Step-by-Step: Building a Profitable Instagram Empire

How to Make Money from Instagram

Shanoon Cox

Mar 27, 2024• Proven solutions

Like most social media networks, Instagram is a powerful advertising platform that can be used to generate a healthy income. It has been only eight years since the Instagram app was first introduced to the public, and in such a short period of time, the stories of people who earned a fortune through Instagram have started to pile up.

A 32-old ex-NHS speech therapist from Yorkshire has earned 120.000£ in 2017, for posting lifestyle photos on her Instagram account. You may wonder where did the money come from? Well, a lot of brands offered her sponsorships for her Instagram photos, while she also provides coaching services to people who want to learn more about creativity and marketing on Instagram.

You May Also Like:
How to Increase Followers on Instagram >>
How to Create Instagram Business Account >>

This example shows that doing what you love and earning a living from it is achievable. Although there is no direct way in which you can monetize likes and comments on Instagram, the reach and influence Instagrammers with thousands of followers have, is just what a lot of up and coming startup companies need.

Earning money on Instagram requires you to have a strategy and in this article, we are going to take you through all the steps you’ll need to take on this journey.

How to make money from Instagram – 2021 Ultimate Guide

Success rarely happens overnight, simply because it requires effort, dedication, persistence and most of all vision. All of these things require time, so if you want to start earning money on Instagram you have to be patient and take one step at the time. Furthermore, you need to position yourself for success, which means that you’ll have to work hard to meet certain requirements before you can start harvesting the fruits of your efforts

The prerequisites for earning money from Instagram

The Instagrammer’s power comes from his or her followers because Instagram profiles with hundreds of thousands of followers provide access to a huge market. If you are thinking about making money from Instagram, you should start small and take every opportunity you have to increase the number of followers you have on your Instagram account.

• Reach and influence

The organic growth of your followers is directly related to the reach your posts will have. There are countless ways of expanding the reach of your posts, but the one that is essential for earning money from Instagram are unique and genuine posts. You’ll need at least three thousand followers before your Instagram profile becomes profitable, so it is best to take the time and gather followers who trust you, and who think that your posts offer something remarkable and trustworthy.

If you would like to promote services and products of companies on your Instagram profile having a good reach is not enough, because people still need to take action and purchase the product you are advertising. The skill to persuade your followers to buy the services or products you are offering is called the influence, and in order to become a powerful Instagram influencer, you need to be a persuasive person.

Even if you don’t have five or ten thousand followers on your Instagram account, your profile may be interesting to companies willing to offer you a sponsorship if your presence on social media is strong enough to inspire others to take action.

• Engaged followers

The interaction you have with your Instagram followers is more important than the sheer number of people who follow your Instagram account. If you are not getting likes or comments from your followers than you are failing to engage them and spark a reaction from them. On the other hand, if your posts are getting a lot of comments it means that they are offering solutions to the issues Instagram users are dealing with.

Furthermore, the amount of messages you get from your Instagram followers is the parameter that should tell you how engaged your followers really are. That’s why it is important to have people constantly commenting on your posts, sharing them, tagging their friends in your posts and liking them if you really want to attract the attention of brands and profiles that could help you make a profit on Instagram.

As we already mentioned, the number of followers you have isn’t so important if your posts are failing to spark any type of reaction from them. This is the reason why you need to look for ways to increase the amounts of likes and comments your posts are getting if earning money from your Instagram account is your goal.

• Building relationships with influencers and other businesses

No man is an island, and in order to grow your Instagram profile and attract the attention of more potential followers, you may need the assistance of huge Instagram accounts in your niche. Establishing connections with people who already have a great deal of influence on Instagram and using their influence to boost your Instagram profile is a good way to shorten the amount of time you are going to need to start earning money from Instagram.

Great posts and catchy captions are important, but they are far from enough to attract the attention of big companies that would be interested in purchasing your photos or any other type of service you may be offering. Utilizing a Shoutout strategy, however, could help you to keep moving in the right direction.

This strategy is rather simple. The only thing you need to do in order to make it work is, find another, larger Instagram account in your niche and offer them to share their posts if they agree to the same for you. Although this may not seem like a very effective strategy, you could gather as many as 50 thousand new followers in just eight months.

If you get rejected by a lot of influencers in your niche, you can try to buy Shoutouts from them. This strategy basically suggests that you pay for every post that mentions your Instagram account or the products and services you are offering on someone else’s Instagram account. However, there is no way in which anyone can guarantee that this strategy will pay-off and you might end up spending a lot of money on a business plan that doesn’t really work.

If the Shoutout tactics don’t prove to be efficient, you should try using Instagram Stories to increase the number of followers and the amount of influence your posts have. Posting up to five stories on Instagram should help you develop a solid base of followers that would eventually make your Instagram account profitable.

How to make money on Instagram?

Starting a new account on Instagram and reaching a point where you can actually earn money through Instagram will take months if not a few years. That’s why having a sense of direction and a clear vision of how you want to earn money on Instagram should help you to start monetizing your Instagram account sooner rather than later. Let’s have a look at a few different ways to earn money on Instagram.

• Sponsored posts

Expanding the reach of your posts will help you get the attention of companies that need access to new markets. A sponsored post is a type of Instagram post that promotes products and services of the company that paid the influencer to advertise them on her or his Instagram account. Regardless of how many followers an influencer has or how good the engagement rates are, people will lose interest in an account if the posts you share with them aren’t authentic.

There are countless advertising techniques, like product placement or audience targeting that can help you to carefully design each sponsored post you share on your Instagram account. Getting an Instagram sponsorship means that you’ll be responsible for the production of photos and videos that promote a brand, and for that reason developing a viable strategy may prove to be an essential part of the success of the Instagram marketing campaign you were sponsored to create.

The amount of money you’ll be able to earn depends on several factors, including the number of people your posts have reached and the number of actual sales that were the direct result of your efforts. You can use the Instagram Influencer Earning Calculator if you would know exactly how much money you can make from posting sponsored posts on your account.

• Sell your photos

Anyone can make a photo in 2020 because we all have powerful Smartphones and DSLR cameras that produce high-quality images. Selling a photo, however, is an entirely different matter. Whether or not you can sell some of your best photos depends largely on how skilled a photographer you are. The more you work on your skills, the greater the chance that someone would offer you to buy some of your work.

Being authentic and being able to offer photos that are different from the ones that are already available on stock photography websites will drastically increase your chances of selling your photos on Instagram. Furthermore, you can use Instagram to promote your own photography website or to feature links that take the visitors to a stock photography website where they can buy your photos.

• Affiliate marketing

This method of earning money on Instagram only works if the products you are offering come from your own niche. Trying to sell services that you wouldn’t use can often result in losing followers and the reach your posts once had.

Affiliate marketing is performance-based, which means that the company whose affiliate you are, will provide you with a link that tracks all visitors and sales that came through your Instagram account. You get a percent of every sale you helped make, but featuring a link that takes the potential customers to the product’s webpage is only possible in your account’s bio. To make things even worse, affiliate links can be quite long, so you may have to use a link shortening service to make them look more visually pleasing.

• Promote your business, products or services

Instagram users that have their own companies and products they’re offering, can utilize this platform as a tool for promotion, in the same way, any other company would. This method of generating income can be quite effective if the products or services you want to sell can be easily photographed because your Instagram followers will be able to see the items you are offering.

Keep in mind that for one post that promotes your brand you need to create four non-commercial posts. However, your posts can show how you make the products you’re offering on your Instagram account or show people who enjoy using your company’s products. Promoting your brand on Instagram can help you reach new clients or meet new business associates. Despite the fact that your Instagram account won’t generate a direct income from your posts, the business opportunities it provides are nearly limitless.

Shanoon Cox

Shanoon Cox is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Shanoon Cox

Shanoon Cox

Mar 27, 2024• Proven solutions

Like most social media networks, Instagram is a powerful advertising platform that can be used to generate a healthy income. It has been only eight years since the Instagram app was first introduced to the public, and in such a short period of time, the stories of people who earned a fortune through Instagram have started to pile up.

A 32-old ex-NHS speech therapist from Yorkshire has earned 120.000£ in 2017, for posting lifestyle photos on her Instagram account. You may wonder where did the money come from? Well, a lot of brands offered her sponsorships for her Instagram photos, while she also provides coaching services to people who want to learn more about creativity and marketing on Instagram.

You May Also Like:
How to Increase Followers on Instagram >>
How to Create Instagram Business Account >>

This example shows that doing what you love and earning a living from it is achievable. Although there is no direct way in which you can monetize likes and comments on Instagram, the reach and influence Instagrammers with thousands of followers have, is just what a lot of up and coming startup companies need.

Earning money on Instagram requires you to have a strategy and in this article, we are going to take you through all the steps you’ll need to take on this journey.

How to make money from Instagram – 2021 Ultimate Guide

Success rarely happens overnight, simply because it requires effort, dedication, persistence and most of all vision. All of these things require time, so if you want to start earning money on Instagram you have to be patient and take one step at the time. Furthermore, you need to position yourself for success, which means that you’ll have to work hard to meet certain requirements before you can start harvesting the fruits of your efforts

The prerequisites for earning money from Instagram

The Instagrammer’s power comes from his or her followers because Instagram profiles with hundreds of thousands of followers provide access to a huge market. If you are thinking about making money from Instagram, you should start small and take every opportunity you have to increase the number of followers you have on your Instagram account.

• Reach and influence

The organic growth of your followers is directly related to the reach your posts will have. There are countless ways of expanding the reach of your posts, but the one that is essential for earning money from Instagram are unique and genuine posts. You’ll need at least three thousand followers before your Instagram profile becomes profitable, so it is best to take the time and gather followers who trust you, and who think that your posts offer something remarkable and trustworthy.

If you would like to promote services and products of companies on your Instagram profile having a good reach is not enough, because people still need to take action and purchase the product you are advertising. The skill to persuade your followers to buy the services or products you are offering is called the influence, and in order to become a powerful Instagram influencer, you need to be a persuasive person.

Even if you don’t have five or ten thousand followers on your Instagram account, your profile may be interesting to companies willing to offer you a sponsorship if your presence on social media is strong enough to inspire others to take action.

• Engaged followers

The interaction you have with your Instagram followers is more important than the sheer number of people who follow your Instagram account. If you are not getting likes or comments from your followers than you are failing to engage them and spark a reaction from them. On the other hand, if your posts are getting a lot of comments it means that they are offering solutions to the issues Instagram users are dealing with.

Furthermore, the amount of messages you get from your Instagram followers is the parameter that should tell you how engaged your followers really are. That’s why it is important to have people constantly commenting on your posts, sharing them, tagging their friends in your posts and liking them if you really want to attract the attention of brands and profiles that could help you make a profit on Instagram.

As we already mentioned, the number of followers you have isn’t so important if your posts are failing to spark any type of reaction from them. This is the reason why you need to look for ways to increase the amounts of likes and comments your posts are getting if earning money from your Instagram account is your goal.

• Building relationships with influencers and other businesses

No man is an island, and in order to grow your Instagram profile and attract the attention of more potential followers, you may need the assistance of huge Instagram accounts in your niche. Establishing connections with people who already have a great deal of influence on Instagram and using their influence to boost your Instagram profile is a good way to shorten the amount of time you are going to need to start earning money from Instagram.

Great posts and catchy captions are important, but they are far from enough to attract the attention of big companies that would be interested in purchasing your photos or any other type of service you may be offering. Utilizing a Shoutout strategy, however, could help you to keep moving in the right direction.

This strategy is rather simple. The only thing you need to do in order to make it work is, find another, larger Instagram account in your niche and offer them to share their posts if they agree to the same for you. Although this may not seem like a very effective strategy, you could gather as many as 50 thousand new followers in just eight months.

If you get rejected by a lot of influencers in your niche, you can try to buy Shoutouts from them. This strategy basically suggests that you pay for every post that mentions your Instagram account or the products and services you are offering on someone else’s Instagram account. However, there is no way in which anyone can guarantee that this strategy will pay-off and you might end up spending a lot of money on a business plan that doesn’t really work.

If the Shoutout tactics don’t prove to be efficient, you should try using Instagram Stories to increase the number of followers and the amount of influence your posts have. Posting up to five stories on Instagram should help you develop a solid base of followers that would eventually make your Instagram account profitable.

How to make money on Instagram?

Starting a new account on Instagram and reaching a point where you can actually earn money through Instagram will take months if not a few years. That’s why having a sense of direction and a clear vision of how you want to earn money on Instagram should help you to start monetizing your Instagram account sooner rather than later. Let’s have a look at a few different ways to earn money on Instagram.

• Sponsored posts

Expanding the reach of your posts will help you get the attention of companies that need access to new markets. A sponsored post is a type of Instagram post that promotes products and services of the company that paid the influencer to advertise them on her or his Instagram account. Regardless of how many followers an influencer has or how good the engagement rates are, people will lose interest in an account if the posts you share with them aren’t authentic.

There are countless advertising techniques, like product placement or audience targeting that can help you to carefully design each sponsored post you share on your Instagram account. Getting an Instagram sponsorship means that you’ll be responsible for the production of photos and videos that promote a brand, and for that reason developing a viable strategy may prove to be an essential part of the success of the Instagram marketing campaign you were sponsored to create.

The amount of money you’ll be able to earn depends on several factors, including the number of people your posts have reached and the number of actual sales that were the direct result of your efforts. You can use the Instagram Influencer Earning Calculator if you would know exactly how much money you can make from posting sponsored posts on your account.

• Sell your photos

Anyone can make a photo in 2020 because we all have powerful Smartphones and DSLR cameras that produce high-quality images. Selling a photo, however, is an entirely different matter. Whether or not you can sell some of your best photos depends largely on how skilled a photographer you are. The more you work on your skills, the greater the chance that someone would offer you to buy some of your work.

Being authentic and being able to offer photos that are different from the ones that are already available on stock photography websites will drastically increase your chances of selling your photos on Instagram. Furthermore, you can use Instagram to promote your own photography website or to feature links that take the visitors to a stock photography website where they can buy your photos.

• Affiliate marketing

This method of earning money on Instagram only works if the products you are offering come from your own niche. Trying to sell services that you wouldn’t use can often result in losing followers and the reach your posts once had.

Affiliate marketing is performance-based, which means that the company whose affiliate you are, will provide you with a link that tracks all visitors and sales that came through your Instagram account. You get a percent of every sale you helped make, but featuring a link that takes the potential customers to the product’s webpage is only possible in your account’s bio. To make things even worse, affiliate links can be quite long, so you may have to use a link shortening service to make them look more visually pleasing.

• Promote your business, products or services

Instagram users that have their own companies and products they’re offering, can utilize this platform as a tool for promotion, in the same way, any other company would. This method of generating income can be quite effective if the products or services you want to sell can be easily photographed because your Instagram followers will be able to see the items you are offering.

Keep in mind that for one post that promotes your brand you need to create four non-commercial posts. However, your posts can show how you make the products you’re offering on your Instagram account or show people who enjoy using your company’s products. Promoting your brand on Instagram can help you reach new clients or meet new business associates. Despite the fact that your Instagram account won’t generate a direct income from your posts, the business opportunities it provides are nearly limitless.

Shanoon Cox

Shanoon Cox is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Shanoon Cox

Shanoon Cox

Mar 27, 2024• Proven solutions

Like most social media networks, Instagram is a powerful advertising platform that can be used to generate a healthy income. It has been only eight years since the Instagram app was first introduced to the public, and in such a short period of time, the stories of people who earned a fortune through Instagram have started to pile up.

A 32-old ex-NHS speech therapist from Yorkshire has earned 120.000£ in 2017, for posting lifestyle photos on her Instagram account. You may wonder where did the money come from? Well, a lot of brands offered her sponsorships for her Instagram photos, while she also provides coaching services to people who want to learn more about creativity and marketing on Instagram.

You May Also Like:
How to Increase Followers on Instagram >>
How to Create Instagram Business Account >>

This example shows that doing what you love and earning a living from it is achievable. Although there is no direct way in which you can monetize likes and comments on Instagram, the reach and influence Instagrammers with thousands of followers have, is just what a lot of up and coming startup companies need.

Earning money on Instagram requires you to have a strategy and in this article, we are going to take you through all the steps you’ll need to take on this journey.

How to make money from Instagram – 2021 Ultimate Guide

Success rarely happens overnight, simply because it requires effort, dedication, persistence and most of all vision. All of these things require time, so if you want to start earning money on Instagram you have to be patient and take one step at the time. Furthermore, you need to position yourself for success, which means that you’ll have to work hard to meet certain requirements before you can start harvesting the fruits of your efforts

The prerequisites for earning money from Instagram

The Instagrammer’s power comes from his or her followers because Instagram profiles with hundreds of thousands of followers provide access to a huge market. If you are thinking about making money from Instagram, you should start small and take every opportunity you have to increase the number of followers you have on your Instagram account.

• Reach and influence

The organic growth of your followers is directly related to the reach your posts will have. There are countless ways of expanding the reach of your posts, but the one that is essential for earning money from Instagram are unique and genuine posts. You’ll need at least three thousand followers before your Instagram profile becomes profitable, so it is best to take the time and gather followers who trust you, and who think that your posts offer something remarkable and trustworthy.

If you would like to promote services and products of companies on your Instagram profile having a good reach is not enough, because people still need to take action and purchase the product you are advertising. The skill to persuade your followers to buy the services or products you are offering is called the influence, and in order to become a powerful Instagram influencer, you need to be a persuasive person.

Even if you don’t have five or ten thousand followers on your Instagram account, your profile may be interesting to companies willing to offer you a sponsorship if your presence on social media is strong enough to inspire others to take action.

• Engaged followers

The interaction you have with your Instagram followers is more important than the sheer number of people who follow your Instagram account. If you are not getting likes or comments from your followers than you are failing to engage them and spark a reaction from them. On the other hand, if your posts are getting a lot of comments it means that they are offering solutions to the issues Instagram users are dealing with.

Furthermore, the amount of messages you get from your Instagram followers is the parameter that should tell you how engaged your followers really are. That’s why it is important to have people constantly commenting on your posts, sharing them, tagging their friends in your posts and liking them if you really want to attract the attention of brands and profiles that could help you make a profit on Instagram.

As we already mentioned, the number of followers you have isn’t so important if your posts are failing to spark any type of reaction from them. This is the reason why you need to look for ways to increase the amounts of likes and comments your posts are getting if earning money from your Instagram account is your goal.

• Building relationships with influencers and other businesses

No man is an island, and in order to grow your Instagram profile and attract the attention of more potential followers, you may need the assistance of huge Instagram accounts in your niche. Establishing connections with people who already have a great deal of influence on Instagram and using their influence to boost your Instagram profile is a good way to shorten the amount of time you are going to need to start earning money from Instagram.

Great posts and catchy captions are important, but they are far from enough to attract the attention of big companies that would be interested in purchasing your photos or any other type of service you may be offering. Utilizing a Shoutout strategy, however, could help you to keep moving in the right direction.

This strategy is rather simple. The only thing you need to do in order to make it work is, find another, larger Instagram account in your niche and offer them to share their posts if they agree to the same for you. Although this may not seem like a very effective strategy, you could gather as many as 50 thousand new followers in just eight months.

If you get rejected by a lot of influencers in your niche, you can try to buy Shoutouts from them. This strategy basically suggests that you pay for every post that mentions your Instagram account or the products and services you are offering on someone else’s Instagram account. However, there is no way in which anyone can guarantee that this strategy will pay-off and you might end up spending a lot of money on a business plan that doesn’t really work.

If the Shoutout tactics don’t prove to be efficient, you should try using Instagram Stories to increase the number of followers and the amount of influence your posts have. Posting up to five stories on Instagram should help you develop a solid base of followers that would eventually make your Instagram account profitable.

How to make money on Instagram?

Starting a new account on Instagram and reaching a point where you can actually earn money through Instagram will take months if not a few years. That’s why having a sense of direction and a clear vision of how you want to earn money on Instagram should help you to start monetizing your Instagram account sooner rather than later. Let’s have a look at a few different ways to earn money on Instagram.

• Sponsored posts

Expanding the reach of your posts will help you get the attention of companies that need access to new markets. A sponsored post is a type of Instagram post that promotes products and services of the company that paid the influencer to advertise them on her or his Instagram account. Regardless of how many followers an influencer has or how good the engagement rates are, people will lose interest in an account if the posts you share with them aren’t authentic.

There are countless advertising techniques, like product placement or audience targeting that can help you to carefully design each sponsored post you share on your Instagram account. Getting an Instagram sponsorship means that you’ll be responsible for the production of photos and videos that promote a brand, and for that reason developing a viable strategy may prove to be an essential part of the success of the Instagram marketing campaign you were sponsored to create.

The amount of money you’ll be able to earn depends on several factors, including the number of people your posts have reached and the number of actual sales that were the direct result of your efforts. You can use the Instagram Influencer Earning Calculator if you would know exactly how much money you can make from posting sponsored posts on your account.

• Sell your photos

Anyone can make a photo in 2020 because we all have powerful Smartphones and DSLR cameras that produce high-quality images. Selling a photo, however, is an entirely different matter. Whether or not you can sell some of your best photos depends largely on how skilled a photographer you are. The more you work on your skills, the greater the chance that someone would offer you to buy some of your work.

Being authentic and being able to offer photos that are different from the ones that are already available on stock photography websites will drastically increase your chances of selling your photos on Instagram. Furthermore, you can use Instagram to promote your own photography website or to feature links that take the visitors to a stock photography website where they can buy your photos.

• Affiliate marketing

This method of earning money on Instagram only works if the products you are offering come from your own niche. Trying to sell services that you wouldn’t use can often result in losing followers and the reach your posts once had.

Affiliate marketing is performance-based, which means that the company whose affiliate you are, will provide you with a link that tracks all visitors and sales that came through your Instagram account. You get a percent of every sale you helped make, but featuring a link that takes the potential customers to the product’s webpage is only possible in your account’s bio. To make things even worse, affiliate links can be quite long, so you may have to use a link shortening service to make them look more visually pleasing.

• Promote your business, products or services

Instagram users that have their own companies and products they’re offering, can utilize this platform as a tool for promotion, in the same way, any other company would. This method of generating income can be quite effective if the products or services you want to sell can be easily photographed because your Instagram followers will be able to see the items you are offering.

Keep in mind that for one post that promotes your brand you need to create four non-commercial posts. However, your posts can show how you make the products you’re offering on your Instagram account or show people who enjoy using your company’s products. Promoting your brand on Instagram can help you reach new clients or meet new business associates. Despite the fact that your Instagram account won’t generate a direct income from your posts, the business opportunities it provides are nearly limitless.

Shanoon Cox

Shanoon Cox is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Shanoon Cox

Shanoon Cox

Mar 27, 2024• Proven solutions

Like most social media networks, Instagram is a powerful advertising platform that can be used to generate a healthy income. It has been only eight years since the Instagram app was first introduced to the public, and in such a short period of time, the stories of people who earned a fortune through Instagram have started to pile up.

A 32-old ex-NHS speech therapist from Yorkshire has earned 120.000£ in 2017, for posting lifestyle photos on her Instagram account. You may wonder where did the money come from? Well, a lot of brands offered her sponsorships for her Instagram photos, while she also provides coaching services to people who want to learn more about creativity and marketing on Instagram.

You May Also Like:
How to Increase Followers on Instagram >>
How to Create Instagram Business Account >>

This example shows that doing what you love and earning a living from it is achievable. Although there is no direct way in which you can monetize likes and comments on Instagram, the reach and influence Instagrammers with thousands of followers have, is just what a lot of up and coming startup companies need.

Earning money on Instagram requires you to have a strategy and in this article, we are going to take you through all the steps you’ll need to take on this journey.

How to make money from Instagram – 2021 Ultimate Guide

Success rarely happens overnight, simply because it requires effort, dedication, persistence and most of all vision. All of these things require time, so if you want to start earning money on Instagram you have to be patient and take one step at the time. Furthermore, you need to position yourself for success, which means that you’ll have to work hard to meet certain requirements before you can start harvesting the fruits of your efforts

The prerequisites for earning money from Instagram

The Instagrammer’s power comes from his or her followers because Instagram profiles with hundreds of thousands of followers provide access to a huge market. If you are thinking about making money from Instagram, you should start small and take every opportunity you have to increase the number of followers you have on your Instagram account.

• Reach and influence

The organic growth of your followers is directly related to the reach your posts will have. There are countless ways of expanding the reach of your posts, but the one that is essential for earning money from Instagram are unique and genuine posts. You’ll need at least three thousand followers before your Instagram profile becomes profitable, so it is best to take the time and gather followers who trust you, and who think that your posts offer something remarkable and trustworthy.

If you would like to promote services and products of companies on your Instagram profile having a good reach is not enough, because people still need to take action and purchase the product you are advertising. The skill to persuade your followers to buy the services or products you are offering is called the influence, and in order to become a powerful Instagram influencer, you need to be a persuasive person.

Even if you don’t have five or ten thousand followers on your Instagram account, your profile may be interesting to companies willing to offer you a sponsorship if your presence on social media is strong enough to inspire others to take action.

• Engaged followers

The interaction you have with your Instagram followers is more important than the sheer number of people who follow your Instagram account. If you are not getting likes or comments from your followers than you are failing to engage them and spark a reaction from them. On the other hand, if your posts are getting a lot of comments it means that they are offering solutions to the issues Instagram users are dealing with.

Furthermore, the amount of messages you get from your Instagram followers is the parameter that should tell you how engaged your followers really are. That’s why it is important to have people constantly commenting on your posts, sharing them, tagging their friends in your posts and liking them if you really want to attract the attention of brands and profiles that could help you make a profit on Instagram.

As we already mentioned, the number of followers you have isn’t so important if your posts are failing to spark any type of reaction from them. This is the reason why you need to look for ways to increase the amounts of likes and comments your posts are getting if earning money from your Instagram account is your goal.

• Building relationships with influencers and other businesses

No man is an island, and in order to grow your Instagram profile and attract the attention of more potential followers, you may need the assistance of huge Instagram accounts in your niche. Establishing connections with people who already have a great deal of influence on Instagram and using their influence to boost your Instagram profile is a good way to shorten the amount of time you are going to need to start earning money from Instagram.

Great posts and catchy captions are important, but they are far from enough to attract the attention of big companies that would be interested in purchasing your photos or any other type of service you may be offering. Utilizing a Shoutout strategy, however, could help you to keep moving in the right direction.

This strategy is rather simple. The only thing you need to do in order to make it work is, find another, larger Instagram account in your niche and offer them to share their posts if they agree to the same for you. Although this may not seem like a very effective strategy, you could gather as many as 50 thousand new followers in just eight months.

If you get rejected by a lot of influencers in your niche, you can try to buy Shoutouts from them. This strategy basically suggests that you pay for every post that mentions your Instagram account or the products and services you are offering on someone else’s Instagram account. However, there is no way in which anyone can guarantee that this strategy will pay-off and you might end up spending a lot of money on a business plan that doesn’t really work.

If the Shoutout tactics don’t prove to be efficient, you should try using Instagram Stories to increase the number of followers and the amount of influence your posts have. Posting up to five stories on Instagram should help you develop a solid base of followers that would eventually make your Instagram account profitable.

How to make money on Instagram?

Starting a new account on Instagram and reaching a point where you can actually earn money through Instagram will take months if not a few years. That’s why having a sense of direction and a clear vision of how you want to earn money on Instagram should help you to start monetizing your Instagram account sooner rather than later. Let’s have a look at a few different ways to earn money on Instagram.

• Sponsored posts

Expanding the reach of your posts will help you get the attention of companies that need access to new markets. A sponsored post is a type of Instagram post that promotes products and services of the company that paid the influencer to advertise them on her or his Instagram account. Regardless of how many followers an influencer has or how good the engagement rates are, people will lose interest in an account if the posts you share with them aren’t authentic.

There are countless advertising techniques, like product placement or audience targeting that can help you to carefully design each sponsored post you share on your Instagram account. Getting an Instagram sponsorship means that you’ll be responsible for the production of photos and videos that promote a brand, and for that reason developing a viable strategy may prove to be an essential part of the success of the Instagram marketing campaign you were sponsored to create.

The amount of money you’ll be able to earn depends on several factors, including the number of people your posts have reached and the number of actual sales that were the direct result of your efforts. You can use the Instagram Influencer Earning Calculator if you would know exactly how much money you can make from posting sponsored posts on your account.

• Sell your photos

Anyone can make a photo in 2020 because we all have powerful Smartphones and DSLR cameras that produce high-quality images. Selling a photo, however, is an entirely different matter. Whether or not you can sell some of your best photos depends largely on how skilled a photographer you are. The more you work on your skills, the greater the chance that someone would offer you to buy some of your work.

Being authentic and being able to offer photos that are different from the ones that are already available on stock photography websites will drastically increase your chances of selling your photos on Instagram. Furthermore, you can use Instagram to promote your own photography website or to feature links that take the visitors to a stock photography website where they can buy your photos.

• Affiliate marketing

This method of earning money on Instagram only works if the products you are offering come from your own niche. Trying to sell services that you wouldn’t use can often result in losing followers and the reach your posts once had.

Affiliate marketing is performance-based, which means that the company whose affiliate you are, will provide you with a link that tracks all visitors and sales that came through your Instagram account. You get a percent of every sale you helped make, but featuring a link that takes the potential customers to the product’s webpage is only possible in your account’s bio. To make things even worse, affiliate links can be quite long, so you may have to use a link shortening service to make them look more visually pleasing.

• Promote your business, products or services

Instagram users that have their own companies and products they’re offering, can utilize this platform as a tool for promotion, in the same way, any other company would. This method of generating income can be quite effective if the products or services you want to sell can be easily photographed because your Instagram followers will be able to see the items you are offering.

Keep in mind that for one post that promotes your brand you need to create four non-commercial posts. However, your posts can show how you make the products you’re offering on your Instagram account or show people who enjoy using your company’s products. Promoting your brand on Instagram can help you reach new clients or meet new business associates. Despite the fact that your Instagram account won’t generate a direct income from your posts, the business opportunities it provides are nearly limitless.

Shanoon Cox

Shanoon Cox is a writer and a lover of all things video.

Follow @Shanoon Cox