• Select the optimal time for publications based on the collected statistics. With Sendible you can achieve maximum audience engagement. Create individual or team content plans, store images in a special media library, and use support services such as Canva.

Price: e There is a free trial period for 30 days and 3 paid plans. Acquainted withfeatures of each possible on the website.

6. Later

This scheduled posting program acts only as a notifier, she will not publish photos on her own. You set the day/time when you need to remember to post, and wait for a notification on your smartphone. In addition, you have access to powerful analytical functionality.

What Later can do:

• Provide statistics on your profile and business niche. In addition to sending notifications, there are basic/advanced analytics functions - you can track likes, clicks and monitor the number of subscribers. There is a function to search content by hashtags, users and even likes.

• Organize optimally. You can choose how photos will be placed on your profile, Later allows you to practice with your profile view - rearrange posts, plan the perfect color scheme. The main difference compared to other Instagram alarm clocks is built-in service for cropping photos.

• Post content from different devices thanks to the media library in which you can save photos and videos from your PC, OneDrive, DropBox. This is also convenient for working in a team. Another library has been developed for the Chrome extension, into which with one click you can add all the ideas that interest you during your search.

Price: There is free version , which allows you to post up to 30 posts on Instagram per month (you can also connect Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest, for them the number of available posts is the same). You will also have access to a media library in which you can store all the files you need for publications, and basic analytics tools.

IN paid versions the number of posts per month increases, a multi-user function appears (when 2-3 or more employees can maintain a profile). You can attach videos to posts. Also, all paid packages provide improved analytical tools Pro Instagram Analytics.

7. Tailwind

First of all, Tailwind helps plan publications weeks and months in advance. You can prepare posts directly from your PC; to do this, create a library of files on your computer. It’s very convenient that you can see how your content plan from prepared posts looks on a simulated Instagram page.

What Tailwind can do:

• Save photos and pictures directly from websites and add them to the image database or even directly to the content plan of deferred posts.

• See which hashtags in the selected area are the most popular, right in the post preparation mode and insert them into the signature with one click.

• Set up notifications with reminders about prepared posts. You can turn the sound on/off, select the optimal type of reminder, etc.

Price: d A demo version is available, but all plans are paid (from $10 per month).

8. Hashtagify

Hashtagify is one of the most famous services for tracking top hashtags on a desired topic. The main advantage of this service is search and analysis, including Russian-language hashtags.

What Hashtagify can do:

• Select thematic hashtags in the form of a tree. Each “branch” can be clicked to see the next branch of frequently used words.

• Display statistics for each hashtag. Data can be viewed when hovering over a branch and in screen mode.

Price:A demo version is available for 10 days, after which you need to choose . You can use the limited capabilities of the hashtag library for free only with Twitter; you will have to pay for Instagram analytics.

9.Iconosquare

The service helps you monitor your all activity of your business profile, generates statistics of top profile posts and the most popular hashtags in your niche. In addition, it allows even those users who do not have Instagram to view photos and leave comments on your profile.

What Iconosquare can do:

• Simplify account management. You can like, see new comments and quickly respond to them, follow subscribers who have just added or unsubscribed - all from one platform.

• Show detailed account statistics. Study what content on your profile became top and received the most likes/comments, what was the increase in subscribers over the week. The service generates statistics on your account daily and sends them by email.

• Remind you to publish posts. You can create a schedule on your PC in advance, and at the right time, Iconosquare will send you a mention on your smartphone.

• Plan the posting of posts. The application, based on statistical data, calculates when it is most profitable to publish content.

• Make it easier to run contests on Instagram (paid feature). The service can show all comments (there are problems with this on the social network itself) and analyze activity for a certain amount of time. Therefore, you can even organize competitions with voting.

Price: free trial period – 14 days, after which you need to choose one of the paid tariff plans.is on the official website.

10. Repost

What Repost can do:

• Repost in 2 clicks and save a link to the original post.

• Search for the desired content using hashtags or username.

• Follow your favorite channels on one screen.

Price: for free.

If you liked the selection and want to see similar reviews of tools for other social networks, like and share the article with your friends.

You can learn more about how to start selling your goods and services on the Internet from the article “ ”.

Liya Kanarskaya

Why you need to create an Instagram account right now

To tie Facebook accounts and Instagram are only possible if you have admin rights on your company's Facebook page. If they are not there (or there is no brand page), then you can link them to your personal page.

To link FB and Instagram accounts, you need to select “Settings” – “Account” – “Linked accounts”:

Select Facebook and enter your login information:

You will now see the name of the page you linked your Instagram to:

You can skip these points if you have already linked your account to your company’s Facebook page at the first stage.

Afterwards you can configure a few more important parameters.

For example, disable commenting on your posts. To individual photos/videos or to all posts at once.

If anything, remember - you can always complain about spam directly in the comments:

By the way, Instagram is seriously concerned about – as Kevin Systrom (CEO and co-founder of the photo network) puts it – the “psychological comfort” of its users. This way, owners of private (closed) accounts can delete any subscribers without notice. And soon it will be possible to send anonymous messages about users who urgently need medical and psychological support. Sort of panic buttons to Self-Injury Posts (literally: posts of self-torture).

Stage 2. Description, link and avatar: register your account correctly

1. Profile description.

Place in your profile description important information about your company: USP, short description nature of services. Don’t fill the description with hashtags or a lot of emojis (emoticons). Please be aware of the 150 character limit.

To track traffic from Instagram, you can put a UTM tag at the end of the link in your profile description. But until recently, Google Analytics was not on good terms with Instagram. Traffic from the application in GA reports was attributed to the source - direct (direct traffic). However, some traffic from the application may still not be recognized by GA. This problem can be solved using a redirect.

So that the address looks like https://site.ru/?utm_source=instagram&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=bhphotovideoaccount did not confuse users, we make a link like http://site.ru/instagram(or something similar) and add it to our profile. And then we set up a 301 redirect to a UTM link that will lead to our website. When a user clicks such a link on your Instagram profile, the added parameters will be sent to Google Analytics - and the corresponding data will appear in your reports. Plus, Instagram considers such links more reliable than shortened ones. Attention! Google Analytics is case sensitive: utm_source=Instagram and utm_source=instagram will appear as different traffic sources

1. Link to your site.

If you want to make multiple links on your Instagram, use services like taplink - this one, for example, is internal application. That is, a URL like taplink.cc does not take you away from the social network, but can serve as an informational business card and a store. Classic content on free plan will look something like this:

Stage 5. Pay attention to hashtags

1. Hashtag Always must correspond to the topic of the post.
2. Use 5 hashtags per post. Yes, the more hashtags, the wider the reach. However, 30 hashtags for one post will be placed on the screen so poorly that they can distract the subscriber from the main thing - the picture itself. Don't make your posts look like spam.
3. Remember that the most popular hashtags in search will quickly move you down.
4. Make a custom hashtag and experiment constantly.
5. Mistakes are sometimes incredibly attractive. Typos can become a feature if you try hard enough. This is how the domain and name of one of the agencies in Moscow appeared, for registration and approval of advertising signs. The Reglama option delighted my customer. REGISTRATION and a deliberate mistake in the word advertising, do you understand?

Remember that not only usefulness and emasculated photos from the studio can sell, but also trash and humor:

Style will help you stand out, there will always be grateful users

Nature itself will help emphasize the mood of the brand:

Let's move on to the video. Previously, videos in the Instagram feed were limited to a 15-second interval; today, the maximum time for a video post is 1 minute. Now we can say with confidence that posts with videos get much more reactions than photos.

And at the end of 2016, Instagram launched new feature– live video broadcasts. Live broadcasts can now be saved and shared with other users. Be sure to try working with live broadcasts: we told you how to launch them and make them watch.

But the laurels of YouTube certainly did not give rest to the developers of the social network, so Instagram in 2018 launched a new video platform IGTV, which is designed for long vertical videos.

Remember that the use of video must be justified by your brand’s digital strategy and pursue specific goals. Development, filming, and editing of video is not the cheapest expense item, so decide in advance exactly what tasks you want to solve with its help. Smart video marketing will allow you to stand out from your competitors and make your content varied and attractive.

If you don't know where to start, I've compiled it for you. best ideas brands to get inspired by:

1. Make a social video. Social advertising from PornHub is the best thing that could be done to draw attention to environmental issues. This is how the video service for adults outlined its position on the problem of ocean pollution.