How can you use Instagram to earn money?

Savaram Ravindra shares insights on how can users Earn Money on Instagram with the investment of time and efforts and a lot of dedication.

Instagram influencers (as they are called by the industry) associate with businesses to promote brand campaigns or products on photo-sharing platform. These promotions take the form of captions, hashtags and photos and compensation is based on bargaining power of the influencer, scope of the project and brand.

Different brands offer different amounts depending on the followers you have. The business of instagram brand promotion is a huge one.

Every year, if you combine the amount spent by all the industries, it is between $1 billion and $1.5 billion on sponsoring the content on instagram. Currently, there are 224 million followers for instagram. This is highly astonishing.

Today, brands are dedicating a considerable percentage of their social media marketing budget to instagram. We should realize that now is the perfect time to cash in on its increasing popularity. If you put in commitment and time, you can begin making serious money from this image heavy channel.

Before knowing the ways for making money on Instagram, attracting followers is the first thing you must do. How many loyal and strong followers do you have? In order to develop a working partnership, what most of the brands expect is a loyal and strong following.

Also Read: Instagram unveils post scheduling feature on Graph API

You must know this from the beginning. In case, if you are lacking in this department, few ways are discussed below through which you can increase the amount of followers for your instagram account.

Fill your bio completely with all the accurate information:

This includes your place, the content you post and your contact information. Add a couple of hashtags and a few keywords to make sure you are findable easily by the right type of followers.

Post on a regular basis

You need to post several images each day to grow numbers. But, be careful with posting like, you shouldn’t post all at one time as it will work against you. If it is not possible for you to post many posts, post at least one photo on a daily basis.

Take good quality photos

Ensure your images are of the best quality with highly attractive effects. Take your time in finding the best quality ones as there is no point in posting a normal average quality image.

Use hashtags that seem relevant

Without relevant hashtags, your images cannot travel very far. You must familiarise yourself with the most suitable ones for your field of interest and ensure you incorporate them in each and every post of yours.

Communicating with your followers

You cannot expect your followers to directly communicate with you. So, allot some time each day for engaging with your followers or anyone linked to your industry by liking their images or commenting on them.

Engaging with authentic content drives the people to check your account and hopefully, they will get included in your list of loyal and strong followers.

The above mentioned ways help you in building a strong and loyal follower base. After this is completed, let’s get started with the main thing - making money. So, let’s look at the ways in which you can earn money on Instagram.

Affiliate Marketing

Basically, affiliate marketing refers to a product promotion and getting paid per sale. Bloggers are seen doing this very often. They promote their affiliates with sidebar banners or through particular product inspired posts. This is not much different with instagram.

Using Instagram, you can drive sales via your affiliate url (your affiliate will provide this) by posting attractive images highlighting their products.

Below here are few companies you can work with.

Stylinity

This is great for fashion bloggers. You will get commission when people shop using your link.

Ebates

You can get commission by referring people who love discounts and deals.

Sharesale

Look out for organizations you are willing to work with, register for their affiliate program, try to get approved and begin promoting. It is easier for you to get approved in few programs if you have a website or a blog.

You can place your affiliate url on your bio or on your captions. You can either utilize bitly.com for shortening and customizing your affiliate link or you can link your instagram profile and blog so that you can get a sale when people purchase through your link.

On Instagram, this kind of marketing is popular specifically with clothing as you can post your outfit of the day (OOTD) along with affiliate link driving the followers to the details of your complete outfit.

Creation of Sponsored Posts

With creation of original sponsored content for the brands, the users of instagram can earn extra money with engaged followings. In short, a video or photo highlighting a brand or a product is a piece of sponsored content on Instagram. These posts are followed by captions that include links, @mentions or branded hashtags.

Normally, brands don’t need a formal brand ambassadorship for the sponsored content creators but it is common for them to draw specific influencers for content time and time again.

The main idea is to display brands that you can get behind personally and let your followers know how that brand fits into your lifestyle.

Ifluenz is a tool as you can browse matching the available campaigns created by different brands and promote the ones directly that you prefer.

Tapinfluence is a prominent tool for the creators of Instagram who are looking for opportunities for sponsored content and it eliminates the guesswork in the process of aligning with brands.

Selling your Photos

The sole purpose of Instagram is to post photos. If you are a professional photographer, why not use Instagram to advertise and sell your photos to either agencies or individuals. To your photos, add a watermark and utilize the captions for listing all the details regarding selling in a brief manner.

Ensure you have an active presence so that you are followed by the right kind of accounts. In order to drive people towards your photos and to engage in a conversation with influential photography agencies, usage of appropriate hashtags is required.

Promotion of your Business, Services or Products

Instagram plays a significant role in promoting your business. If you are selling products, post attractive pics of them on your website. Few creative ways to promote your services or products are mentioned below.

Behind the scenes

“Behind the scenes” kind of images are highly popular - taking delicious cakes out of the oven or jewellery being pieced together. It adds realness to what you are doing and people love that actually.

Also Read: How to organically market your brand on Instagram

The Photos of your Customers

On your account, the utilization of User Generated Content is linked to this. Get the customers to share the images of them using your products and repost their photos. This is already a proven method of selling and would add a great value to the promotion of your product. This drives you to start your own special hashtag which you can promote to all your customers. This is a seriously good way in making yourself standout from the crowd.

Exclusive Offers along with Infographics

Your services can be successfully marketed by you through instagram with the help of exclusive offers and snazzy infographics. Instagram is a great tool for featuring special offers as it increases your follower count and this bonus can’t be found anywhere else.

Selling your Instagram Account

If you can no longer handle your instagram account, you can actually sell it and your hard work won’t get wasted. Sites like Viral accounts and Fame swap will support you with this.

As you learned the various ways to make money through instagram, you can start building your own empire. Ensure you keep your personal brand in mind and consider what you do as a business whatever the path you decide to go down.