8 Ways to Make Money On Instagram

Everyone has a reason for using Instagram. Aside from sharing photos and #doingitforthegram a major reason people try to grow their Instagram accounts is simply to get a side hustle going, promote their business, and make money online. In this post, we’ll explore 17 different ways you can make money on Instagram.

Get Your Instagram Account Ready for Profit

Before delving straight into making money on IG be sure you have the fundamentals taken care of. After all, you need to get the plumbing in order before you build a house. Here are a few things you should do to ensure your account is in order.

Ensure Your Bio Is Ready

This includes your contact information, what you post about and where you’re from. Add in a few keywords and even a couple of hashtags to ensure you’re easily findable by the right kind of followers. Something like: Beauty Blogger from San Francisco with a penchant for travel. Business inquiry: business@beautyblogger.com.

Build a micro audience

You should know from the start that most brands will expect a strong and loyal following in order to build a working partnership. If you’re lacking in this department start by building a micro-audience. Set a goal of at least 1k followers before you begin working on monetization.

Post regularly

To grow numbers, you want to be posting several images every day… but be warned, don’t post all at once or this will actually work against you! If you can’t commit to that many posts, then just make sure you are publishing one quality photo every day.

Use relevant hashtags

It’s unlikely your images are going to travel very far without relevant hashtags. Familiarise yourself with the best ones to do with your field of interest and make sure you are including them in every single post. I am using the TagForLikes app for ideas and to save my custom ones.

Get your fans involved

Many fans and followers are willing to endorse your brand only for a little recognition – and of course a post about them on your profile. This is a great way to engage your followers as well as outsource original, quality content. Give your followers a chance to submit their photos with your product, share their “experience” in a video, or anything they like. The best submissions could get discounts on your products, a small reward, or perhaps just a little recognition through your brand name.

Organize contests or events

Get people to like your images and follow you because you’re running a cool campaign or an event. Offer exclusive deals for a short period of time and keep updating your users on how time is running out(urgency works!).
Sharing special promotions or coupons is another way to get your followers involved in a contest and turn those leads into sales. Ask them to double-tap or tag a friend to get their name in the draw box. One of the best advantages of running contests and campaigns on Instagram is that you can create separate hashtags and keep all contributions in one place.

Get testimonials from clients

Get happy clients to upload pictures or videos of themselves using your product. There’s nothing more convincing than a handful of images, videos, or testimonials that provide social proof.

Now that you have the fundaments in the order you can begin making money using your Instagram account. Below are a few ways you can make money using Instagram

How to Make Money On Instagram – 18 Different Ways

1 – Sell your photos

If you’re a photographer, Instagram is a great way to advertise and sell your shots to either individuals or agencies. Add a watermark to your snaps and use the captions to list all selling details in a concise manner. You can sign up and build a profile at Foap. Then you create a portfolio of your best images and you earn $5 for each image you sell (you can sell the same image an unlimited number of times). Here is the method on how to do it. Click “Sign Up” from the Foap homepage. Select “Photographer,” which indicates that you want to sell images. Then, either download it from the Apple App Store or get it on Google Play and click on “Install.” After that you’re good to go, and you can start selling your Instagram photos.

2 – Become an Affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing is basically when you promote a product and get paid per sale. You’ll often see bloggers doing this with sidebar banners promoting their partners (affiliates), or even through specific product inspired posts (e.g. reviews). Well, the process is not much different on Instagram. Creators can post attractive images highlighting their affiliate products and drive sales through your affiliate URL. You can put your affiliate URL on your captions or in your bio. Some examples on companies you can work with include: Shareasale, Ebates and Stylinity.

3 – Promote Your Business, Products, Or Services

If you run your own business, then Instagram needs to occupy a place in your marketing matrix. Use the platform to post beautiful shots that can’t be found on your website. The brilliant thing about using Instagram to promote your business is you can get mega creative with it. Think outside of the box and really use it to your full advantage. Just take a look at how much fun KFC has with their Instagram feed.

4 – Create a Patreon Account

If you are an avid content creator why not start a Patreon account and promote it using Instagram. This is a natural fit since Instagram is a highly visual platform. For example, artist Ross Tran promotes his Patreon Tutorial channel in his Instagram bio and has become quite popular on Instagram boasting a following of more than 800,000 followers. If you prefer to use a different option you can also check out platforms like Podia, Thinkific, Teachable, Udemy, and many more.

5 – Join a CPA Network

CPA networks can be challenging for new Instagram marketers as the whole link in bio conundrum leaves you with only one real usable link. However, there are multiple methods to do this if you don’t have the swipe up feature. For example, you can use stories responses to send direct links to your CPA lockers. You can check out CPA networks like Peerfly, Maxbounty, Clickbooth, and many others. You’ll have to be creative here. For example, build a movie or film buff audience and then use CPA networks to drive traffic CPA offers related to movie releases.

6 – Sell Shoutouts to Help Other People Grow Their Accounts

This is pretty self-explanatory. If you have a large following you can sell shoutouts to other Instagram users. The prices vary depending on how big your following is and what the engagement rate is like on your page. If your page has 100k followers but you’re only reaching 200 users per post. Odds are people won’t pay you a whole lot. You can find people who would buy your shoutouts in sites like Fiverr, Shoutcart and Igshoutouts.

7 – Check out Influencer Networks

Did you know that you can get paid simply for posting content on Instagram? A website called Popular Pays aims to bring together brands and Instagrammers, or “creators” as the website calls them. Essentially, Popular Pays will pay you or send you free stuff for promoting a brand’s products or services. The amount you’ll earn varies depending on factors, such as how many followers you have. Other similar networks include IZEA, Triberr, and many more.

8 – Contact Brands Directly

While you can join networks, like BrandSnob, and earn money for creating sponsored content, the competition is tough and you might not always get to work with the types of brands that you really want to collaborate with. A good alternative is to contact the brands that you want to work with directly. Make sure that your posts fit with the brand’s niche.

For example, if you post music related posts, then only contact music-related companies. Contact the brand via email or send them a message through Instagram. Let them know that you have a following that they could leverage to promote their brand. Offer to post sponsored content for them. Some brands might say no, but others might say yes, so there’s no harm in trying. If they do say yes, then you could earn some cash just for posting sponsored content.

Finally, if all else fails  —- Flip Your Instagram Account

Had enough of Instagram? Ready to move on? Well, you’ll be happy to know that all your hard work hasn’t gone to waste. You can actually sell your Instagram account if (for whatever reason). However, this is more of a whimsical closing, though these sites do exist selling your Instagram account is against the company’s TOS. So we don’t recommend it, just leave your account idle until you’re ready to get back on the gram.

Hope you enjoyed this post 🙂 Let us know which one of these methods you’ve tried in the past.