.
Excerpt from our upcoming print book:
111 Tips How to Make Money With Writing
.
Instagram with almost 900 million active users per month is one of the easiest platforms to add to your social media mix. It is fast, and it integrates easily into other sites, such as Twitter or Facebook, so you can show your photos at the major social media sites at once.
A detailed help section on their website explains each step in using Instagram.
.
The Most Important Benefit of Instagram:
Provided you have at least 5,000 followers and you add frequently attractive images or short videos to your Instagram site, you will be able to monetize your presence! Forbes wrote recently on their website: Even with just 100,000 followers, an Instagram user could earn $5,000 for a single post made in partnership with a brand. Companies across all industries combined spend between $1 billion and $1.5 billion per year on sponsoring content on the platform.
.
Be Creative, Start a Photo Contest
Why not ask your readers to shoot nice photo scenes of five or even ten of their friends are reading your book and to send you every single photo? It means involvement of your book’s audience, engaging friends of your readers, and for sure, spreading the word about your book. Ten more useful Instagram tips for authors can be found in this article:
https://www.savvybookwriters.com/10-instagram-tips-for-authors/
.
How to Make Money on Instagram?
Let’s start with your Instagram profile. Think long and hard which kind of business connections you would like to attract. For example, if you are writing children’s books your account might be interesting for toys or toddler gear, if you are writing cookbooks your “dream advertiser” might be a kitchen gadget producer or Starbucks coffee, and if you are writing novels set in a certain country, you could attract the travel industry in this part of the world. Include hashtags and images that connect somehow with these potential advertisers.
Get twenty basic tips to build the perfect Instagram profile here:
https://brandongaille.com/instagram-profile-optimization-guide-and-cheat-sheet/
.
What’s Next? How to Attract Advertisers
Your first step is to attract followers to grow your site:
- Follow your already established followers from other social media platforms
- Engage by following others, commenting and liking their photos, and connect your Facebook and Twitter accounts. On Instagram, follow your already established followers from other social media platforms as well.
- If you use Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram for your business, you can tie them together so your images automatically filter to your business page or fan page instead of your personal profile.
- Include Instagram videos on your website or blog. When you visit an Instagram user page on your desktop web browser, you’ll see a share button on the right side of your photo (just under the comments button). Click the button to see the embedded HTML code. Copy the block of text it offers and paste this HTML text into your blog, website or article (not into the visual, but the hidden HTML text part). When you hit publish, the photo or video will appear. This way you add even more attractive content to your Instagram presence.
- Always add trending hashtags to everything you post on your site – very important to be found by advertisers and followers. Trending hashtags are hashtags based on what is happening at the moment, for example, #ThrowBackThursday on a Thursday, #FathersDay #MothersDay. You can make use of trending hashtags by posting photos that are relevant to the hashtag which then exposes your content to a much larger and engaged audience. (A great method on Twitter as well!)
- You don’t need to post on Instagram every day. Find and follow the best “Instagramers” in just seconds (including their email).
- Do you have an email list of subscribers? Ask them to follow you on Instagram if they are not doing so already!
How to find them is explained in this YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=178&v=dQqUo5XC4O0 - Respond to your audience: as your followers grow, you definitely don’t want to lose them by ignoring them! When your audience comments on your posts, be sure to respond to inquiries and even thank them for their comments.
- Make sure all images are vivid and relevant to the products you wish to promote, whether it’s travel products, fitness and lifestyle products or clothing.
- You can share an image that represents a new or an old blog post and includes the link to the blog post. Sharing the link will not only extend the blogs life but also bring higher user engagement, so don’t omit your old blog posts.
- Sharing motivational or inspirational quotes is a great idea to see the fantastic possibilities in their future. You can share quotes from great leaders such as Jim Rohn, Paulo Coelho, Zig Ziglar, Tony Robbins, or create your own. Make sure to give credit when you are using quotes from others.
- Your images must be of the best quality with attractive effects. There’s no point posting a weak image, so really take your time to make sure you are producing ones of the highest quality.
- Find even more tips in this article: http://www.socialinstasuccess.com/14-simple-ideas-post-instagram/
.
On Instagram, You Can Monetize in These Ways:
Affiliate Marketing: It’s 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. With Instagram, you post attractive images highlighting their products and drive sales through your affiliate URL (this is provided by your affiliate). For example, those who love to travel could try to set up and use affiliate marketing when taking part in reviews for hotels and venues. Simply direct followers to book, using your link!
Shareasale: Find companies you want to work with, sign up for their affiliate program, get approved then start promoting. In some programs, it’s easier to get approved if you have a blog or website.
https://www.shareasale.com/
Ebates: Refer people that love deals & discounts, then get a commission.
https://www.ebates.com/
Create Sponsored Posts: Instagram users with engaged followings – and are great writers can earn extra money by creating original sponsored content for brands. The application process to become a brand influencer is certainly competitive. Only a small percent of influencers who apply to represent the brands it manages are chosen by the largest companies. These companies generally get between 25 to 50 applications per brand campaign.
Sponsored content on Instagram can also be a photo or video that highlights a product or a brand. These posts are accompanied by captions that may include branded hashtags, @mentions, or links.
.
More Tips:
Your feed is also your social media “résumé,” which brands use to determine whether or not to hire you as an influencer. A good Instagram presence means consistent, tasteful photo posts and captions. The bigger your Instagram portfolio, the better. Criteria could be:
- What does the content look like?
- Does the feed have beautiful, original photos?
- What’s their follower number and engagement rate?
- Is the style of content what we’re looking for the brands we’re working with?
If you’re a professional (or amateur but marvelous) 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. Check out this video: 52 Tips: How to Market On Instagram https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfyjtEe-Rsc
And this info-graphic: https://www.digitalinformationworld.com/2018/01/how-to-make-money-on-instagram.html
.
Important: Maintain an “active” and “professional” social media presence across platforms especially LinkedIn. Brands and agencies check LinkedIn to find out more about people before working with them.
.
How Much Should You Charge?
First, you can test your Instagram “influence” and potentially possible income at Buzzweb.com for free. https://buzzweb.com/creators/
The Webfluential Influence Estimator is a useful tool to gain a better idea of how much your posts are really worth. The tool will calculate the number of followers and quality of engagement to see how much you should be charging per post. Their free tool only calculates your Twitter value. You will need to register as a Webfluential influencer to find out the worth of your Instagram posts.
https://webfluential.com/influence-estimator
.
Forbes explains:
“Start looking for brands that will pay you for your Instagram posts. If you have millions of followers, you’ll already have brands approaching you for partnerships, so you probably don’t need to read on. But for emerging influencers, you’ll have to do the grunt work and look for brands to partner with on your own. The good news is that there are several influencer networks and influencer marketing platforms that accept micro-influencers. If you’re a part of this network, the company will put you in touch with brands that are in need of relevant influencers.”
Here are a few good networks and platforms you can sign up for:
https://buzzweb.com/creators/
https://influence.co/
https://www.tribegroup.co/
https://www.tapinfluence.com/influencers/
.
However, it’s important that any brands or products you promote are a good fit for your own personal image on Instagram. Work only with brands that you can personally get behind, and to show your followers how that brand fits into your lifestyle.
.
Downside:
Similar to other social media sites there is a huge, dark industry, trying to cater to Instagram users, offering to buy followers and other “services”. Sara Melotti, an Instagram star, explained in an extensive article the dark sites of Instagram – or how honest users can use the platform: How Instagram Created a Monster.
<><><><><>
.