While it’s not as structured as YouTube and Facebook are when it comes to earning income, Instagram still offers plenty of ways for people – especially those very active on the platform – to make a revenue stream from it. Want to get the most out of this image-based platform? We’ll teach you how to make money on Instagram.
How to Make Money on Instagram: 5 Tips for Higher Revenue
1. Try Affiliate Marketing
Getting involved in affiliate marketing is a great way to promote products and services you personally like and make some money from it.
There are a couple of ways to do this.
Consider brands you’re already a customer of and reach out to them, or research a company that’s selling products or services related to your niche, that you think you’d feel honest and comfortable promoting on your own Instagram page.
They’ll provide you with a unique, trackable link to share with your followers, and you’ll receive an incentive whenever somebody purchases the product using your affiliate link. You can also talk to the brand you’re marketing for about offering your shoppers a small discount as an incentive for purchasing from you.
The only issue with Instagram is that you can’t add clickable links to your captions, so you’ll have to either direct your followers to your link in your bio by letting them know in your caption, or add a non-clickable URL in your caption, which they can copy and manually type on their browser if they’re on mobile, or copy and paste if they’re using a computer.
If you have 10,000 followers or more, or if you have a verified account, you can also use the “swipe up” feature in your Instagram Stories to send people to a website page.
Since most affiliate links are pretty long, it may be difficult to manually type it, so another good option is to direct them to a landing page on your website where you can give them a link to the product.
Want to know more about how to make money on Instagram using affiliate marketing? Follow these steps!
A.) Choose the Industry You Want to Focus On
It should be related to the industry you currently belong to. For instance, if you’re a fashion apparel brand, you might do affiliate marketing for an app that allows people to buy and sell their used clothing.
B.) Search for Affiliate Programs Offering Products You Can Use and Review
Many brands already offer an affiliate program, and you can sometimes set up your link all by yourself, making it even easier to make money on IG through affiliate marketing.
The best products you can promote are those that you can actually use and recommend to your followers. These people trust you — be authentic with what you promote. You’re staking your name and credibility when you’re promoting other company’s products, so it’s best to make sure that the product you’re showcasing to your followers is safe to use, working well, and of a high quality.
C.) Create High-Quality and Optimized Content Featuring the Product You’re Promoting
This one’s a given and you should be doing this all the time, but it’s worth mentioning.
The next step would be to create high-quality content that your followers can engage with. The more eye-catching and engaging your content is, the better your chances are of getting more prospects to click on your link and purchase the product. Highlight how this product has helped you, and what benefits your followers stand to gain if they use it as well.
2. Do Sponsored Posts
One of the most popular ways you can make money on Instagram is through doing sponsored posts as an influencer or authority in your industry. When you do a sponsored post, the brand you’re promoting will offer you some kind of compensation – either monetary or in the form of free product — to promote their brand on your page.
You need to be transparent about this with your followers! Otherwise, they’ll feel tricked. Use “#ad” on your sponsored posts so they know what they’re looking at.
Since brands look into your following, niche, and audience engagement, you’ll need to build your following and account to attract brands into making sponsorship deals with you.
When doing sponsored posts, it’s always recommended to choose products that are relevant to your niche or area of expertise. This way, your audience can relate to your posts, and your partner company will be able to promote their product to their target market.
Here’s how you can start preparing.
A.) Build Your Brand
Before you start looking for brands to partner with, you have to build your page first. How do you want people to see you? Who do you want to market primarily to? This will help you identify a niche and give you an idea of what types of products you’d like to do sponsored posts for.
B.) Know Who Your Audience Is
The next step is to identify who your audience is. Companies want to showcase their products to their target market, so if you can provide them with information – like the demographics – of the people who follow you, you’ll be able to sell your services more efficiently.
C.) Keep Track of Your Analytics
Brands you’re trying to partner with for sponsored posts will want to feel certain that they’ll see a return on their investment when they pay you to post. This means you should be prepared to show them insights like traffic, engagement, clicks, and conversions.
3. License Your Photos or Videos
Do you take awesome, high-quality photos? If yes, then you can use your photography skills to earn money on Instagram. In other words, people will pay you for the right to use your content for their own purposes.
We recommend using your Instagram account as a portfolio for your images so you can direct your prospects, should they wish to view samples. Additionally, optimize your content so people searching for stock images can find you.
If you decide to sell your photos online, make sure to license them to protect you and your content.
Take note that this is a more popular way for making money on IG for some industries over others — like travel and fashion. However, any brand can offer it, and it can still be another stream of revenue for you.
4. Use Instagram to Promote and Sell Drop-Shipped Products
Drop shipping is an excellent option if you want to start selling physical products online but your funds are limited, or you don’t have enough storage for holding inventory. Drop shipping helps reduce operation costs since you’ll only purchase the product from the supplier once a customer buys it. It’s also cuts product handling from your responsibilities since you don’t have to store or ship any inventory.
Ultimately, drop shipping enables you to focus more on getting your audience’s attention and less on dealing with the physical goods.
Curious about how to make money on Instagram through a drop shipping business? Here are the steps.
A.) Find a Niche
First, you have to find your niche. What type of business would you like to be running? Finding something that you can relate to would be a good place to start. It can be related to your current business, or you can go with a new idea entirely.
B.) Build Your Instagram Account
Once you’ve decided on a niche to focus on, start building your Instagram account. Create high-quality and engaging content to attract your audience and prospects’ attention, follow relevant accounts, and optimize your posts to improve reach.
C.) Find a Supplier
Find a reliable supplier who you can communicate quickly and easily with. They will play a huge role in your drop shipping business, since they’re ultimately responsible for getting your customers what they paid for on time and in good condition.
D.) Take Packaging Seriously
Packaging is important when it comes to selling products, so it’s good to choose an overall look that resonates well with how you want your brand to appear.
Some people who do drop shipping find products that they can pass off as their own, so before they send it to their customers, they package it to suit their brand’s aesthetics.
This enhances the customer’s overall experience and increases the chances of a repeat transaction.
Some suppliers will handle packaging for you. In other cases, you might need to work with another company for that part of the process.
Also consider the safety and security of your products. The more fragile they are, the more generous you’ll need to be with your packaging materials.
E.) Build Your eCommerce Website
You also have to create your website where your customers can buy the items from you. A good eCommerce website can make you look more credible and trustworthy and entice your customers to purchase from you.
These days, there are more than a few platforms that make is quick, easy, and affordable to create eCommerce websites — like Shopify.
5.) Use Instagram to Promote Your Current Business and Boost Sales
Finally, it’d be wrong of us not to mention what businesses should be using IG for in the first place: promoting their brand and driving conversions to boost revenue.
If you have an existing business (online, brick and mortar, or both), you can use Instagram to promote your brand to a wider audience. Yes, many people use IG purely for fun. But there are indeed brands making serious dough from the platform, simply by putting themselves out there and sending traffic back to their main website.
Your number one goal should always be to post high-quality content and engage with your followers, because this is where it all starts. Without these two things, nothing else will come of your Instagram page. Focus on building a portfolio of attractive images and videos, and nurture relationships with your followers.
Build that foundation, and the revenue will come much more easily.
Which one of these methods will you try first? Let us know in the comments below.
