There are dozens of great apps out there that can help you improve your Instagram game. Instagram is a great social media platform for promoting Kickstarter campaigns because it focuses on rich media content like pictures and videos, which tend to attract more views than posts with just text.
Don’t believe me? Entrepreneurs have come on the podcast in the past to share how they leveraged Instagram to raise $46,514 on Kickstarter and $242,014 on Kickstarter.
You can use Instagram to share product pictures, introduce yourself or your team, and post videos with behind-the-scenes content. This will help viewers get to know you! When they feel like they know you, they’ll be more likely to want support your crowdfunding campaign.
There are a lot of techniques that go into growing your Instagram following. When using Instagram, make good use of hashtags and captions with a strong call to action messages (“Only 10 discounted _product name_ left! Thank you everyone. They’re going like hot cakes. Grab one while you can at the link in my bio.”) to get more people to find your crowdfunding page.
These apps will help you with everything else:
Social Media Scheduling Apps
- Hootsuite: Creators who have never used Hootsuite can take advantage of their free 30-day trial, which is about the typical length of a crowdfunding campaign, and decide if they want to continue to use the app for their business after testing it out. Hootsuite lets users schedule Instagram posts ahead of time, keep track of keywords and competitors, and share the workload with other team members.
- ScheduGram: This social media management tool offers users a free 7-day trial. ScheduGram allows users to post pictures and videos to Instagram from the web or schedule posts for later. This is another app that can be used by several team members and is capable of managing multiple accounts.
Picture Editors
- Snapseed: Snapseed is a highly recommended photography app developed by Google. The app has 25 tools and filters for users to choose from, making it a great mobile editor for deep editing. Snapseed is easy to use and gives you more control over how your pictures turn out than Instagram’s filters alone.
- Bokehful: Bokeh light effects are usually not possible to reproduce using a smartphone, but this app transforms pictures with its lighting effect and lets users add cute shapes to their pictures. Bokehful has several editing options and lets users save their work and share it on several social media platforms, including Instagram.
- Slow Shutter Cam: This app allows you to create attractive effects in your pictures that would normally be hard to reproduce with a smartphone, like motion blurs, light trails in the dark, and low light photography. These unique apps can help crowdfunders produce professional-looking, memorable pictures that will catch people’s attention.
Video Editors
- 8mm Vintage Camera: 8mm allows you to easily create vintage-looking videos using different filters. This app can be great for fashion companies or crowdfunders that are trying to sell a lifestyle image along with their product. This app was used to shoot part of the Oscar nominated documentary, ‘Searching for Sugar Man’.
- Game Your Video: Game Your Video is a fun video editor that lets you do cool things like play more than one video at once with a split screen, add sound effects and filters, and more! This is one of the more popular video editing apps that lets users post to different social media platforms, including Instagram.
Adding Text and Drawings
- Word Swag: Word Swag is a picture editing app for iPhone and Android that lets users add beautifully designed text to their pictures in seconds. This app is great for creating eye-catching images, flyers, memes, quote pictures, and anything else you can think of! Word Swag can be purchased from Oringe for $2.99.
- Phonto: Phonto is a free mobile app that makes it easy to add text to photos. They have tons of unique font options available, making it easy to get your message across no matter what feeling you are going for. iOS users can also use the app to add emojis to their pictures.
Combining Multiple Pictures
- PicFrame: PicFrame is an app that is available for Android, iPhone, Mac, and Blackberry. With this app, users can combine pictures into unique collages that can be shared on several platforms, Instagram included. This app gives users a lot of added editing options, including different frames and filter, shadows, and more.
- Layout: Layout is an app by Instagram that lets you choose between uploading pictures from your phone or taking new ones. The app offers different adjustable layout options and the ability to select several pictures. Layout lets you share your creations on Instagram, other social platforms, or save them to your phone’s image gallery.
Finding Instagram Influencers
- Instabrand will connect you with an Instagram influencer who will promote your campaign to their following.
- Kickstagram is another service that will connect you with Instagram influencers. At the time of writing, the marketplace has over 100,000 influencers.
- Famebit helps connect you with YouTubers, Instagrammers, and online influencers so that you can get your product in front of more people.
Conclusion
Even if you are not a professional photographer, it is much easier these days for creators to put together great marketing pictures and videos for their campaigns without spending a ton of money hiring someone to do it for them. All these creative and easy to use apps that are available put powerful editing into the hands of mobile users who can post their creations from anywhere.
With these apps, crowdfunders can create and schedule posts to Instagram throughout their whole campaign, keeping things interesting by switching between photos and video, adding different text and effects to spice things up.
Feel free to leave any questions or comments below!
