Do you ever scroll through your social feeds and wonder, how do influencers quit their full-time jobs to run their accounts and make money on Instagram?

Instagrammers who have created an audience infatuated with the content they create, have the opportunity to explore multiple streams of revenue to make a living, make some extra cash, or even just benefit from getting free products. 

Getting Your Followers to Convert to Customers

By now, you probably gathered having an audience is step 1 of how to make money on Instagram. The key is taking that audience and targeting the right customers for your brand. If your followers are engaged and trust your opinion, they will likely turn into customers. 

To engage your audience, you’ll need to showcase your products appropriately. With so many companies turning to social media to sell products, producing and posting high-quality content is crucial. To drive traffic to these posts and get in front of a larger audience, make sure you have an effective hashtag strategy. If you don’t know where to begin here, try using a hashtag generator to simplify the process. 

Posting on Instagram is only half the battle when convincing followers to buy your products or the ones you’re endorsing. You’ll likely need to drive traffic to other sites and blogs to generate sales. Due to Instagram’s limits on clickable content, it’s important to optimize your Instagram bio. To make the most of your bio you’ll want to include a link to your website.

If you have multiple links you need to post at the same time (many bloggers will come across this dilemma) use Linktree to link several links in your bio at once. You only get one chance to link in Instagram. Make it do more.

This all sounds great, but what if you’re thinking, I don’t have a huge following yet. Using a high-quality growth service like Kicksta can help you grow a targeted following of users in your niche audience, and who are interested in your brand.

Advertising on Instagram

Simply posting is no longer enough to get the word out about your products, brand, services, etc. Thanks to Instagram’s algorithm, you have to pay to play as those in the industry say. What this means is you will have to run Instagram advertisements to stay relevant and compete against other users. There are many different types of Instagram advertisements, but for the sake of time, we’ll highlight the most common: photo, story, and carousel ads.

Any photo posted to your feed can be turned into an advertisement. These are the most common type of ads on Instagram. Users are using photos to promote products, services, brands, events, and giveaways so often you may not even realize some posts are paid ads. 

Photo ads include content relevant to what’s trying to be promoted, give the audience additional info about the product, tag the brand, and usually include an advertisement or brand-specific hashtag. Those with Instagram business accounts will even promote photos just to get more reach on their photos. Carousel Ads are those with more than one photo in the advertisement. Lastly, story ads are promoted through Instagram stories. These can be created in Ads Manager which we will discuss in more depth below.  

If you’re not sure how to advertise, there are two different outlets, either through Facebook Ads Manager or directly on the Instagram app. If you’re on both platforms, which we highly suggest you should be, the best approach is activating campaigns on both networks on a campaign-by-campaign basis. 

Facebook has the largest user base and can increase your brand’s visibility without targeting a specific age group. To use Facebook Ads Manager you first have to set up a business manager account. Once this step is completed you’ll be able to use Ads Manager to set up ad campaigns, ad sets, and ads. This platform allows you to target specific audiences and monitor campaign performance metrics. 

Instagram has stronger organic reach, making it great for businesses and brand promotion. First, if you haven’t already, convert your profile to a business account. Then go to your profile, tap ‘promotions’, then ‘create promotion’. Choose a post you’d like to promote and fill in the details and tap ‘create promotion’. Your ad will first be submitted for review and hopefully approved if it follows all of Instagram’s terms and conditions.

In terms of cost for these advertisements, you can expect to pay between 20 cents and 2 dollars per click on an Instagram campaign. The more money you pay the longer your advertisement will run or reach more individuals. 

The additional reach your posts will get from advertisements will ultimately yield greater sales because more people will see your products, business, or service and want to purchase. 

Sell Your Products Directly on the App

Still wondering how to make money on Instagram? Instagram recently made it easier with the launch of the shoppable posts feature. This business-friendly feature allows you to discover, shop and check out all without leaving the app.

To sell on Instagram, businesses must create a Facebook Catalog with Facebook Business Manager, then create a shop on Facebook with Shopify or BigCommerce. You’ll next want to connect your online shop to your Instagram business account. Like any other post, upload the photos you want to tag and tag the products like you would another user. This will make it so much easier for consumers to shop your page. 

In Summary

To recap, if you grow your audience, optimize your Instagram bio, effectively use Instagram advertisements, and utilize the shoppable posts feature, you’ll be on your way to bringing in the cash through your Instagram account. Take the phrase “Do it for the ‘gram” seriously, and this time do it and get paid.

Rafaella Aguiar is the Director of Marketing at Kicksta.  She specializes in content and social media marketing. You can find more daily marketing tips from her at kicksta.co.