How to grow your account and earn money with Instagram
Earning money with Instagram is what everyone wants with aspirations to monetize this social network, whether as a professional, company or influencer.
Instagram was born as a simple platform where to share photographs and, since its birth in 2010, until now it has become a success.
Learning how to monetize is a challenge within marketing and can be very beneficial if done correctly, both organically and through Instagram advertising
Just look at its number of followers and the position it occupies in the most famous social networks in the world, according to Statista in July 2018
It surpasses established networks such as Tumblr, Twitter, Skype, LinkedIn, Snapchat or Pinterest.
It is not a passing fad, but rather a consolidated network. Many people use it to search for image information, above Google Images or Flickr, follow our favorite influencers and brands and gossip what people know.
Other interesting information provided by the same Instagram team are:
More than 1000 million registered users
500 million active users every day
80% of accounts follow a minimal company on Instagram
More than 400 million accounts use Stories on a daily basis
There are 2 million monthly advertisers in this network
It is the place where celebrities and ordinary people can show their profile without depending directly on the media or having a blog. Instagram has become a means by itself and becoming an influencer within this network is a challenge for many people.
With a little patience and perseverance, whoever proposes it can become influencer and achieve profitability in this network.
Of course, we must bear in mind that today there is more competition than a few years ago. Then, it is necessary to work very well the profile, the information that is put, the hashtags that are chosen, the time of publication and publish videos and images of very high quality.
Taking into account all these aspects, here are the tips to grow and monetize your Instagram account in 7 steps
How to grow and make money with Instagram
To synthesize the 7 steps that will help you monetize your Instagram account, we have created this infographic for you:
1 # Images and videos of very good quality
It is no longer valid with a simple photo made with your mobile phone to earn money with your Instagram account.
The photos are the soul of this platform and if you want to stand out from the others you have to worry about the quality of the images. These are the 3 important points:
Device to make the photo: camera or mobile
Frame
Previous edition
You can make photos or videos with a mobile phone, but see that it has a quality camera. Or use a camera that gives you that differential bonus to your profile.
You should consider:
Megapixels are important for a good snapshot, but they do not tell the whole story.
Good light sensor. The size influences the performance in conditions of low visibility and in a better dynamic range.
Good lens
The maximum aperture of the camera, which tells us the amount of light that can enter our sensor (f / 1.7 has more light than a f / 2.2).
The processing of the image.
Look if the device has two rear cameras, it is the most advanced technology now and allows to create wide-angle images, apart from other virguerías.
Think also of the framing of the image. It is important that the focus of attention is on what you want to have with the photo.
On the other hand, there is the previous edition of the photo before you publish it. Instagram offers you several filters and parameters, but if you want to professionalize and monetize your Instagram account, it is better to use professional applications. As:
Lightroom It is a very useful and user friendy tool. It allows quality photos to have a professional finish. You can retouch light and contrast, cover small details that you do not like and order the photographs by folders.
Photoshop The mother of all image editing programs. It is for advanced levels, but if you know how to use it you can get true virginies with your images.
Canva. This online application is very simple to use and allows you to quickly and intuitively frame the images, decide the size of the photo, add effects or texts and put some filter
2 # Choose your market niche
Having a generalist account currently serves little. Instagram has grown so much, that highlighting has become more difficult.
To draw attention and make a hole with your professional account and be profitable, you must specialize in a niche market.
People who want to make money with Instagram do not see your account as a personal profile, but as a window to the world of your business.
According to the study of Social Networks of IAB Spain, the average user of Instagram is that of a woman between 16 and 45 years old.
Hence the rise of these sectors:
Food / Cooking
Handmade products
fashion
Beauty (makeup, hairdressing, tutorials)
Jewelry
Accessories
Wedding products
Being a very visual platform, accounts related to:
Travel getaways, routes, mountaineering, beach
Animals / Pets
Stores / Ecommerces to publicize the products / services
Brands (with a branding objective, rather than a final sale)
Architecture
Design
Art / Artistic drawing
Etc.
An example is @MargotBlanxart that focuses on the theme of your account in the production of boho accessories for brides and wedding guests. Is:
A window of your handmade products
A way to redirect to ecommerce
To promote their courses in the workshop
And also contact channel to place orders
In the bio of your profile detail what you do, put your contact email and the link to your online shop.
And in the posts we find professional images very careful, friendly texts focused on generating conversation with users (not only in selling) and a selection of hashtags related to the theme of their business sector.
To take another leap and professionalize your account, you can link Instagram to the Facebook Business Manager. So you can put a contact button: "Send Message", and get data with Instagram Analytics
3 # Ready to publish!
You are ready to start impressing the world with your photos and videos. I recommend you follow these tips to get the full potential of your content:
Do not use photos with a resolution lower than 1080 x 1080 pixels.
Take care of the description of your photos. A good text can turn a mediocre image into a viral one.
Use between 10 and 15 hashtags that are concrete and descriptive.
Label other accounts whenever relevant.
Find the best moments to publish: in the morning from 8 to 11, in the afternoon between 5 and 6 and at midnight, because there is less competition. Discover here the best hours to post on Instagram and get more likes!
As for the frequency, start with one or two posts per day and go up to 3-4 per day when you reach 5000 followers. Starting at 10,000, you can post up to 4-5 times a day.
With so many posts, you will need a service to schedule your publications.
Finally, start interacting with your followers as soon as possible. Do not forget that in them is the key to your success.
4 # Sell your photos in image banks
If you want to make money with Instagram in a direct way, you can upload part of your images that you have prepared for this network to a bank of images and put a price on it.
You can use the portal Shutterstock.com, which works under the concept of micro-stock.
It is not any kind of photographic discipline, but the way in which your photographs are sold to third parties.
With the rise of the Internet and digital companies the need for images has grown exponentially and for this reason arose at the beginning of 2000 the micro-stock portals.
It is a kind of low-cost image bank, where everything is based on the ability to take professional-type photographs and have the patience to upload them to platforms such as Shutterstock and sort them according to the needs of the portal.
You make the photo and they sell it. The fees are distributed in proportion and whoever benefits the most is the author.
An example is that for every 100 images you can get to enter € 400 a year, but if you regularly upload new, for about 1600 photos you could get to enter 6400 euros every year.
Here there is no secret, just record in making quality photos and upload them to the micro-stock platforms. Normally, there is no exclusivity, so you can upload it to several portals.
One tip, is that you upload images of your Instagram that you know may be necessary for companies or agencies
5 # Instagram Stories and live events
If you want to progress and monetize your Instagram account you should not miss the opportunity that Stories offers you.
Only in Spain, we are so enthusiastic about this Instagram option that we publish 150% more than the global average.
Instagram Stories emerged to make the competition to Snapchat. Ephemeral images that only last 24 hours in our profile and then disappear. Although now they are stored in the memory of your account and the ones you like the most you can highlight in the bottom of the description of your profile.
It generates a great product engagement and makes the use of Instagram stories. Post discounts, your latest products, news, the best photos, events that you have attended, so you will reinforce all the content of your profile.
In addition, now you can sort them by themes, as you can see in the example of the image. Where each sphere symbolizes a theme and behind it are old stories that the author @ Sumayina wanted to highlight.
The other possibility that Instagram Stories offers you is to broadcast live. Go daily to your users. Become close to your community, be close to the message and tell them valuable stories.
6 # Sponsored posts in your account
Until a while ago you had to find yourself life to get brands to make sponsored posts in your account, if you were just starting.
It is true that the big influencers (+ 100,000 followers) are going to be sought, but the small ones (+ 5,000 followers) have to move them first.
You had to prepare a dossier of:
Who you are
Your profile
What kind of target do you have
In which niche you are specialized (travel, fashion, makeup, cars, kitchen, etc.)
Data of your followers (real and not bots)
Analytics (origin of traffic, demography, etc.)
But now platforms have emerged that allow brands and influencers to meet, like ifluenz.com.
If you are an influencer and want to earn money with your Instagram account, you only have to register in Ifluenz or similar platforms. It has no cost and they themselves propose a profit table, depending on the number of followers you have.
A success story is that of the @JordanaClaudia account, which specializes in food. The Kenmore brand wanted to promote knowledge of its brand of kitchen appliances and paid for a sponsored organic post that would talk about cooking tips among the followers of Jordana.
This campaign managed to create relationships between the brand and potential customers, by providing value with culinary tips. The reach was 57,000 people, 2,063 likes and 25 comments, all positive.
Ifluenz proposes that the benefits depend on the number of followers your account has (real). For example, if you have 5000 you can earn $ 10 for a validated post. And if you have 500,000 followers, you can earn $ 1,000 per validated post. The average is $ 2 per 1,000 followers.
7 # Search mentions on Instagram
You can get mentions of your account in other profiles to improve your earnings on Instagram. So you are impacting a new audience that could be your potential customers and help you attract new followers.
You can achieve this by creating valuable content that people want to share. Like for example an infographic with interesting information.
A while ago in Cyberclick we created this image, with the most Hot hours to post on Instagram and @Hermayda made us a repost, mentioning our account.
The mention may be free, may have a cost or you may seek to make a mutual exchange of mentions or retweets
conclusion
The time has come to collect the fruits of your hard work and monetize your account, so to finish we will review all the options to advertise in this network:
Sell part of the space of your photo feet. The least aggressive option
Sell the URL of your biography, either daily, weekly or monthly, or to accompany campaigns by post.
Do "like" paid for other photos and videos.
The most interesting option for private users: join influencer communities so brands can send you their offers.
To actively search for advertisers, follow accounts with a profile of followers similar to yours and look at their promoted content.
And be careful with the shortcuts. Buy followers and likes can be expensive and your account is penalized by Instagram. You can lower your engagement or ban the account for 48 hours.
You're ready to grow your account and earn money with Instagram. Do you have any more advice to succeed in this network? Come and share it with us
