How to Make Money on Instagram (Whether You Have 1K or 100K Followers)
You’ve probably heard stories of Instagrammers who are cashing in on the pictures they snap and share every day. You might've even looked at your own sizeable following and thought, “Maybe I can do that too”.
Just like bloggers, YouTubers, and anyone who’s amassed an audience around the content they produce, Instagrammers have reach and influence figured out—two things many companies struggle with.
Together, these two things offer the opportunity for Instagram creators to explore multiple streams of potential revenue, whether they want to build an empire or just earn some extra cash and free stuff.
How many followers do you need to make money on Instagram?
short answer is “not as many as you think”.
The long answer depends on factors that range from:
- What niche you’re in and how easily you can directly tie it to a product category (fashion, food, beauty, and fitness are popular niches, based on top Instagram hashtags)
- How engaged your followers are (100K fake followers won’t amount to much).
- Which revenue channels you explore.
Naturally, the more engaged followers you have, the better. Check our tips on how to get followers on Instagram.
While top Instagrammers make thousands per post on the photo-sharing platform, even those with a smaller-but-engaged following of 1000 have the potential to start making money.
Want to learn how to grow and monetize your Instagram account? Instagram marketing expert, Gretta van Riel, shows you how in Grow Your Business with Instagram, a free course inside Shopify Academy.
How to make money on Instagram in 2020
Depending on your unique brand of Instagram content, your audience, and your level of commitment, you can make money on Instagram in the following ways:
- Doing sponsored posts for brands that want to get in front of your audience.
- Becoming an affiliate and making a commission selling other brands’ products.
- Creating and selling a physical or digital product, or offering a paid service.
- Selling licenses for your photography or videos.
The beauty here is that chasing one revenue stream doesn’t necessarily rule out another.
So let’s start with the most common approach to Instagram monetization: partnering with brands as an influencer.
Work with brands on sponsored posts
The term “influencer” gets thrown around a lot these days.
An influencer is basically anyone who’s built themselves an online reputation by doing and sharing awesome things online. To their audiences, influencers are tastemakers, trendsetters and trusted experts whose opinions about certain subjects are respected.
Many brands just can't compete with that and so they partner with influencers instead for sponsored posts that help get the word out about their products.
But it’s not just the size and reach of your Instagram account that brands want. It’s your audience’s trust and engagement with your content.
It can be hard to balance your revenue as an influencer and your integrity as a creator, but if you’re not relying on your Instagram income to stay afloat, you always have the freedom to be selective about the brands you work with, just as brands will be selective about the Instagrammers they work with.
How to decide what to charge as an influencer
Typically these influencer deals involve the creation of content—an Instagram post, video or Story—and will sometimes include permission for the brand to use this content on their own site or in an ad.
Most of these deals are negotiable and can involve a single post or an entire campaign in exchange for a fee, a free product, a service, a gift, the promise of exposure, or some combination of these.
Keep in mind when negotiating that you’re not just offering content but access to your audience, a potentially large reach on one of the most popular social platforms around, and usage rights too.
In a survey of 5,000 influencers, around 42% said they charged $200 to $400 per post—just to give you an idea of what some brands are willing to pay, and how to negotiate based on the cards you’re holding.
Finally, it's important as an influencer to also know your own audience.
What is the make-up of your audience and what is your engagement rate (total engagement divided by your number of followers)? You can dig up numbers to back this up in your Instagram Analytics report, if you've switched to a business account. This will help you be prepared when it comes time to negotiate.
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