As of today, Instagram has more than 1 billion active users, and more than 60 million photos are shared on it every day … And as a result of its rapid growth, thousands of applications for Instagram have emerged with the aim of providing the user with new tools to help you manage and improve your presence on this popular social network.
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The basis of their success is mainly the simplicity with which any user can manage their account (they say that since Instagram exists now we are all photographers). This is due to the ease with which we can upload images with a “retro” effect and filters that allow you to share your story, and that you can also share directly from your mobile phone on social networks such as Facebook, Twitter or Flickr (among others); And if you specify a location, you can even send it to Swarm (formerly to Foursquare).
However, the limitations of the application in its beginnings led to the appearance of countless applications that allow retouching photos, editing images and videos using the most varied filters, making collages, cropping and many more things that the application itself did not allow. do.
Since Facebook bought Instagram, it has become a powerful advertising and communication channel for brands with their users. This is how new applications arise such as statistics, monitoring of “hashtags”, and others that can help you manage audiences, discover content , etc.
Currently, applications for Instagram have become a true universe in which each user can find those applications that best suit their needs, tastes and budget.
In this article I explain what are the applications for Instagram that I use in my own account. You can see examples on my Instagram profile: vmartinp
Also, if you want to grow your Instagram community with real followers and quickly, I recommend my Top Instagramer course , in which I explain in depth the strategies I have used to get more than 14,000 followers to date.
Table of Contents
- The best apps for Instagram
- Whentopost
- Crowdfire
- Command
- Layout
- WordSwag
- PS Express
- Boomerang
- Repost
- Applications to gain followers on Instagram
- Later (before Latergramme)
- Apps for likes on Instagram
- How to get likes on Instagram
- TagsForLikes
- Hashtags 4 Likes
- Follow4follow
- Instagram photo apps
- Snapseed
- PicsPlay
- VSCO Cam
- Vignette
- ShowPics
- Aviary
- Photostitcher
- conclusion
The best apps for Instagram
I have been working on my Instagram account for a while and I can assure you that I have tried hundreds of applications for Instagram -many of them I have tried and deleted them because they did not bring me anything new-, but among all those apps for Instagram here are the ones that I consider that they are the best:
Whentopost
Whentopost is an application that calculates the best times of the day and week to make your publications. It is based on a powerful algorithm that processes thousands of data to determine when your followers are online, their moments of activity and their relationship with you, in order to achieve the highest number of views of your publication. Also in its paid version you will have other options to know what are the best times of the week to make your publications and dynamic graphics that indicate the best times of the day, but as I said, for that you will have to pay.
In English, free download.
Crowdfire
This application allows you to simultaneously post on Twitter and Instagram. Like the previous app, it can also calculate the best time to post, depending on when your followers are more likely to be connected and, consequently, view your content and thus get more “likes” and comments.
At the time of sharing you can publish at the moment, publish at the best time according to the application or schedule the publication for the time you choose (it will not publish it directly to Instagram, but you will receive a notification to remind you that it is time to publish) .
In summary, with Publish you can:
- Schedule and publish messages on Twitter and Instagram simultaneously.
- Manage messages from multiple accounts.
- Immediately publish or schedule publications, either for the best time suggested by the app or at the time you choose to do it (manually).
- Display in a timeline the publications made and the next ones.
- Reprogram or republish older posts.
It also has an interface for your computer, with which you can:
- Preview your posts on Twitter and Instagram.
- Select different time zones for publications.
- Drag and drop images directly from your computer.
Command
Command for me is one of the best tools for Instagram and an essential app on my phone.
I already talked about it in the article “How to get followers on Instagram” due to the large number of functions it has to better manage your account.
The best thing about this app is that it analyzes your profile and makes a report of all those things that you are doing well in the eyes of Instagram and makes suggestions for how you could improve with your profile.
For example, if you should upload content more frequently, the formats you should use more, if you are using hashtags correctly or not, etc. Imagine this app as a personal trainer just for you on Instagram
It allows you to plan your feed for future posts, as well as have complete control over your Instagram statistics.
If you want to take your profile to the next level, this is the application that will help you achieve this.
Layout
This application developed by the Instagram team itself allows you to edit, combine and mix your own photos to create photos in the form of collage.
The process is very intuitive; You can mix up to 9 photos to create fun with custom designs.
Other Layout utilities:
- The “Faces” tab allows you to quickly find people in a photo.
- Capture the moment with quick shots.
- Allows you to save the designs and share them on other social networks.
- Shows the last thirty selected photos.
- You can start using it immediately after download without registering.
WordSwag
WordSwag is one of my favorite applications and the one I use the most.
It is used to add text to the photos in just a few seconds and you can add your logo or watermark so that they do not plagiarize you (something quite common on Instagram). So if someone shares your photo and does not give you credits mentioning you, everyone will know who created it.
The best thing is that it has a bank of free and royalty-free images that you can use to create new photos.
It has an exclusive Typomatic ™ engine that allows you to create custom texts that would normally take a long time to work.
It also offers creative, predesigned quotes, thoughts and phrases to apply to photos and share them automatically.
PS Express
Another of my essential applications.
The classic Adobe PhotoShop, now for Instagram in Express version.
It puts at your disposal all the power of this program allowing you to retouch your photos and improve them with corrections and automatic filters.
Among its utilities we can cut, straighten, rotate, adjust color, eliminate red eyes in people and pets, adjust tone and brightness, artistic filters, borders and frames, for example.
It allows you to quickly send to other social networks such as Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter.
It has add-on packages with advanced capabilities like noise, grain and speckle reduction, defogging to reduce fog and haze on photos, and additional packages can be purchased.
Boomerang
Another application created by Instagram and whose use has become very fashionable on this social network.
It allows you to turn a photo into a fun video: you make a burst of 10 photos and merge them into one high-quality video that goes back and forth creating very cool effects. Of course, you can also immediately share it on Instagram and Facebook directly from the application.
You will have the option to save the video to watch or share it later.
Repost
Repost for Instagram is an application that allows you to republish (“repost”) photos and videos of yourself or other users, assigning credit to the original author.
If you want to share photos of other users on your own account, this is the simplest option.
On the photo a small poster will appear on the side that you choose with the photo and the name of the Instagram account that has published the original content.
The name of the original account will also appear in the text of the publication so you can mention it.
Applications to gain followers on Instagram
I already explained it in another post: the best way to gain followers on Instagram is by creating high-quality content; in fact, quality content increases the chances of new users discovering your account, since Instagram itself has a tab (“Explore”) that uses an algorithm that highlights interesting content.
Along with this, a creative design, a descriptive and easy to remember username, and the connection of your Instagram account with your other social profiles (which must have a similar design)
Here are a few tricks:
- Your Instagram profile must be in “public” mode.
- Invite your followers on other social networks (or your blog) to visit your account on Instagram.
- Follow other users that interest you.
Keep in mind that it is not about increasing followers quickly but about making your audience identify with your brand and thus grow on a solid basis.
If you really want to gain followers, I recommend you consider using Facebook Ads (which allows you to create ads for Instagram).
Anyway, here are some apps to gain followers on Instagram:
Later (before Latergramme)
To schedule publications the day and time you need. Widely used to increase traffic on your website with Instagram. It is important that the publications have a certain periodicity without saturating the followers.
Apps for likes on Instagram
It is no secret that the vast majority of users and brands on Instagram are looking for ways to receive many likes. Many users even become obsessed with getting likes on Instagram at all costs. But you should know that most users will give you their “like” if your message has sincerely reached them and if you regularly interact with them.
One way to ensure that your posts receive the most amount of likes will be using hashtags (11 in particular is the amount recommended by various reports).
Most users include the hashtags in the posts, but I recommend you try adding them to your bio as well.
There are also many applications for the “Exchange of likes” but I honestly do not recommend them.
As I mentioned before, many users will give you their “like” honestly and although it is still legitimate to request and give likes to help each other gain popularity, it is not a practice that really works.
These applications show you users who, like you, want to receive likes on their photos, and to which you will have to like their publications. That creates a kind of bag of likes that you will later receive in the photos of your account that you choose.
The problem is that with these users they practice a simple exchange of likes. They will not leave you comments on your posts or follow you.
On the other hand, hashtags let you know which users do like exchanges and exchange them without the need for any third-party application to earn likes.
Some of the most used hashtags are: #followforfollow, # like4like or the typical #Follow.
How to get likes on Instagram
Here are some applications that will generate hashtags for you to copy in your publications:
TagsForLikes
Simple application that helps you insert “hashtags” or keywords in the description of the photographs you publish, quickly tagging the images. Instagram only allows a maximum of 30 tags per photo.
This application offers you a series of hashtags that you can paste in the description of the photos.
The tags selected by the application are the most popular on Instagram and perhaps the most relevant.
Allows you to choose a block of labels according to your preferences. For example, in the Nature category, the “Beach” block contains 26 labels. It also has tag blocks for “Like”, “Follow” and “Comments”.
Hashtags 4 Likes
Very similar to the previous one, this free application from Microsoft offers a large collection of tags for your photos on Instagram. You simply choose the type of label you want and the application copies the labels to the image.
Follow4follow
An exchange system that allows you to win “I like you” and followers. Be careful with this, ok?
Instagram photo apps
There is no doubt, if there are star applications for Instagram, they are those related to photographs, since in fact, Instagram was born as a social network that invited to share stories through instant photographs taken with the mobile phone.
The initial functions of the product are quite limited, so the applications to improve, decorate, combine and make photographs more creative are countless.
However, it is not just about retouching or correction: there are also applications that turn the simple camera of the mobile phone into a sophisticated professional camera.
Some apps for photos on Instagram:
Snapseed
Available for iOS and Android. It allows you to make adjustments and edit photos in ways that until now could only be done on your computer.
It has tools to perfect photos, automatically make adjustments, set and highlight details.
You can also play around with photos using the crop, rotate, adjust perspective, and apply selective effects with a brush.
It has creative filters such as blur, brightness, halo, contrast, HDR effect and much more, but the interesting thing is that it allows you to save the filters used to apply them to another image or edit them.
PicsPlay
With free and paid versions.
200 filters, effects, drawing and text tools to decorate and an option to vary the effects according to the time of day. The paid version has more than 1400 filters.
VSCO Cam
Turn the mobile phone into a true professional camera, with customizable controls and sophisticated settings such as exposure time, temperature and focus, with the advantage that the controls are intuitive and easy to use.
Vignette
It is a paid application with filters and frames to create different effects, in addition to utilities such as digital zoom, self-timer, digital zoom, double exposure, retro effects, vintage and old cameras, geolocation and much more.
It does not require an internet connection to process the photos, nor does it automatically send the photos to the Instagram server until you decide to share them.
ShowPics
Impressive designs to share photos with style. It has more than 100 easy-to-use templates and backgrounds to make collages and unleash your creativity.
Aviary
Shocking editor with the best collection of stickers to give a humorous or emotional touch to any photograph.
Photostitcher
Create panoramic photos without the need for a wide angle or professional camera; the application automatically aligns individual images creating a professional-looking panorama.
conclusion
Do you want to know the best tricks and strategies to grow on Instagram ?
Find out how to get real followers on Instagram with the Instagram
Top Instagramer 2.0 course
»Click here to access Top Instagramer 2.0«
(50% discount for a limited time)
As you can see, there are countless applications for Instagram that will help you manage your account much better.
My recommendation is that you try some of these apps for Instagram and that you draw your own conclusions.
By the way, I usually respond to all the comments they leave me, so if you know any tool for Instagram that is not in this list and that you want to share with me, I will be happy to read it in your comments
