How to make money with instagram

If you are an Instagram addict, you have probably asked yourself more than once if you need to cut back on your social media time in order to do something “productive.” But what if there was a way to make all those selfies and snapshots pay off—literally? Because you can, and there is a whole crowd of Instagram fanatics out there doing just that.

According to Adweek:

“It has become clear that Instagram is now a massive marketing and cultural force. The Facebook-owned platform revealed that it now has 400 million monthly users, up 100 million since the beginning of this year. And those users, many of who are millennials, post 80 million photos to the social platform every day.”

So how do you convert this massive marketing force into an income? Clearly there are plenty of ways to go about this, and there are a lot of tutorials and tools to show you how to make money with your photos, but you need to do it right. A foundation has to be built. And so before diving into a bunch of tips on how to make money using Instagram, it is important to talk about building your audience.

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How to Build an Instagram Audience

This is probably the hardest part, but nothing else you do will matter if no one is paying attention. Although everyone does things their own way, here are a few basic dos and don’ts that will get you on the right track.

1. Use Your Bio to Make an Impression

Your bio is one of the first things potential followers will see. You need to make a good impression, which means, first of all, that you need to fill in all the fields. An empty field in your bio is a missed opportunity to convey something about yourself. Throw in some keywords, a link to your website, and be clever with emoticons. The possibilities are endless.

2. Post Often and Be Consistent

You have to stay on the ball. Post several times a day, and not all at once or you risk overwhelming your followers. Instagram players who know how to make money are the ones who are active every day.

3. Get the Timing Right

You can get the most out of Instagram by posting at 2am and 5pm (depending on the time zone of your target audience). This is because users tend to post less at those times, but they are still checking their feeds. That means your message won’t have as much competition.

4. Post for Your Ideal Customer

What do people like most about your brand? What is your client demographic? What images and situations are going to appeal to your existing customer base as well as the type of customer you’d like to draw? Paying attention to how you already make money will tell you how to make money fast on Instagram.

4. Quality Over Quantity

Don’t get so focused on how to make money that you start posting irrelevant content. Always focus on quality content whether you’re posting quotes or curating images.

5. Post Strategically

Take out a pen and brainstorm a strategy for your posts. This ties the previous points together and helps you stay on track. Come up with goals for followers, a schedule for posts, and a procedure you’ll go through for each photo. This will help you to stay disciplined, consistent, and it will keep you from missing important steps—like the next one on this list…

6. Bring on the Hashtags

This is essential because without incorporating them into your posts, your images aren’t going to get the attention they deserve. Try to keep them relevant, and don’t use too many. Instagram allows up to 30, but one study found that captions with 11 hashtags get the most engagement.

7. Use the Video Function

Did you know that Instagram allows you to post 15-second videos? Posting videos can take your Instagram account to a new level. If a picture is worth a thousand words, a video is worth a million.

8. Engage

Figure out how to make money while authentically engaging with followers and potential followers. Like their posts and make authentic comments. Follow them back so you can see what their up to.

8 Ways to Make Money on Instagram

After you’ve built a massive base of followers with quality pictures and a friendly online persona, you can start figuring out how to make money. The upside is that there are tons of different ways to go about it. The downside is that we can’t give them all the attention they deserve, so we’ll just stick with the best ones.

1. Affiliate Marketing

This is a good place to start when you are first figuring out how to make money with Instagram. Businesses with affiliate programs will give you a commission for every sale you drive through your custom link. There are a few affiliate programs to choose from, and they’ll all show you how to make money and manage the process for you: Sharesale, Stylinity, and Like to know, just to name a few. Check out Kristyn from GlamourZine. She does a great job at promoting apparel. 

Remember that important bio information? Well that’s a great spot for your “affiliate URL,” which is a URL provided by your affiliates and it is one of the best ways to make money on Instagram. Don’t forget to save space by shortening it with a utility like TinyURL or Google URL Shortener.

2. Promote Your Own Products

Product promotion is huge on Instagram because of its visual nature. If you are a retailer with your own product lines this is common sense. But it works for any business from hospitality to digital downloads. Again, don’t forget the hashtags: 

Be careful to vary your approach. Your homemade jewelry is probably beautiful, but your followers want to be surprised by your content. Instagrammers who know how to make money tend to use varied approaches. Show the raw materials, or tell a story about the crafting process behind your product. Have fun with it.

3. Use the Right hashtags

Using hashtags is good, but using the right hashtags is the difference between being an Instagram user and an Instagram entrepreneur. And if you are looking to make money fast on Instagram, then this is one of the most important answers. Are you promoting shoes? Then use a service like Iconosquare or Websta to come up with a list of trending hashtags to use in your posts:

This is a really easy way to tap into the conversation. Put your ear to the hashtag scene and it will tell you ways to make money through hot topics. Making your hashtags count is key to learning how to make money quickly by grouping ideas, concepts, and trends.

4. Partner Up

If you aren’t a social media “influencer” yourself, you always have the option of seeking out someone who is and asking them to help you with your mission. For a fee, they can promote your products, or join you in promoting the same campaign. You’ll quickly learn how to make money just by riding the wave they have already generated. There are a number of dramatic success stories featuring brands that enlisted influencers to help with their marketing.

5. Be a Brand Ambassador

If you have managed to accumulate a massive following already, then you can put this kind of attention to work for you. Reach out to the marketing department at a company you are interested in or whose products you already use, and offer to be their brand ambassador. If you’re lucky they may come to you. If not, try Instabrand, Buzzoole, or Snapfluence to get connected. This option has a HUGE payoff if you can make it happen.

6. Engage Competitors’ Followers

The follower of your competitor is your potential follower. And chances are, you have at least one competitor who knows how to make money on Instagram, so you’d do well to follow them too just to see what they are doing. You can learn how to make money by the successes or failures of others in the same market. Use a tool like JustUnfollow to search for your competitor’s account by name. It will give you a list of their followers so that you can follow them and like or comment on their photos.

7. Join a Sponsored Post Program

This one is a bit like the affiliate program except that it isn’t up to you to generate the traffic. The program will figure out how to make money, and you just post the content. Just download an app like Takumi and you can start sharing sponsored posts. The only catch here is that you have to have at least 1,000 followers. That may not be possible if you’ve just starting using the platform, but if you stick with a strategy you’ll be there in no time.

8. Sell Your Photos

Are your Instagram photos top-notch? Selling photography on a marketplace like Foap is a common tactic used by Instagrammers to make money fast. All you have to do is join and start sharing your photos so that companies can pay for their use. All photos go for $10 but Foap takes half. Still, that isn’t bad.

Bonus: Sell Your Instagram Account

Maybe you’ve already made it to the big leagues. You’re rich or famous or both, and you have decided to go off the grid. Hey, whatever floats your boat—but you might as well make the most of it by selling your Instagram account. If you want help doing this, services like Fame swap and Viral accounts can help you through the process.

6 Essential Tools for Instagram

Seriously. Apps are all over the place. Ever wondered if certain profile statistics would help you understand how to make money more effectively, or wished you could generate automatic and attractive posts? These are some of the more essential tools of the trade,and they’ll support you as you figure out how to make money on Instagram in a way that fits your brand.

• Iconosquare will teach you how to optimize your strategy while satisfying your statistical curiosity

• Layout allows you to combine a handful of photos into one attractive shot. 
• Postso helps you keep a full post schedule at all times.
• Piquora is a content curator that helps you generate new photo ideas without having to rack your brain every day.
• Repost enables you to repost great photos you find on another user’s profile and give them credit.
• Hyperlapse allows you to create time lapse videos from your phone. Sound awesome? It is.

If you're not using Instagram yet, it's time to try it out. If you are already marketing on Instagram, use the strategies above to start monetizing your account. 

 
• by Spaces Team