How to Make Money on Instagram | Steps to Make Money with Instagram

Ever wondered how to make the photos and videos you take on Instagram could actually, in turn, pay your bills? It has worked for others, you should also try giving it a thought; the sound of it may just fascinate you even more than you think.

Instagrammers tap into a quality that is longed for by several companies alike, the capability to gain an audience and successfully impart a certain level of influence on them. These have proven a great deal in earning good cash for YouTubers and bloggers.

Just how big does your audience have to be for this to work out?

Making a financial statement on Instagram and reaping benefits leaning towards cash does not typically require a lot of followers.

However, other factors are key to making your circle click on the posts. These may involve:

• Identification of a particular niche that would spring you to the top, for example, a specific line of clothing or cook recipes.
• Evaluation of how much attention your followers accord to you.
• Identification of financial channels of your interest.

It doesn’t matter how many followers you possess, what truly defines a good money-making strategy is how involved your audience is. Let’s now cut to the chase. How do we pull this through?

Welcome to the real deal; how do I earn by just creating posts?

In line with your interests or what you particularly do best, you can make anything work for you with enough level of commitment and a supportive community of followers. Here are some of the ways money is made on Instagram:

• Making sponsored posts that are well acquainted by your audience.
• Dealing in brand products that fascinate your followers.
• Giving services for monetary reasons such as making digital products like a webpage
• Marketing and selling your best snaps.

These are some of the common ways that Instagrammers use to make money with Instagram, with the most common one being a source of advertisement for various products and brands.

Becoming a brand “Ambassador” by creating sponsored posts

This money-maker is one of the best if you are a great influencer. Basically, influencers tend to get the word around them by doing awesome stunts or making ordinary things seem extra-ordinary. They are the type of people that followers want to be around and to some extent get credit for their opinions and actions.

Such are the kind of people that companies seek to assist in promoting their products by making sponsored posts. Getting that much attention is the dream of any start-up with an end game of pure success. Why not leverage on the already existing candidates well-suited for this task? Having this in mind, they just don’t seek the most followed character, but the most engaged candidate. A candidate with 1000 followers can land the job due to the trust built with followers and another with thousands left out.

At times, the perfect balance between your cash earned from influencing your followers and ethics as a content writer may be put to test. The choice of brand you go down with is entirely up to you, as long as you do not completely rely on make money with Instagram, just as a brand’s choice of an influencer is entirely up to it.

Just how much are we talking for the “Ambassador” job?

You are most definitely in it to win it. Though, just so you know, there are a couple of things that you need to be accustomed to before shaking that hand for a deal closure. As an influencer, a post, video or a story is definitely a necessity when marketing a brand and with your permission, the brand could “borrow” the content for their site or an ad.

There are so many ways you could benefit for a deal, be it a one-time thing or a longer contract for a full campaign period. An influencer can get paid a fee, a gift, a product from the brand, a service, or a multiple combination among these.

A survey to gauge the range of payment done on a number of influencers, 5000 to be exact, approximately 42% conformed to payment ranging from $200 to $400 per content creation. This is a rough estimate of what you are down for in terms of payment.

It is, however, your key role as an influencer to gauge and analyze your followers’ interests. This can now be actualized by a simple Math formula of total engagement of followers divided by the number of followers. These figures are present in the Instagram analytics report available for the business account.

Which brand will take me as their “Ambassador”?

The more the followers you have and influence you have on them, the more the brands that seek you for their benefit and you could make money with Instagram. This, however, should not deter you in any way if you do not have many followers. There are brands you can seek that tend to be on the same level regarding your followers’ and your own values.

Reaching out to a brand to request for this service is a bold move that you should definitely consider. Plan B if that fails, you can list yourself on the available influencer marketplaces that would definitely sky-rocket you to the attainment of one of your goals, getting the cash. Here are some of them:

• Shoutcart: make a brand buy your “shout out” to your audience.
• Fohr Card: Link all the social platforms that you may have to build a card that can serve as proof to the brands of your total reach, which may just make them fall for you. From here, you can also get a listing of the brands and their specific demands so that you may engage them at a more personal level.
• Grapevine: Considering that you may have an audience reach of 5000+ followers, this is the best place to be to seek brands that are outer for a larger group.
• Crowd Tap: This service only available to the U.S. allows an influencer to partake in small tasks for rewards.
• indaHash: With an eligibility criterion of at least 700, brands set up campaigns or ads that prompt an influencer to post a certain content for them to be paid.

As risky as this may be at times, it is always a perfect idea to alert your followers where the content exactly comes from by adding the #sponsored hashtag for such posts. Some brands are very open to this idea so as to be vivid the relationship with the influencer. Searching for the same hashtag as well can give you examples of such posts and how other influencers mash up the brands with their stories.

Go a notch higher; ally with the brand!

Another great way to make money with Instagram! Becoming an affiliate takes the relationship with the brand on the next step. This may incorporate making sales for the brand so as to earn a commission. As you may have noticed, this is rather different from being an influencer in that on top of creating awareness, you deal in the sale of the brand’s product.

Before Instagram incorporates using links in other places other than your bio (of which it has plans of making a reality), you can ensure that you focus on one product at a time. You may decide to use promo codes or traceable links to gain the assurance that a click is actually a sale.

Just like in the ambassador’s platform, this one also has a marketplace and online merchants that provide the platforms that you can participate in such as:

• ClickBank: This platform is open to all and operates on a tier-based commission.
• RewardStyle: The platform operates on the policy of invites only. It deals in the line of lifestyle and fashion and offers a commission of 20%.
• Amazon Affiliate Program: This pretty common and popular platform offers a 10% commission.

To maximize from this trade, you have to master the art and develop a plan and strategy to fully manipulate it. You may have a separate website for your online trades and try avoiding the long and tedious-to-look-at inks by shortening it to something attractive like bit.ly if you plan to use it on your bio.

Ever considered being your own boss?

It may be your dream to work by your own rules and at your own time and still gain massively from it. Believe it or not, this can just happen to be a reality! You may have a service that you are good at providing such as an art piece or a web design, or a product that you would like to get sold. You have an audience that is actively engaged. Why not go for it?

For it to be a successful venture, you need to dedicate time to it to ensure you are the first to notice if something is going amiss. It would also be perfect to customize your own brand to suit your product or service.

Here are some of the ventures you can hop on:

• Consider branding your product such as t-shirts or mugs with your own design or request the buyer for a more personalized imprint.
• Skills that you possess may prove invaluable as many people would purchase services such as consulting or artwork.
• You also could think about offering digital commodities such as templates or e-books.
• Your Instagram account is also an invaluable asset in launching your personal startup.

You may happen to have opened a Shopify store where you sell your products. Consider getting more audience around your business by enabling Instagram purchases or integrating shopping on Instagram to make use of the tags and stickers for your products. To fully utilize the services of the shopping on Instagram integration, you must have an Instagram business account, Facebook account and a Facebook shop that can be opened at any time.

Let your looks work for you!

Instagram is a well-known photo space. Many people gain several followers simply because of a photo of themselves or any other memorable scenery. If you happen to be one of those people, it is high time you let that bring in some cash.

A photo is an asset that can be manipulated in many ways to suit your desire, and this may involve licensing, printing or selling. Marketplaces such as Twenty20 and 500px are platforms where you can add your photo and let brands license them.

Photos also look good on other merchandise such as hoodies or t-shirts. You can print a photo onto a product and get good money from selling it. Teelaunch and Printful are very helpful platforms that help you embed your photo on products like mobile phone cases.

Hobby versus source of income, or probably both!

It is high time you let your leisure activity or hobby starting working to your advantage. Having a platform that companies strive to get is a way to look at it as you make money with Instagram and make it being a source of income. The large and engaged audience is a place to start. So do it!