5 Ways You Can Make Money On Instagram In 2021 There is more to Instagram than just uploading selfies and stalking your crush
By Anirban Roy
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Nowadays, people make real money on Instagram, and we're talking about five, six, seven figures here.
Perhaps you have a friend who never leaves his home but who always cash out big, and you're wondering where he gets his money from.
My guess is his source of income is Instagram. It's so easy to make money on that platform.
In this article, I intend to share with you some of the things people are doing to make money on Instagram.
What are the things you need to make money on Instagram?
Before you can start tapping into Instagram's goldmine of riches, you need to first get some things in place.
You need to create an Instagram brand: As far as brand voice goes, you need to decide on a theme, tone, style and look.
That is, what do you want your Instagram page to look like? The theme could be sports, fashion, lifestyle, electronics, gaming, betting, architecture, pet, or what have you.
After deciding on one, visit at least 10 profiles that are already doing something similar to your chosen theme, and check the style of their posts. These will be your guides.
Write akiller page description: What does your page description look like?
This is what will tell a new visitor what your page is about.
Make it brief, concise, and catchy.
Look at this example from popular finance brand Wealthfit:
Follow that same format to describe your Instagram page.
Have so many followers: It is strongly recommended you try and gain as many followers as possible. The higher the number of followers you have, the greater the money you can make.
In the figure below, you'll find all the tips you need on how to gain Instagram followers from Likes.io.
Contests &giveaways
Organize contests, and ask people to join to win freebies and possibly money. The format of your contest can be:
Like to win: Here, users are required to like a post to enter the contest.
Like and follow: Here, users are required to follow you to enter the contest.
Tag: Here, users are required to tag others in the comment section. For example, if you require "3 people tagged for entrance', those tagged are more likely to see the contest, your account, and your business, thus increasing your exposure.
Email request: Here, users are required to provide their email address to enter your contest, thus increasing your email list.
Alternatively, to contests, you can simply announce you're holding a giveaway. Usually, people will tell their friends about you, which will ultimately translate to more followers.
Posts regularly
Plenty of research has shown that the more regularly one posts, the greater their chances of getting new followers. So, post at least once every day. If your schedule doesn't allow it, use scheduling tools like Buffer or Hootsuite.
Bonus Tip: Buy likes and comments
To boost the integrity and reach of your posts, you should consider buying IG likes and comments from one of the reputed provider Likes.io. Click here to buy Instagram likes and followers.
Use hashtags on your posts
Hashtags make people who don't yet follow you see your posts. Various research recommends adding at least 9 hashtags to your posts. In case you don't know the right hashtags to use on your posts, we recommend trying tools like Display Purpose, Focalmark, and AutoHash. They'll suggest the best hashtags for your posts.
Powerful copywriting
Here we're talking about creating the best content and using the best captions.
Follower engagement
Monetizing Instagram requires having a good rapport with your followers. This is why you need to cultivate the habit of liking and commenting on the posts of your followers and responding ASAP to likes and comments on your posts.
Ways to make money on Instagram
Become an influencer and make money from sponsored posts: The first and the easiest way to make money on Instagram is to become an influencer.
An influencer, in simple terms, is someone who influences the purchasing decisions of others. Lots of brands—SMEs and large enterprises—use influencers for marketing their products.
Once you're identified as a reputed influencer in your niche, brands will reach out to strike sponsorship deals with you. I return, you'll promote their products to your audiences.
Typically, influencers make a lot of money. But the amount you make depends on the number of followers you have and the engagement levels of those followers.
How much do influencers make?
Brands are paying influencers handsomely. On average, nano influencers—people with more than 5,000 followers—get $10-$100 per sponsored post.
Micro-influencers—those with more than 10,000 but less than 100,000 followers—get somewhere between $100 and $500 per post.
The macro guys pocket anywhere between $5,000-$10,000 per post, while the mega guys earn as high as $10,000-plus per post.
What's the engagement level an Influencer is expected to have before brands can be enticed to work with them?
According to Later.com, brands generally expect to see an engagement rate of 2-3 per cent on influencers' posts. That is, if you have 15,000 followers, the average number of likes and comments on your posts shouldn't be less than 300-450. Say, 250 likes, 100 comments.
If you aren't getting any beeps from brands, you can pitch brands yourself. Here are some marketplaces to find brands looking for influencers:UpFluence, AspireIQ and Famebit.
Become an affiliate marketer
An affiliate marketer is someone who drives traffic (customers) to a brand's website/platform, and in return, gets paid a commission (a percentage of the purchase price) for their efforts.
To make money with affiliate marketing, you need to join high paying affiliate programs so that you can add affiliate links to your Instagram and make a commission on the sales you generate.
Look at this doctor here; she's promoting an affiliate detox product on her IG page:
There are two challenges you'll face here:
One is finding the programs to join. And the other is drawing traffic to the program.
You can find affiliate programs by following these steps:
- Check affiliate networks: Some of the most popular affiliate networks to join include ShareASale, CJ Affiliate, Rakuten Advertising (also known as LinkShare), Pepperjam, AvantLink, Impact, and Link Connector.
- Check websites of companies: Search for popular company names and check whether they offer affiliate programs.
- Check affiliate websites: There are tons of sites like RetailMeNot, Brads Deals, Ebates, and SlickDeals, which promote companies that offer affiliate programs.
- Check affiliate program directories: There are some sites on the internet like HighPayingAffiliatePrograms.com, which are dedicated to listing all the affiliate programs that are there. Check them out to see which programs are available.
- Check Google: Or you can simply Google search {highest-paying affiliate programs in "name of niche"}. E.g., highest-paying affiliate programs Makeup and Cosmetics niche.
Regarding the challenge of drawing traffic to an affiliate program, all you need is a strong following and a healthy engagement rate, and you'll beat this challenge.
Sell poster photos and other virtual products
Instagram is all about the visuals. As such, beautiful photos and visuals get a lot of attention and sales.
You can sell poster photos, paintings, drawings, animations, videos, and other image or video-based virtual products.
What makes this option even great is you don't have to be a photographer or a videographer to sell photos.
You can buy content from professionals and resell. Or you can team up with a pro photographer or videographer who creates the content while you sell on your IG account.
If the visuals are captivating and enthralling, you can bet that your followers will always be inspired to buy.
Sell physical and digital products
You can sell any physical or digital product you make yourself or buy from suppliers. For physical products, you can alleviate the issue of holding inventory by adopting dropshipping.
Dropshipping is when you sell goods you don't own. You take orders from customers and then forward this order to a supplier who completes the delivery on your behalf.
To start selling products on Instagram, you just need to set up an Instagram Shop.
How to set up an Instagram shop to start selling products
First and foremost, make sure your Instagram account is a business account. Afterward, go to Facebook to create a Facebook Business account.
After this, connect your Instagram business profile to a Facebook catalog. Once done, go back to Instagram, and upload eitheran image, carousel or video post.
Keep in mind that you can feature up to five products per image or video post and up 20 products on multi-image (carousel) posts.
This is what a typical post with a shopping tag looks like:
Now, anytime a follower clicks a "Shopping Tag" on any of your posts, they'll be sent to a page where they will see:
- an image of the product from your post
- a product description
- the cost of the product
- a link that takes them directly to your website where they can purchase the product
Write captions for businesses
Are you good with words? Are you able to write catchy and captivating lines of texts that make people do anything you ask of them?
If so, then there may be opportunities for you to make money using this skill on Instagram.
With over 1 billion users on Instagram, small businesses know the opportunity to target new audiences is limitless. And as such, they're doing everything they can to grab people's attention.
To reach their target audiences, many of them hire freelance writers who help them craft catchy and results-driven captions.
Visit popular online workplaces like Freelancer and Upwork, and you'll find tons of offers from businesses looking for caption writers.
Of course, you'll need to create a compelling bio on these online workplaces to stand out from the competition.
