[Start It Up] How To Become An Instagram Influencer Becoming an Instagram influencer is a career option that is easy to start and can help you earn a huge fan base and big moolah

If you are glued to Instagram and your followers love your post and stories, you can think of becoming an Instagram Influencer.

A person who has a large and engaged number of followers on this platform is an Instagram Influencer. Brands approach influencers for advertisements, promotions and paid partnerships. Influencers also get paid on the basis of per post on Instagram.

How large is the market?

According to data revealed by the social media giant, over 80 per cent of accounts on Instagram follow some or the other businesses or brands, and more than 200 million Instagram users visit business profiles every day.

Also, almost a third of Americans who earn more than $75,000 a year use Instagram, according to a study conducted by Pew Research Center.

The research states that Instagram is most commonly used by young adults—roughly 59 per cent of people aged between 18 and 29 have an Instagram account.

However, a third of adults earning more than $75,000 are most likely the people that big brands want to target.

So, we can safely say that there is a huge market to become an Instagram influencer.

How to become an Instagram Influencer?

To become an Instagram influencer, you first need to select a niche or field about which you will be blogging. It could be health, fashion, interiors, food, travel or funny content. While choosing your niche, be mindful of your strengths and passions as you will not be able to create good content day-in and day-out if you are not passionate about the field that you have chosen.

After narrowing down on the topic of your interest, make a public Instagram business account or convert your regular Instagram account into a business account. The business account provides you with analytical tools which provides insights into what your audience is liking, what is the demography of your followers among various other useful statistics.

To be an influencer, one needs to post regularly and the content should be engaging. Make sure that the quality of the photo that you upload is good. Also follow a particular aesthetic for your photos, bringing an overall design to your profile.

Photos alone are not enough, you need to accompany it with interesting captions and relevant hashtags. Also keep regularly posting on Instagram stories. Take the feedback of your followers, in terms of what they are liking what they are not.

Once your follower base increases you can pitch in to brands to hire you for their products. You should write to them, tell them what you are offering, who your followers are, what is the engagement level of your page, etc.

How To Promote Your Instagram Account?

To promote your Instagram page, you need to optimize your profile. A clear profile picture, a gripping bio, branding hashtag and trackable URL will help in optimizing your profile. You should also use a lot of relevant hashtags with each of your post along with cross-posting on your other social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

You can also opt for paid promotion on Instagram. Instagram has a promotion feature which operates on Cost-Per-1000 Impressions (CPM) basis. This means that you pay the specified bid amount on your post for every 1,000 people that see it.

For this you first need to create a Business Account on Instagram. You then go to set up ad option and select your ad objective, target audience and ad format within Ads Manager. Instagram also lets you automatically create an audience of people similar to your existing followers through its algorithm. You decide how long your ads will run for and what budget you're comfortable with spending.

You should collaborate with other influencers and host giveaways to gain traction.

Investment

The initial investment while starting a career as an Instagram influencer is nil but as you start gaining traction you should invest in a good camera quality phone; phones costing around INR 25,000-30,000 should be good enough.

You can also join platforms such as Buffer, Planoly, Preview or Ripl. They allow you to schedule your Instagram posts in advance, allowing for consistency in terms of posting. They allow for both free and paid options.

You can also invest in giveaways on your instagram channel to your followers. It will also increase your engagement levels.

Return on investment

Brands are paying handsomely to social influencers. Nano influencers who have less than 5,000 followers get INR 3,000 to 8,000 per post. Micro-influencers who have more than 5,000 but less than 30,000 followers get anywhere between INR 7,000 and INR 18,000 per post. Influencers who have over 500,000 followers are paid anywhere between INR 1.5 lakh and INR 7 lakh per post.