In the part-1 of this discussion HERE, we got to know the various ways of earning through Instagram. Now let us discuss all about 'Followers'. This is what really matters. Because we know, all those 'ways' we talked about, come knocking on your door themselves, if you have a huge amount of followers.
Accept this, you get frustrated to see big influencers earning thousands of dollars (lakhs of rupees) for just 1 post, and you struggle to gain just 10 more followers. You want to be the next big influencer.
How Many followers do you need to make money?
It depends!
It sounds negative, but this works in positive way for you. When brands are looking to work with influencers, they want their marketing budget well-spent. What brands really look at is how well your audience is engaged, no matter the follower count. Because that means more product awareness, and potential sales, for them.
Engagement is the KEY!!
Technically you may earn with only 2000 followers, or with a million followers. But the earning is NOT always proportional to your followers count only. Engagement in your posts is very important. If people do not like, share, or comment on your posts, the brands will understand the followers are not even looking into those.
So yes, the Engagement Rate (total number of comments/ likes divided by number of followers, multiplied by 100) should be high, for you to be successful. For that, Quality and Regularity must be maintained. 4%-6% engagement rate is considered HIGH, and rates over 10% are considered VIRAL.
Popular 'Niches' make more followers
70% of people make their purchasing decisions over social media, and most of them rely on influencers’ opinions. If you are passionate about any particular niche and share genuine, great quality reviews and promotions of your loved products, you can earn a huge amount of money.
Some of the most popular niches on Instagram are Health/Wellness/Fitness, Travel, Fashion, Beauty, Business, Wealth/Finance, Luxury, and Lifestyle. Creators with these niches get fast and steady followers. Many records show that a lot of micro-influencers also (around 5000 followers) received regular sponsorship deals, and eventually gained millions of followers.
Go Live!! Interact Personally
People simply want to connect personally with anyone they are following. In every platform. Instagram is no different. Use Instagram Live, to go live sometimes. Talk, interact with your followers. Share your authentic thoughts and plans. This practice will build trust and will bring more followers.
Optimize your Profile
People, the brands, everybody get the first impression about you from your profile page. Optimize it. Do not make it look clumsy and unprofessional. These 4 are the main aspects- Username, Profile Photo, Instagram Bio, Website Url.
Aesthetic and Quality
This is a No-Compromise zone. Instagram is a visual medium, and your photos/ videos MUST be exceptionally high quality. Millions of posts in the feed they scroll, not even half-a-second they look into any particular. So among that, if you need to stick their eyes into your post, and click that follow button, make no compromise with quality. Give it your best, always.
Color and Space- are 2 main factors here. Try to use uniform colors. Try to use a similar, consistent Filter to all your posts. Make the spacing aesthetically beautiful. Just do not shoot somewhere that is a clustered, messed-up space.
Use #Hashtags carefully
As earlier said, high engagement is a must for Instagram success, and to get engagement, and eventually more followers, you must use proper hashtags always. And you should not waste them. Just do not keep adding the popular and most used hashtags that Instagram suggests automatically (Like #instagood, #bestoftheday, etc).
You may use some of those (use regularly then), but more importantly, find the hashtags that are absolutely relevant, customized for your niche. To your products. That practice will gain you consistent followers.
Also, share your story with care, with a personal touch. Tell your audience the story behind your post, your feelings about it. The audience should connect and feel relatable to it.
Plan ahead and post Daily is possible
This is a critical field, that needs hard work and strategy. You must be consistent with your posts, you have to stay relevant, yet you should not annoy your followers. The best practice is to post 1 post daily. Posting every 3-4 hours may annoy your audience, and if you just avoid the hard work, and post every 3-4 days, then you will not stay relevant. Your audience won’t see your posts enough and your competitors will win over you.
To post every day, you need to plan. Create a social media calendar to help you become more consistent with Instagram. And make room for probable changes. Sometimes you might go to a cool mall mid-week and want to post a photo of your new platter. If all of your posts are scheduled already, you won’t be able to.
Tag the Brands
If you tag the brands and vendors in your posts, it will build your Instagram followers quickly. Not only will it notify the people you tagged, but also expand the reach of your photo. The profile you tagged, may want to re-share the photo on their feed and tag YOU back!
This will result in even more exposure and credibility for your business.
Call for Action
Call your followers to get engaged in your posts. Ask them to share their views, put their questions, and so on. Think ahead, what your audience might be interested to talk about. And trick them to ask those questions in the comment box. More engagement will bring more followers.
Tricks & Tips
Avoid fake followers. Do not use Instagram bots that generate followers for you. They are harmful in the long run.
Share your Instagram on EVERY possible platform. Use all your other social accounts, share links in popular blog posts, YouTube video comments, and so on.
Take note of your posts that get more engagement, more likes from your followers. Share more of those posts. Feed the audience what THEY WANT.
Make your Unique identity. Put clever and unique captions to the posts. Do not be like everybody else.
Cases & Numbers
Let's begin with these.
Christiano Ronaldo makes $1,604,000 (₹ 11 crore 22 lakh) for EVERY post.
Dwayne Johnson makes $1,523,000 (₹ 10 crore 66 lakh)For EVERY post.
Or our desi Virat Kohli makes $680,000 (₹ 5 crore) for EVERY post.
But you are not a celebrity (who knows? maybe someday you will be).
But here is what ForbesIndia officially says.
Micro-influencers (between 1,000 and 10,000 followers) make an average $1,420 per month.That is almost ₹1 Lakh.
Mega-influencers (more than one million followers) make $15,356 per month. That is ₹10 Lakh.
Instagram REELS pay more these days.
To attract more content creators, the Meta-owned (Facebook) photo-sharing platform Instagram is now paying bonuses of up to $10,000 (₹ 7,00,000) to those who post videos on Reels.
That is why we see a load of creators posting reels these days. Mainly in India, after the Tik-Tok ban. You didn't know they earn this much. Right?