Instagram, having gathered more than 1 billion monthly users has become one of the favorite social network to reach people. Many brands are leveraging this opportunity to create brand awareness and achieve other marketing goals
Even some individuals who have succeeded in gathering a large number of followers have been smiling at the banks as they are regularly chased by big brands and companies.
Influencer marketing has no doubt been a great deal in the digital marketing world same way word of mouth is; in traditional marketing
But this opportunity to make money on Instagram has been limited to only people who have made their ground and gathered a large number of followers on the social network.
It is especially a challenge if you don't have at least 10,000 followers already, which is believed to be a milestone that suddenly opens the door to being approached by brands.
Apart from brands approaching you at this point, Instagram also allows you the much coveted "Swip-Up" feature on your stories. That feature alone converts a whooping 12-25% per story. No wonder brands come after you at this stage
If you fall into the category of people who have been sidelined or still trying to figure how to make money on Instagram due to few follower counts, here is the good news:
You can make money on Instagram even if you have fewer than 10,000 followers!
How?
To begin...
Choose a Niche:
If you really want to make money on Instagram, You need to have a personal brand that is built around a theme or topic of interest. This is referred to as a niche.
Focusing on this niche or chosen topic will create some sought of connection between you and other people who also interested in such topic.
Build Relationships and Engagement
The major reason why Brands target people with large number of followers is because of the influence they have on their audience. Their large audience make it easy for them to gather more likes and comments.
So the number one thing to focus on in this journey to Instagram marketing is building relationships with the people in your niche and Keeping your audience engaged
How can you do this?
Create Interesting, engaging contents that is related to your tribe (my personal word for people who share the same interest with you). Contents they can vibe along with. And be consistent in doing this
Don't forget to cement your relationships with your tribe by engaging with their contents too. Like their photos, comment on their posts and reply to their stories.
This way, they are moved to return the gesture by showing you more love and engagements.
Now Lets move to the real deal
How to make money on Instagram with less than 10k followers
Although you only have access to few tools that can help you monetize If you have not reached the 10,000 follower benchmark on Instagram, there are still other ways you can go around making money
1. Make money on Instagram from Sponsored Posts
Sponsored posts are very common ways Influencers make money. They get paid by brands to create posts or stories that talk about their brands or advertise their products.
To be able to monetize through sponsored Posts, you need to have gained a strong online presence, engagement and most of all, trust from your followers.
How can you get brands to sponsor you when you don't have much followers?
Its simple.
Followership is just one out of the reasons brands sponsor Influencers. They also look at your online presence, relationship with your followers and engagement rate. Since at this stage you already have that, It is likely that brands will approach you first even with under 10,000 followers.
There are many smaller companies interested in starting influencer marketing on IG. Some of them cannot afford bigger Influencers, So they usually start out by reaching out to individual accounts with smaller following but impressive engagement rates
2. Make money on instagram by Becoming an Affiliate
Unlike influencers whose primary aim is to grow brand awareness, an affiliate's focus is to get people to click on links and make a purchase. This is the only way they get commissions from sales. I explained more on this in my guide on
affiliate marketing
You can become an affiliate for different brands by promoting their products and receiving commission on what you sell. This can be done with the use of promo codes or by creating engaging posts that captures your audience's attention and letting them know they can find the product link on your bio
Usually, you wont get huge commissions because only smaller companies would accept you as an affiliate because of your follower count. But once you work with many affiliates, you can always build your way up the ladder and eventually go for bigger companies that are willing to share higher percentages with you
3. Make money on Instagram by Drop-shipping of Products
Dropshipping is a business model where you can sell products online without any need to hold inventory, storage, packing or shipping of Items.
All you need do is to receive an order from a customer at your own set price, remove your profit and send the the product's order to the supplier. They will deliver the product at the doorstep of the customer
Because dropshipping has less to no risk, many marketers prefer to use Instagram as their main marketing channel. They just make sure their audience know how to order for the products
4. Make money on Instagram by Selling your own products
Selling of products is another way to make money on Instagram without you needing to have as many as 10,000 followers.
If you own an eCommerce store, you can leverage Instagram to market your products. You or someone else can take attractive pictures showcasing the products.
For example, if you sell clothes or shoes, you can get a model to wear them and take pictures with a nice background that makes the product stand out.
Make sure you have a good camera. Instagram users are known to love good quality images and wouldn't even look twice at your feed if they contain poor low-quality photos or videos. Besides, a bad quality image can mean a low quality product too
Don't forget to post your products on your stories. Stories are a great way to get creative and get people engaged with your content. You can include stickers like polls, locations and even countdowns to create in the the fear of missing out on great offers
Since you don't have the "Swipe up" feature on your stories yet, you can include stickers that say things like "tap here" which will bring users directly to your post. Dont for get to use "link in bio" to urge your audience to visit your profile and click on your website link
5. Make Money from Instagram by Selling Services
Instagram is a good way to reach out to people and attract prospective clients. There are countless number of accounts who make money on Instagram by selling services like Photographic sessions, make up sessions, tattoos, personal training, hair styling and so on
Put yourself in front of customers by finding influencers with massive following and businesses in your niche and geographical area. Follow many of their followers. Some or most of them might likely follow back.
It is possible that they may see your post and book an appointment with you especially if you or a better or cheaper service
Conclusion
Those are easy ways to make money from Instagram even if your followers don't number into 10,000. Whichever aspect you choose to follow, don't forget to keep your personal brand in mind and treat what you do as a business.
The more confident you are in what you offer, the stronger your message will be to your target audience which will in turn endear them to your content leading to more engagement.
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