Instagram is a powerful way for small business owners to connect with your community. However, sometimes you want to do more from your mobile device than you can with just Instagram. For that, there are plenty of other app options before reverting to Photoshop from your computer.
Sharing the job of uploading content among a few people can be a challenge. People likely take pictures with their phones, and have their personal Instagram account logged in there. Without a good way to quickly switch between accounts, my solution has been that other managers log in to a shared Instagram account using their tablets.
Remember, as Instagram started on iOS most of the apps are only still available for iOS. Android users, leave a comment below to tell me what I’m missing with links to the apps you are using.
Also, Instagram doesn’t really have any ways for people to upload photos outside of the Instagram app on their mobile device. If one comes out, please let me know.
Here are the apps that I am using:
Photo Editing Apps:
- Camera+ – This is my go to camera app. I use it for all photos that I take instead of the default camera. It has many filters and effects built in. I can layer multiple effects at once before exporting the photos to my camera roll.
- Snapseed – Android or iOS – now owned by Google, this app is very similar to Camera+.
- Diptic – Create a photo collages
- Brushstroke (iOS) – turn photos into paintings
- Afterlight – go retro with this 35mm film set of filters, lighting effects, and bokeh
- Average Camera Pro – fix photos taken in low light without it becoming grainy
- Tilt Shift Gen – iOS Android While Instagram has some tilt-shift effects, this will take it to another depth
- Facetune – iOS only. While I’m not a fan of advanced Photoshop effects, I am okay with photo editing that conceals blemishes like acne.
- SuperImpose – iOS | Android – place the subject on a variety of backgrounds
- SpacePaint – iOS – add effects like sparks, fire, lightning, clouds, and more.
Community Management:
- Repost – occasionally you may want to repost someone else’s photos. We use this when our community has taken photos
- Fotogramme – Manage multiple Instagram accounts including likes, comments, following, and more. This still doesn’t help upload photos outside of the Instagram app.
- Iconosquare – key metrics about your Instagram account
- Followgram – stats about your followers
- Websta – Like, comment, repost from the web. Stats and other metrics too.
Quotes:
- WordFoto – turn your photos into graphics that are made with words.
- InstaQuote – texture backgrounds with text
- Overgram – add text over your photos.
Watermarks:
- Marsta – iOS – place your logo, web address, and username as a watermark while on your mobile device
Cross-posting method:
Cross-posting on my personal profile is easy to manage within Instagram. However, from business brands, it becomes more complicated. I want the photos to appear natively in Twitter and Facebook, as well as reach the Google+ page. For that, I use IFTTT.
- Instagram to Buffer to Google+ (this is my only known way to get the photos into G+ pages that I’ve found)
- Instagram to Twitter – as a native Twitter photo, not a link to the Instagram post
- Instagram to Facebook Page – not a link to Instagram but a native photo on the page
WordPress integration:
- Enjoy Instagram – embed a gallery of Instagram images as a sidebar widget or in the content of a page
- How to embed 1 Instagram image into your website http://en.support.wordpress.com/instagram/instagram-images/
Please connect with me on Instagram at http://instagram.com/courtneyengle
