It’s no surprise you want to become a paid Instagram influencer. The average price for a sponsored Instagram post is $300, and if you become more successful, for example like yogi Rachel Brathen, you could earn $25,000 per post. But the idea that you get Instagram sponsored might seem laughable to you. You’re not posting pictures skydiving in Australia — you’re posting pictures of your brunch. However, you could be more marketable than you think.
Instagram has become an insanely popular channel for brands to promote their products and improve brand awareness. Influencer Central found that consumers consider Instagram to be the sixth most effective at influencing their purchasing decisions.
Instagram’s popularity might make you feel like this platform is already too crowded for you to stand out. But here’s the thing — brands are quickly realizing the power of normal people to promote their products. Micro-influencers who have a small number of followers compared to the big players get the most engagement out of their audience.
Think of it this way: I’m going to trust my best friend’s advice over Kim Kardashian’s when I’m purchasing a product. I trust my best friend, we share similar interests, and I know she’s genuine with her advice (no offense, Kim … ).
It’s the same concept for micro-influencers — with the right strategy, your audience will begin to see you as one of their real friends. The more they trust your advice when seeking out purchasing decisions, the more likely they will sponsor your brand.
Here, we will go through everything you need to do to get sponsored on Instagram, even if you currently have zero followers. Keep reading to get started.
- How to Get Sponsored on Instagram
- What’s a Sponsored Instagram Post?
- Using #ad and #spon Hashtags
1. Define your brand.
If you can clearly define your niche, you will see the best engagement. Do you want to post content related to food and health, or focus more on fashion? Whatever the case, it’s important to establish your brand.
Besides the type of content you post, branding has a lot of things to do with your overall aesthetic. How do you want to style your posts? What’s your messaging? To further solidify your brand, you might want to consider creating a cohesive feed theme (use these feeds for inspiration).
Specificity is key. A good influencer’s posts are distinguishable and unique — when a user is flipping through her feed, she’ll be able to pause and recognize every time she sees a post from that influencer. As she continues to see similar content, she’ll grow to trust that brand as an expert in the field. If the influencer suddenly and randomly changed course, the user might not understand or trust the content anymore.
Additionally, you should connect your Instagram brand with an online presence. Creating a website with similar aesthetic and messaging is a good way to do this — the more you unify your social media accounts, the easier it will be for brands to realize how you can help them.
2. Know your audience.
Knowing your audience is critical for convincing a brand to work with you. It’s mutually beneficial for you, as well — if you understand your audience, you’re able to correctly identify which brands will see the most success from using you as their sponsor.
Start by gathering the basics — what is the gender, age, and geographical location of your core demographic? Which of your posts do they like the best? What times of day do they respond best to content, and what can you infer from this?
The demographic information you gather will help you pitch partnerships with brands. Brands want to know who they can reach if they work with you. Explaining “You’ll be reaching thirty-something, working women, primarily from New York, who often use Instagram right after waking up in the morning and prefer fitness content” is certainly more powerful than saying, “You’ll be reaching women.”
3. Post consistently.
CoSchedule gathered research from 14 studies to identify how often you should post on social media sites. For Instagram, they found that you should post a minimum of once a day, and can post upwards of three times a day.
CoSchedule also found 8:00 AM to 9:00 AM, and 2:00 AM, are the best times to post.
To increase your followers, you must post at least once a day and be persistent with posting. Instagram’s algorithm favors new and fresh content, and you don’t want your audience to unfollow you or forget about you from lack of consistency.
However, you’ll need to figure out what works best for you and your audience. Perhaps your followers feel bombarded when you post three times a day, or maybe they prefer it. Maybe your audience engages most with your posts at noon. You will need to measure with Instagram metrics tools to figure this out.