Did you know Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson is one of Instagram’s highest-paid celebrities? According to social media marketing firm Hopper HQ, the actor can charge advertisers approximately US$1 million for each sponsored post. Of course, he is a celebrity with over 189 million followers, and maybe you looking at your few thousand followers and wondering if you can have your slice of cake. You don’t have to really be worried about the number of followers on your Instagram as success is mainly more attributed to engagement, having a community, your influence, type of audience, etc.
You need to amass an audience around what you do and take advantage of your influence and reach to make money on Instagram. So we going to be talking on how best you can take advantage of your Instagram and earn a few bucks and will try as much as possible to contextualize the ways considering the Zimbabwean and regional audiences and markets.
Here are some local influencers you can always take a look at and find some inspiration from Comic Pastor, Nigel The Slick Pastor, Ray Vines, etc. and many others even from those who follow you or the ones you follow.
The trick is to show your personality rather than just your pictures this way you become authentic and remember authenticity is key on social media. Your success will also depend on your industry e.g. Fashion, Beauty, etc.
Sell Products & Services
You can use Instagram to sell your products e.g. clothes, makeup, food, etc. and you can also sell your services like consulting photography, and many others. You also use your influence, reach, and engagement to advertise and market your products. I have seen some guys even those with few followers succeeding in this method, so this might be your starting point if you want to make money on Instagram. So what are you waiting for, niche down, grow your brand, post relevantly, engage always, advertise and make a sell, Wow!
Sponsored Posts
Do you have the voice, your audience can listen to? Have you amassed the power or influence that your followers can listen to? Do they see you as an expert or trend-setter. Maybe you just have the numbers and engagement, then you might consider sponsored posts as your source of revenue. According to Wikipedia, a sponsored post, also known as a promoted post, is a post to any community-driven notification-oriented website which is explicitly sponsored as an advertisement by a particular company in order to draw a large amount of popularity through user promotion and moderation to the most active or most viewed page on the website.
So on Instagram, a brand might pay you to post something about what they are selling, initiatives, campaigns, etc. Basically it’s all hinged on your reach and engagement type of audience, for example, if you have a vibrant and engaged diaspora community, money remittance companies might want to work with you to push their brand and business to your community, so you might not have many followers but your community might be the most relevant to the advertisers.
Affiliate Marketing
Earn your cut for every sale that comes through you, isn’t it so nice? You need to join affiliate programs so that you can add affiliate links to your Instagram and make a commission on the sales you generate. There are many affiliate programs that you can join like Amazon Affiliates, Shareasale, Shopify Affiliate, Clickbank, Awin, etc. but this is mainly dependent on your industry, audience, market and etc. You can always include your affiliate link in your bio and direct some posts to your affiliate link.
IGTV Channel
This seems to be the in-thing and one content creators can always take advantage of because Instagram rewards user accounts that are actively engaged with its tools, and right now, that’s IGTV and Instagram Live (which can be recorded and uploaded to IGTV). So you can have your tutorials, videos, etc. then linking them out to your shop, affiliate products, website, etc.
