In August, Instagram added a new feature so its users can share their 24-hour stories, stringing together multiple videos and photos in an extremely similar (if not identical) way to Snapchat.
This new functionality comes on the heels of Instagram deploying an algorithm in March that now ranks top posts rather than a real-time feed.
While Instagram continues to change and adjust itself in the social sphere, one Austin-based company is changing the platform's user experience, giving posters control and insight on their social impact.
Planoly, officially launching in January after several months in beta, provides an end-to-end platform for Instagram users to plan and monitor their accounts.
“We’re more of a visual platform to help brands and influencers manage their Instagram,” said founder Andy Hoang. “We’re trying to help users with every single aspect of the whole Instagram post.”
Hoang developed the platform after watching his wife, Brandy, schedule Instagram posts for her online jewelry company by e-mailing herself photos, editing them in a fake 'feed' on Photoshop, creating pre-made captions in Evernote, then reminding herself when to post them via alerts, after she gave birth to their son in 2013.
“Together, we started building out a prototype,” said Hoang. “She used it, then her friends in the industry used it, and it just grew from there.”
With Planoly, users can create and discover content, search their brand hashtags, see every person who has tagged postings and 'regrammed' it, reply and manage all comments and visually plan out scheduled posts in a grid layout with suggested color themes to make an account more cohesive.
The platform then analyzes the posts and level of engagement to see how effective the campaign is in its reach.
Planoly currently runs on a subscription plan with clients like Lulu Lemon, Cheerios, Nike, Urban Outfitters, celebrities, photographers and other popular Instagram influencers.
Hoang said they plan to release a commerce version over the next year, and a free version in two weeks, which will be a limited version of the paid model. Free users will be capped at 30 uploads a month, with limited analytics and a restricted number of common management tools.
Planoly’s team of seven currently works out of the downtown WeWork office, with no immediate plans for fundraising, as they’ve been cash flow positive since launching. Hoang originally started the company in Dallas, but moved to Austin three months ago to have better access to Austin’s deep developer talent pool.
