Instagram is truly a force to be reckoned with. But did you know that a lot of people are actually leveraging it for profit? Can you really make money with Instagram, or is this a social-media myth?
Making Money With Instagram
As it turns out, this huge social media platform can be incredibly beneficial for income.
We’re going to start by looking at what Instagram has to offer and then the steps that you can follow to make some money.
The Basics: The Giant Of Instagram
According to 2019 statistics, 1 billion people use Instagram every month. In fact, as far as social networks go, only Facebook and YouTube have more users! And what is even more incredible is that of the 1 billion people who log into Instagram every month, about 500 million of them use the platform every day.
What started out as a simple platform for sharing photos has turned into a massive social media monster. Instagram is easily one of the top social media sites online… and now, many people are using it to earn an income as they share posts!
There are a few different ways to do it. But in this article, we are going to cover the most common ways that people make extra money with Instagram.
Step 1… Start An Account And Start Posting
This is a pretty simple part of the equation. I would recommend basing your Instagram account on something that you love. It could be video games, books, news, fashion, photography, etc. Ideally, your account would focus on…
- Something that you are passionate about
- Something that you can sell or leverage for profit
In other words, you need some kind of product. In the examples above, you could put together a number of different digital products to help you earn some extra cash.
- Love video games? Offer online game coaching for players who want to get better
- Love books? Write a book of your own to market, or create a writing class where you teach people how to write books.
- Love news? Start a podcast and build a following so that you can sell advertising
- Love fashion? Start your own clothing line and design a few items to get the process started. You could also try being an Instagram model
- Love photography? Start an Instagram to either promote your photography business, or to sell a class on photography that people can download from your website
There are a number of ways to go about this. But in general, you want to…
- Create fun, engaging, valuable content that your target audience will love
- Use relevant hashtags (at least 15-20 per post) to help your post appear in places where your target audience will be looking
- Post as many awesome posts every day as possible! The more you post, the better off you will be.
- You also have to stay consistent with it. If you don’t, you’ll lose followers and you won’t be able to grow your channel as fast. The best advice is to try to post at least once, twice, or three times every day… hash tagging on every post.
Step 2… Create A Bio With A Link To Your Website
The next step is to upload a good picture of yourself and write a bio. Your bio needs to be pretty brief on Instagram, so be original and try to give your followers a pretty good idea of exactly who you are and what you are doing.
But the most important thing about this part is that your bio is where you can put your link! You can link to your blog, your website, your podcast, etc… and then, you can sell your products, advertise your services, or further engage your audience.
You can even put funnels or sales pages on the other end of the link. But the main idea is that this will create a path for your traffic, to lead them right to whatever mechanism you plan to use to earn money.
Obviously, you will need to get your website into great shape to start converting traffic to sales. This may cost some money, but it actually doesn’t have to be as expensive as you may think.
How Much Does It Cost To Earn Money With Instagram?
If you plan to use the method outlined above, the biggest challenge is to create your own website. This could cost you less than $100 if you choose to use WordPress. Or, it could cost you more if you choose to have someone build a website for you.
You may also need to publish to your website regularly to help you build and maintain an audience… so a blog, podcast, or YouTube channel may be required at some point to help you maximize your efforts.
You will also need to invest some time into whatever it is you plan on selling. Do you plan on selling a book? Do you plan on selling digital music downloads? Do you plan on selling your art?
Whatever it is, you will need to be sure that you can facilitate the purchase. And of course, in order to do this, you will need to make sure that your product or service is ready for business.
I have even seen Instagram models earn money by modeling certain outfits for clothing brands! There are all kinds of ways to leverage your IG to earn money online.
How Much Can You Earn On Instagram?
Some people leverage Instagram to earn thousands of dollars every month… but you will generally find that your earnings will correspond a lot with certain variables.
- How many followers do you have?
- How many times a day do you post?
- How much time are you spending researching your hashtags?
- How much time and effort have you put into your website?
- How much time and effort have you put into focusing-in on your target audience?
These are all factors that can contribute to your success with earning money through Instagram using this method.
There are also other ways to earn money through Instagram, though. If you are more of an influencer, or do something in the entertainment industry, you may be able to leverage Patreon to help you kick-start your way to better success. You may also be able to sell subscription-based content through your website, or offer a store of products in addition to your book, class, etc.
Affiliate marketing can also be done through Instagram, to a point… though you will still need to point it at your website, blog, podcast, or YouTube channel to make this work.
My Personal Feelings About Making Money With Instagram
Personally, I really like the idea behind this side hustle. I am actually a pretty big fan of Instagram, and can definitely see the benefits.
It is also not necessarily the right platform for everyone, though. The limitations within Instagram make it so that it is far more suited to photographers, models, and those types of businesses than to video or music-centric media. But… there are still ways to make all of those things work on Instagram if you can get creative.
And yes, it absolutely takes time to build up a following… but some people earn awesome money on their traffic from it.
I am not sure that I would recommend that someone build an entire business that is dependent upon IG to survive. But once you get started and you start to build up traffic, you could very easily start putting more of a focus on other platforms as well.
I do, however, firmly believe that you must have your own website to start earning awesome money on Instagram, or any other social-media site… especially if you plan on selling products or affiliate marketing.
There is only so much you can do with IG, or any other social media platform, without your own website. So just make sure to make a plan and consider that before you invest too much time into something that you may just abandon later.
But… with that being said… you can start building an Instagram account now, and work on the other parts later on, once you’ve built up some traffic. And as always, I definitely recommend that you choose to IG about something that inspires you and makes you happy!
Passion and interest are very important when it comes to starting a business like this. But one of the best pieces of advice that you will ever hear about Instagram is this… that it takes patience. Patience is a huge piece of the puzzle.
Rome was not built in a day, and neither will your social media empire be!
So be patient, work hard, and commit to Instagramming about something you love! And when you start to see those followers increasing, you can then start thinking of ways to monetize!
Our Final Opinion Of Instagram
Can you really make money with Instagram, and should you start working on it today?
There are a lot of ways to make money online. Some are good, some not, but ALL of them are still just trading hours for dollars.
Starting your own affiliate website really is the best way to build passive income and “make money while you sleep”. Affiliate websites earn income in every timezone, and can be instantly accessed by billions of smartphones across the globe!
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