How do you make money on Instagram?
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Depending on your unique brand of Instagram content, your audience, and your level of commitment, you can make money on Instagram in the following ways:
1] Doing sponsored posts for brands that want to get in front of your audience.
2] Becoming an affiliate and making a commission selling other brands’ products.
3] Monetizing your videos or content with advertisements
4] Going live with badges is another way of making money on instagram
5] Creating and selling a physical or digital product, or offering a paid service.
6] Selling licences for your photography or videos.
7] Pull people with powerful content
The beauty here is that chasing one revenue stream doesn’t necessarily rule out another.
So, going by that rule let’s start with the most common approach to Instagram monetisation: partnering with brands as an influencer.
How do I work with brands on sponsored posts?
The term “influencer” gets thrown around a lot these days.
An influencer is basically anyone who’s built themselves an online reputation by doing and sharing awesome things online. To their audiences, influencers are tastemakers, trendsetters and trusted experts whose opinions about certain subjects are respected. Influencers pay a crucial role to help you make money on instagram.
Many brands just can't compete with that and so they partner with influencers instead for sponsored posts that help get the word out about their products.
But it’s not just the size and reach of your Instagram account that brands want. It’s your audience’s trust and engagement with your content.
It can be hard to balance your revenue
as an influencer and your integrity as a creator, but if you’re not relying on your Instagram income to stay afloat, you always have the freedom to be selective about the brands you work with, just as brands will be selective about the Instagrammers they work with.
How do you decide what to charge as an influencer?
Typically these influencer deals involve the creation of content—an Instagram post, video or Story—and will sometimes include permission for the brand to use this content on their own site or in an ad.
Most of these deals are negotiable and can involve a single post or an entire campaign in exchange for a fee, a free product, a service, a gift, 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.
In a survey of 5,000 influencers, around 42% said they charged $200 to $400 per post—just to give you an idea of what some brands are willing to pay, and how to negotiate based on the cards you’re holding.
Finally, it's important as an influencer to also know your own audience.
What is the make-up of your audience and what is your engagement rate (total engagement divided by your number of followers)? You can dig up numbers to back this up in your Instagram Analytics report, if you've switched to a business account. This will help you be prepared when it comes time to negotiate.
Want to learn how to grow and monetize your Instagram account? Instagram marketing expert, Gretta van Riel, shows you how in Grow Your Business with Instagram, a free course inside Shopify Academy.
How do I find brands to work with?
If you're big enough, chances are brands will find you. But you can also look for brands to work with that are on a similar level in terms of personality and values, so your audience won’t feel like you’re “selling out”.
You can reach out to them directly to try to work out a deal, but you can also list yourself on one of the many influencer marketplaces out there to increase your chances of being discovered:
1] Fohr Card: Connect your Instagram, blog, YouTube channel, and other social platforms to create an influencer “card” that shows your different profiles and total reach for brands shopping around for a partnership. You also get access to a list of brands and their wants, so you can take the initiative to reach out too.
2] Grapevine: If you have 5000 or more followers, you can list yourself in the Grape Vine marketplace for the opportunity to work with like-minded brands.
3] Crowd Tap: Do small content creation tasks to earn rewards. This is great if you've got a smaller audience. Available in the U.S only.
4] indaHash: Brands put up campaigns that you can participate in. Post a picture with the specified hashtags on Instagram and get paid. You need 700 engaged followers to be eligible.
The rules vary when it comes to sponsored content, but to be on the safe side and respect your audience’s trust, consider adding a #sponsored hashtag to indicate sponsored posts. If you need reassurance, about 69% of influencers in one report said that being transparent about sponsorships didn't affect how consumers perceive their recommendation.
You can find examples of sponsored posts and how Instagrammers integrate brands into their story or caption by searching up #sponsored on Instagram, like this one from How They Asked, an account that shares wedding proposal stories and partners with a jewellery business:
Instagram also has a "Paid Partnership with" tag that prominently identifies sponsored posts, which some brands might require you to use to disclose your relationship with them.
Become an affiliate
Unlike an influencer, an affiliate is more invested in making sales for the partner brand—not just generating awareness—in exchange for a commission.
This is typically done with a trackable link or unique promo code to ensure clicks actually translate into sales. Since Instagram doesn’t yet allow links anywhere outside of your bio, you can only focus on one product at a time if you choose to rely on affiliate links, making promo codes a better option for Instagram since you can actually incorporate them into your posts.
Note: Instagram has plans to roll out links for Instagram Stories, which will open up new opportunities for you as an influencer.
Consider reaching out to one of the many online merchants that offer affiliate programs that you can participate in. Or you can also explore popular marketplaces like:
1] ClickBank: An affiliate platform with a tier-based commission that's open to everyone.
2] RewardStyle: An invitation-only fashion and lifestyle influencer network that offers 20% commissions.
3] Amazon's Affiliate Program: A popular option that pays out a 10% commission.
Though it sounds like a numbers game, affiliate marketing is also an art, and you’ll have a better chance at success if you have a plan going into it and expand your online presence to include a website and other marketing channels.
Tip: Affiliate links can be long and ugly, so I recommend a URL shortener like bit.ly, especially if they're going in your Instagram bio.
Monetise your videos
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Another avenue to make money on instagram is through monetizing. From the sea of brands available looking to promote and advertise their product or service, pick a few to do you some benefit.
Taking a page from the YouTube playbook, you could easily make money on instagram too by streaming ads in your video content. Your earning would depend on the number of views your video gets. Here the catch is, you will only get to keep 55% of the revenue generated per view as informed by instagram business.
How to turn on monetisation?
Start earning through advertisements by simply turning on the monetisation setting on your instagram account in few simple steps:
Step 1: Access the Account settings then click on Creator and select In-streaming video ads.
Step 2: Click on Get started. Go through the terms and agreements and navigate to Allow monetisation.
Step 3: Post videos as usual and start making money.
Things to ensure
There are some requirements imposed to allow you to make money on instagram through your videos that include:
1] Video needs to be a minimum one minute longer (sweet spot= 2-4 minutes) to monetise.
2] Creating video content with static images, loop videos, polls, slideshows and text montages will be eligible for monetisation.
3] Original content, i.e., no violation of intellectual property rights.
4] Advertise-free content and adherence to content monetisation policies.
5] Your content may not qualify for monetisation if it includes engagement baiting.
Going Live with Badges
Inspired by the popular “tip” feature on TikTok and Twitch, the Instagram Badges are a new monetisation concept enabling influencers/ creators to make money on instagram.
This feature enables viewers and followers to buy badge(s) during a live stream. The number of heart(s) next to the username of the followers denoted the badges they purchased. The followers/ users could buy badges for $0.99, $1.99 and $4.99.
Creators in the US, UK, France, Sapin, Italy, Germany, Japan, Australia, Turkey, Brazil and Mexico can take advantage of the new monetisation program. But yet to hit the Indian market.
Badges Examples
Instagram badges gave the followers of Charlee Atkins, a New York based fitness creator, to show their whooping support. Charlee takes free live classes for her 120k followers every morning. Now she can make money on instagram with the badges.
Get started with badges
Don’t forget to turn on the settings to bag some hearts, by following these simple steps:
Step1: Head to Profile and click on Professional dashboard. Locate and click the Set up badges options button (which will only appear if you are eligible for monetisation).
Step2: Do your magic and go live.
As your followers and views are showing their support through hearts, it’s a good practice to:
1] Intimate them when the badges are enabled
2] Share your badge goals with them
3] Appreciate their support
4] Thank them
5] Bridge a consistent connection with them
6] Always give them the best content
7] Wondering if you are eligible for badges?
8] Creator are to ensure the following to become eligible for the Live Badges:
Wondering if you are eligible for badges?
Creator are to ensure the following to become eligible for the Live Badges:
1] Possess a professional account (business/ creator)
2] Age 18 years or above
3] Bagged over 10K followers
4] Fall under the region of access
5] Compliant with Monetisation Policies and community guidelines of Instagram
Open your own online store
By now it might sound like the only way to make money on instagram is to sell out and work with other brands.
But creators of all kinds are also in a good position to "sell out" with their own products: physical goods, services, or digital items that can be an extension of their brand, building a business with an audience at its centre.