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10 Fantastic Instagram Automation Tools You Must Know in …
Instagram is the go-to social media tool for people these days. As per recent social media statistics, Instagram boasts of more than 1 billion users every month, and 200 million of them visiting at least one business profile daily. Therefore, the opportunities of generating leads are limitless.
Did you know that one-third of the most viewed stories are just from businesses? Such figures are enticing enough for businesses to pick up their pace on this platform.
But honestly, Instagram is time-consuming, especially when you need to create engaging content daily for your target audience and find ways to grow your account. Of course, you can always take advantage of content curation tools for that additional diversity.
But managing an active presence is itself exhausting. Add to the list, like and comment on endless posts, design compelling stories, brainstorm for Reels and follow people, and you almost feel like dropping the ball. Instead, just packing bags and running away to a peaceful island seems a viable option!
Here’s the good news, though! Instagram automation services are becoming instant favorites for all. Maintaining a steady branding on this platform at a break-neck pace is now achievable with Instagram automation. But you need to invest in the right social media tools. Here’s the compilation of the best Instagram automation tools for a detailed reference.
Instagram Automation Tools for your Business
SocialPilot (Direct Instagram Publishing)
Ingramer
Kicksta
Instazood
Upleap
Jarvee
Instavast
Instamber
Gramto
Tailwind
$50
If you are looking for a tool that eases not only managing your Instagram accounts with direct publishing but also other social media accounts, SocialPilot is your best bet as an Instagram automation tool. P. S. It’s quite cost-effective too!
It helps you connect and manage over 75 profiles, analyze and report, review your social media team’s work in one place. You can discover and curate Instagram-worthy content and upload up to 500 posts with the help of an amazing feature called “Bulk Scheduling”.
The best part is yet to come. It caters to all possible social media platforms for your business, be it Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Tiktok, Twitter, Pinterest, Google My Business, Tumblr, or VK. Instead of juggling and stressing over multiple solutions, become an expert social media manager with just one powerful social media tool- SocialPilot.
Features of SocialPilot:
Create customized posts for different social media accounts
Directly publish Instagram posts without any reminders or third-party tools
Get in-depth analytics and reports of your social media performance
Organize with a visual social calendar
New content suggestions with the content curation feature
Upload 500 posts with bulk scheduling
Schedule on the best time to post on Instagram
Manage your team with its collaboration features
Leverage the power of social inbox to access all social media conversations in one place
Get easy client management approvals for seamless workflows
Create the best designs with Canva integration right from the SocialPilot account
Advantages of using SocialPilot:
The integration with Canva will help you make aesthetic posts for your Instagram profile.
The comprehensive analytics provided by SocialPilot is in-depth as the content analyzed by the tool isn’t restricted to just the posts that come from the system but from other sources, pages, and accounts as well.
Christopher C.
The benefits are on going, the best part was the ease of onboarding team members and the high level of support we continue to receive from SocialPilot’s team. Significant increase across the board in social engagement, increase in followers and conversion from social to our primary destinations.
Tal T
What can you NOT DO with Social Pilot? In all honesty I don’t have any clue. The ultimate friendly all in one marketing platform, with features such as: scheduling, adding up to 50 different social accounts, analytics, social calendar and planner, URL shortening, content creation and many many great value tools. I highly recommend any marketer out there to check it out and give it a chance to prove its massive powers.
Walter A.
SocialPilot is literally the only social media scheduling and marketing tool I use. It has a clean and easy to use interface. It’s a valuable tool for any business. I’ve been using its paid subscription for over 2 years and I’m not stopping any time soon.
2. Ingramer
$128
Ingramer is a good Instagram automation tool that allows you to bulk direct messages, auto follow/unfollow people, auto like posts, generate suitable hashtags, schedule posts, and leave comments on your target audience’s posts. They use targeting filters to find the right people for your content so you can build a loyal audience and gain more engagement.
Pros:
You can use the user-friendly dashboard that can be downloaded on your local desktop and customized to suit your niche and industry.
It can conduct an analysis of your account for better promotion on Instagram.
The hashtag generator works really well and makes it convenient for the user to find the hashtags needed through a link or a photo.
Nora
I’ve been using Ingramer for one month and am already impressed with the results! HG (Hashtag Generator) is a good way to grow your target audience. This tool speeds up the search.
Cons:
Many user reviews state that follow-like functions do not work properly, which is a big disadvantage for someone using Ingramer to save time.
Some users got their account banned, and the worst part about it is that they couldn’t even unsubscribe from the tool and the support staff barely helped them.
If you avail of all the services the tool offers, the price increases, and to shed that money just for handling your Instagram account would put a strain on resources, especially for small companies.
Florian
Used to work the first 3 days but since then paused constantly. After also subscribing to the additional VPN tool (extra cost) in hope to solve the pausing, I then got a warning message from Instagram. So, not worth the money and time.
3. Kicksta
$99
Kicksta offers an Instagram growth tool powered by cutting-edge artificial technology that creates meaningful engagement and authentic connections. When you work with this Instagram automation tool, you select either the standard or premium plan and then customize your dashboard to fulfill your account’s specific needs. Within the dashboard, you create account lists of competitors, brands, and influencers whose audiences you would like to target. They encourage clients to continue posting high-quality content for more followers.
Unlike other companies, Kicksta doesn’t guarantee a number of followers because the followers you will gain are from real, authentic accounts and not bots. Their targeting options on the dashboard ensure the accounts being engaged with are genuine.
Another pro that separates Kicksta from the rest is 24/7 customer service. Instagram is an integral part of your marketing strategy, so knowing you have a live chat and email support to reach out to and video courses and FAQ answers to reference is imperative.
Megan McQuade Wadsworth
I have been using Kicksta for about two months. Customer service has been easy to work with, and I am seeing positive momentum on my account!
The results are very slow to come, and sometimes there’s no real growth for many users, making the tool a little less trustworthy.
This Instagram marketing tool is very expensive for the meager results it provides.
NS
It’s a bit early to write a full on review, but it’s been a slow start (very slow at the beginning) however I can see daily additions in the 5’s to 10’s each day. It’s not going to deliver hundreds of new followers, so don’t expect that.
4. Instazood
$100
Instazood is an Instagram automation tool that helps you automatically like, comment, follow, unfollow and also schedule your upcoming posts. To top it all, it also helps you view people’s stories and even direct messages to your target audience. In order to promise customer safety, they make sure to reduce their speed so that Instagram doesn’t mistake those actions as spammy behavior.
It lets you have full control over your Instagram marketing strategy which means you can customize their features to suit your industry and find the right audience for your content.
While you can download stuff on your laptop, Instazood also has a fully functional website and mobile application that can handle everything.
Its dashboard is quite powerful, comes in different languages, and has a lot of customizable features.
Dave C.
Easy to use and I enjoy the features I can access.
According to many user reviews, the application has stopped working effectively after Instagram changed its algorithm.
The customer support isn’t that great. Sometimes, even if they reply quickly, their answers hardly solve users’ problems.
If you avail of all the services the tool offers, the price really shoots up, which can be a huge disadvantage.
Wise
I’ve been using instazood for awhile, and it has been working great. However, it stopped working all of a sudden and I’ve submitted multiple tickets with no response over the past month.
5. Upleap
$78
Upleap, helps you grow your account organically. For this very reason, they have real people who help in growing your client accounts manually over the phone. They also have several algorithms that require users to narrow their target audience with the help of filters such as location, hashtag, and theme.
You can try their service for free with a trial period of three days. The best part is that you don’t need to share your card details with them during this time.
After you sign up, you are assigned a personalized account manager. This person then oversees your account, assists you with customizing it to your specifications, and helps resolve any issues you face.
Pauline Machnik
The program is amazing! And it really helps to get real nice followers. Moreover the managers are really friendly and answer all your questions.
Some people have claimed that while Upleap has helped them grow their account in the initial few days, that has stopped just after a month or so.
Many users have cited that while they did gain followers, most of those followers were fake and did little to help their engagement.
Nicole
I’ve been using Upleap for a few months now. I signed up for a year of premium service after a great run with their trial period. About a month into the service I began losing followers and had noted that their service is targeting bot and trashy accounts using mine.
6. Jarvee
$69. 95
Jarvee is a Windows-based Instagram automation tool. It helps you follow, follow back, repost, like, unfollow, delete posts, conduct hashtag, user research, handle comments and direct messages. They also offer certification in social media marketing.
Apart from Instagram, it also lets you handle other social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Tumblr, and Youtube.
It lets you manage multiple accounts for your different businesses or clients.
Samuel
I’ve been using Jarvee for 1. 5 years. It’s a great automation tool with a lot of supported social media platforms.
Jarvee has a very steep learning curve, and you’d need to watch its training tutorials. Otherwise, you may face a lot of problems with Instagram automation.
The support staff does not always help solve users’ problems, due to which the user may get stuck and not reap any benefits from the tool.
Andy Gunn
I have tried 2 times to use this software and both times it has failed to load correctly. So then you are supposed to play ping pong with their customer support for days. They don’t actually try and fix anything they just send you question after question, it’s actually the same questions just worded differently.
7. Instavast
$45
This Instagram tool automates activities such as commenting, liking, and even messaging. Instavast offers a free three-day trial period where you can test the different features before committing to it in the long run. You can make use of different methods to narrow down users and get in touch with your targeted audience.
Their analytics feature and filtering criteria help you improve your growth and have more meaningful conversations.
You do not have to download the tool, so there’s no storage issue or the risk of catching a virus.
It has a good image editor, which makes it a good option for advertising.
Emma Z.
Great photo editing option before you post pictures and you can upload as many photos and videos as you desire.
Many user reviews say that the tool consumes a lot of data which could be a major disadvantage to small companies.
The web application is lacking in some areas. For example, it doesn’t allow you to do or see things like upload photos, view history, etc.
The customer service isn’t that great, and sometimes they take too long to resolve your issue.
Valeria L.
Uploading the videos sometimes takes a while, and advertising takes up a lot of space between the posts of the users that one follows. In addition, it spends a lot of data and takes up a lot of space in the phone’s memory.
8. Instamber
$77
This Instagram automation tool, Instamber, allows you to automate your interaction with the target audience, send bulk direct messages, schedule your upcoming posts and manage comments. You also get exclusive access to personalized marketing assistance who understands your profile, niche, and industry in depth so they can target the right people for you.
This tool is cloud-based, so you do not have to worry about downloading anything to your computer and risk getting any viruses.
Instamber offers detailed reports of their clients’ progress, so you get to know what’s working and what isn’t.
You can customize their features as you wish, so it caters to just your account requirements.
Certified Instamber User
Instamber has a lot of benefits that makes this service really good to use. I had a good experience with this tool.
The support staff is almost non-existent. According to some user reviews, they take weeks to reply, or worse yet, they never respond.
The tool faces many glitches and bugs, which make the user experience quite tiresome and unsatisfactory.
It works fine in the initial days, but after that, the results just keep dropping down.
Yuka
Signed up for a week. No one answered my questions through email or online chat. Has no customer service at all. And my account got blocked after the trial.
9. Gramto
$49
Gramto is another Instagram automation tool that lets you schedule posts for multiple Instagram accounts. It also allows saving captions as drafts for later use with auto-like, follow/unfollow, direct message, and comment options. There are also tracking features to gauge the growth rate through Instagram statistics. Features like geotagging, product tagging and first comment are available as add-on options. It is also integrated with cloud platforms like Google Drive for easy import features and advanced targeting capabilities.
It provides a hashtag research tool for free with all plans.
Scraping data of the target audience for competitive analysis and lead generation is quite a useful feature.
There is also a free image editing studio platform available for quick touchups.
Marcus Tate
Gramto has been of great help for me in boosting my Instagram engagement! It’s automation features are amazing and have helped me to gather thousands of followers on my Instagram account. Plus, all the users are genuine, no bots. Highly Recommended.
Many users complain about the crux feature of automation
The customer service is missing.
There have been instances of auto-payment deductions without notifying users.
User in Entertainment
As soon as you’ll start paying for this software, the upgraded function presents itself with lots of errors, website is down most of the time, and instagram blocks/stops the verficiations. Customer care is a lot slow. There are error of all kinds, auto follow error, auto like error, and I even have to reactivate functions every other day.
10. Tailwind
$79. 99
Tailwind is a popular tool for instagram automation. It also supports Pinterest and Facebook. There are in-built design capabilities for you to create high-quality posts. These designs are optimized as per platform too. There is a personalized drag and drop grid for easy manual scheduling. Tailwind’s SmartSchedule shares your post when your target audience is most active on instagram, hence boosting your reach and engagement.
The hashtag monitoring feature is impressive.
Unsplash integration is quite handy for posting stock images. These can be further edited within the tool itself.
You can also find ready-to-use posts that are ideal for your business.
Smart bio is a promising feature of Tailwind.
Marion Nixon
I love Tailwind. It’s one of the few subscriptions I pay for! It’s 100% worth it – it saves me so much time and makes time-consuming work an efficient process. So useful for my online business.
It is a time-consuming tool as loading is quite slow.
UI can be improvised into something intuitive.
Verified reviewer
All I wanted was an app that would post social media posts I scheduled in advance: simple. But Tailwind still makes one leave the app, go to Instagram, find the photo on your phone, copy in the caption, add tags and location, and all the work of posting without the app, no value added. I realized only a waste of time!
Conclusion:
Managing a business can be quite cumbersome. From strategizing, providing customer service, handling your clients, taking care of your vendors, there are loads of things to do.
That’s why businesses are now trying to garner the power of social media marketing. After all, nothing else provides an audience ranging in billions. The market is wide open when it comes to social media.
There’s no surprise then that Instagram marketing has picked up its pace now, with so many people using it daily. It becomes more imperative than ever to maintain your presence on this platform.
While there are a lot many Instagram tools you could use, a wise decision would be to pick one that caters to all your social media marketing needs. That’s where SocialPilot comes into the picture. SocialPilot is a cost-effective social media marketing solution that helps you save time by automating most of your tasks so that you’re free to work on crucial things.
Before time runs out, activate your 14-day trial period and see the benefits yourself.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are the best tools for Instagram automation? +
Does SocialPilot offer direct Instagram automation? +
Should I buy followers on Instagram? +
What can you automate on Instagram? +
What are the best tools for Instagram? +
What is the best Instagram planner? +
15 Instagram Automation Tools to Help Boost Your Engagement
Instagram automation tools are abundant. But how do you know if the Instagram automation tools you’re using are legit? The point of these tools is to help you improve the efficiency of your Instagram marketing efforts but if you’re not careful, you’ll run afoul of Instagram’s increasingly stringent anti-automation rules.
Fortunately, there are Instagram automation tools out there that can help you streamline your Instagram marketing without angering the Instagram gods. In this article, we’re going to introduce you to 15 of our favorite Instagram automation tools. Before we get to the tools, though, let’s take a moment to talk about what Instagram automation actually is.
What Is Instagram Automation?
Instagram automation is the process of using third-party software and apps to manage your Instagram account. This could mean scheduling posts, liking, commenting, reporting, and more. Instagram automation is typically done via the use of bots.
If reading the word “bot” makes you immediately think of “spam, ” you’re not far off.
Instagram has been fighting against inauthentic activity from bots for a few years. This has involved shutting down several Instagram automation tools and bots that go against Instagram’s best practices. However, it’s important to understand that not all Instagram automation tools are spammy. In fact, the automation tools used for scheduling posts, finding the right hashtags, and such are excellent ways to automate your Instagram marketing efforts.
15 Best Instagram Automation Tools
There are several options for Instagram automation tools. It’s true that many of them have the same or similar features but a closer look at each tool will reveal nuances that let you know which tools are right for you.
1. Agorapulse
Agorapulse is a full-service social media management software. You can use it to pre-load Instagram posts, scheduling them to publish when you want them to. Agorapulse also supports scheduling posts for Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn and provides detailed reports for your social media activity.
Key Features:
Centralized communication hub so you can reply to the comments on your organic and paid posts
Community management options let you hide and delete comments manually or automatically
Optimized reply features with saved replies and “assign to” features
Bulk upload posts from your desktop or RSS feeds
Publish content immediately or schedule it for later
Schedule carousel and Story posts
Username tagging and hashtag management
Pricing (billed annually)
Medium: $79/month
Large: $159/month
X-Large: $239/month
Enterprise: $399/month
2. SocialPilot
SocialPilot is one of the best Instagram automation tools available. You can use it to manage your Instagram accounts as well as other social media platforms. SocialPilot can help you manage more than 100 social profiles, analyze and report on your performance, find and share content, and even upload up to 500 posts using the Bulk Scheduling feature.
Create customized posts for multiple social media accounts
Analyze and report your social media content’s performance
Organize your social content with a visual calendar
Get content suggestions using the content curation feature
Upload 500 posts with bulk scheduling
Collaboration features to manage your team
Access your social media conversations from a single social inbox
Manage approval workflows seamlessly
Canva integration
Professional: $25/month
Small Team: $41. 66/month
Agency: $83. 33/month
Enterprise: Contact for a quote
3. Kicksta
Kicksta is an Instagram automation tool focused on growth. It uses AI technology to create authentic engagement. Kicksta doesn’t guarantee a specific follower count because it doesn’t work with bots. Instead, Kicksta’s targeting options help you engage with real accounts to build followers organically. Using your dashboard, you can create a list of accounts including brands, influencers, and competitors with audiences you want to target. Then, you create high-quality Instagram content to bring those people in.
Targets niche hashtags and accounts
Live chat support
Target users based on several factors
Supports multiple accounts
Doesn’t post or comment on your behalf
Great analytics
Pricing
Standard Plan: $49/month
Premium Plan: $99/month
4. Ingramer
Ingramer is an Instagram automation tool that makes it easy to send bulk direct messages, automatically follow or unfollow people, like posts, find just the right Instagram hashtags, schedule posts, and comment on your target audience’s posts. It offers targeting filters so you can find and engage with the right users, building a loyal fanbase.
User-friendly dashboard that can be customized to suit your niche and industry
Smart unfollow to keep your account clean
Schedule your content for the best time to post on Instagram
Perform 1250+ auto likes and auto follows per day
A single direct chat for all accounts
Since this tool deals with auto-following, it’s important to be vigilant with your engagement. Remember, Instagram automation tools should help you, not get you banned.
Ingramer’s pricing is a bit confusing. There are four modules to choose from (Promo, Direct, Scheduled Posting, and Hashtag Generator), and the price increases with each module you add. If you opt for all modules, here’s the pricing breakdown:
2 Weeks: $82/account
1 Month: $128/account
3 Month: $307/account
5. Upleap
Upleap is another Instagram automation tool that will help you grow your followers organically. It uses several algorithms to narrow the target audience using filters like hashtag, theme, location, and more. When you sign up with Upleap, you will be assigned a personal account manager that oversees your account and helps you customize Upleap to your unique needs.
Dedicated account manager
Easy setup
Only engages with real accounts based on your target audience
Automatically views Instagram Stories of people you don’t already follow
Account manager engages with posts that bring in results
Lite: $29/month
Standard: $49/month
Premium: $59/month
6. Jarvee
Jarvee is an Instagram automation tool that helps you follow, repost, like, follow back, unfollow, delete posts, respond to comments and direct messages, and conduct user and hashtag research. You can use it for other social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Tumblr, and YouTube. Jarvee is a Windows-based tool and has a steep learning curve, so you’ll need to take advantage of its training tutorials.
Schedule posts on several social media platforms
Find and repost high-quality posts in your niche or industry
Search for Instagram users in your niche and automatically follow them
Search for high-quality Instagram images and automatically like them
Dynamic Hashtags feature to search for related hashtags in your niche
Automatically comment using Spin Syntax to customize your messages so they’re authentic
Starter: $29. 95/month
Regular: $49. 95/month
Professional: $69. 95/month
7. Instavast
Instavast is an Instagram automation tool that automates things like commenting, liking, and messaging. It offers several methods of targeting specific users so you can focus on your target audience. Instavast includes an analytics feature and filtering options that will help you understand and improve Instagram follower growth while developing meaningful relationships. In addition, Instavast has a nice image editor making it a good advertising tool.
Set goals and define your target audience using niche filtering, language detection, fake account filtering, and more
Uses AI to interact with active followers of a target account
Dashboard is available in 16 languages
Choose the automated functions you want
Create a custom list of users you don’t want to interact with
Pricing (1 account)
Instavast pricing varies depending on the tools you choose:
Instagram Bot: $15/month
Auto DM: $10/month
Comment Tracker: $10/month
Post Scheduler: $10/month
8. Instazood
Instazood can be used to automatically like, comment, follow/unfollow, and schedule posts. It also lets you view Instagram Stories and send direct messages to your target audience. Instazood reduces its operating speed to ensure that it doesn’t trigger Instagram’s “inauthentic behavior” parameters. With Instazood you have control over your Instagram marketing strategy and can customize features to suit your needs.
Auto-follow, auto-like, auto-comment, and auto-unfollow
Account targeting
Hashtag research
Location targeting
Instazood is another of the Instagram automation tools that offers several different products with their own pricing.
Instagram Bot: $11. 99/month
Auto Direct Message: $11. 99/month
Schedule Posts: $7. 99/month
Comment Tracker: $7. 99/month
Search Tools: $7. 99/month
Manual Promotion: $11. 99/month
9. Instamber
Instamber is an Instagram automation tool pretty similar to Instazood. It lets you automation interactions with your target audience, schedule posts, manage comments, and send bulk direct messages. You’ll also get access to a marketing assistant knowledgeable in your niche so they can target the right people. Instamber provides detailed reports so you can see exactly how well the tool is working for you. Plus, you can customize the features to meet your needs.
Intelligent targeting system to find the right audience
Automated engagement
Target users based on hashtags, location, similar pages, language, and more
Auto-follow, auto-like, auto-comment, and auto-view Instagram Stories
Instamber offers several different tools with their own pricing:
Instagram Bot: $10/month
Direct Message: $10/month
Comment Manager: $10/month
Post Manager: $10/month
Hot Clients: $10/month
Instagram Likes: $7/month
Instagram Views: $0. 22/100 views
10. Hashtagsforlikes
Hashtagsforlikes helps Instagram influencers, businesses, and entrepreneurs grow their Instagram following using hashtags to target the right audience organically. You start by searching Instagram competitors, influencers, and hashtags you want to target using the built-in analytics features from Hashtagsforlikes. From there you can track and measure results based on the hashtags you’re using to see what’s working and even curate content to create test groups and save hashtag sets.
Built-in analytics to identify statistically compatible tags for the best exposure
Predetermined hashtag sets to start building your own customized hashtag sets
Techniques are compliant with Instagram’s best practices
Dedicated customer success manager
Smart algorithm detects the best Instagram hashtags
Pricing (billed monthly)
Regular: $59/month
Pro: $89/month
11.
is an Instagram automation tool that lets users manage and schedule content and grow their network. You can use to plan content, schedule posts, monitor hashtags, and respond to comments for multiple Instagram accounts.
Schedule Instagram posts including photo, video, and Instagram Stories
See detailed statistics about your Instagram account content and automation tools
Personal (one account): $29. 95/month
Team (up to five accounts): $49. 95/month
Agency (up to 15 accounts): $99. 95/month
12. Gramto
Gramto is an Instagram automation tool best known for Instagram post scheduling, but it has several features to streamline your Instagram marketing. Users can set Gramto to follow and unfollow other accounts based on certain criteria like hashtags, locations, or specific people. Gramto also includes comment, like, and direct message automation and, with the auto repost feature, Gramto users can share content from other users, even when you’re not online.
Post instantly to multiple Instagram accounts
Import images and videos from your Google Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, or device to share to Instagram automatically
Automatically follow/unfollow, direct message, repost, comment, like, and view Instagram Stories
Basic: $5/month
Standard: $10/month
Premium: $20/month
13. InstaHero
InstaHero is an Instagram automation tool that focuses on increasing your Instagram followers, likes, and views without the use of fake accounts or bots. The InstaHero community includes more than 120, 000 Instagram users with interests across several niches and industries.
Community of Instagram users to provide genuine engagement on your Instagram account
Active engagements on content
Permanent followers
InstaHero pricing is based on the type of interaction you’re looking for:
Followers: $3. 25/140 followers
Likes: $2. 99/100 likes
Views: $0. 99/300 views
Custom Comments: $3. 99/5 comments
14. Social Gone Viral
Social Gone Viral helps you get real followers, likes, and comments so you can expand your reach. Setup is simple and you can be up and going in just a minute or so. The Social Gone Viral team then automatically engages on your behalf to grow your Instagram followers.
Automated interactions with your target audience
Privacy-focused
24/7 support
Starter: $50/month
Growth: $100/month
Advance: $500/year
15. Tailwind
Tailwind is essentially an Instagram assistant you can use to plan your Instagram feed, optimize your posts, schedule your content, and use the right hashtags. Tailwind will pick the right time to post on Instagram using its SmartSchedule feature so you can get better engagement from your content. You can also save high-performing hashtag lists, tag relevant users and locations, and even format your captions from a single platform.
Free landing page so you don’t have to worry about remembering to update your “link in bio”
Add a link to your Instagram posts with a click
Get reports and analytics showing Instagram metrics like followers, likes, and comments
Find your top-performing posts
Plan and schedule multiple image posts
Add hashtags in the first comment
Tailwind’s Instagram Plus pricing is $9. 99 per account per month.
Wrapping Up
Managing your influencer business is already time-consuming enough. Using one or more of the Instagram automation tools on this list will help you stay on top of your Instagram marketing while developing authentic relationships with your followers, attracting more followers, and expanding your reach.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Instagram allow automation of posts?
According to Instagram’s terms and conditions, automation is not allowed. Instagram will force time delays on users for certain amounts of likes, follows, or unfollows to stop bots and automation. However, there are ways to automate your Instagram content and the tools available have become increasingly smart in mimicking human behavior. Automation tools can cope with time delays and they can also randomize their actions, like humans might. Instagram automation tools can normally only post, follow, unfollow, like, direct message, and comment on posts.
What can you automate on Instagram?
Although Instagram automation is not allowed, you can use Instagram automation tools to boost your engagement and automate a number of tools. You can automate likes, comments, follows, unfollows, direct messages, story views, scheduling, and reporting. Liking posts is the safest task to automate because many people will like content on the platform without necessarily liking it.
Has Instagram killed bots and automation in 2020?
Instagram has made automation against the rules in its terms and conditions. However, despite the outcry from marketers that bots are indeed dead, there are a number of ways to use bots and automate Instagram tasks. Many people have found success using Instagram automation tools and bots to boost their engagement. However, automation tools and bots have become much trickier to use. Make sure to use caution to avoid getting blocked by Instagram.
What professional tools can help manage Instagram?
You can use a big variety of professional tools to help manage Instagram, from Instagram’s business tools to social scheduling platforms to Instagram automation tools. In Instagram’s business tools section, you can work with your profile and add contact information, see your insights and analytics, promote content, and use Instagram shopping. If you use a social scheduling platform, you can also automate posts and access a wider variety of analytics. Instagram automation tools can also help increase engagement as well.
What Instagram bot works best?
Instavast is an Instagram automation tool that uses bots to comment, like, and message. One bot costs $15 a month. Instazood, another tool, can be used to automatically like, comment, follow/unfollow, and schedule posts. One bot is $11. 99 a month. Instamber is an Instagram automation tool that lets you automate interactions with your target audience, schedule posts, manage comments, and send bulk direct messages. One bot costs $10 a month.
Instagram Automation: What It Is and How to Do It Right
Is Instagram automation even possible anymore?
Depends on who you ask.
Sure, everyone is looking to grow their social presence ASAP. This is especially true on Instagram where getting authentic followers is a serious commitment.
And so marketers, brands and businesses alike turn to Instagram automation tools to speed up the process.
However, there’s a huge gulf between legit tools to grow your account versus bots that spam your followers.
That’s why we put together this guide on the best practices of Instagram automation and what makes sense for your brand.
What is Instagram automation, anyway?
Instagram automation represents the use of third-party software to manage your account, carry out tasks and/or interact with users without a human present.
Simply put, Instagram automation tools can be put into two buckets:
Services such that effectively “take control” of your front-facing interactions with users such as likes and comments
Tools that automate Instagram behind the scenes, taking care of tasks such as publishing, reporting and analytics
Let’s talk about the first category, well, first.
Chances are you’ve encountered an Instagram bot in the wild. If you’ve ever dealt with comment spam, mysterious views on your Stories or phantom followers that disappear out of nowhere, you can probably chalk it up to bot activity.
If putting your Instagram interactions on autopilot seems risky or spammy, you’re right.
Instagram has been on the warpath against “inauthentic activity” for years now. They’ve also taken measures to shut down Instagram automation tools and bots that violate their best practices (like when they shut down Instagress back in 2017).
Sad news to all of you who fell in love with Instagress: by request of Instagram we’ve closed our web-service that helped you so much.
— Instagress (@instagress) April 20, 2017
Keep in mind that while Instagram automation often gets a bad reputation, not all tools are spammy.
That leads us to the second category of social media automation tools which largely deal with your account’s backend.
From automating posts to publish when your followers are most active to uncovering hashtags to expand your reach, you can absolutely automate pieces of your Instagram account without worrying about spam or a strike from the platform itself.
What actions can be automated on Instagram?
Good question!
Below is a snapshot of what’s possible via Instagram automation (and what you should and shouldn’t do):
Likes
With care, Likes are arguably the safest front-facing interaction with followers to automate on Instagram.
Why? Because Instagram Likes are the platform’s universal form of acknowledgment.
Think about it. If you’re using a personal account, you might drop a Like on something without actually, you know, liking the content itself (think: a business closing, a serious announcement, etc). Brands oftentimes Like comments and questions from customers (whether they’re positive or not).
Automating Likes allows you to acknowledge more accounts and get your Instagram in front of more followers. That said, Likes represent low-effort interactions and probably aren’t going to result in much traction to your account on their own.
Comments
Conventional wisdom tells us that automating comments on Instagram is a bad idea.
Period. Full-stop. No questions asked.
From potentially inappropriate comments (think: an emoji train on a tragic post) to interacting with people who have no idea who you are, automated comments are the very definition of spam.
This is exactly why Instagram has processes in place to block suspicious activity such as auto-comments.
Why do people bother automating comments, then? In theory, more frequent interactions such as “Likes” and comments spell good news to the Instagram algorithm.
The reality, though? Automating such interactions is a surefire way to get reported and blocked.
Note: it is possible to queue up and automate replies to followers without spamming them. Case-in-point, saving suggested replies to common comments and concerns which you can store and publish without having to write them manually when someone interacts with your account.
Find Followers
Perhaps one of the most proactive uses of Instagram automation tools is discovering who to follow.
For example, some tools have the ability to analyze accounts and hashtags to uncover accounts relevant to your target audience. Without actually having to worry about interactions or dig through hashtags yourself, doing so can be a safe time-saver.
Follows (and unfollows)
The concept behind automating follows is simple: the more people you follow, the more followers you can earn yourself. Automation tools oftentimes have features that allow for automatic unfollows to help accounts retain a better follower-to-followed ratio.
In turn, the spread of these types of tools has actually led to Instagram’s follower restriction. Here’s the lowdown from Instagram themselves:
To help reduce spam, Instagram doesn’t allow anyone to follow more than 7, 500 people.
Anyone who tries to follow more than 7, 500 people will see an error message, regardless of how many followers they have. Anyone who’s currently following more than 7, 500 people did so before this change was made.
Direct Messages (DMs)
Automated DMs are similar to automated comments in terms of being spammy. If you’re ever dealt with unsolicited DMs that wind up buried in your “Message Requests, ” chances are they’re from bots or automated accounts.
These types of automated messages are usually impersonal and will likely be ignored by readers.
Story Views
Similar to “Likes, ” Story views are a low-effort interaction that doesn’t do much to disrupt other users. That said, having seemingly random accounts look at your Stories can feel a bit stalkerish.
Again, this concept that somehow tricking people into looking at your account will result in engagement is totally wrong.
Scheduling and publishing
To keep up with the need to publish consistently on Instagram, automation can take care of queuing up and scheduling content. Features such as cross-posting from other social networks and optimized timing are particularly useful and widespread.
Reporting
Reporting and analytics can also be automated on Instagram. Rather than manually log your data in a spreadsheet, social analytics tools (like Sprout Social! ) can do the heavy lifting of pulling your numbers and seeing how they stack up against other social networks.
What are the pros and cons of Instagram automation?
Now, let’s look into the cases for and against automating pieces of your Instagram account.
Pro: save time on smaller, tedious tasks
This is obviously the big one. Growing an Instagram presence organically definitely requires a combination of time and strategizing.
Heck, just coming up with a content strategy in and of itself is a huge commitment before you even have to worry about interactions such as comments and customer service.
Automation tools can pick up some of the slack. As highlighted above, such tools can’t do everything but they can certainly trim down time spent on tedious tasks.
Con: Instagram’s isn’t a fan of automation “hacks”
As noted earlier, Instagram has a history of bringing down the hammer on tools that they consider spammy.
The platform obviously wants its users to engage authentically and organically. Instagram has its limits and penalties for tactics of anything they see as potentially gaming their algorithm. Here’s an example of those limits in place as highlighted by Instazood:
Pro: grow your follower count faster
Automation undoubtedly helps you boost your follower count. Simply spending time on the platform and interacting with accounts in any way, shape or form will set you up for more engagement by default.
Of course, the caveat here is whether or not those followers are actually interested in your content or products. If you’re getting all of your followers via automation, the answer is probably a resounding “no. ”
Con: poor automation looks super spammy
Give your audience credit: people can spot a bot at a glance.
Automating likes and comments is a recipe for a potential social media crisis. Especially now, brand accounts should emphasize human interactions and avoid anything that looks spammy.
Much like buying Instagram Likes isn’t a good look for brands, neither is trying to push inauthentic engagement.
Pro: uncover important insights about your audience
There’s no doubt that automation tools help you learn more about your target audience. From breaking down what hashtags people use to suggesting accounts to follow, bots do encourage you to take a deeper dive into your audience’s preferences. That’s definitely a positive.
Con: potentially miss out on important customer interactions
The more you automate on Instagram, the fewer opportunities you have to actually interact with followers and customers. You can’t possibly provide personalized service with purely automated interactions.
That’s why it makes more sense to automate aspects of your Instagram account that actually encourage you to spend more time with your followers, not less.
What are some legitimate examples of Instagram automation?
To wrap things up, let’s talk about some legitimate ways to use Instagram automation and a few examples using tools including Sprout. The following tactics will ultimately help you grow your account without having to worry about spam.
Scheduling based on when people are most active
With so much content floating around Instagram, anything you can do to reach followers when they’re most engaged is a plus.
Sprout’s ViralPost not only allows you to crosspost and queue up Instagram content but also publish it based on when your followers are most active.
This is a shining example of how automation and AI can help social marketers become more effective and efficient. Rather than wrack your brain over “when, ” our platform removes the guesswork.
Hashtag analytics to uncover new followers
Digging through Instagram hashtags on your own can be a time-sink. On the flip side, tools like Sprout can automatically analyze your account and followers to uncover hashtags relevant to your business.
In turn, you can use these tags to boost your content or discover potential customers faster.
Sourcing user-generated content
User-generated content (UGC) such as customer photos represent awesome marketing materials for brands. Reaching out to users manually and requesting permission to use that content yourself, however, can be a lengthy process.
Tools such as Crowdriff boast features that include automated UGC detection and rights acquisition. This enables brands to collect and curate UGC minus time-consuming outreach.
Suggested replies for comments and DMs
As noted earlier, suggest replies and comments are a smart, spam-free alternative to automated ones. Using Sprout’s asset library, you can save and source frequent replies at a moment’s notice without looking like a bot.
Have a question you get asked all the time? Need a few general customer support messages you can use time and time again? Sprout makes storing such messages a cinch.
And with that, we wrap up our guide!
Are you using Instagram automation the right way?
There’s plenty to automate on Instagram, granted you let a human take the reins.
If you’re looking to speed up your Instagram growth via automation, your head is in the right place. After all, marketers should always look to add tools to their toolbox in order to engage with more customers.
Speaking of which, make sure you check out Sprout’s latest social media toolkit for tips, tactics and tools to embrace a data-driven social presence.
Frequently Asked Questions about like automation instagram
Can you automate Instagram likes?
Although Instagram automation is not allowed, you can use Instagram automation tools to boost your engagement and automate a number of tools. You can automate likes, comments, follows, unfollows, direct messages, story views, scheduling, and reporting.Apr 22, 2021
How do you do automation on Instagram?
What actions can be automated on Instagram?Likes. With care, Likes are arguably the safest front-facing interaction with followers to automate on Instagram. … Comments. … Find Followers. … Follows (and unfollows) … Direct Messages (DMs) … Story Views. … Scheduling and publishing. … Reporting.More items…•Jun 29, 2020
Is Instagram automation illegal?
The answer is No. Instagram is a competitive platform. Therefore, it could be tempting to use bots to gain more followers; Instagram bots indeed help you get more followers and likes, but they will never establish a genuine communication with your audience.Dec 1, 2020
