For many of us, becoming an Instagram health and wellness influencer seems like a pipe dream. Getting paid to post food, clothes, or even vacations is something we generally view as reserved for the mega-popular. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Believe it or not, with the right approach to building an engaging audience, you can become a paid Instagram influencer within a few months. Here’s how:
Develop An Audience
If you’re going to be selling advertising on your page, one of the first steps is to develop an audience. While it might seem intuitive to increase your popularity on Instagram, getting into the nitty-gritty of how that’s done isn’t as easy as you might think. Depending on the type of audience you’re looking to capture versus the business that will pay you to advertise to them, there’s quite a bit of science (and storytelling) to decipher through.
As Instagram is a massive platform, one of the first steps you should consider is what type of audience is currently visiting your page as well as who are you trying to attract. For example, according to Pew Research, 71 percent of 18 to 24-year-olds are currently on Instagram, which goes to show how vast of an audience you could capture with younger demographics. However, if you’re aiming to create an Instagram that showcases upscale restaurants, then this might not be your ideal demographic. Do your homework on the type of audience you’re trying to build, as well as how you might want to start following them, as the name of the game is gearing towards engagement.
Keep Engagement High
Engagement is perhaps the most important metric for any social media marketer, but especially for influencers. Essentially, this is the amount that people will “like” or “comment” on your posts, which in turn is how often you’ll show up in their feed again; because while having a lot of followers is great, they’re also meaningless without engagement. However, increasing who engages with you is where the meat and potatoes of being an effective Instagram influencer.
The basic goal of increasing engagement is to start engaging with others as much as you encourage others to engage with you. This includes practical tools, such as how hashtags can increase engagement by 12.6 percent (as noted by Sprout Social), to more general items like posing a question at the end of a post. Furthermore, don’t be afraid to experiment and vary up different strategies, figuring out what works best for your audience. Remember, a big part of establishing and forming an audience on Instagram is finding your relationship with your audience, which sometimes requires you to go with your gut.
Know Your Worth
Once you’ve started to pick up steam on who your audience is and how much they’re engaging with you, it’s time to start putting a specific dollar amount towards your account. Granted, while you probably won’t become Kylie Jenner rich off of an Instagram post overnight, there is some serious potential in treating this as any other advertising opportunity. According to CPC Strategy, the average cost per post for 100,000 followers is $1,000, which would most likely take your account forever to develop. However, that’s not to say you still can charge the same amount for a different set of services.
The biggest consideration you should make when addressing your price point is the type of audience you already have versus what businesses will pay to get in front of them. For example, if I know for sure my audience is whiskey drinkers, then reaching out to distilleries and breweries would give them more surefire customers and you a better-targeted customer. From there, it’s not unreasonable to charge hundreds to thousands, especially if you can back up engagement or other metrics that justify the price point. While this process is going to take some trial and error to develop, once you prove your success, word of mouth will spread quickly.
Start Small to Mid-Size
Finally, although it can be tempting to go after those big budget brands in the hope that they’ll shell out a little bit towards your brand, that’s not always an effective means of outreach. Instead, a better suggestion would be to go after those that are still trying to develop their presence amongst your audience. Even those companies who made between $1 million to $2 million a year have a decent size budget because as noted by Small Business Trends, most companies spend approximately 2 percent of their total revenue on advertising. And if you’re going to try tackle this, start with those who you’re most passionate about.
Make a list of 25 to 50 companies that you feel as though fall within your income range as well as could use your audience. As influencer marketing is something a lot of companies might be hesitant about, it’s helpful to provide as much metrics as possible, as well as how it can specifically help their business. When pitching, it’s also wise to point out something special that you like about their brand as it not only helps you establish a bond but show that you’re someone they can trust to associate with their company. Although you won’t be perfect at pitching at first, with enough practice you’ll develop a solid relationship with those to work with for a long time.
What excites you the most about becoming an Instagram influencer? Comment with your answers below!