Categories: GivingTuesday Roundup

#GivingTuesday Roundup – 21 Instagram Apps for Small Business Marketers

Instagram has gone through some serious glow-ups over the years. What started as a photo sharing app has now become one of the largest business platforms on earth.

According to Instagram for Business:

  • 90% of people on Instagram follow a business
  • Two in three users credit Instagram for enabling their interactions with brands
  • 50% of Instagram users say they become interested in a brand when they see its ad on Instagram

These moments of discoveries result in actual purchases every day. 46% of people who see an ad on their Insta, end up making an online or offline purchase from that brand.

For small business marketers, Instagram is the perfect place to reach out to their target audience, build engagement, and sell their product and services. With a decidedly younger audience demographic than Facebook, it is the perfect place to market to millennials and Gen Z.

If you are a new to Instagram Business, it can take a bit of a learning curve to get a hang of the place. And that’s why we are here today.

We are sharing 15 of the most efficient, effective, Instagram apps for business that make marketing on Instagram a breeze. These apps include photo editing, video editing, graphic design, and more that will help you immensely as an SMB marketer.

So, let’s get to the best Instagram apps for business.

Photo Apps

These apps are created to make photo-editing a hassle-free process for content creators and marketers. Each app comes with a different level of learning curve — some require none, others a bit more — so, choose which works for you and start from there.

1. TouchRetouch

TouchRetouch is a photo editing app that allows you to remove unwanted stuff from your photos. That includes unwanted people in the background, billboards on streets, mesh and wires, skin imperfections, text, and so much more.

All you need to do is open the picture on your phone, tap on the object/person/line you want to remove, and press Go.

You can also erase entire objects/lines etc. just by tapping on a portion of it; the app will detect the rest of it and remove it accordingly. It also offers automatic content removal and unlimited retouches with as many undo/redo attempts as you want.

Compatible with both iOS and Android. TouchRetouch is an instant Instagram photo downloader.

Price: $3.99

2. VSCO

Instagram is not a place for subpar creatives. If you routinely publish less-than-perfect images that don’t attract an audience, instagram algorithms are designed to punish your lethargy and push your content way down into the feeds so it can never surface again.

With VSCO, you don’t have to worry about that.

This photo-editing app is for professional-grade aesthetics. It is one of the best Instagram apps for businesses who are looking to standout and create an exquisite presence on the platform. Premium presets, best VSCO filters, and editing options make it a favorite for anyone who wants to take their insta grid up a thousand notch.

Its Film X feature offers cinema-grade photo/video editing; grain, textures, vintage, and other effects available. Montage, collage, and layering features are available for photos and videos.

The free video editor comes with 10 presets. But you can become a member and enjoy over 200+ presets, best insta filters, editing options, and more.

Compatible with both iOS and Android

Price: Free, with auto-renewed annual subscription at $19.99

3. Photoshop Express

If you have worked with Adobe products before, Photoshop Express might be the only photo editing app you need. It is more detailed and is perfect for those familiar with Adobe products. It gives you more control over your creativity and more advanced features to let you show the brand in the exact way you want.

Control the intensity of insta filters to exercise more freedom and flexibility over your creatives. Intelligent Cutout feature that auto detects all objects and offers single-tap removal. Makeup Present gives you the option to instantly transfer present makeup to your photos. Auto Enhance option to quickly fix basic issues. Integrates with the rest of your Adobe stack.

The app is available for free. Upgrade with a paid subscription if you want access to more advanced features.

Compatible with both iOS and Android.

4. DesignMantic

As an SMB marketer, you have to make your clients’ branding your #1 priority. Topping that list is your responsibility to get every new client a unique logo design.

DesignMantic is a graphic design tool that lets you create high-quality logo designs with ease and no technical gimmicks. It’s so easy you can even do it on-the-go.

The tool comes stocked with premade templates that you can tweak and customize to ensure the end product looks a true representation of the brand you are working with. The app also offers you website headers, social headers, monogram design, and more.

Compatible with Android.

Logo design pricing starts from $37.

5. Snapseed

Snapseed is the photo editing app I’d recommend to new marketers who want to hit the ground running. If you only have a couple of clients at the moment and you want to give their accounts some focused TLC, this is the app you want.

It has the ease-of-use that you want from a photo editing app if you are new to it, but also requires high-end features to let your brands fully and confidently express themselves.

Not only does this app come with all such features, it also allows you to save your favorite presents with its customized settings as templates. Then, when you are ready, you can use those templates on all your photos for a consistent, on-brand, and fully-polished Instagram grid.

Compatible with iOS and Android.

Available for free.

Stories Apps

While your main Instagram feed needs to be carefully curated and remain on-brand at all times, Stories are a space where you can let your hair down and have a bit of fun with your brand and your audience.

6. Unfold

While Unfold is primarily a Stories-enhancing app, it comes with an expansive array of editing functionalities that you can use for photos, Reels, and more across all your social media.

Unfold is quick, requires minimal time and effort, and offers huge benefits.

Hundreds of beautifully-created templates, best Instagram filters, effects, fonts, and more. You can also create GIFs with this app, brand your content, plan your posts in advance, and strategize your Instagram grid – all on your phone.

It’s available on both iOS and Android.

The free version is available, with in-app purchases.

7. StoryArt

Instantly glamorize your Stories and make it look like they took hours to craft, when in reality it was only a 5-minute tweak.

All with the help of this amazing app that lets you turn your Stories into a piece of art! It offers 4000+ Story covers, text animation, photo retouch functionality, GIF making, stylish stickers, and more.

If you are strapped for time and want a quick bite of content to keep your Insta cooking, StoryArt will do you proud.

Comes with iOS and Android functionality.

Free version available with advanced features when you are ready to pay.

8. PhotoGrid

When you want to post collages (picture or video) to your stories, PhotoGrid comes in handy. It’s primarily a collage maker app equipped with 20,000+ layouts. And lets you post up to 20 photos in a single collage.

Talk about being spoiled for choice.

Using the app, you can turn your photos into video collages and post them to your Stories. Decorate your post with exciting fonts and situation-based templates to suit every mood, celebration, and moment.

PHotoGrid not only lets you post stuff on Instagram but works on Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube, too. You can also create social banners with it, thumbnails, too, and all sorts of other engaging media.

Good for both iOS and Android.

The app is mostly free. You may have to buy some premium templates and best insta filters, etc, though.

9. Storyluxe

Make your Stories cinematic by giving them the StoryLuxe treatment. Though it’s a collage-making app, it comes packed with a serious punch.

Its Film frames are a must-have. Perfect for movie review blogs, media/entertainment brands, and content creators who want a bit of the silver screen drama for their Stories.

One of the best features: it lets you control the intensity of the filter, giving you more room to express yourself fully.

StoryLuxe is available on iOS and Android, both.

It’s free but you can access premium features with in-app purchases to create instant Insta story covers and cinemographs.

10. SocialBee

Growing an Instagram account requires you to maintain a consistent presence and engage your audience regularly. But this can only be achieved by planning and scheduling posts in advance.

SocialBee is a versatile tool that aims to assist users in managing their social media accounts – including Instagram – more effectively. It offers a range of features to help users create, schedule, publish, manage, and analyze their content.

SocialBee provides a grid preview that allows you to visualize your feed layout. You can organize your posts in content categories to create a balanced content mix and even create your posts inside the platform using SocialBee’s AI caption generator and Canva integration.

SocialBee works on desktops, although it has a companion mobile app for both iOS and Android.

Plans start at $29 per month after a 14-day free trial.

11. Hype-Type

Hype-Type is a motion typography tool for when you have got something important to say.

Sometimes, pictures, though worth a thousand words, are just not enough. You want to use your words. With Hype-Type you can pair your words with the most fitting fonts to have your message become that much more impactful.

This is the app you want when you want your text to be action-packed.

It comes with tons of styles, fonts, and animations. And gives you complete control over how you want your text-heavy Stories to look and feel like.

Reels Apps

Reels are Instagram’s answer to TikTok. There, I said it. These short videos are only 15-seconds long and can carry multiple video/photo clips in them. Brands use Reels to show their products and service in action. Reels are immensely popular among the Instagram audience and are a fun way to get connected with your customers.

12. Clips

Clips is a video making app, perfect for Reels but the reason I have added it here is because it gives your videos words.

It accurately transcribes what is being said in the video and creates automatic captions for your Reels. It’s not only a great accessibility tool for your IG Reels but with its cool and fun graphics, helps you elevate your Reels game.

Comes with tons of beautiful Instagram filters, stickers, emojis, and other features to make your videos that much more interesting to watch.

Good for both iOS and Android.

Also, completely free!

13. Life Lapse

Do you like stop motion videos?

You’re going to love Life Lapse.

It’s the app of choice for creators who want to create stop-motion drama for their IG Reels. If you want to join too, Life Lapse is a breeze to work with. A delightful UI, almost no learning curve, and fabulous features.

The best thing: it comes power-packed with insightful and helpful tutorials to help your cause further.

Works on both iOS and Android.

Free, with paid options available to access more features.

14. InShot

It’s one of the best apps out there for creating videos for Instagram. It offers an extensive array of video editing tools like speed control, cut, trim, merge, and more. But it also offers things that are specific to Instagram, like the ability to make square videos that work with IG’s grid.

It also offers video conversion functionality, collage making capabilities, and other video enhancement tools.

InShot works with iOS and Android.

Free app, with in-app purchases.

15. KineMaster

KineMaster is that all-in-one video editing tool that should be in every marketer’s toolkit. It’s easy to use, delivers high-quality, professional-grade videos, and offers insane transitions between videos.

One of its features that I especially like from a branding perspective, is that it allows you to insert your logo and other branding material seamlessly on your Reels. It also lets you do voice-overs for your videos, add an extensive variety of sound effects, and absolutely cool animations to make your Instagram stories standout.

Its Reverse feature is especially slick. Butter-smooth, offers in-camera transitions, and makes video editing a magic.

You can get it on Google Play as well as the App Store.

It’s a free app with premium options available for a price.

16. Splice

Another great app on the list, Splice should be your go-to video editor for working on mobile. It brings all the power of a desktop editor to a mobile OS. It has a super intuitive UI and all the popular features like speed manipulation (make your videos go fast or slow), text overlays, trims and cuts, and so much more.

But you get all of it in high-quality, cinema-style, with all the Hollywood hoopla. Its sliders are razor sharp and offer great precision for those sensitive cuts that you just have to get right.

Whether you are new to video editing or a pro, if you are looking for something nice, easy, and trendy to push your content to the top, here it is.

Free. And available for iOS as well as Android.

Layout And Design Apps

Layout and design apps help you present your Instagram content with personalized organization and finishing touches. You can arrange and rearrange your photos in collages to be presented a certain way for creative Insta story covers. For fun. For information. And for inspiring further action.

Here are a few apps that we recommend for the task.

17. Layout from Instagram

As you can probably guess from the name, this app has been designed by Instagram for the purposes of laying out photo collages in various organizations. Layout from Instagram comes with basic collage and layout functionalities and still manages to help you create fabulous content.


Image Source

It comes with an in-app camera that you can instantly access to capture spontaneous moments. You can also use your device’s camera to remix photos from your gallery. The app offers all-horizontal, all-vertical, and a mix-of-two layouts in various arrangements.

Using your creative eye, you can present your shots to inspire, inform, and educate your audience.

The app supports both iOS and Android systems.

It’s also free.

18. A Design Kit

A Design Kit has features that will make your feed look like a scrapbook — cutesy, fun, and a page-turner (scroll-worthy).

It has tons of stickers, brush-like strokes, hundreds of designs, Instagram story templates, a bunch of fonts, and so much more. Its backgrounds are specially to die for. They come with all sorts of textures like grain, glitters, metallics, and more.


Image Source

For the foreseeable future, the app is only available for iOS.

It’s free but you can access advanced features with a paid subscription.

19. Square Sized

Square Sized is a must-have app for your marketing arsenal. Since Instagram famously supports only certain image dimensions, this app comes incredibly handy for all your photo resizing needs for instant optimization.

After you have resized your photos, you can edit them with some ready and riveting backgrounds, templates, effects, shapes, and other design features.

Works with iOS and Android, both.

The app is free, with in-app purchases for premium features.

Instagram Management

So, we’ve taken care of design — the stuff that makes your content look good — but now let’s talk marketing. These apps are designed to make marketing on Instagram a fun activity. These apps will aid you when you want to reshare your UGC, find and add relevant hashtags, and schedule your Insta grid for days in advance using an Instagram scheduler.

20. Repost for Instagram

Reposting on Instagram is one of the most reliable ways to increase engagement among your audience. This is the content that you know will do well because it’s already generating buzz. To ride this wave of activity, Repost for Instagram app is a valuable asset for content creators and marketers.

As a brand, you can also use this app to reshare and repost content that your users are generating around your products. Reposting their content is a powerful way to tell your audience that you are connected to them and are interested in what they have to say. It also diversifies your grid, and saves you time on days when you are low on content.

Repost works for both iOS and Android.

It’s also free.

21. AutoHash

Hashtags are a way to find the content you are looking for. Content creators use relevant hashtags to widen their reach, get their content across to as many new leads as possible, and ensure that their stuff shows up when people search for something similar.

AutoHash equips your posts with the most relevant hashtags according to the elements in your photos. From the given list, you can select up to 30 hashtags (the maximum number allowed by Instagram for a single post) and publish your content.

AutoHash works for iOS and Android.

It’s free and offers premium features for a price.

22. Planoly

To become a success on instagram, everything you post on the app requires proper planning. You can’t just wing it.

Planoly is the perfect tool you need to schedule your Instagram grid and manage everything days in advance. With its free version, you can link one Instagram business account and upload 30 photos. With a paid version, you can do more. Add more accounts on multiple platforms and work with premium features.

The app works on iOS, Android, and desktop, too.

For 1 profile, the app is free.

Conclusion

If you run a small business or work for one, social media handling can be a lot. Instagram is especially demanding with its insistence on flawless visuals and a hunger for constantly new content.

To cut through this noise, you need professional help. That’s what these apps are. Designed by professionals, these apps amp up your Instagram feed and make your posts, Reels, Stories that much more engaging, fun, and absolutely rocking!

Evan Brown

Evan is an Expert in Digital Marketing. He has been working in the social media space since 2008, with a focus on design services, user interface planning, branding and more. Currently, he is leading content marketing efforts at DesignMantic and has played an integral part in the success story of DesignMantic through strategic marketing campaigns. Evan is also a design pro, who has shown a predilection towards DIY design projects.

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