The best way to make money on Instagram...??
First of all, to start earning money with Instagram you’re going to need a decent following, reach, exposure and content. No worries I’m going to break this down so you’re not going to get confused.
To start things of the first thing you’re going to need is a following. My advice would be to concentrate only on creating quality content and consistency before reaching 10K followers. Here are the reasons why we want to do that.
Monetizing your account too early is going to reduce your exposure and growth rapidly, since people are not as likely to follow you. Example: Many people on Instagram are trying to sell a course / book / shoutout etc. to you but would you buy a course that promises you to gain 100 followers a day from an account with 20 followers? I guess not.
Another reason why we want to wait till we reach the 10K would be the swipe up feature. You unlock it after passing 10K followers and switch to creator or business profile and then you can add it to your stories which is going to convert into more sales.
The thing is, how are you going to reach the first 10K followers?
As said before, you want to focus heavily on quality content and consistency. People are very picky about what content they want to see in their feed so you need to create content that is unique, gives value and is relatable. Sounds easy right? Well if you got the content side covered we are going to look at consistency. I would advise you to post 2-3 times per day. This is probably the hardest part of it all as a lot of people can start an account and feel motivated for one or two weeks but then stop due to the lack of consistency. If you want to make it on Instagram you have to be consistent!
Picking a niche is also a crucial part on your Instagram journey as nobody wants to see memes, motivational quotes and cars on a general account. You want to pick a niche for example cars and than niche it down some more into car detailing. This is going to make it way more easy for you to build an audience in the long run.
1. Find Your Niche
The first step in making money off your Instagram is finding your niche and discovering what audience you have influence over. Take a look at mommy bloggers - they’re one of the most influential groups on social media & are finding complete success in promoting products to their audience.
Whatever your audience is (health & wellness, beauty, fashion, etc.), make sure you’re passionate about it. This industry should be a part of your everyday life, so you can successfully incorporate brands and products into your mojo without forcing it or supporting brands/products you simply don’t like, use, or agree with. Maybe you’re a mix of things? You travel, and vlog, and love fashion? That’s great too. Just make sure your feed is cohesive… which leads us to #2.
2. Create an Eye-Catching Feed & Bio
According to Forbes, it can take less than 50 milliseconds for someone to make an impression online.That’s freaking fast. You have less than a second to make your impression on someone when they look at your feed. How you present yourself, from your profile picture to your bio to your color palette, is extremely important.
So, how do you catch that attention? First, your bio should be enticing & guide viewers to understand your niche or influence as quickly as possible. Take a look at how this influencer sums up her bio:
Secondly, your content should have a flow – with a quick sweep of your feed, viewers should feel your vibe and understand the essence of who you are, what you promote, and your industry. This is especially important because it also instills trust in brands – they know when they work with you on sponsored posts they can trust you’re posts will be cohesive and follow your trends.
Keeping your content consistent can be a difficult task, but once you get in your groove it will be much easier. I recommend planning out content using an app like Later or The Preview App, where you can see how your content looks on your feed before you post.
3. Share Your Life (stories too)
Influencer marketing isn’t just about the photos – it’s about your voice too. Great influencers have loyal followers because they share their life, in whatever way it is, with personality and transparency. Even though most influencers curate their feed and their social language, keeping it real is important. Tell your story, let your personality shine through, and connect with your followers. The mark of a great influencer is when a follower feels like they’re peeking into the real life of an influencer. Think anecdotes and real stories – give people an inside view of your life.
No matter your industry, you should be sharing your stories. This is especially important when it comes to incorporating brand posts and products into your feed. When you’ve established a personable account, curating engaging ads into your posts will make it feel natural and genuine – this is what makes influencer marketing appealing. Brands need a platform for their products to be in real hands, in real homes, used in real ways.
Check out how this mommy blogger and influencer seamlessly incorporated a product into a post with her own language:
Seeing a trend? It’s realness.
4. Post Content Consistently
Like any successful social media profile, consistency is key. Keeping your content current will build rapport with brands, keep your followers engaged, and further grow your engagement rate. Consider using a platform like Hootsuite or Sprout Social to schedule posts and find the best times to post your content. And don’t forget, not every post should be related to an item or sponsored brand. These kinds of posts should be mixed into your content. Whether you’re being paid to promote a post or you’re just posting something helpful for your followers, keep reminding yourself of the tips in #3.
5. Use Hashtags
Hashtags are the secret to successful Instagram accounts. Many people feel annoyed by them or think they are an overused tool, but successful businesses know that hashtags can really make a difference.
There are tons of different ways to utilize them, but using correctly is the most important aspect. Think of it like this – tags with over a million posts are going to get buried fast, but a tag with no traffic won’t get seen either. Something around one thousand posts could be good if it’s related to a particular brand or location, but low traffic tags won’t do much for your post. It’s pretty common sense stuff, you’ll want to aim for the middle to get the most traction.Display Purpose is a great tool to discover hashtags and their relevancy.
Tagging brands and products you use or want to work with is also a fantastic way to gain followers interested in that industry and to get your face in front of these brands.
6. Get A Business Account
Instagram makes it extremely easy for anyone to get a business account on Instagram. So, why do you need it? The business analytics provided on the business account is invaluable to an influencer. Although social media platform schedulers, like the ones mentioned in #2, track analytics for you, you can still have quick access to the analytics provided directly by Instagram. You can see information like the days and times your followers are most active, posts that had successful engagement, and the demographics (age, gender, location) of your audience. These can help you better understand who your audience is and what content is and isn’t working for you.
Not only are the analytics crucial, but it builds trust with brands and establishes professionalism for you as an influencer. When they see a business account, they see you are a serious influencer utilizing social media to truly build a brand for yourself.
And if you’re interested in running ads or sponsored posts, you can only do this with a business account.
7. Engage, Engage, Engage!
Did I mention engage? You can have the best feed and the most eye-catching content, but have zero engagement… and it will show. Engagement is at the center of a successful influencer. In order for brands to desire you as an influencer, you need to have more than just a following – you need to have a following that interacts with you. So, how do you build this up? Engage with your audience and even those who don’t follow you!
You should be commenting, starting conversations, and asking people questions. Don’t forget to respond to comments, either. Even if it’s just an emoji or a quick thank you, people will see that you’re actively monitoring and participating in conversations on your profile.
You can even comment on posts from people you don’t follow. Interact with pictures and posts from the explore page to build out a bigger potential network. You can do it while searching hashtags or exploring your follower’s pages. Find topics you want to associate with, and join in on the conversation.
8. Don’t Buy Followers
I’m telling you now… just don’t do it. Buying followers may seem like the quickest way to become an influencer, but I promise it only sets you farther back in the come-up. The term “fake it till you make it” doesn’t apply to your follower count. But why? When you buy followers, most of the accounts you are purchasing are spam accounts, bots, or profiles with little to no content/engagement. All this is doing is lowering your engagement rate which, as I mentioned above, is critical to your growth. You don’t want to gain empty followers because it does nothing for you, especially as an influencer. You want to gain followers who interact with you and who are truly interested in what you have to say. A bot follower isn’t going to buy a product (obviously), which is the point of influencer marketing, so it’s an investment with a dead-end.
This is just a general overview of what you have to do, there is more to it and I found this eBookextremely helpful to gain more knowledge on hashtags, growth, engagement rates, followers etc. and also which mistakes you absolutely have to avoid in order to succeed on Instagram.
Now let’s say you reached your goal of 10K followers and you’re ready to earn that cash.
There are a lot of different monetization techniques dependant on your niche and I would advise you to simply test some of these and then stick with the one that is giving you the best results.
- Account Flipping: Selling your account (you only get money once). Depending on your niche and engagement rate you can make quiet some good money and you don’t have to struggle with managing the account and making content / consistency.
- Affiliate Marketing: This is my personal favorite. If executed properly you can earn LOTS of money with this method so I would definitely advise you to try this out!
- Selling digital products: Surely the hardest one due to you having to first create a product but the most profitable one in my opinion.
- Selling Shoutouts: The easiest method of them all but also the most unprofitable method. If you’re not managing an account with 1 Million followers you’re not going to make more than a few bucks with this.
- Donations: Also a hidden gem and if you’re in the right niche that’s definitely something to consider!
- Brand deals: It’s insane how much money companies are willing to pay you if you show their product but hey, it’s 2020 and you should make use of this!
I’m sure there are more methods on how someone can start an Instagram business and how to make money
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