How to Make Money from Instagram
Instagram which was originally a photo-sharing app has today turned out to become one of the top social media platforms in less than a decade through which some people make money online.
Its users have suddenly gone up in the last two years or more to above 700 million. This sudden rise in its users’ base might be connected with the launching of Instagram Stories in August 2016. The simple truth is that people love Instagram probably because of its simple, visual-driven content. It is believed to be the most popular ways to share pictures. The interest people show on Instagram has grown over the past six years and the trend is on the rise, and it is probably not going to slow down in the foreseeable future.
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With a huge number of active users of Instagram today, it is one of the most popular social media platforms today. It is used by all class of people, from popular celebrities to important personalities in society, including average individuals who are connected through their smartphones.
Being an active user on Instagram is good but do you know that it is a platform through which people like you can make money, real money indeed. If you are not yet aware, I am going to show you in this post the various ways you can make money on Instagram.
How Do you then Make Money On Instagram?
It all depends on your followers, your unique brand of Instagram content, and above all your level of determination and commitment; you can make a fortune on Instagram in the following various ways: Work with brands on sponsored posts
- Set up your profile and build your followers
- Become an affiliate
- Sell your photos online or on other physical products
- Offer tutorials on Instagram
- Set up your online store and sell your products
- Share quality content
- Promote your freelance services
- Become an influencer/brand ambassador and make money on sponsored posts.
- Run campaign on contests and giveaways
- Share testimonials with your followers
- Publish sponsored posts
- Conclusion
Set up your profile and build your followers
To make money on Instagram, first things first is to set up your profile and build your followership. This is made possible because Instagram permits you to provide a link to your website or blog. So write a brief but good introduction of yourself and your business, provide a good photograph and show a link to your blog/website.
You must bear in mind that to make money on Instagram, you must be able to build quality followers. So if you have done with setting up your profile, work towards building your followership and begin selling your products/services in whatever form you choose.
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Become an Affiliate
You can decide to market other companies’ products and in turn, receive a commission. Many brands are sold through online sales where people expose and recommend the products to their followers by links that are trackable or promo code in order to translate the clicks into sales.
What is important in Instagram sales is to create an engaging post in order to capture the hearts of your followers and make visiting your page a routine. Don’t forget that you can have only one link on your Instagram page, you should endeavour to include a landing page to your affiliate link and provide a clue in each post that the product can be bought via the Instagram bio link.
Initially, it is a daunting task, but over time you will discover that affiliate marketing has many expansion strategies you can choose from to grow.
Read Also: How to Start Affiliate Marketing Business
Sell your photos online or on other physical products
Instagram is a photography driven platform. If taking photos has landed you into the limelight on Instagram, take advantage of it and sell your photos. Remember that photos can be licensed, printed, and sold in so many ways.
It is possible to sell your photos as prints on physical products such as phone cases, posters, pillows, cups, caps, etc. use the services of outfits such as Printful and Teelaunch to carve your pictures on souvenirs.
Offer tutorials on Instagram
If you happen to have thousands of followers and a popular Instagram influencer, maybe it is time for you to offer tutorial for upcoming Instagram marketers on how to achieve their dreams. Some big-time influencers have set up side businesses that offer webinars and provide tutorials for people who want to build followership on Instagram and others that are into marketing on Instagram.
You can tutor your target market by creating a pre-recorded webinars and collaborating with YouTube. You can also use tools such as EverWebinar. You can charge fees based on your active following. It is also possible to organise life shows and personalised training sessions, all these are for big money.
Set up your online store and sell your products
If you are a trader and have some items to sell, Instagram can promote your products in a big way. It also offers a good number of tools to link your products directly to the buyers. Any products can be sold on Instagram. But before you can use this service, you must have a business account. So start to convert your Instagram account into a business account, and follow the under mentioned steps:
Step 1: Change your personal profile to a business profile since you need to have a business profile in order to sell anything on Instagram. Creating your business profile is a straight forward process, so do it right away.
Step 2: Produce your product catalogue: Each time you want to include any of your products in your post, they must be pulled out from your store catalogue. You can also link your product catalogue to your Facebook account.
Step 3: Seek for approval of your business profile: Your e-commerce store cannot work without Instagram approval. So once you are ready, present your business profile for review and once approved, you are ready for business. You can now include your products/services in your posts.
Share quality contents
Instagram is sharing, sharing of high-quality contents. So if you want to make money on Instagram, you must create and share good quality contents (images, videos) to your audience. Don’t forget that the content you share must be closely related to the products/services you promote, even if you are promoting yourself. The watchword is ‘quality’ otherwise you displease your audience and lose them for good.
So how do retain and grow your followers – read my testimony below:
I have a super relationship with my college colleagues and students!
If you want to know how I handled my relationship with my colleagues and students, I will tell you. I do it by regularly meeting the students in groups and on one on one, sharing what’s happening in the college, and the world around us, and listening to what they have in store for me. I don’t wait for them to come to me rather I take the initiative and call them when I fail to hear from them in a while.
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That is how Instagram works. Don’t forget, it is a social media platform to meet and interact in the space instead of having a physical interaction.
Tailwind in its analysis of over 100,000 Instagram posts over three month’s period discovered that the higher the rate of interaction, the higher is the rate of engagement. So that is the rate of growing followership.
Promote your freelance services
If you provide freelance services such as photography, writing, office cleaning, dry cleaning, pet walking, etc. you can promote such services on Instagram. What you need to do is to showcase your services, put them in the form of high-quality photos and share. With this, you attract clients who will patronize your services.
If you are into office cleaning, share some of the amazing photos of the offices you have given a facelift. If you are into cat walking business, share quality pictures of adorable cats that can be purchased. Even writers can benefit from Instagram. With your free account with Canva, you can go places with Instagram, sharing embedded quotes from your creative piece of writing.
Become an influencer/brand ambassador and make money on sponsored posts
If you have a large following, probably you are an Instagram influencer; there is the possibility of becoming a brand ambassador in no distant future. You become a brand ambassador when a company or more partners with you to promote their brands’. So all you have to do is keep on growing your audience to the level companies can partner and work with you. The money you are paid is big so it worth the while.
For you to make more money as a brand ambassador, it is important to carve yourself a niche. Don’t be an all-weather influencer, but be known for a specific thing you do. It could be fashion, cooking food, travelling or singing, the common platform that brings them together is the visual storytelling. So whatever your niche is, so far you can take stunning photos of your finished product, it is a question of time before you begin smiling to the bank.
Run Campaign Contests and Giveaways
People like playing games especially the one that is rewarding. If you start making deals that give people free products and discount, I tell you that people will visit that Instagram account that offers such deals.
If you make your mind up to channel your energy in this sort of campaign, you are likely to experience more engagement. If also you run the campaign for a limited period of time, creating a sense of urgency, you can make the campaign look unique, and more followers are likely to be attracted to it.
Read Also: How to Make Money on YouTube
Share Testimonials with Your Followers
Sharing customers’ testimonials with your followers is another great way to grow your followers and make money. Your customers who have benefited from your products or services must be your advocates and be willing to promote you for free. All you need to do is to get those advocates to share pictures and videos of themselves using and benefiting from the products and the extent to which they enjoyed the products.
Publish Sponsored Posts
Big companies like Unilever, Nigerian Breweries or Guinness seek for big-time celebrities to do advertorial for them. After all that they are looking for is to grow their sales and make more money. If that is the case, if you have large following without being on the scale of, for instance, Linda Ikeji, you can key into partaking in doing a sponsored post for the companies and make your money.
Conclusion:
No business venture is easy to start and run. Over time it may seem less difficult but it is never easy. Making money from Instagram is the same, and it is only having the determination and being focused that you can succeed. All you can do is to learn through the ropes from experienced practitioners, stick to your niche and with time, the sky may be your limit.