People can make big money on Instagram: The recent Hopper HQ report claims that Kylie Jenner is paid around $1.2 million for a single post on Instagram. Obviously, if you’re not one of the world’s most well-known celebrities, your estimated earnings may vary depending on the following count, engagement, reputation, and more.
In this article, we'll cover the top ways to make money on Instagram:
1. Promote Affiliate Links.
To make money with affiliate marketing, you need to join high paying affiliate programs so that you can add affiliate links to your Instagram and make a commission on the sales you generate.
When done right, affiliate links can bring in big money.
As you can see from this site's Blog Income Reports, I bring in over $80k/month, mostly from affiliate programs.
To do this, look into joining affiliate networks like Shareasale, Clickbank, Awin, and Impact. You can also join individual affiliate programs right from a company's website or by searching: “COMPANY + affiliate program.”
Since Instagram has a solid user base of engaged people, it’s a perfect place to promote affiliate links.
No matter how many followers you have, you can insert a clickable link in your Instagram bio. For instance, a fashion blogger Sophie Shohet uses this feature to promote affiliate links:
Since Sophie has more than 10k followers, she can also create clickable Instagram Stories. And here’s how she promotes affiliate links within her posts and on her profile:
Instagram followers pay close attention to Instagram posts, so using captions to tell about affiliate marketing links is a great way to grab the attention.
However, all links in Instagram posts are non-clickable, so adding a URL isn’t the best idea as readers have to copy the link manually from your text.
Thus, it’s better to write a call to action, inviting your readers to click on the link in your bio. One note is that it’s important to disclose affiliate links since you get a commission on each sale.
2. Sell Physical and Digital Products.
Over the last few years, Instagram has turned into a strong sales generator for ecommerce brands.
Since people actually do use Instagram to discover and buy products, they rolled out more business account features like in-app checkout, the shop button, product tags, and shoppable stickers to make the shopping process easier.
One brand new tool you can use to sell products from Instagram is Square Online.
This tool takes Instagram posts from your feed, and turns them into a fully-shoppable website in 3 simple steps:
- Connect your Instagram account to Square.
- Tag items in your Instagram posts you want to sell.
- Click “Publish” and launch your own website.
As it's tough to sell products online from Instagram alone, it's a great idea to also have a website. And this new tool from Square Online makes this super easy.
You can get started with Square Online for free and just pay transaction fees. Then you can upgrade to a paid plan when you're ready to build a website with your own custom domain.
For other options, you can look into choosing an ecommerce platform or website builder to launch an ecommerce website, then use Instagram as another marketing channel.
If you're a beginner, you could also start a dropshipping business so you don't have to ship your own products or handle returns.
Another option is to learn how to sell on Amazon and promote your products on Instagram that way.
Either way, you need to add links to your content in your Instagram account.
Just write a call to action and include a website link so that interested followers can learn more about your offer.
And if you have switched to an Instagram creator account, you can create shoppable posts to sell physical products in-app. Check out how Katie Sturino did it:
From cheap cosmetics and second-hand clothes to luxurious apartments and expensive cars, people buy all kinds of products on Instagram.
No matter what you sell, your potential customer is probably there. However, it’s important to find your niche and look at the competition by searching for hashtags and keywords you want to target.
3. Publish Sponsored Posts.
Influencer marketing is on its rise, according to Social Toaster: 92% of individuals trust word-of-mouth recommendations, 76% of people say that they’re more likely to trust content shared by common people than brands, and 82% of customers want to get referrals from friends before making a purchasing decision.
Simply put, people seek out peers’ recommendations, so it’s no wonder more and more brands reach out to influencers to get shoutouts for their brands.
Since users crave transparency on Instagram, all influencers need to disclose sponsored posts, according to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) guidelines for online advertising. And here’s how a sponsored post may look like on Instagram:
Daphne Nur Oz is a popular TV host with over 387k followers, so it’s no wonder that big brands like J.Crew reach out to her for a chance to enter an already-established community of engaged Instagrammers.
Want to know the best part? There’s no need to have a solid following to start making money with sponsored posts. When choosing the right influencer, most brands pay close attention to the engagement rate, so even big brands like Dunkin’ want to work with nano- and micro-influencers.
Since these influencers have in-person interactions with the majority of their subscribers, they deliver better results, which means you can get an offer even if you have less than 1,000 followers count on Instagram.
