September 30th, 2019 | Updated on December 1st, 2020
Instagram is the fastest-growing social media network. Just 5 years ago Facebook would have been a go-to choice if you wanted to share a photo with others. However, now it’s definitely Instagram.
With the rise of a new platform, there appeared a new market for making money. Kids nowadays don’t dream about becoming rappers or actors anymore – everyone wants to be an influencer.
An influencer is a relatively new term, so you might not be familiar with it yet. It’s a person that has a decent number of followers on social media and can form new habits or trends by communicating with the audience.
So if you are wondering how do people earn money through Instagram – they promote products to the audience and get paid for doing that. Interesting Guide: 19 Best Instagram Follower Trackers – Bumped. It’s definitely intriguing to see how that is possible, so we present you with 3 most common and effective methods to monetize your Instagram account.
1. Sell Shoutouts
If you are followed by a lot of people, your Instagram Stories probably get a lot of attention. That means it’s a great place to boost the popularity of other users and they will be willing to pay – that’s how shoutouts work.
Even though you can’t expect to earn a lot from a single shoutout (unless you have hundreds of thousands of followers), you can do that pretty frequently, so it will add up. Please note that you shouldn’t give shoutouts to just anyone who contacts you – pay attention to the content they are uploading and think if your audience will like it.
Only endorse accounts that are attractive and promising, otherwise, your own audience will feel disappointed and might stop following you. In addition to that, shoutouts are great to expand your audience. You can exchange shoutouts with others that have a similar number of followers. It won’t cost you money, but you can experience a boost of followers real quick.
2. Sponsored Posts
This is where most of the money influencers earn comes from. They get paid for promoting products and services on their accounts. First of all, you will have to find a business that would want to work with you. Usually, businesses make the first move by reaching out to various influencers with partnership offers (that’s why it’s a good idea to post your contact email in bio description), but you can do that too. You can contact some brand and tell that you really like their products and would like to work together.
Nowadays promoting a product isn’t just posting a stock photo and crafting a short caption. You will have to integrate the product or service into your feed. It has to feel natural and relevant to your audience, but at the same time, you shouldn’t try to hide the fact that it is an advertisement.
Vice versa, you should be honest and proud about that – try to look like you are happy for having an opportunity to endorse the product you really like. Businesses use various analytic tools for Instagram to examine the performance of campaigns, so you really have to work hard. If the performance of promotion is really weak, it will be harder to get another deal.
If it’s a physical product, you will have to make high-quality and attractive photos with it. In fact, you are probably going to do that not once, because most of the contracts nowadays are long term, so the business can boost the visibility and popularity of the brand.
It’s not just a one time job to drive some sales – there are better, more efficient ways to do that. If a product is digital or it’s some kind of service, you might have to tell a story and talk to the audience about your experience using it and why they should to it too.
Basically, there are two types of deals – you either do everything by yourself (with approval of the brand) or serve just as a word of mouth to your audience. I.e. business can provide you with photos and captions, so you just need to post it. Obviously, this second method pays less, but it also takes much less time.
3. Sell Something By Yourself
You don’t have to promote something or interact with other influencers to make money – you can do that yourself. Since you already have an audience, you can monetize it and sell something. It can be your art (photos, merchandise, etc.), physical or digital products, or simply drive traffic to your website.
However, keep in mind that you can’t promote anything – there are some rules. For instance, Instagram just banned weight-loss ads that failed to meet the criteria, so, first of all, think if your content is appropriate. And don’t be too aggressive with promoting your products, nobody likes feeds that are full of ads and nothing more.
