In today’s social media era, having an Instagram business profile has become a popular choice for any new company or entrepreneur.
It’s no wonder, too – statistics show that over 200 million users visit a business profile on Instagram at least once a day, and 60% of them discover new products that they’re open to buying or learning more about.
With that in mind, it’s no surprise that almost every relevant brand has its own Instagram business profile.
Optimizing Instagram for commerce has proven fruitful with efficient and effective marketing strategies the app lets you employ.
At the same time, with the billions of daily users active on Instagram, it’s the perfect hub for any new business to establish themselves a loyal, engaged following.
While offering huge social media marketing potential, growing your Instagram business profile can be quite difficult in its first few weeks (or months… or even years!).
Luckily, there are lots of Instagram business tools available that can make things much easier as you start out, helping you successfully develop your Instagram for business.
Instagram Business Tool #1: Later
Raved about by Instagram users everywhere, Later is one of the most valuable Instagram business tools you can have.
Traditionally, You can update your Instagram profile by manually uploading photos into your feed. If you’re blessed with time, you can simply stick to this practice and continue posting your content on the fly.

Unfortunately, most businesses are simply too busy with other responsibilities to remember updating their profile with a new post – much less set aside time to sit down, craft out an engaging photo or video, and share it with a witty, well-thought-out caption.
This is where Later comes in.
Gone are the days of remembering to manually share a new Instagram post – with Later, you can map out your entire profile feed for days, weeks, and even months in advance.
As a company or entrepreneur, this saves you time posting to your Instagram feed and more time growing your actual business.
How Later Manages Your Profile
Later is much more than a simple third-party scheduler. With their visual content calendar system, you can plan out the overall look of your feed.
This lets you see how each post visually fits in with the rest to create a coherent aesthetic that distinguishes your brand.

With a user-friendly, drag-and-drop interface, analytical tools and the ability to repost user-generated content, Later is a must-have for managing any Instagram business profile.
Instagram Business Tool #2: Hashtagify.me
Did you know that posts with optimized hashtags receive 12.6% more engagement than those without them?
If you’re using Instagram for business, you’ve got to level up your hashtag game. This involves knowing what hashtags are popular in your particular niche – which ones can give you immediate exposure, and which ones can get your content seen over time.
Hashtags are an effective way of helping the platform categorize your content. They help get your posts seen by the right audiences – for example, photographers will want to use the “#photography” hashtag to get their posts seen by fellow photography enthusiasts.

Some of these hashtags can break their niche down even further: “#photography” has sub-hashtag categories of “#photographersofindia” and “#photographersofcanada”, for instance.

Without hashtags, it can be difficult for starting Instagram business profiles to find the online exposure they’re after.
The feature is thus mandatory to Instagram marketing – but can be intimidating to master if you’re new to the whole practice.
Luckily, tools like Hashtagify will turn you into a hashtag champ in no time. With their top-notch research tools and competitor analysis, the platform gathers all the necessary data to generate the optimum hashtags for your content.
How Hashtagify Manages Your Profile
By simply searching for your niche, you can discover the top-trending hashtags in your category, along with their engagement rates and post-competition.
The service also allows you to track fellow influencers in your niche to learn from their performance on the platform.

On top of this, you can even download reports on hashtag and competitor data to help refine your monthly marketing strategy.
Those who plan to grow their Instagram for business will find great value in learning how to use their hashtag feature to its fullest potential.
Instagram Business Tool #3: Upleap
There’s no doubt that growing an Instagram following takes up a significant amount of time and effort – but what if you’ve got a ton of other business tasks to tend to?
Wouldn’t things be so much easier if you had someone else take care of all the social media stuff for you?
Introducing Upleap: a service that provides you with your very own Instagram account manager.

With all the other tasks you’ve got to worry about as a business owner, your online marketing is likely to take a backseat.
That can’t happen if you’re looking to grow your Instagram for business – the platform isn’t just about the pretty content, but the marketing skills to get your brand seen.
How Upleap Manages Your Profile
Upleap takes this weight off your shoulders by connecting you with a virtual assistant that manages your Instagram profile for you.
Simply sign up and the service pairs you up with your account manager, dedicated to growing your follower count with the right audience.
Based on your niche and business goals, your manager will target your best potential followers by engaging with their content.
This will help get your brand on their radar, leading to engagement on your account and a possible increase in followers.

Over time, your account will see organic growth in both its audience and engagement rates, boosting your influence as an online business.
The service also helps track your progress and provides you with dedicated customer support when you need it.
Upleap customers have reported experiencing up to 300% faster growth on Instagram than if they were to go about their brand-building alone.
So, if you’re looking for some quick brand exposure, get these guys to manage your Instagram profile today.
If you aren’t totally sure, no worries – users are provided with a 3-day free trial to get a feel of their service.
Instagram Business Tool #4: Shortstack
What’s a fun, effective way of keeping your Instagram fans engaged? Apart from obviously posting regular content, having contests and giveaways are a great way of getting your brand out there.
You can get as creative as you’d like with Instagram contests, though some of the easiest and most popular ones to host include ‘like’ contests, comment contests, and hashtag contests.
The incentive to participate is typically a gift of some sort – be it a gift card or a product freebie.

Having large amounts of people commenting and liking your posts lead to a generous boost in your content engagement, increasing their chance of popping up on the “Discovery” feed.
If you’ve got a brand-specific hashtag used by entrants across the platform, this gets viewers curious; having a popular hashtag is sure to raise your profile visibility.
Like any new marketing strategy on the platform, hosting contests can initially be tricky. Once you’ve got your campaign off the ground, it may be difficult to keep track of all user entries and the overall online performance of your contest.
Shortstack is an online Instagram business tool that helps make the process a whole lot easier. From the campaign creation to the entry collection to the competition’s analytical reports, hosting a contest on Instagram for business has never been easier.
How Shortstack Manages Your Profile
With Shortstack, users can create entry forms for easy contest submissions, collecting the contact information of your entrants and growing your list of business leads.
Depending on your campaign objectives, you can also offer your participants a higher chance of winning by providing them the option of referring a friend.

Upon gaining new entrants, the tool additionally has an email automation feature, letting you instantly connect with potential customers once they participate.
If your contest involves photo entries, Shortstack allows you to manually approve these submissions and curate a gallery of user-generated content to share on your feed.
By valuing their engagement, you further build positive relationships with your audience and you’re likely to convert them into loyal customers.

With the high success rate of most Instagram contests, they’re a marketing opportunity you can’t pass up.
If you haven’t got enough time to host your own contests – Shortstack can even pair you up with an account manager to do all the campaign work for you.
Instagram Business Tool #5: Kenji
Liking Instagram posts are a great way to get noticed by other accounts. They see your name in their notifications, and chances are – they’ll give it a tap to see what you’re about.
Kenji is a powerful Instagram bot that knows this all too well. By signing up for their service, the tool automates all your outgoing likes on content specified by your niche preferences.
Since Kenji works fast on a 24/7 basis, you’ll witness significant growth on your Instagram business profile in no time.

How Kenji Manages Your Profile
The system is in two ways: through targeting hashtags, or through “copying” competitors and successful influencers in your niche.
By entering specific hashtags related to your industry, Kenji gets to work on liking these posts and getting you discovered by audiences relevant to your brand.
Using their HyperTarget™ feature, you can also specify Instagram accounts that have gained a successful following in your niche.
Kenji targets their audience’s content, getting you on the radar of more potential followers. With their cutting-edge A.I. technology, the tool uses machine learning to pick the best accounts to engage with that are likely to be interested in your business.

Because bots have gained themselves a bad rap on Instagram, often resulting in profiles getting “shadowbanned”, it’s understandable to be hesitant in adopting an automated ‘like’ tool.
But here’s the great news…
Kenji is 100% safe to use, working within Instagram’s restrictions.
By veering away from auto-comments and auto-DMs that are likely to get accounts in trouble, you can rest assured knowing you’re amplifying your online presence with zero repercussions.
Instagram Business Tool #6: Buffer
Just like Later, Buffer works as a third-party scheduler to ensure consistent Instagram content, minus the hassle of having to post manually.
How Buffer Manages Your Profile
Whether you’re on desktop or mobile, Buffer allows you to schedule single image or video content in advance, at any specific time you choose.

With an easy to use schedule queue, simply upload your media and enter your desired caption in the corresponding text box.
Your post is then automatically uploaded to Instagram at the scheduled time, keeping your feed updated as you go about other daily tasks.
For those who prefer to use Instagram’s internal features, such as their filters and photo editing tools, you can simply plan your posts ahead of time without automated publishing.

Just go through the Buffer process of uploading your content and preparing a caption, and the app will send you a phone notification at your scheduled time.
Buffer then loads your photo or video to Instagram, caption and all, and you get to add your final tweaks before manually sharing it to your feed.
Over time, you can track the performance of your Instagram posts using Buffer’s key metrics.
From here you can determine which type of content resonates best with your audience.

While another great tool to manage Instagram profiles, Buffer can only share a single image or video posts directly onto your feed.
Gallery images still need manual posting on the actual Instagram app, though you can plan these posts on Buffer, and they’ll send you a reminder to manually share them at a scheduled time.
Instagram Business Tool #7: IG:dm
Using Instagram’s direct messaging feature is an incredibly useful way to communicate with your followers, whether to resolve business inquiries, perform online networking, or simply as a channel for general conversation.
Since plenty of us running an online business do so on our desktops, it’s vital to access this messaging platform from our laptops or computers.
Thankfully, IG:dm makes this possible. You can easily continue all your Instagram conversations through their downloadable software. All you have to is install it, log into your account, and you’re ready to go!
How IG:dm Manages Your Profile
The app works just like its mobile version, displaying your recent messages, allowing you to search for users, and providing the option to send images.
You can also quote certain messages to send replies to and view users who aren’t following you back.
From the comfort of your desktop keyboard, users are better able to type out thoughtful replies and messages, than from the small screen of a smartphone.

It’s important to note that this app is an open-source project, and is not affiliated with Instagram in any way.
Manage Your Instagram Business Like A Pro!
With all the valuable tools available for Instagram, developing an online marketing strategy has never been easier.
Having top-notch customer service and an excellent product are both mandatory for building your business – but having an active social media presence is also imperative to get ahead.
With Instagram being the top choice for brand discovery, it’s important to take advantage of their high customer potential.
Luckily, from content schedulers to virtual assistants, even the least-savvy of Instagrammers now have easy, efficient ways of getting their name out there.
Get on board with your profile today, and launch your business to Instagram success.
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