Sure, we’ve all gotten lost in an Instagram vortex scrolling through our sister’s boyfriend’s cousin’s best friend’s feed – with the cute bulldog puppy and a penchant for Sunday brunch, but the app is so much more than a means of distraction. Astute marketers are utilizing the platform to engage with followers, start conversations, and post live feeds on the new Snapchat-inspired Instagram Stories. And lets not forget about the opportunity for brand growth and sales boosts from tapping into Instagram’s massive audience.

With over four billion likes each day, brands that don’t dive into this golden goose of an opportunity are sorely missing out on an untapped market. So how do you make the most of your Instagram presence? Time-saving apps and creative tools certainly make your marketing more effective. The following tools will help you in your quest to conquer the social media sphere.

 1. Buffer

We already use Buffer for other social media platforms, but it now comes with Instagram capabilities. While Instagram is not a fan of allowing third-party apps to post to accounts, it does allow Buffer to write, arrange, and schedule your posts. You’ll receive a push-notification on your phone when the post is ready to go, and you then simply shift the content to Instagram. Queue your content for the day, week, month… you choose. Easy peasy.

2. Quick

This app is a must for your brand if you want to add text to photos without having master a laundry list of functions. Quick doesn’t have a zillion bells and whistles, but what it does is give users the ability to add fonts to their pictures in a snap. The app is especially helpful for those posting on the go but still want to give a visually stimulating presentation of products and updates.

3. Yotpo

If you haven’t jumped on the Yotpo bandwagon yet, now is the time. While Instagram users love to discover new brands, they also want to know that their peers vouch for them as well. Enter Yotpo: the app allows brands to curate relevant user generated content to be displayed on feeds, shortening the path from product discovery to purchase. The app makes the process of driving traffic from Instagram to product pages easier than ever, with the company reporting a conversion uplift of up to 180%. #winning

4. SocialRank

This app is a great resource for identifying, organizing and managing your audience on Instagram. Sort followers by most engaged, influential and valued, and filter followers by geographic location, keywords, hashtags or number of their followers. What does all this mean? More focus on the demographic of who is paying attention to your brand and the ability to execute future posts with them in mind.