25 Best Instagram Apps for 2020
Take your Instagram to the next level with our list of the 25 best Instagram Apps for 2020.
Is your business on Instagram? If it’s not, you could be missing out on millions of potential clients. Instagram continues to be one of the leading social media companies in the world. In 2020, it’s estimated that 37% of all adults in the US will be on Instagram, and the number of total users is right around 1 BILLION people. (https://sproutsocial.com/insights/instagram-stats/)
So, it makes sense to include Instagram in your social media marketing strategy. But it’s not enough to throw some pictures up on your feed and grab a margarita. The competition is fierce, so your posts and account must look polished and professional. Today’s Instagram winners deliver quality content that makes users stop scrolling and read what they have to say.
Luckily, there are many apps and websites designed to help you create a superstar Instagram experience for your customers. We’ve gathered the best Instagram apps for you here, from design to scheduling and everything in between.
Pick your favorites and start creating a story and brand on Instagram that attracts your customers and makes you a leader in your industry.
Let’s get started!
The Best Instagram Design Apps
Design apps let you create branded content that looks cohesive and neat. Create images with your brand colors and logo, and maintain a consistent design element to tie your feed together. Over time, users should be able to see your posts in their feed and instantly know it comes from you.
It’s not just about looking pretty; when you have a cohesive brand design on your social media accounts, it creates a feeling of trust with your ideal customers. If you want people to decide to give you their hard-earned cash, you must have their trust. Building an online image that is professional, clean, and brand-specific will help.
Here are our top picks for design apps:
1. Canva http://bit.ly/TheCanvaApp
One of the most popular design apps, Canva gives you many options, and their free version has a lot to offer. With Canva, you can choose from stock photos, pair up fonts, change colors, and create templates for yourself so you can keep your designs consistent.
Be aware that almost everyone uses Canva, so a lot of their preset templates and fonts have been used to death. If you can take the time to create unique templates for your brand, it will help you stand out from the other Canva-created posts.
Canva is free, but they have a pro version starting at $9.95 / month (billed annually) that lets you create a brand board and use more of their features, such as stock photos and fonts.
2. Over – https://www.madewithover.com/
Over has a minimalist design aesthetic that is curated, which means you have fewer options and photos to swipe through. The streamlined offering is perfect for someone who gets overwhelmed by the choices and design elements and just wants to create and go.
The app also allows you to collaborate with team members; so, if you have someone working on your social media for you, they can easily send you designs for approval before posting.
While there is a free version, to get access to most of the features, you’ll need to pay for it. The Over app costs $14.99 per month or $99.99 a year (more for teams).
3. A Design Kit https://acolorstory.com/a-design-kit/
A Design Kit contains unique layouts and works with its sister app, A Color Story. Upload your photo into A Design Kit, then edit it with A Color Story. Come back to A Design Kit, and add text and stickers. Choose from brushes that apply textures and colors (and metallics!), fonts, plus backgrounds, and ready-made templates.
The free option of this app gives you access to some of the features, but to get full access, you’ll need to pay $3.99 per month or $23.99 for a year.
4. PicMonkey (https://www.picmonkey.com/design/instagram-design)
Like Canva, PicMonkey offers hundreds of pre-made templates for Instagram accounts and has many that are created specifically for businesses. It’s another design app that you could have in your arsenal to keep your posts fresh and unique.
Unlike Canva, Pickmonkey is not free. Pricing starts at $7.99 / month and goes up depending on how many features you would like to use.
5. Impresso – Insta Story Maker (https://impresso.com/)
This app is specifically for your Insta Stories. Create polished stories with animations and preset templates. It works well for when you want to post images versus video, as it gives you a way to present your pictures with text and your brand colors. The animations turn your images into short videos that do well on Insta Stories.
Impresso comes with templates and the ability to do some light editing on your images. You can add music to your designs, too! Once you’re done, you can resize the finished product to use on other social platforms such as Facebook.
The price for Impresso starts at $9.99 / month.
6. Adobe Photoshop app – https://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop-express.html
Photoshop gives you complete control over your designs and is the most complete design app listed here. If you’re not familiar with design or are not sure what you’d like to do, Photoshop could be a little overwhelming. However, if you feel constricted by Canva or Over, then Photoshop might be the right app for you.
The Photoshop app is part of the Adobe suite of photo and video editing and design apps. It works well with Adobe Lightroom (discussed below); although, Photoshop gives you editing tools as well as design functions. There is a pretty decent free version of the app. The full version will cost $9.99/month.
Editing Apps for Instagram Feed and Stories
Taking the time to edit your images before posting will result in more people stopping and looking at your posts. Ever see those dark, yellowy photos where it was apparent the person took the image and didn’t even really look at it? Don’t be those people!
These apps can turn your images into clean, sleek photos that will grab a scroller’s eye. If you find a particular look and feel you prefer, apply it to every image, and your feed will instantly look more professional. Creating a uniform look shows you care about what you present to the public, and potential customers will see that you know your brand and what you’re doing.
Let’s look at some of the best Instagram apps for editing your images:
7. Adobe Lightroom Photo Editor- https://lightroom.adobe.com/
Like Photoshop, Lightroom allows you to edit your pictures with tons of options to create effects and filters.
While similar to Photoshop, Lightroom has a couple of advantages. It gives you a way to catalog and sort your images into folders or collections; so, they are easy to find.
Another plus to using Lightroom is the ability to download presets, which allow you to perform several actions to an image all at once, creating a cohesive and uniform look to your pictures.
Which brings us toโฆ.
8. Light & Airy Presets – http://lightandairyphotog.com/the-l-and-a-lifestyle-mobile-presets
Not technically an app, these presets are one-time purchases that you add to your Lightroom app to make it an editing powerhouse.
If you’ve ever drooled over someone’s perfect grid of photos, all with the same lighting and color tones, now you can create the same thing for your feed!
There’s no need to mess with all the different settings on Lightroom when using one of these presets. Just upload your image, go to the preset tap, and it will quickly adjust your image to create a clean and crisp look.
The package is $47, and it comes with several presets – enough for anything you might need. This is a one-time purchase that you can use again and again.
9. A Color Story- https://acolorstory.com/a-color-story-app/
An app that works with A Design Kit (mentioned above), A Color Story was designed by Influencers to help the user create beautiful images easily and quickly. Pre-built filters and effects create unique images that stand out and look like you have a professional photographer following you around all day.
The free version of A Color Story gives you some functions, but to use the full app, it costs $24.99 for a year or $4.99 / month. You can also purchase filter and effects packs a la carte.
Scheduling Apps for Instagram
Back in the day, there was no way to schedule your posts on Instagram. Everyone would just post their content when they had time. Crazy!
Nowadays, we’re lucky to have several options for scheduling our Instagram posts. You can create a content calendar, see how your grid is going to look, and maintain a consistent posting time so your customers and fans will see your posts more frequently.
Let’s get these posts on the ‘gram.
10. Later- http://bit.ly/TheLaterApp
This app is a great way to get started with scheduling your posts. It can even coordinate with your Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest accounts, making it quick and easy to post on multiple platforms at once.
The best part is that you can use the app for free to get started. Once you are comfortable with the way the app works, we highly recommend the business version https://later.com/plans/business/ for $19 because it provides insights into the best performing hashtags on your posts.
11. Sprout Social- https://sproutsocial.com/
Considered one of the “big players” in the scheduling app world, Sprout Social is a powerful system that was created with small to medium-sized businesses in mind.
Sprout goes beyond just scheduling content. It has a built-in Customer Relationship Manager (CRM), along with support for teams and multiple profiles.
All of these services come with a price, however. The lowest tier of pricing for Sprout Social is $99 / month, which can be a hefty price tag for a small business. However, if you generate a large number of leads or sales through social media, then the cost may be justifiable.
12. Iconosquare- (web, iOS, Android) https://pro.iconosquare.com/
Iconosquare is another robust system, but with a more small-business friendly price tag. Starting at $29 / month (billed annually), you get all the features of a content calendar, and scheduler plus insights into competitors, and the ability to respond to follower engagement right from the dashboard.
The app also gives you a considerable amount of analytics so you can drill down to see which posts, hashtags, and stories are creating engagement with your followers or attracting new followers. Information like this is vital to building your brand and finding new customers.
Video Creation & Editing Apps
There’s no denying that video content gets incredible attention. Instagram loves video, and you have a better chance of getting more views if you post videos on your feed and in your stories.
Here are the best apps to produce fantastic video content:
13. Wave.video- http://bit.ly/WaveVideoApp
Wave.video gives you many options for creating quick videos that pop. You can choose from stock videos, or upload your own. Add stickers, text, and effects, and instantly resize your video for either your feed or Insta stories.
They have a free version that allows you to make quick 15 second videos. Paid versions give longer videos and more ways to share, and they start at $21/month (billed annually).
14. Magisto – https://www.magisto.com/
This video editing app has preset editing features that allow you to create videos with music for Instagram quickly. It has many themes to choose from and high tech options, such as facial recognition and auto-cropping.
Pricing starts at $4.99/month (billed annually).
15. Adobe Premiere Rush – https://www.adobe.com/products/premiere-rush.html
Another app in Adobe’s arsenal of content editing, Premiere Rush is an easy to use application for getting video out on Instagram.
Premiere Rush has specialized options just for social media posts, giving you tools to quickly create videos optimized for Instagram (or any other social platform).
The downside is the lack of manual editing tools, but if you’re looking for a super-fast way to get videos up on your account, this app will do that for you.
All of these options help you to create sharp, exciting videos that will keep your followers engaged and coming back for more.
Pricing starts at $9.99/month as part of Adobe’s Creative Cloud.
16. Quik GoPro Video Editor- https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.stupeflix.replay&hl=en_IN
Quik was initially designed specifically for Instagrammers and creates videos quickly using your existing clips and images. Not just for GoPro users, Quik will use any videos or pictures you have on your phone.
It has a variety of video styles and a cool automatic editing application. The downside is the lack of manual editing tools, but if you’re looking for a super-fast way to get videos up on your account, this app will do that for you.
17. Splice – https://apps.apple.com/us/app/splice-video-editor-maker/id409838725
Use the Splice app to put clips together, and then automatically sync your video to some music. Apply filters, titles, and text overlays. You can even speed up or slow down motion. All of these options help you to create sharp, exciting videos that will keep your followers engaged and coming back for more.
Splice is $2.99/week after the week-long trial period.
18. Clipomatic – https://apps.apple.com/us/app/clipomatic-text-on-videos/id1263032315
Having captions on your videos helps viewers stay on your page when they can’t listen to audio at the time. Use Clipomatic to create captions for your videos so your viewers can read your words while watching. For Apple only.
Clipomatic is $4.99 for a one-time purchase.
19. Headliner – https://headliner.app/
Have you ever seen the posts on Instagram with the neat waveform that moves as the audio plays? Here’s the app that lets you create that kind of post.
You can also create captions on your videos with the Headliner app. It can create posts for different social platforms, not just Instagram.
Their free version gives you ten videos per month (with unlimited watermarked videos); paid versions start at $12.95/month (billed annually).
20. Rev.com – https://rev.com
If you have a longer video that you’d like close-captioned, consider using rev.com. For $1.25 per minute, they will caption your video within 24 hours. Also, they have a transcription service for the same cost per minute.
Hashtag Analytics App
21. Smarthash- https://www.smarthashapp.com/
How do you know if the hashtags you’re using are bringing people to your post? While Instagram will give you a total number of views based on hashtags, they don’t tell you which ones brought the most views.
Enter Smarthash – a hashtag creation and analytical tool. Keep track of which hashtags work for your posts, and easily copy and paste your set of hashtags into your posts.
The most significant advantage with this app is the ability to split test your hashtags so you can drill down which hashtags are performing the best. The app gets more accurate over time and will get better as you use it.
For one Instagram account, Smarthash starts at $4.99/month.
Reposting App
22. Repost App – http://repostapp.com/
Reposting other content is a great way to give back to the Instagram community as well as connect with your followers. Use the Repost app to add posts from other accounts onto your feed, and copy/paste their caption information.
Of course, even though the app gives credit for reposting, you still need to ask for permission to use their post. Send the original poster a DM or comment on the image and get their approval before sharing.
The Repost app is free!
Shopping App
23. Showcase – Shop Instagram –https://apps.shopify.com/shop-instagram
If you have a Shopify store, you can connect to your Instagram account with Showcase – Shop Instagram app by Shopify. Use the app to tag your products that appear in your Instagram posts, and create a shoppable gallery which lets your followers shop directly from your Instagram posts.
The app also allows you to create user-generated content, rewarding customers that post about your products by featuring them on your feed.
There is a free and paid version of the app. The paid version is $39/month and gives you the ability to tag your products in your posts, among other benefits not included in the free version.
Giveaway and Contest Apps
Running contests and giveaways on Instagram is a great way to increase your followers and also capture email addresses to grow your list.
Instagram has rules regarding giveaways and contests, so be sure to follow them so you donโt get in trouble with the platform.
24. Gleam.io – https://gleam.io/app/competitions
You can use this app to set up a contest page on your website, and it will organize entries for you to make it easy to collect information and choose a winner.
Followers can earn entries by following your social media accounts, entering their emails, and other actions that you would like them to take. The app will gather the information for you. It will make sure the steps are completed before they are awarded the entry.
Gleam.io pricing starts at $10 per month (billed annually).
25. Woobox – https://woobox.com/pickawinner
Woobox lets you use comments and likes on your Instagram post as entries into a contest or giveaway. Export the information into Woobox and then choose your winner.
The app will also help you set up a landing page that entrants can visit off of Instagram. Woobox can also be used for other social media accounts like Facebook.
There is a free option to run a small contest; otherwise, the pricing starts at $37 per month.
Use the Best Instagram Apps we’ve covered to increase your followers, likes, and engagement.
It can be hard to navigate social media, especially when you’re using the platforms to advance your business. But with the right Instagram apps at your fingertips, you can definitely improve your content and create an account your customers will like to visit.
Start with the design of your posts, edit them to create a cohesive, polished look, and create a consistent posting timeline. Add in some engaging videos, repost noteworthy content (don’t forget to ask permission first), and then sprinkle in a few high-performing hashtags. You have the makings of a share-worthy Instagram account.
If you need more guidance on setting up your social media content for your business, we would love to talk to you about how we can help. Set up a discovery call with us today: https://electrasocialagencycalendar.as.me/schedule.php
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