Got lots of Instagram followers? 3 ways to make money on Instagram!

Got lots of followers on Instagram? Time to make money!

If you dedicate a lot of time of your life to build content and followers on Instagram, it means that your initial hobby has transformed into a job. There is nothing wrong with this, moreover, it’s a one step progress towards your dream job. In your role as an Influencer, your ultimate goal is to prove yourself as a reliable and trustworthy figure, which can induce other people to take certain actions. Once you achieve this status, you can enjoy the benefits from being in this position.

In this blogpost, you’ll learn 3 methods on how you can monetize your status and achieve your lifetime goals.

Doing sponsored brands

Is the most popular form of cooperation between someone who’s having a niche related audience and a brand who’s interested in exposing its products or service to your audience. Essentially, the company is buying a spot into your post feed, and usually is willing to offer a fair paycheck. You have to introduce and recommend the brand to your followers on Instagram and other platforms where you are present. Both parties benefit from this action. The brand increases its reach and sales stats, while you, as an Influencer will get compensated in monetary form and other benefits.

The sponsored campaign may last for only one post, or it could be a series of posts. The paycheck varies a lot and it can range from few hundreds to several thousands dollars per campaign. On average, influencers receive from $100 to $250 per post. The final price is always negotiated.

A simple method to get noticed by brands, is to mention them in your posts, and tag them every time you do so. Eventually, the brand will notice that you are tagging them, and will visit your profile. Once realized that you have a decent audience which they can benefit from, they will reach out to you for a collaboration proposal.

Make sure to have a method to be reached out. It could be an e-mail address, or a link pointing to your website. Place the contact information in your bio, make it easy for brands to contact you. Instant messaging doesn’t work very well, email communication being the most preferred method in business environment.

Don’t get too excited once you receive a great proposal. Before jumping into a contract, you should know that each promotional campaign burns out your audience. Irrelevant information for your audience or too obvious promotion posts may annoy your Instagram followers. The easiest way to discredit yourself, is to advertise a brand which is not congruent with interests of your audience. Let’s suppose that your main Instagram topic is about fitness, but a brand about fashion wants to work with you. It may seem at first sign that it makes sense, you might have followers which could be interested in such topics. Not exactly.

Your followers are following you because you blog about fitness. This is what they want to hear from you, and you should honor your obligations towards your audience. Remember, your followers is your main asset, they need to come first. Ignoring this simple rule, will cause your followers on Instagram to unfollow you or to completely ignore you.

Brand a product and sell it

If you are afraid that your audience will be against promoting other brands or simply you don’t like this form of cooperation, try to come up with your own product. It could be a book, course, digital product or even physical one, is up to you. It requires more investments, but the results are worth the effort. So let’s say you are blogging about fitness. Find someone who will design for you a sport outfit sample. Once ready, start wearing yourself and see the reaction of your audience. In case the interest goes up, go on full scale production.

Make sure to have a pre-order form somewhere, otherwise you won’t be able to quantify the demand of your product.

An alternative product would be a video course, a book, a “one to one” session etc. It depends a lot on your niche, your level of influence, and on your audience. If your followers truly love you, they will commit a small amount of money to purchase something from you.

Once the product is created, you would market it to your followers on Instagram while continuing to post your regular pictures and other content. Put the product in front of them as much as possible, talk about how your product benefits you, and how it could improve your followers lives. Don’t forget to include a link to your bio which will lead to a sales page or an opt-in form for further lead nurturing.

Pair up with brands

The third method implies a cooperation between you and other brand which offers complementary products. Let’s say you are a fitness trainer, and you pair up with a brand which sells sport nutrition. In that way, you could create bundle of products. For example you have created a video course on how to lose weight in 30 days, which you sell for $20. The other brand, sells sport supplements for $10. You can pair up and sell as a bundle for $23, amazing deal for your followers. The profit split is up to you.

You may ask, how can it be possible to reduce the final price and stay profitable? Selling bundles, reduces the marketing costs for both of parties, consequently reducing the overall cost of the final product. Additionally, buying a bundle which costs $23 is more convenient rather to buy the products separately. It will boost sales for both of you.

Also, if you are an influencer, it doesn’t mean that you don’t need to expand your reach. You might find yourself into a position where you’ll need another influencer to market you. In this case, you can barter – promo for promo campaign. Basically, you would be doing a sponsored post in exchange of a sponsored post. Both of you will greatly benefit from this deal.

Conclusion

Succeeding alone is difficult, you have to collaborate with other people. In case you are serious about making Instagram a steady source of income, you need to start thinking strategically. Create a plan and stick to it. Before jumping into a contract, make sure it favors you and your followers. Think long-term and don’t abuse your audience. The reputation once lost, is very hard to regain. If done everything properly, one day you’ll realize that your dreams become reality. Find more ways how to boost and make money with Instagram on our blog.