Just like all others, you too may want to become an Instagram influencer and get paid. After all, the average price for any sponsored Instagram post is about $300! That is the minimum. If you can really make a mark as a paid Instagram influencer you can earn anywhere between twenty to twenty-five thousand dollars for each post! That is a lot of money.
However, this concept of getting your posts sponsored may seem a bit strange to you. You may even feel like it is a joke posting pictures of your brunch and getting paid. The truth is you will need to be more marketable to achieve this feat. The best way to do so is by using social media channels and there are a lot of these. You will see money pouring in much more than you think.
Over the years, Instagram has become an incredibly popular channel for business brands for promoting their products. In fact, according to a study by Influencer Central it is found that the consumers consider Instagram as the sixth most-effective platform that influences their buying decisions.
The concept of micro-influencers
However, looking at its tremendous popularity you may feel that the Instagram platform is too crowded and it will not be easy for you to stand out from this large crowd. But however here are a few things that may encourage you:
- Almost all business brands quickly realize the power of the Instagram followers to promote any given product or services
- You can use the micro-influencers who have a small number of Instagram followers compared to the major players
- You can use their followers and see the highest level of engagement out of their audience.
The concept of using micro-influencers works in this way: The followers of the influencers typically share the same level of trust, have similar interest and liking and they genuinely believe the advice of the influencers. If you can use the right strategy, you can put these Instagram followers to the best use for your brand promotion. It works this way:
- Your audience will consider you to be one of their real friends
- They will trust your advice more while looking for purchasing decisions and
- You will thereby raise the chances of you getting sponsored.
With a little bit of effort and strategic approach you will find it easy to get sponsored on this platform even if you have no followers on Instagram currently.
Tips to get sponsored on Instagram
In order to make your efforts easier, there are a few specific things to do if you want to get sponsored on Instagram.
- First, you should define your brand so that you get the best level of engagement. Consider your niche while defining and use the most relevant content according to your product. After all, it is your brand that you want to establish. Apart from that, you must also consider the overall aesthetic, the style of your posts, the message, and cohesion in the feed them to be very specific. This will make your posts distinguishable and unique. Additionally, you should also create a website that has a similar message and aesthetic to connect your Instagram brand with social media to make a better online presence. When you unify your social media accounts more it will be easier for your brand to distinguish and reach out to more people and tell how you can help them.
- Next, you should know your audience well because it is the most critical aspect to ensure that you create a convincing approach to make a brand work with you. This is a mutually beneficial approach. If you know your audience well you will be able to identify correctly the brands that will benefit the most when they use you as their sponsor. Gather the basic info such as age, gender, and geographical location of the core demographic. Also find out the posts that are liked the most, the times of day when they respond best to any content, and the inference from the data. Typically, the demographic information will help you a great deal to pitch partnerships with the brands.
- Another thing that you should remember is to post consistently. According to the research reports of 14 studies conducted by Co Schedule of the frequency of posts on social media sites, it is said that for Instagram at least one post a day is mostly preferred but you may post even more than three times a day. They also found that the best time to post is from 8:00 AM to 9:00 AM and 2:00 AM. Posting at least once a day is critical because Instagramalgorithm always favors fresh and new content. If you are not consistent with your posts then soon your followers, if any, will un-follow you and may even forget about you. Make sure that you first figure out what will work best for you as well as your audience. Once again the knowledge of your audience regarding their liking and preferences will come handy in this matter. You may need some trial and error and a few Instagram metrics tools to find this out.
- Lastly, make sure that you use hashtags and geotags as these will make your content more visible and discoverable and help you to grow your following. Ideally, you can use up to 30 hashtags for each post but it is good to stick to nine hashtags as that is found to be the optimal number to boost engagement, according to research. Most importantly, make sure that all hashtags used are the most relevant to your content and these are not banned or broken. It is also important to use geotags for a different reason as that will help people of a specific location to find you if they are interested.
All these will help you to gain more followers as well as to make a better brand appeal to reach to a certain demographic. You will be in a win-win situation if you blend Instagram and social media.