There’s no hiding it, Instagram is
one of my favorite social media channels. Not only is it a great way to share
your life with friends and family and promote your business, but it’s also a
great way to make a lot of money.
Best of all, you don’t need a big
following and there are several different ways to earn an income. In this
article, I’m going to show you how to make money on Instagram using seven of my
favorite strategies:
1.
Get paid for sponsored posts.
2.
Promote affiliate links.
3. Start an Instagram shop.
4.
Become an Instagram coach.
5. Advertise your brand.
Why Should You Try to Make Money on Instagram?
What You Need to Make Money on Instagram
There are three things you need to make money on Instagram:
reach, influence, and engaged followers.
Reach and Influence
The only reason businesses pay money to Instagram users is the
exposure to the audiences they receive in return. They hope to make money from
those followers. For it to be worth their time, these brands are only
interested in influencers with large audiences. The bigger the audience, the
more money they can make.
Engaged Followers
So on your Instagram account, if you rarely get people
commenting, liking, sharing, and following you, then it doesn’t matter how big
your following is, you probably won’t make much money.
On the other hand, even if you only have 1,000 followers and
they are actively engaging with your posts, the potential to make money is
there. Brands are willing to invest in you because of the profitable actions
you’ll drive through your account.
5 Ways to Make Money on
Instagram
Okay, so now you know why I think Instagram is a great platform
to make money on and what you need to make serious bank. Now let’s look at my
favorite ways of doing just that.
Make Money by Affiliate Marketing
1. Become an Influencer and Get Paid to Advertise Products
I’ll preface this first strategy by stating that this is the
easily most common tactic to earn money on Instagram.
Again, it isn’t viable for people with a few hundred followers.
You need a minimum following of about 5,000 followers and a high engagement
rate.
Sure, you can follow a planned marketing strategy, but Instagram
followers love when you are being true to your authentic self. As you share
pictures and build your influence organically, relevant brands are likely to
approach you rather than the other way round.
Once you satisfy these criteria, here’s a simplistic version of
how making money works:
·
you create a sponsored Instagram post (it could be a photo or
video)
·
you include a branded hashtag, mention, or link to promote a
brand
·
you share it with your audience
·
you get paid
There is one warning going into this though: don’t pursue
sponsored posts simply to make money without believing in the brand you’re
promoting. Taking too many of such posts will also burn your audience’s
interest and lead to loss of trust in your brand. For example, if you’ve built
a following based on visiting fast food restaurants and writing greasy food
reviews—suddenly partnering with a weight-loss brand could damage your
reputation.
Simple enough to remember, right?
Let’s look at a few people who do this well in real life.
Adam Gonon is a fashion and lifestyle influencer from New York. With
a touch over 50,000 followers, he certainly doesn’t have the biggest audience
in the world, but that doesn’t stop him from creating sponsored content every
few days.
You don’t have to
promote fashion or other lifestyle products to get paid for sponsored posts. Amanda Holtzer is a health, diet, and nutrition influencer who works with brands
like Costco and Juice Press to create sponsored content.
2. Promote Affiliate Offers
Promoting affiliate offers is not dissimilar to getting paid for
sponsored posts. The difference is that you only get paid if people buy the
product or service you’re promoting rather than receive payment for your post.
This can be both positive and negative, depending on your
audience. While sponsored posts have guaranteed income, you could make a lot
more by promoting the right affiliate offer. On the other hand, you could also
make a lot less.
Being an affiliate on Instagram is a lot harder than running affiliate ads on your website. Not only do you
require a launch audience, but Instagram doesn’t allow clickable links anywhere
except your bio. The only way to promote an offer and make sure you receive the
affiliate income you’re due is by using promo codes. These are trackable and
can be added to your post or story easily. Of course, you’ll still need your
followers to visit the affiliate website on their own.
Make Money by Affiliate Marketing
3. Start an Instagram Shop
With an Instagram Shop, you can integrate your e-commerce store
with your Instagram profile. This is the only way you can promote your products
directly to Instagram followers through your posts, Stories, the Explore tab,
and the Shop tab on your profile.
There used to be a lot of friction for e-commerce store owners
who wanted to sell through Instagram, but not anymore. Instagram
Shopping completely removes
friction, letting customers easily check out products in the app and then head
to your store at the click of a button.
Let’s say you’re a clothing store and you want to promote an
outfit. Simply upload a picture of your model wearing your outfit, and
Instagram will let you tag up to five products per post (you can tag up to 20
products per carousel.) You can also promote products in stories and videos,
too.
I would like to show you one specific Instagram page that’s
completely killing it.
It’s called Doug the Pug. As the
name implies, it’s all about the life of one of the Internet’s coolest and
cuddliest pugs, Doug.
This page chronicles Doug’s life and takes followers along on
his adventures. As of August 2021, Doug the Pug had 3.9 million followers. Doug
has his own book entitled Doug the Pug: King of Pop Culture (which is pretty
impressive considering that he can’t actually write.) He even does
appearances all around the country.
In other words, Doug’s owner has created a massive brand.
Guess what? The popularity they’ve generated is centered around
their Instagram page. With 3.9 million followers, you can bet that they’re
driving plenty of high-quality traffic to the store and consequently getting
paid handsomely for it.
This is a brilliant example of how Instagram can be used to
build a brand from scratch. Doug the Pug is a template you could use to launch
your own brand and sell from your online store.
Just use your creativity and come up with an interesting angle
that will get people excited and eager to invest in your brand.
There’s no doubt that there is a significant time investment
involved, but it can pay dividends if you’re able to establish a large and
loyal audience. The best part is all of the different ways you can monetize
your brand later on.
4. Become an Instagram Coach or Consultant
Take a look at Foundr as an example.
Right
now, they have built a massive audience to the tune of 3.3 million on
Instagram. And since it’s their strong suit, Foundr founder Nathan now sells
his Instagram marketing expertise in an online course called Instagram Domination at
a whopping price of $1,997.
Given that businesses that are
passionate about Instagram marketing follow them, Foundr has a great pool of
potential qualified buyers in their audience with them on Instagram. Many of
these prospects are likely to buy their course.
The best news? Anyone can do this if
they have a big enough following.
Travel bloggers, food bloggers,
marketing consultants—if people are active in your niche and are trying to grow
a following doing what you do, launching a course could be highly profitable.
5. Indirectly Make Money by Advertising Your Brand
You don’t have to have a business
that’s directly tied to Instagram in order to use the platform to generate
sales. Thousands of canny entrepreneurs have leveraged their Instagram following
to make money through a separate business. It really doesn’t matter what kind
of business you operate; Instagram is a great way to get the word out and
generate traffic and sales.
Instagram is particularly powerful if
you have a physical product that you can show people using. Service-based
businesses like travel agents also work incredibly well.
Hashtags will be particularly
important here if you want to increase the reach of your Instagram account. The
more followers you have, the more people will see your posts and consider using
your business in the future.
My
article on boosting Instagram followers will be a big help in this regard.
Make Money by Affiliate Marketing
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