You’ve probably heard the stories doing the rounds. Click and upload pictures on Instagram and cash in on it. If you live on Planet Earth, there’s no way you haven’t heard of Instagram. What was once just an app for photo enthusiasts has now become a great marketing tool today with around 75 million daily users.
More and more brands are rushing towards this gold mine for visual marketing strategy. If you are interested in making some serious money with your account at Instagram, here’s a golden opportunity. Let me walk you through.
Now that I’ve got you hooked to the idea of making money on Instagram, let’s get down to brass tacks. I bet you’ll be making your first dollar from Instagram within a month, even if you’re new to the visual platform.
1. Prepare Yourself
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Decide on a Niche
Pick up fitness, food, fashion for starters. Pick up a catchy name and sign up. Upload some niche photographs.
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Increase your Reach
Numbers matter. You need a substantial number of followers, say a few thousand, to make money on this platform. Check out these tips for increasing your reach on Instagram.
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Strike a Chord
Engage with your followers: like and make comments; respond; post updates and generally increase your influence and have a terrific relationship with your followers.
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Write a powerful bio
It’s the perfect place to start your pitch. Here’s where your followers will click on links to land on your page or start following you.
2. Sell Product/Business/Service
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Promote your product on Instagram for additional sales. Share a picture of your latest product (say your latest book). Take a cool picture of the cover, mentioning the release date.
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Allow followers to submit photos or videos of their own for contests and campaigns, just to give them a taste of recognition. Give them discounts on your product.
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Share coupons, promotions and updates and tag friends to draw them into contests. While posting your video or image, don’t forget to include a link to your blog or landing page for purchasing items.
3. Sell Photos
Do you take stunning photos? Use Instagram to create stunning images and then sell them at other websites. Many companies are on the look out for authentic photos as opposed to stock images in order to hold people’s attention.
There are many companies like Candidly Images or Foap, allowing them to buy Instagram photos to use for digital marketing. You could sell a picture for $5 and the site would sell it for $10.
https://www.quora.com/How-can-I-earn-money-by-writing-blogs-on-Instagram
You can also use apps like Popular Pays to promote your work to brands. Reach out to companies that you find on Instagram and contact them to see if they find your work appealing. You can also send in your pricing.
4. Sell Shoutouts
For instance, someone who sells books and wants to increase visits to his site searches for an account with thousands of followers. He asks you to post the photos of his books with your account tag and pays you for it. Your followers visit his site; so it’s a win win for both parties.
List your shoutout service in your profile or check out forums or shoutout websites.
How much money can you make? It depends on the number of followers you have and the niche. I’ve seen shoutouts being sold at around half a dollar for accounts with 1000 followers.
http://www.igshoutouts.com/blog/5-apps-instagram-marketing/
5. Create a Sponsored Post
If you are skilled in taking amazing pictures or videos, cash in on it. Brands are always on the look out for ambassadors who can create photos or video content of their products. See that the products fit in with your Instagram image. Use tools like TapInfluence or Ifluenz to find matching campaigns.
6. Become an Affiliate Marketer
Refer products to your followers and if they make a purchase, you get commissions from the brand. There’s usually a link or a promotional code used for tracking the referral. Sign up as an affiliate marketer on Amazon to promote niche products connected with your account, such as travel or fashion or technology etc. Apart from Amazon there are also many other affiliate companies like Ebates or Stylinity that you could join.
7. Be an Influencer
This means that you have to create awareness about a certain brand that you are promoting. Companies are on the lookout for promoting their goods/services through influencers, so that they get a more targeted audience.
But you need a large follower base. In addition, your followers must recognize you as a kind of expert in the niche and respect your opinion to follow your recommendations. Contact brands and sponsor their posts and products to make money.
8. Create an E Store
One way to promote your product or store is to allow your followers to click on your product link and then visit your website. That’s the old school method.
Here’s another way of making money-using Instagram by creating an estore. A site like Linkinprofile will allow people to find your product page directly. It also allows you to showcase your products/service.
You could take this one step further by adding advertisements, especially if you are good at taking pictures. This will increase sale chances to a great extent.
6. Sell Your Account
Are you fed up of your Instagram account? Time to move on by selling it instead of wasting all that hard work. If you have an influencer account in a popular niche, you could strike gold. You could earn anywhere around $50 to $2000, depending on the niche, the activity level, followers etc.
Last Word
Whether you want to promote your product or make money with your photos, Instagram is a gold mine of opportunities, especially if you have a large following. I’m active on several forums and find plenty of people cashing in on Instagram, especially with Shoutouts. Thinking of trying it myself. Feel free to let me know of other easy ways to make money on Instagram.
Author Bio:
Gaurav Jain is a passionate blogger, who takes great pride in providing his readers with the latest tips, tricks and strategies in the Internet world. He founded eMoneyIndeed and GetThatRight to help people know things better. Do check them out!!