Instagram can be a really quick way to earn money but what does it take to monetize your Instagram account? How many followers do you need to start earning money? Are you better off having more random followers or fewer accurate followers? You need to find answers to these questions certainly for your knowledge as to what experts say in terms of monetizing your Instagram following.
Go Targeted:
Having a targeted audience is always better than broadly targeting every single user on Instagram. Many times, even accounts with only a few thousand followers (referred to as micro-influencers) do a much better job than someone who has more than 10K followers.
Invest Effort and Time to Build Your Audience:
You should definitely spend some time and money on building the right audience. It’s important to understand that having a small following (as little as 1K followers) is enough to start monetizing. Also, you need to stay away from fake followers. There is no point in actually spending money to get your follower count up. Your primary focus should be looking for high-quality, loyal followers who are interested in your content.
Make Your Content Engaging:
Make sure that your content touches your audience. You need to ensure that every single post out there is high-quality, relevant, and appealing. To achieve that following are some ideas:
- Use relevant, catchy captions that will grab the eye of your target audience
- Make use of hashtags that are of course #instagrammable
- Encourage engagement by interacting with your audience (asking questions and feedbacks)
- Make use of Stories – they offer great interactive features!
Check out stories from different brands below.
Go Niche:
Niche pages are those that focus on a specific interest and have a much greater potential than broad pages. For example, it is unlikely that an account focusing broadly on “fitness trainer” content will start to monetize its following. On the other hand, an account that is niched down into their audience factor (like police officers, athletes, etc.) or workout regime factor is much more likely to build a loyal following that will start bringing money in. So, focusing on your product or service and thinking about what value it provides the customer with is the ultimate goal.
Use Brand Shoutouts:
This is influencer marketing at its best. If you are a brand that needs help in terms of Instagram following, then search for people who are relevant to your field, are acceptable, and whether they have a high influencing potential over your target audience. If you find some ideal people, then contact them and ask them if they could give you a brand shoutout in return for a sweet exchange.
By using influencer marketing to promote your account, you are grasping the influence of admired or recognized people either because they possess an expert level of knowledge, or because they have previous hands-on experience in the field, or maybe because they have social influence. Influencers can be anyone, from an amateur photographer to a well-known celebrity. You are going to spend some considerable time searching for the right people, but once you find them you will soon start to enjoy the rewards!
For example, Kendall Jenner gives a shoutout about her watch from the famous watch brand Daniel Wellington.
Use Instagram to Drive Traffic to Your Blog:
Instagram has turned into a branding channel to get more people to your blogs or websites. The priority then becomes building a loyal following so that your sticky content should drive traffic to your blog, and in turn to clicks, conversions, and sales. Therefore, make sure to add the link to your Instagram bio and make sure your followers know that. This way they can hop on to your profile feed to find the link to your website or blog. This tactic is very often used for e-commerce stores for example, see below.
Watch Out for Your Engagement Rate:
You should not be paying attention to your follower count but rather the quality of your followers. But, you should also be monitoring your engagement rate which is the total number of likes and comments on particular posts, divided by the number of posts, divided by followers, and multiplied by x 100. If you have a high engagement rate, then it means that your followers are interested in what you are posting out there. Their commenting, liking and sharing is exactly what you want out there. Loyal followers are much easier to convert to future buyers.
Sponsored Posts:
Sponsoring your posts is another way to earn from Instagram. By investing a small amount of money to promote your Instagram posts, you will be increasing your reach and engagement rates, and your followers’ count will stream noticeably. Make sure that the content of your sponsored post is appealing, eye-grabbing, and of course relevant to your field.
Before sponsoring a post, make sure to check the right target audience according to demographics, location, and interests. This will allow you to reach people that will care about your content, increasing the probability to follow your page. Ensure that you check your CPM (Cost Per Impression) before sponsoring a post to avoid unexpected costs incurred. Here’s how a sponsored post appears:
Think About Using Instagram Monetization Tools:
There are some effective tools that you can put into use if you have trouble finding influencers to promote your Instagram account.
For example, Buzzhole is an influencer marketing platform that helps brands find influencers relevant to their field. Buzzhole does the job for you, and it provides you with an array of influencers with which you can partner up to enjoy mutual benefits.
Use Relevant Hashtags:
You should use relevant hashtags so that users can easily discover your account through their news feed.
For instance, taking the example of a brand focusing on the makeup artist niche – hashtags like #makeupartistnatural #makeupwedding and so on will help your content appear on people’s news feed that is interested in this area, and thus potentially interested in your account.
Conclusion:
There is no preset limit of followers that you need to have to monetize money on Instagram. What you should be watching out for is that your target audience is actively engaged and targeted. This instantly translates to higher brand awareness and sales potential.