Have you been working hard to grow your Instagram following, but are stuck on how to monetize Instagram in order to make a bit of money?
You’re not alone — because figuring out how to make money on Instagram is more than a little tricky.
It took me a LONG time to figure out how to monetize Instagram for my two business accounts @gorattlethestars and @lobotany, and I struggled with several $0 months in a row when I first started out. But through trial and error, I eventually came up with three incredibly effective ways to make money on Instagram.
I am happy to tell you that it is TOTALLY possible to make a good income when you monetize Instagram with a proper system.
In this video, I’ll walk you through the three systems you can use to turn your Instagram followers into paying customers.
Related Post: How to Make Money on Instagram with Your Business
What’s covered in the video:
How to Monetize Instagram 3 Different Ways
1. Selling your products or services DIRECTLY to your Instagram audience
You’ll have the most luck selling your products directly to your Instagram audience if your product is inexpensive or is something that can be considered an impulse buy.
Are you selling something under $50 that your target audience just has to have, like RIGHT THIS SECOND? You can probably sell it directly by posting about it on Instagram and linking to your product page in your bio.
Related Post: How I Created a Passive Income Stream Selling T-shirts on Instagram
2. Selling INDIRECTLY to your Instagram audience by building your email list
The direct method of selling on Instagram doesn’t work for everyone, but it’s worth a try for smaller products. If it doesn’t work for you, try indirect selling instead.
If you have a higher priced product, monetizing your Instagram through indirect selling is the way to go.
Your Instagram traffic is generally considered “cold” traffic, because you haven’t yet warmed them up by providing your followers with lots of personal value. You’ll need to warm them up first, and the best way to do this is to get them on your email list by offering them a valuable incentive or freebie.
This can be a free checklist, ebook, ecourse, or discount coupon — anything that your audience wants that is in some way related to the product you want to sell to them.
Use your Instagram bio link to point to this freebie, and mention it to your audience at regular intervals to get them to sign up.
Once you start turning followers into subscribers, you’ll continue providing value to them through email. This could be:
- directing them to helpful blog posts (that you or other people have written)
- sharing a list of useful resources
- sharing your story
- offering tips and tricks
- sharing other useful free resources such as additional cheat sheets, checklists, etc.
After you’ve warmed them up a bit, you can finally ask for the sale! You’ll have a lot more willing buyers after going through this process than you did when trying to sell right off the bat.
3. Selling your INFLUENCE on Instagram by becoming an Instagram influencer
If you don’t have a product to sell to your Instagram audience, never fear! You can still make an income if you have at least a few thousand followers.
You can do this by becoming an Instagram influencer or micro-influencer.
What does an Instagram influencer do? Generally:
- Posts product reviews of products in your niche
- Shares other related accounts through paid shoutouts
- Posts about brands and/or their products
In exchange for the above services, an Instagram influencer gets paid — either in cash or in products/merchandise.
In the video, I share with you how to position yourself as an influencer, how to figure out how much to charge for your services, and what steps to follow in order to appear knowledgeable and professional while working with brands.
After watching this video, there should be no doubt left in your mind when deciding how to monetize Instagram in order to make a little extra money for yourself or your business.
Related Post: Instagram Influencer Marketing: How to Work With Big Accounts to Explode Your Growth
Choose whichever of the three Instagram monetization methods works best for you and give her a test run!
Have you made money from your Instagram account already? Share how you’ve managed to monetize Instagram in the comment section below! I’d love to hear what worked best for you.
Get My Instagram Growth eBook for 50% Off!
You’ll get instant access to the top 5 most effective strategies for growing your Instagram following from scratch — the EXACT strategies I used to grow my Instagram audience to over 100k followers in under a year.
Hey Brie, really enjoyed your article. I’d like to share a few ways I monetize my social media following and would love to hear the strategies that have worked for other people.
Here are 3 examples:
Sponsored Posts: Reach out to brands you admire and ask if they would be interested in working with you. This partnership can take different forms. For example, they may give you free merchandise in exchange for you posting about their products on your Instagram feed. If you have a huge following, you’ll likely get free items and cash as well.
Sell Merch: You can also sell and promote your own merchandise to your followers. Many influencers sell t-shirts with their logo or name to their audience for $20–30 a pop. Other popular items include mugs, phone covers, and tote bags.
Join An Affiliate Program: They are several affiliate programs that will pay you a commission for every product that one of your followers buys. Let’s say you put an affiliate link in your Instagram bio for your favorite headphones. If a follower clicks on the link and buys the product, that company will pay you a percentage of the total price.
There are many more ways to monetize your social media following, but I hope these three tips are helpful. If you have any questions, feel free to respond to this post and we can continue the conversation.
Thank you,
Alex W.