How Influencers are Making Money with Instagram

An influencer is someone who has the ability to influence the buying decisions and opinions of others through social media.

For example, if you have a blog and you write a post about a new book, people who read your blog may decide to buy the book or even borrow it from the library after reading your review. 

If enough people see your review and decide to purchase the book, then you are an influencer for that product.

In today’s world, there is more demand than ever for online content. It is not very difficult to earn some extra money by publishing helpful articles on your blog, but you can make even more money if you become an influencer for other companies.

How influencers are making money with Instagram

Earning money on Instagram seems like a dream. Countless individuals with large followings post selfies and food pictures for free, but some influencers are making big bucks.

How does an influencer make money? What is the process that makes this possible?

By becoming an influencer, you can market products or services to your followers through sponsored posts. These posts include a short bio, hashtags, and a link to the product or service you’re trying to sell.

Companies approach influencers with a payment offer each time they post a sponsored post that includes their products or services. Influencers can make anywhere from hundreds of dollars to tens of thousands per Instagram post.

So what’s the process that an influencer goes through to make money by using Instagram? Here’s a look at what happens from start to finish.

Step 1: Choose a product or service to promote

This part is pretty simple because there are companies out there who want you to promote their products and services. For instance, one company offers influencers the chance to promote a specific watch for $150 per post.

Another company offers to pay influencers up to $20,000 per promotional Instagram post. To get this payment, the influencer’s followers must have a minimum of 30,000 and their account cannot be private.

In this situation alone, an influencer could make up to $120,000 per year if they were to post on Instagram about these two products for a full year.

Step 2: Agree to terms and rate of payment

Once you’ve decided on which product or service to promote, it’s time to read the fine print. Although many companies offer high rates of payment, there can be some catches along the way.

For instance, not all companies are transparent about their terms of the agreement. When you’re looking at the details of the contract, make sure there aren’t any clauses that will affect how much you earn per post or other small details that can limit your payment for this particular promotion.

An important note to make is to only agree to deals that are worth your time. For example, it might be smart not to promote a product that costs $5 for 100 of your followers to use if you can get paid more than that by promoting something else.

Step 3: Create the post

Once the terms and rate of payment have been settled, focus on creating content for your post. This can be challenging because you want it to be appealing to your followers while also promoting the product or service you’re trying to sell.

Here are some tips on how to make this post successful:

• Include the brand’s social media handle(s) in your content. This way, people can follow them if they like the product.
• If you’re allowed to do so, include the price of the product. It’s not good for potential customers if they don’t know how much something costs.
• Tag or mention brands in your post. Letting people know that these companies are involved with what you’re promoting might encourage them to purchase this product too.
• Use hashtags. These are super important because they make it easy for your followers to find your promotional post.
• Make sure your bio includes the link directly to the product or service you’re promoting.

Step 4: Post to social media

Once the content is complete, all that’s left to do is publish this promotional Instagram post and share it with the world. Promote it on your other social media accounts, too.

Step 5: Track the success of your post

To check the success of your promotion, use a tracker to see how many people clicked on the link you included in your post. If this number is high enough, contact the company you’re working with and let them know that the promotion was a success.

If this number isn’t high enough, it might be time to look for another company to promote products or services for. As long as the terms of agreement are fair and you’re making money on every post, don’t be afraid to turn down work that doesn’t interest you.

Step 6: Repeat steps 3-5

Once your promotional post has been completed, it’s time to do it all over again for another product or service. The more popular the product or brand is, the more likely people are to click on the link in your post and purchase this item.

Now that you know how influencers make money with Instagram, start making some cash for yourself.

Is it easy to become an influencer?

We asked Kevin John, an Influence Marketer of Tutorialology, His Short answer is No. It takes time and effort. Choose a topic you are passionate about, engage your network by asking them for feedback, launch a survey to learn more about what they think of your blog’s current direction, and work at it.

Instagram influencer

Influencers on Instagram have a powerful impact on society. Fashion bloggers, makeup artists, and fitness gurus influence what people buy, wear and eat.

The millennial generation is especially affected by this as they are constantly idolizing these influencers. It seems as if every day there is a new social media star with hundreds of thousands to even millions of followers on Instagram.

Current trends show that influencers are gaining more and more power as people start idolizing them even more.

But is it a good or a bad thing?

The industry of influencers has been criticized quite a lot in the past few years.  Some say that this is simply another symptom of materialism, while others argue that influencers are actually helpful in selling products through product placements.

Luckily, both sides can agree on one thing: companies should not bribe influencers to promote their products. Many big names in the industry have been caught up in scandals involving paid promotion and thus they were banned from Instagram and other social media platforms.