It’s no longer acceptable to post a sub-par photo simply for the sake of posting a picture for the day. Unless it is well thought out, carefully curated, and edited to (almost) perfection, it does not have a place on your brand’s Instagram feed. The standard of photo excellence is getting higher and with these tips, there’s no reason that you shouldn’t stand out from the crowd.

For photo editing: VSCO Cam

Photographers and creatives agree: this app is pretty much the gold standard in mobile phone editing. The in-app high quality camera is better than comparable apps, with easy to use adjustments of brightness and clarity while you’re shooting. Fifteen editing tools enable you to easily tweak color, adjust saturation, sharpen and crop, while adding options of grain and tinting shadows.

For the perfect selfie: Makeup Plus

Makeup loving gals and guys: you NEED this app. Seriously. Stop what you’re doing right now and download it. The app has the capability to turn sad, sallow, makeup-less faces into ravaging works of art within seconds. Experiment with new makeup colors, smooth your skin, and darken your brows without looking like you used an app. Changes can be dialed down to super subtle or made dramatic by using the app’s intensity meter. Recommended by both celebrity makeup artists and yours truly, this app is essential to achieving your perfect face.

For analytics: Squarelovin

Getting a clear overview of your Instagram stats over time is essential to knowing the impact your account is having on your audience. Sqaurelovin provides insight on account growth, likes, followers, post performance and interactions with followers. An indispensable tool: the app tracks likes and comments by date and time, which leads to a tailor-made recommendation of the best times for your account to post.

For getting more followers: InstaGrowth

The best way to attract targeted followers and increase engagement is to search for ideal accounts and engage with them consistently. If you don’t have the time to do this every day, InstaGrowth does it for you. Simply connect your Instagram account and select your target market. Then Ghost Tweeting engages with your prospects by liking their photos, based on hashtags that they use – hundreds each day!

For posting multiple pictures: Pic Collage

You have a bunch of pictures from a recent event, so you spam your follower’s feeds with six pictures in a row. NO! Do not do that. I repeat, do not post them in rapid-fire succession. A more follower-friendly way of telling a seamless story is to use Pic Collage, an app that allows you to publish multiple photos in one post. Choose from thousands of layouts, backgrounds and stickers to showcase your story.

For video: iMovie

Now that video on Instagram allows for a whopping 60 seconds of airtime, it’s time your videos stepped up their insta-game. Enter iMovie: Apple’s own video-editing app made for the amateur but comes chock full of  features. Add music, special effects, stitch together clips, and add voice-overs with this must have easy to use entry-level video editor.