If you’re using Stories as part of your Instagram marketing mix, you’ve probably wondered: Can I schedule Instagram Stories?

Well, great news — the answer is yes! You can now create, edit, and schedule your Stories in advance using the Instagram Story scheduler in Hootsuite or Facebook Business Suite.

In this post, we cover a ton of benefits to scheduling Instagram Stories rather than publishing them on the fly, like:

• saving a ton of time
• making it easier to customize Stories with editing tools and templates
• avoiding typos and autocorrect mistakes

We also walk you through the exact process of how to schedule Instagram Stories. Let’s dive right in.

Is there an app for scheduling Instagram Stories?

You can’t schedule Stories directly within Instagram. But you can use the Hootsuite app or dashboard to schedule Instagram Stories. As of May 2021, it is also possible to schedule Instagram Stories via Facebook Business Suite.

How to schedule Instagram Stories using Hootsuite

Because of an Instagram API limitation, third-party apps and software can’t publish directly to Instagram Stories. This means once you create and schedule your Story, there are just a couple of extra steps to take directly within the Instagram app.

If you’ve ever used the mobile notification workflow to schedule posts for your Instagram feed, you already know how to do this. If you’re used to direct publishing your Instagram posts, the process will look a little different.

Here’s exactly how it works.

Before you start, make sure you’re using the latest versions of both the Hootsuite* and Instagram apps.

You can create and schedule Instagram stories on your desktop, but you’ll need both mobile apps to complete the publishing process.

*Instagram Stories scheduling is available to Professional users and above

Step 1: Create and schedule your Instagram Story

1. From the Hootsuite dashboard, click the drop-down arrow next to the green New Post button and select New Story.

2. In the Post to field, choose which Instagram profile(s) you want to share the Story to.

3. Drag and drop up to 10 images and videos for your Story into the Media area, or click Select files to upload.

Or, click Open Media Library to create a Story using free stock images or image assets from your Enterprise content library.

Keep in mind that each image file can be a maximum of 5MB, and videos can be a maximum of 60 seconds long.

You can always change the order in which your photos and videos appear in your story. Simply drag-and-drop them into the correct in the list on the left of your dashboard.

4. Click Edit Image under each file to prepare your Story assets using the Hootsuite image editor.

5. In the Transform menu, click Story under Instagram to crop your photo to the correct size.

6. Apply any other edits to customize your image using filters and the Adjust and Focus tools.

7. Get creative with frames, stickers, and the brush tool, and add your overlay text.

Keep in mind that stickers and text you apply with the image editing tool are not clickable in Stories. You’ll add hashtags, links, and other interactive elements in a later step.

When you’re happy with your image, click Save.

8. Use the preview pane on the right to check your Story components and make sure everything looks great.

9. If you want to add links, hashtags, or other interactive text components to your Story, type them into the Clipboard text box. This will save the text so you can easily copy and paste it when you’re finalizing your Story in the Instagram app.

10. If you have not already set up the mobile notification workflow, click the bell icon and complete the steps as prompted. You’ll only have to do this the first time you schedule a Story. Remember that you cannot use the direct publishing option with Instagram Stories because Instagram does not allow it.

Click Schedule for later, select your date and time, and click Done. Click the green Schedule button to schedule your Story.

Step 2: Finalize and publish your Story

When it’s time for your Story to go live, you’ll receive a push notification from the Hootsuite app. From here, you can publish your Story in just a few clicks.

1. Tap the notification to open a preview of your Story, then click Open in Instagram. This will open the Instagram app.

Important: The Story will post to whichever account is signed in. If you have more than one Instagram profile, make sure you are signed into the right one.

2. In the Instagram app, tap the camera icon in the top-left corner, then tap the gallery icon in the bottom right. The images and videos you prepared for your Story will appear as the most recent items in your camera roll.

3. If your Story includes multiple photos and videos, tap Select Multiple, then select all the components of your Story and tap Next. If your Story includes just one photo or video, simply tap that item.

4. You can now add any interactive text components to your Story. All the text you entered in Hootsuite has been added to your clipboard, so you can simply paste it into the correct location. For example, to add your hashtag text, either add a hashtag sticker or open a text box, then tap-and-hold and select Paste to paste in your text.

5. If you want to make further edits to your images, you can use Instagram’s stickers, drawing tools, and filters. When you’re finished, tap Send To. This is a good chance to double-check that you’re signed into the right Instagram account by looking at the profile picture.

6. Tap Share next to Your Story to publish your Story.

Watch the video below to see the whole Instagram Stories scheduling process in action.

How to schedule Instagram Stories using Facebook Business Suite

If you choose to schedule your Instagram Stories using Facebook’s native solution, sign in to your account and follow the steps below.

Step 1: Navigate to Business Suite

Go to your Page and pick Business Suite from the menu on the left side of the screen.

Once you’re in, select your account from the drop-down menu in the top left corner of the dashboard.

Step 2: Start drafting your story

You can do this from 3 spots in the dashboard:

• the Posts and Stories item in the menu on the left side of the screen
• the Create Post button in the menu on the left side of the screen
• the Create Story button in the center of the dashboard

Once you click on one of these options, a Story creator window will pop up. Here, select the account you want to share your Story to, and upload an image or video to start working on your Story.

The Story editing options in Business Suite are quite limited compared to what you can do in the Instagram app or Hootsuite. You can only crop your media file, and add text and stickers.

Step 3: Schedule your Story

Once you’re happy with your creation, click the arrow beside the Publish Story button for scheduling options.

Click Schedule Story. Then, pick a date and time for your Story to be published.

Once you save the date and time, click Schedule Story, and you’re done!

You can confirm that your Story has been scheduled by navigating to Posts and Stories, then Stories, then Scheduled.

This is also where you can manage your post — reschedule it, publish it immediately or delete it from your pipeline.

Benefits of scheduling Instagram Stories

Save time

Learning how to schedule Instagram Stories saves you a ton of time and makes sharing Stories much less disruptive to your workday. Instead of having to create and post Stories on the fly multiple times per day, you can sit down and prepare your Stories for the week all in one go.

When it’s time for your scheduled Stories to go live, you can push them out with just a couple of clicks.

Of course, you can also share live Stories in between your scheduled ones if you want to update your audience on something happening in the moment.

Upload Instagram Stories from your desktop or laptop

How many times have you had to send a photo or file to your phone just to post it on Stories? And then dig around in your camera roll trying to find the right posts in the right order?

When you use an Instagram Story scheduler, you can eliminate this step. You can upload your Stories files directly from your desktop or laptop. When it’s time for your Story to go live, the components automatically appear in the right order at the top of your camera roll, ready to go.

More editing options

When you use Hootsuite to schedule Instagram Stories, you gain access to all the editing tools built into the Hootsuite dashboard. That means you can create Stories with fonts, stickers, and frames that are not available within the Instagram app. You can even upload your own stickers to give your Story a unique look and feel.

And, as we mentioned in the last point, you can do this editing on your desktop or laptop. You can use a full-size keyboard and monitor to fine-tune your edits, giving your greater creative control.

Cultivate a consistent look and feel with templates

Using Instagram templates is a great way to create consistent Story posts that align with your brand’s overall look and feel. Templates are especially useful when you’re sharing non-visual content like text, quotes, or links to your blog posts.

The challenge is that many Instagram templates require you to use a computer-based software program like Adobe Photoshop to create your posts. And getting your finished posts from Photoshop to your phone for posting is a tedious process.

The ability to upload your posts directly from your computer makes it much easier to work with templates. That means you’re more likely to incorporate these valuable tools into your Instagram Stories posts.

New to templates? We’ve created a whole post on how to use them that includes a set of free Instagram Stories templates to get you started.

Avoid typos and broken links

Typing with your thumbs is not the best way to create pristine content. Never mind when autocorrect gets involved.

Scheduling your posts in advance gives you the chance to plan your text and links more carefully. Type your captions on a proper keyboard. Run them through a spelling and grammar check program. Test your links. See what other posts are being shared for the hashtags you plan to use.

It’s always a good idea to give yourself time to walk away from your content for a minute and then read it again with a fresher set of eyes. (Or even get a colleague to have a peek.) That’s tough when you’re posting on the fly. When you’ve scheduled Stories, you can review them in the Hootsuite planner at any time before they go live.

Encourage engagement

Once you’ve mastered how to schedule Instagram Stories, you’ll likely find you’re posting more Stories, and more consistently. When your audience knows what kind of content to expect from you, and when to expect it, they’re more likely to watch your Stories and engage.

Ready to start scheduling Instagram Stories and save time? Use Hootsuite to manage all your social networks (and schedule posts) from a single dashboard.

Start Your Free 30-Day Trial

The post How to Schedule Instagram Stories: A Step-by-Step Guide appeared first on Social Media Marketing & Management Dashboard.

 

Hello again SEO scientists! This week we’re going to be talking about some GMB SEO local tests using off listing signals.

There are many different types of signals you can build to a GMB, or business location which generally consist of the name, address, and phone number as well as other Geo and Niche relevant terms.

We have long seen ranking results from various structured and unstructured citations but wanted to do a single variable test using unstructured citations to see what type of result we would get with that on its own.

We also wanted to test these types of signals leveraging map embeds which, we have also seen positive movement from previously in campaigns, but haven’t run a single variable test in over 2 years.

As you can see from the details below we leverage the NAP along with the map, as well as other references to local citations…

Before beginning, we took a geogrid snapshot that you can see shows we were not showing at all for our key terms.

These are the signals that we normally use when running a press release or building any other type of unstructured citation but in our test, we wanted to keep it simple and use something that we controlled so we built all of these signals just using our PBN and map embeds.

At this point, we don’t know exactly which part of these signals are delivering results, but when Google was not showing us for any of our key terms and began to almost immediately after building the pbn map embed signals, it’s clear that these types of signals appear to move the needle.

We look forward to finding out in some more granular tests in the future which part of these signals move the needle the most but until then if you would like to test yourself and let us know the results you can grab our pbn map embeds here: https://web20ranker.com/private-network-links/

We would love to hear what you find when testing so let us know and until next time…

Happy Testing!

A media kit is like a resume and cover letter for your business, all wrapped up in one PDF or digital portfolio. It highlights who you are, what you do, and what your next steps are. The difference lies in what you use it for: media kits are valuable resources you can keep on hand for when you need to provide pertinent information about your business to media representatives, potential collaborators, or even new clients. While the final look is up to you—and there’s a lot of flexibility with how you “decorate” your media kit—the key components are the same. And when you include these seven features, you’re well on your way to making a big impression in your industry. 

Tell Your Story

Let’s clear something up real quick. Some people use the terms “press kit” and “media kit” interchangeably, and others consider them completely different assets. For our purposes, a press kit is an asset you hand off to your media contacts when they’re writing an article about your company. On the other hand, a media kit can serve this purpose too, but can also be a resource for anybody you want to share your story with—collaborators, industry experts, prospective clients, and more. It’s a way to summarize all the pertinent information about your company in a well-designed package. So, let’s talk about what you need to include in your package.

via GIPHY

Somewhere on your media kit, you need to tell your story. Make sure every word you include in those few paragraphs makes an impact. If you don’t have a lot of experience with storytelling, here are a few questions to get the juices flowing:

• How do you contribute to the evolution of your industry? 
• What are your values, vision, and mission? 
• How would your audience describe what you do?
• What sets you apart from other companies with a similar business model?
• How do you change peoples’ lives? 
• What have you learned as your business has grown? 
• If you could only tell somebody one thing about what you do, what would it be?   

Do you see a theme with all of these questions? We’re getting to the root of what you do and who you are, beyond the “We’re company A, and we sell product Y” information that somebody can easily find through a Google search. You can also expand upon your business story to include key players from your leadership team. Especially if you opt for a digital portfolio, you can include an entire section with leadership bios and headshots. You can jazz it up even more by including quotes or Q&As from your key players, though these are the icing on the cake. From company background to key players, the way you lay out your story should take into consideration your branding.   

Infuse It With Your Branding 

When you build your media kit, it’s essential to include your branding. And if you’re building your media kit using a template from a graphics-savvy company like Adobe or Canva, you can customize using image files of your logo and your key players, and even the hexadecimal codes for your brand colors. Besides the graphical elements of your brand, include your brand voice and tone. If you haven’t defined how you talk to your audience, it’s vital you do before you create your media kit. 

Your brand voice is who is speaking when they write on behalf of your brand. Think a trusted expert, a knowledgeable friend, your cool aunt who’s seen the world. Tone is how you speak to your audience. Ponder how you want to be received by your audience. We can describe tone using adjectives like friendly, upbeat, honest, sassy, formal, confident, or relatable. Your word choice can emulate these descriptors.  

As you’re putting your media kit together, always ask, does this reflect who we are? It’s a good idea to do a gut check with anything you put out into the world.    

Press… Meet the Press

When constructing your media kit, link any recent press releases. Why? Recent press releases, or news articles, for that matter, show there’s an ongoing public interest in your company. These media assets provide a lot of context to media people and show that your company gets attention and will be more likely to increase their page views than an unknown company staying out of the public eye. You can add oomph to your digital backlog of press releases by including any data if you have access. We’re talking clicks, likes, views, shares, etc. Including data about your press releases and news articles is not mandatory, but if you’re going to include any “proof” of your success, lean hard into industry awards and accolades.    

Include Your Juicy Data, Especially Awards

Social media influencers often include their social media stats in their media kits. We’re talking about followers, page views, and demographic data. For a company or brand, you can include relevant data for what you do. Start by including awards or accolades you’ve won in your industry. You can also include data like page views for your company’s blog, social media engagement, or growth statistics such as how many members you’ve added to your team over the years. Whichever data you decide to include, highlight it using your brand guidelines and make it pop visually. We’re talking numbers, diagrams, and graphs. 

A media kit should not be a text wall and will incorporate high-quality images and graphics to make it both scannable and appealing to look at. 

Share Your Impact With Case Studies

When crafting your media kit, include links to case studies. Case studies are opportunities to dig deep into one of the chapters of your company’s story. It’s a detailed rundown of something your company did, from problem identification to solution development to tracking results. Including case studies is literal proof of your company’s impact on your industry, and vital information to provide the press as they wrap their head around your role in your community and how they might speak to your impact. If you have an annual report, you can include that too, but prioritize case studies; they’re gold. 

Include Logos, B-roll, and Company-Approved Images

If you opt for a digital media kit, you can include a lot more assets available at the click of the link you provide interested parties. In this digital space, you can include downloadable logo files and high-res images, including leadership headshots, to speed up the process and make everybody’s life easier. Don’t forget to include B-roll footage that fits your brand identity for any video productions your company may be part of. When you make these assets available to, in most relevant cases, the press, there’s less back and forth.

Fully-built out media kit – emailing back and forth = more time for you 

Don’t Forget Your Contact Info

Sometimes the most obvious things are the most easily forgotten. Allow us to put our Captain Obvious hat on for a minute. Don’t. Forget. Your. Contact. Info. Quick pop quiz: which team member’s contact info is the most important to include in your media kit. Yep, your publicist is right. Your PR person is going to be able to communicate most effectively with any external contacts, and their contact info should be front and center. 

And while you’re slotting in your company email address, street address, and phone number, add links to your social media accounts as well. Social media is here to stay, and it’s another avenue to build brand awareness, start conversations, sell products, and increase traffic to your website. Make sure you include your social links everywhere you can—media kit included. 

Successful Media Kits Fit Your Business Goals

via GIPHY

While we consider these seven elements to be must-haves for any media kit, you’ll need to trust yourself when it comes to putting the finishing touches on yours. Perhaps you want to include previous press coverage or case studies. It’s not unheard of to have FAQs as part of a media kit. We trust you’ll use your discretion to best suit your business goals, and remember, you can always edit digital media. Now, it’s time to spread your wings and fly free into the world of media relations. 

And if you need an extra boost of confidence or want to talk about the nitty-gritty of media kits, get in touch. We’re here to talk shop! 

 

The post 7 Can’t-Miss Features to Include in Your Media Kit appeared first on Brainchild Studios®.

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For all you Local Pack-o-Meter watchers, you may recall that last month we saw an increase in the presence of both Ads and Shopping Boxes and chalked that up to business optimism about the economy. I don’t want to say that April showers are raining on the parade, but we did see a slight pull-back in both these SERP features:

I don’t think we can read much into a 2% drop, but perhaps those eager beaver PPC jockeys got a bit out over their skis in March and decided to pull back a bit.

We also saw a little tick up in Knowledge Graphs, so hopefully you are all doing entity optimization, right?:

The biggest change we saw was in the presence of Related Searches, which dropped by about 25 percentage points:
We’re not sure what’s going on here. There is a relatively new format for these which may be creating some noise in the data. If anyone has any ideas what might be going on, feel free to hit me up on Twitter or LinkedIN.

Other than that, everything else is pretty much steady as she goes:

I will try to update these the first week of each month so stay tuned!

The post April 2021 Google SERP Features: Advertisers Pulling Back? appeared first on Local SEO Guide.

Can Ipods Cause Hearing Loss?

Causes of Temporary Hearing Loss: There are various forms of hearing problems today, including hearing loss caused by gadgets like Ipods. These devices can cause a great deal of damage to the ears and lead to a permanent or temporary hearing issue.

In this context, a joint hearing problem that iPods can cause is called tinnitus. This term has been used to define ringing and noise that seems to originate in the ear or head.

In most cases, noise causes a hearing problem, and this noise can prove to be annoying and pose a danger to the person. Therefore, you can say that tinnitus is not a single disease but the symptom of an underlying illness.

Tinnitus is a common condition suffered by many people who hear the noise in their head or ear. This problem is the beginning of hearing loss problems, and common symptoms of tinnitus are noise and ringing.

These sounds occur in the ear or head and last for some time. Tinnitus is caused by many factors and can affect any of the four sections of the ear. One of them is listening to loud music, and this is where the sections of the inner ear, middle ear, outer ear, and finally the brain are damaged.

There are cases where the tinnitus, or head noise, is not regular. This can best be heard when a person suffering from it enters a soundproof booth. In the soundproof booths, the outside noise is reduced. Therefore, a person can hear these normal sounds because the outside noise masks them. However, this type of hearing loss is not always caused by loud music. The causes of these sounds can range from earwax to a foreign object. These foreign bodies penetrate the pinna of the ear and lead to more severe cases. These foreign bodies shield the background sounds, making you more aware of the head noises.

Infections or other similar reasons can also cause these. One of the best ways to understand the problems caused by listening to loud music is to ask your ENT doctor.

They can best educate you about the severe consequences of listening to loud music and other related problems. People who listen to loud music are very prone to getting hearing problems much faster than ordinary people.

The ENT or ear nose specialists can be found in different hospitals around the world. They can help you deal with this problem as a careful evaluation of the problem is required. Therefore, you must have a basic understanding of the risks associated with listening to loud music.

The idea is that you should listen to music at volumes that do not cause damage to your ears. Also, avoid listening to music at a stretch on your iPod and give your ears a break in between.

Causes of Temporary Hearing Loss

The ears’ ability to hear sounds is one of the essential senses humans have. With the sense of hearing, people can communicate with others, listen to music and watch movies. However, some people lose their ability to hear due to specific internal or external causes called hearing loss. Hearing loss can be temporary or permanent.

Temporary hearing loss can result from a severe ear infection, the buildup of earwax, or exposure to loud noises. Audiologists can usually cure temporary hearing loss after appropriate treatment. There are several different reasons for temporary hearing loss. One of these common causes of temporary hearing loss is exposure to loud noises.

Loud Amplified Sounds are one of the main causes of temporary hearing loss. This condition is also known as noise-induced hearing loss. Long-term exposure to loud noises damages the most sensitive and delicate parts of the inner ear, eventually leading to hearing loss. This type of induced hearing loss is accompanied by tinnitus, ringing in the ears.

If exposure to loud noise is persistent and left untreated, the resulting hearing loss can be incurable and permanent. When people are exposed to a loud noise environment and cannot hear audible speech at a distance of about 3 feet, then we suggest an audiologist. Suppose there is internal ear blockage due to the accumulation of earwax.

In that case, the condition can lead to temporary hearing loss. Severe ear infections in the midsection can also cause temporary hearing loss. In addition, a sudden rupture or rupture of the eardrum may occur, which can eventually lead to middle ear perforation. This condition may be accompanied by severe pain and bloody discharge from the ear.

This temporary disorder is called otitis media with perforation. Temporary hearing loss can also result from injury to sensory structures, the hair cells of the inner ear, the auditory nerve pathway, or the auditory nerve in the brain. These delicate sensory structures can be damaged by medications, infections, skull injuries, and tumors.

Taking various medications such as ibuprofen or aspirin for an extended period can cause temporary hearing loss. This disorder will heal when the use of these medications is stopped. Some autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, polyarteritis nodosa, and systemic lupus erythematosus are also responsible for temporary hearing loss.

Temporary hearing loss can be easily treated and cured. Since long-term exposure to loud noise is the leading cause of temporary hearing loss, people need to avoid exposure to loud noises as much as possible. If they are noisy, they should always protect their ears by wearing earplugs or other hearing protection devices.

Everyone should make friends, family, and colleagues aware of the adverse effects of loud noises. If temporary loss of hearing is due to the accumulation of earwax, it can be removed by a doctor. The doctor can remove the earwax with the help of some medical solutions or a machine. Regular and proper cleaning of the ears is necessary to prevent the accumulation of earwax.

Natural Supplements & Ear Health

Common causes of temporary hearing problems that people regularly report is an infection in the middle ear. It is usually not easily recognized until you become irritated by the pain. Sometimes a high fever can develop as well. People often worry that this infection can become chronic and cause hearing loss.

The Eustachian tubes, which run from the ears to the throat, help maintain air pressure in the middle ear and drain fluids. However, they are also the easiest way for throat infections to get to our ears. Because these tubes are too small, the swelling caused by the infection impedes drainage. Doctors usually prescribe antibiotics to help treat the condition.

There are many natural solutions to treat this type of infection. A special oil preparation made from mullein flowers and garlic can help reduce inflammation in the ears, kill bacteria and help relieve pain. Garlic also helps with any fungal infection that occurs in the outer ear. Ear oils made from St. John’s wort and calendula can also help reduce inflammation.

Ear wax buildup is another problem that increases due to infection. Glycerin is a natural product that helps remove earwax. Because it is sticky, it also helps keep the ear drops in the infected ear.

It is always recommended to treat both ears, even if the source of irritation is only in one of the ears. For minor irritations, a poultice or compress may help. Lavender oil, tea tree oil, and olive oil are good antiseptic massage oils that you can rub outside the ear. Water that gets into the ears while swimming or bathing can be equally painful.

You may use a drop of an anti-inflammatory tincture of mullein, St. John’s wort, and chamomile to relieve the pain and evaporate the water gathered in the ear. The alcohol in this mixture helps dry up the excess water in the ear, and the herbs reduce the pain. Cinnamon leaf oil helps fight bacterial infections. Herbal teas help calm a person suffering from ear pain. Chewing fresh basil leaves is even better. You can apply lemon juice or onion juice to the inflamed ear with the help of absorbent cotton.

Sweet almond oil is most commonly used to treat earache, and you can also use olive oil instead of sweet almond oil. Eating vegetables and fruits rich in vitamin C helps strengthen our immune system and prevent ear problems. Adequate amounts of zinc in our diet help prevent earaches. Dairy products such as milk, butter, cheese, etc., can increase ear infections. Therefore, it is best to stay away from them if you have ear problems. Eating green vegetables and fruits on a regular basis can help with many health problems.

Following specific natural rules can also help protect our ears. When near loud machinery or at a loud music concert, we should protect our ears by wearing earplugs. When listening to a stereo system, the volume should be turned down, especially if we use headphones. Shower caps and earplugs also help prevent water from entering our ears.

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If you’re already using Instagram for business, you’re probably aware of the countless benefits of using this social media platform as a marketing tool.

Yes, Instagram itself provides marketers tons of useful functionality. But sometimes you need a little extra help to take things to the next level. That’s where Instagram apps come in.

Here, we’ve compiled the best Instagram apps for:

• Photo editing. These are apps that help you edit, resize and add filters to your photos.
• Layout and design. These apps help your brand add interesting elements like collages and graphics.
• Video tools. These apps elevate how your brand captures, designs, and edits videos.
• Audience engagement, analytics, and data. Use Instagram apps to track how your brand is engaging with your audience and monitor your content performance.

There are plenty of great apps for Instagram Stories too. But we tackle those in a separate blog post dedicated to the best apps for Instagram Stories.

Let’s get started!

Instagram editing apps

1. VSCO (iOS and Android)

Why you should try it:

Source: VSCO on Apple Store

VSCO is one of the original and most popular photo-editing apps. In fact, it’s so popular that more than 200 million Instagram posts feature the #VSCO hashtag.

There are 10 free preset filters that make your phone-shot photos appear as though they were captured on film. There are also a range of photo-editing tools available to help elevate your photo quality, like contrast and saturation to enhance your photos, grain which adds texture to photos, and crop and skew tools which alter the perspective of your photos.

For more than 200 preset filters and advanced photo-editing tools, upgrade from the free version of this Instagram app to become a VSCO member.

2. Avatan Photo Editor (iOS and Android)

Why you should try it:

Source: Avatan Photo Editor on Apple Store

As well as offering effects and filters to lay over your original photo, Avatan Photo Editor makes it easy to retouch photos and create your own customized effects for photos. The basic version of this photo-editing app is free, although there’s the option for additional features or advanced tools by making in-app purchases.

3. Snapseed (iOS and Android)

Why you should try it:

Source: Snapseed on App Store

With this photo-editing Instagram app, you can work on both JPG and RAW files making it a powerful tool for professional photographers.

Beyond filtering your photos using its presets, you can perform serious photo-editing tasks in Snapseed. There are 29 tools and features, allowing you to edit photos by removing elements (or even people) from the photo, adjust the geometry of buildings, use curves to control the brightness of your image, and enhance images with incredible precision.

4. Adobe Lightroom Photo Editor (iOS and Android)

Why you should try it:

Source: Adobe Lightroom on App Store

Adobe products are known for their powerful photo-editing capabilities, and the Adobe Lightroom Photo Editor app is no exception. Capture and edit raw images using the app’s editing tools and elevate photos to a professional quality by adjusting their hue, saturation, exposure, shadows and more.

Try out its preset filters, get inspired by edits other Lightroom users have made using its Discover section. And learn from the interactive tutorials to take your photo-editing skills up a notch.

5. A Color Story (iOS and Android)

Why you should try it:

Source: A Color Story on Google Play

This photo-editing app is all about making the colors in your photos pop. There are 20 free editing tools, as well as filters, effects and presets designed by professional photographers and influencers. There are also some advanced editing tools, and its Instagram grid planning preview tool helps you ensure your brand’s Instagram grid looks unified and cohesive.

Instagram layout apps

6. Instagram Grid Hootsuite integration

Why you should try it:

Source: Hootsuite app directory

Create a grid of up to nine images and publish them to your Instagram account directly from your Hootsuite dashboard. You can schedule your grids in advance, and publish them when your audience is the most active on Instagram.

Note: Instagram Grid currently only works with personal Instagram accounts. Business accounts are not supported at this time.

7. Layout From Instagram (iOS and Android)

Why you should try it:

Source: Layout From Instagram on App Store

Create collages easily using this free Instagram app, compiling up to nine photos in various combinations. Pick photos from your library or shoot as you go using the app’s built-in photo booth. Layout makes it easy to create different collage layouts, pair the collage with filters and add other personalized elements, and share to Instagram.

8. A Design Kit (iOS)

Why you should try it:

Source: A Design Kit on App Store

This Instagram app comes from the makers of A Color Story. Use it to personalize and customize the content on your Instagram feed by layering stickers, fonts, designs and textures over your photos. The app boasts over 60 different fonts, more than 200 collage layouts and more than 200 design options. And the realistic brushes and different backgrounds, like metallics, marble and speckle, will add texture and depth to your photos.

9. AppForType (iOS and Android)

Why you should try it:

Source: AppForType on App Store

This is one of the best Instagram apps for lovers of typography. As well as offering designs, frames and collage templates, AppForType has 60 font choices to lay over your brand’s photo. What really makes this Instagram app stand out is how you can take a photo of your own handwriting and upload it to the app.

10. Grid and Square Maker (Android)

Why you should try it:

Bonus: 14 Time-Saving Hacks for Instagram Power Users. Get the list of secret shortcuts Hootsuite’s own social media team uses to create thumb-stopping content.

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Source: Grid and Square Maker on Google Play

Grid and Square Maker will turn any photo into a grid for Instagram, equally splitting that photo into multiple square images while maintaining a high resolution. This might be used by your brand to create anticipation around a big announcement.

As well as being a grid photo maker, Grid and Square Maker also turns photos into panoramic images and crops images into the perfect square to fit Instagram’s format.

Instagram video editing apps

11. Boomerang from Instagram (iOS and Android)

Why you should try it:

Source: Boomerang from Instagram on App Store

Boomerang might be the simplest and easiest video-capture Instagram app out there. Create mini videos by opening the free app and pressing one button. That’s it!

Boomerang takes a burst of 10 photos and then connects them together, resulting in a short video that loops like a GIF. You can use the front or rear-facing cameras to create a short, fun video. Bonus: no editing is required.

12. Hyperlapse from Instagram (iOS)

Why you should try it:

Source: Hyperlapse from Instagram on App Store

This free Instagram app helps your brand capture quality time lapse video, without having to carry around bulky photography equipment. Capture video by holding your phone, as the app stabilizes the captured video. Then, share it to Instagram.

You can also speed up the video to 12 times the original speed, creating an interesting effect and an engaging way to view video content that was captured slowly over time.

13. InShot — Video Editor (iOS and Android)

Why you should try it:

Source: InShot on App Store

This is one of the best Instagram apps out there for video editing, mainly because it’s so comprehensive. You can trim, cut, split, merge, and crop video clips. It’s easy to adjust settings like brightness and saturation. And adding music to video is one of InShot’s key features.

Plus, this app has features that are specific to Instagram, like making the video square for Instagram display.

14. Go Pro (iOS and Android)

Why you should try it:

Source: GoPro on App Store

If you shoot epic, outdoorsy video content for Instagram using a GoPro camera, the GoPro app will make your life much easier. While capturing footage, use your phone to adjust the video or time lapse settings and get a clear preview of your shot. Once your video is recorded, make edits — like freezing your favourite frames, movie-like transitions or playing with speed, perspective and color — right in the GoPro app.

15. Magisto Video Editor (iOS and Android)

Why you should try it:

Source: Magisto Video Editor on App Store

This Instagram app is an artificial intelligence-powered video tool. Simply, the app uses AI to find the best, most eye-catching parts of your footage to create video that resonates with an audience. It also uses its algorithm to incorporate edits, effects and transitions to take your clip to the next level.

Instagram analytics apps

16. Hootsuite mobile app (iOS and Android)

Why you should try it:

The Hootsuite app allows brands to track their performance on every social network, including Instagram. With the Hootsuite app you can schedule Instagram posts to publish later, even if you can’t be at your desk. This way, you’re always posting content at the optimum time to engage your audience and filling your social media content calendar. Hootsuite also makes it easy to monitor your competitors’ Instagram content and track hashtags.

Also, monitor Instagram analytics using Hootsuite’s analytics function. Plus, you can create analytics reports and share data specific to your brand’s goals with the company.

Find more details on Hootsuite analytics for Instagram here:

17. Panoramiq Insights

Why you should try it:

Source: Hootsuite app directory

Use this app with Hootsuite to take your Instagram analytics up a notch. Panoramiq Insights by Synaptive gives you detailed analytics for your Instagram account, including follower demographics, views, new followers, profile views, and link clicks.

And if your company has more than one Instagram account, this app can track analytics for two accounts. Share the results the app has compiled by exporting your analytics reports as a spreadsheet or PDF file.

18. Command for Instagram (iOS)

Why you should try it:

Source: Command for Instagram on App Store

Command provides a host of unique metrics and shares your brand’s most important stats each day. It also generates a report card that grades everything from your followers count to your post frequency. You can also get hashtag and caption recommendations, caption writing support, and help finding the best hashtags for your content.

19. Trending Hashtags by StatStory (iOS and Android)

Why you should try it:

Source: Trending Hashtags by StatStory on App Store

Adding hashtags to your Instagram posts is a great way to increase audience engagement. This Instagram app supports your brand’s hashtag strategy by helping you incorporate popular hashtags. It also uses an algorithm to find hashtags that are relevant to your brand and recommends a mix of popular and less-popular hashtags to help you reach a broad audience.

20. Clean it Up (iOS)

Why you should try it:

Source: Clean it Up on App Store

If you’re noticing a lot of spam comments or want to clean up which Instagram accounts your brand interacts with, this is one of the best Instagram apps to clean up your follower list and reduce those comments.

With one tap, this app will mass clean your follower list, bulk block bot accounts or inactive followers, bulk delete duplicate content, bulk unlike and bulk like posts.

Manage your Instagram presence alongside your other social channels and save time using Hootsuite. From a single dashboard, you can schedule and publish posts, engage the audience, and measure performance. Try it free today.

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