As you all may be aware Instagram is one of the most important branding tools for this new generation of entrepreneurs. Counting with over 800 million monthly active users there’s no way you can go wrong trying to make money using Instagram. 32% of all Internet users are on Instagram.
32% of all internet’s active users means a lot more than Snapchat, Tumblr and yes, more than Twitter also, just behind Pinterest by 70 million users. In terms of active users, Instagram is one of the fastest-growing social media platforms around. This obviously makes it a win, win for thousands of worldwide entrepreneurs.
Yahoo Tech recently published an interesting article about the world of sponsored Instagram photos. They mention that Instagram’s exploding popularity and the rise of everyday Instagrammers have led to a big growth in how much money people can earn using this social media platform.
By creating a dedicated, well-maintained Instagram account with high-quality content, reaching out to brand names or photography sites, and generating content for which people are willing to pay, you too can earn money through Instagram!
However and before we go deeper into these specific tactics to earn extra cash on Instagram we think is wise to talk about some of the things you’ll need to even start thinking putting those extra bucks in your pocket.
First of all, you’ll need audience. Yes, you need to have lots of followers, but it’s not just the number of followers and reach of your Instagram account that brands want. “It’s your audience’s trust.”
So just creating a random account and collecting a few thousand followers alone isn’t sufficient. You need to become a compelling Instagram personality. In other words you’re going to have to do your best to become an instagram influencer.
Here’s a chart posted on Bloomberg BusinessWeek by Max Chafkin where it shows you how much money one can earn per number of followers: 
Depending on your niche, services, your audience, and your level of commitment you put into your IG account, you can make money on Instagram in the following ways:
- Work With Brands on Sponsored Posts – There are various ways to get in touch with brands but these strategies are the best: Create various blogs with unique and great content, reaching out to brands directly, and the brand reaching out to you. 90% of the times when a brand reaches out to you they will ask you on how you would want to get involved with them and you can negotiate a single post or an entire blog post in exchange for a fee, a gift, a service, 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.
Also, don’t forget that there are a lot of different rules and ways people view your posts when it comes to sponsored content, but to be “safe” and respect your audience’s trust, you should seriously consider adding a #sponsored hashtag to indicate sponsored posts. An Influencer Marketing Report showed that about 69% of influencers said that being transparent about sponsorships didn’t affect how their followers perceive their recommendation.
You can find examples of sponsored posts and how Instagrammers integrate brands into their story by searching up #sponsored on Instagram, like this one from How He Asked, an account that shares wedding proposal stories and partners with a jewelry business:
- Become an affiliate – There are thousands of companies and well known brands looking for help to sell their products. An affiliate marketer is an individual or company that promotes an advertiser’s product or service in exchange for earning a commission. Companies contractually agree to work with a publisher, then provide the publisher with creative – in the form of links, banner or text ads or even unique phone numbers – that the publisher incorporates into their website.
Nowadays is easy to find one of many online merchants that offer affiliate programs that you can participate in. Or you can also explore popular marketplaces like:
- ClickBank: An affiliate platform with a tier-based commission that’s open to everyone.
- RewardStyle: An invitation-only fashion and lifestyle influencer network that offers 20% commissions.
- Amazon’s Affiliate Program: A popular option that pays out a 10% commission.
- CJ: Another great program to join is CJ Affiliate. CJ.com is an online advertising company owned by Alliance Data operating in the affiliate marketing industry, which operates worldwide.
- Open your own online ecommerce store– The fact is that if you’re already interested in making money using Instagram you may have already started to reach new customers. One advantage to an online store is that you can reach more customers than would ever be able to simply walk through your store doors.
By opening up your own online store you are removing the blockades of travel of your clients, parking and getting lost en route that can drive some customers away. While you can certainly continue to market to your local client base offline, using Instagram with your online store you have the option to catering to fans of your product or service that are miles — or even continents — away.
Online shopping boundaries are only items such as shipping rates, overseas taxes and the wait a customer may have until his order with your products reaches his door. You may even find your product popular in a place you never would have had bricks-and-mortar access to.
Shop by Instagram is a recommended app for all those willing to start selling online using Instagram.
- This app makes it easy to find products in your Instagram photos. Turn your Instagram feed into traffic and sales by making it Instagram Shop or Shoppable Instagram Feed.
Shop by Instagram app is easy to use allowing the user to create Shoppable Instagram feed where one can showcase an online store in a grid or slideshow style. Your Instagram followers and site visitors can easily buy by simply clicking on your images as shown in the Instagram feed with products tagged.
You can tag/link the products on Instagram photos and your customers can shop directly from Instagram photos. The Instagram feed will be shown on your store and you can link that page to your Instagram profile bio section.
Checkout these brands already using Shop by Instagram App –
and 1000’s of more brands as well…
***** Four Sixty or Showcase are similar apps that can help you sell on Instagram *****
- Sell your photos
Another method you can use to make money using Instagram is by simply selling your Instagram account. We all now that Photography has always been a big business but nowadays its escalating to a whole new level. Bloggers, Social Media Managers, site owners and millions of worldwide businesses use images for their website content and marketing strategies.
In the world we live today every piece of content created from blog posts to social media updates needs an attractive image. Here are a few categories that are in demand.
- Photos of people
- Photos of work situations (at the office, carpenter, steward, etc.)
- Photos of travel
- Photos of cities
- Close-up photos
- Photos of things (screws, medication, signs, books, computers, tools, bags, cables etc)
- Photos of nature
- Photos of animals (for some reason cats always win this category)
And try keeping in mind that you aren’t going to get the quality you need for marketable images from your simple iPhone or smartphone. You can totally do this. And on a budget. A DSLR camera is a worthy investment if you want to take HQ images and sell them for the best price. It’s also a good advice to take a good look at the most popular images in each category on the sites on which you intend to list your images. This will give you a good idea of what’s trending.
Popular places where you can sell your photos:
And by the way, you probably aren’t going to get rich selling your photos on Instagram, but you can earn some extra money passively. We all like that. Many estimates state sellers earn on average $1 per month for every image listed. That means if you have 100 images available for sale, you may be earning around $100 per month. More images = more money.
Have you’ve ever wondered how much your Instagram posts are worth? Checkout Inkifi and find out just how much you could be earning per upload.
- Create value on your Instagram account and SELL IT
This would probably be your last option but if you’re really tight on cash and you count with a valuable Instagram account you can sell it and make some money out of it. Instagram accounts influence earnings greatly vary, and their value is based on many factors. You can earn as little as $50 USD and up to $2-3k USD per account. In rare cases, accounts can reach up to 10k-20k USD.
The end price will mostly depend on your content, the niche, amount of followers, and of course engagement and activity.
To get a detailed offer on your Instagram account you can visit sites like Viralaccounts.com, and FameSwap.
That’s about it! We do hope you guys learned from this thread. If you have any questions, feel free to post a comment and don’t forget to share on your favorite social media platform. Thanks!
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