How to make money on Instagram: A detailed guide on how to succeed and live the life of your dreams

Be interesting to followers

Although the number of followers is not the main criterion that advertisers take into account, it is still an important aspect. In order to be advertiser-attractive, you need some subscribers. And to have subscribers, you need content.

To build a quality fan base on Instagram, a few basic rules apply. All of them have to do with the content - it should be of high quality(since Instagram is a social network focused on visuals, think that rather than posting one bad picture, it's better not to post anything at all), consistent(think about the goal you want to follow and also the overall focus of the profile - will you be traveling? Exercise? Read? Cook? Take pictures of your pet?) and regular. To keep your fan base active enough, you should post at least one post a day. Don't forget concise (and not too long) text, which shouldn't be missing from your photos. And since people want to have fun on social media, think originality, be creative, be honest.

Of course, you can also "promote" your content and its dissemination. For example, connecting with people with the same interests is a good way to do this. You can also bet on the power of hashtags. Some of them link directly to certain communities of people - e.g. #svetuspechnych, #minveciviczazitku or even #czechgay. Moreover, as statistics from marketing agencies suggest, posts with at least one hashtag have up to 13% more reactions than posts without them (but the ideal number of hashtags for a single post is 10-12). If you're targeting a wider audience, it's definitely worth writing hashtags in English as well.

If you manage to reach several thousand followers with your content, you also become interesting to advertisers. However, don't expect paid advertising collaborations to just "fall into your lap".

Money comes first

Although financial compensation for advertising collaborations is a hot topic for influencers, few people openly talk about the specific profits they make from Instagram (apart from Leoš Mareš, who has disclosed the amounts he charges for advertising posts. The minimum for him is CZK 400,000 per post, so it is not surprising that profits from Instagram account for up to 50% of all his monthly income).

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To give you a rough idea, if a person is a microinfluencer with a few thousand followers, they will most often be offered a barter partnership (so they receive a free product or service in exchange for advertising). If it is a question of money, in any case, one cannot expect dizzying sums, usually the reward is no more than 1 500 CZK per post. A reward in the order of several thousand can be demanded for advertising cooperation by those who have 10 000 - 30 000 followers and ideally 4% engagement (and it must be said that in this case, on the contrary, barter is usually a big exception). Influencers with more than 30,000 followers charge about 10,000 CZK for advertising (but usually this is already a few photos on the profile and also repeated mentions in Stories).

A distinction should also be made between short-term/one-off advertising collaborations and long-term ones. In the first case, it is most often a couple of advertising posts and a mention in Stories, for which you can expect a few thousand (according to the criteria mentioned above). In the latter case, the influencer can promote the brand/its products on an ongoing basis, or even become its ambassador. In this case, the rewards are around 10 000 CZK with different payment frequency depending on the frequency of promotion (however, it is classically a monthly payment). However, it should be stressed that if the influencer is not represented by an agency, the setting of his "pricing policy" is purely in his hands.

Earn "on your own"

In addition to advertising collaborations based on a specific agreement, where you can support companies, services or products with your contributions, you can also use various apps, such as indaHashor Reward, to (re)earn money. On the one hand, Domestic Rewardprovides advertisers with the opportunity to set up their own campaign - to determine the overall budget, to determine the form of the intended promotional posts, to choose who can participate and for what remuneration, on the other hand, it provides this information to everyone who is active on Instagram. Anyone who meets the conditions can join the promotion and receive a reward (which is calculated both according to the number of followers of the user - where each follower can receive an average of CZK 0.07, and according to the likes the post receives - an average of CZK 0.25/likes), directly through the app.

To participate in campaigns within the Rewardfriendapp, one does not have to be a "professional influencer" at all; the requirement for most campaigns is a minimum of 1,000 followers, but there are also campaigns where the minimum number of followers is set at 100. In some cases, the advertiser requires, for example, that you purchase a product, take a picture with it and share it. It is not unusual to provide a free service (e.g. a visit to the gym, from which you post photos).

Anyone can become famous on Instagram. The important thing is to have something to say

Another way of earning money is a commission system - the so-called affiliate system, where the influencer is rewarded for every sale of the product/service they promote. While this principle works seamlessly on Facebook or blogs, in the case of Instagram the affiliate is more complicated, as in order to determine that a particular customer came based on a particular influencer's link, each needs to have their own link. However, these cannot be placed in Instagram posts, Stories (Swipe up feature) does allow this, but only if there are more than 10,000 followers. This is also why this situation is often solved with specific discount codes.

However, the principle is also quite simple with Instagram affiliates - after you have decided which brand appeals to you, you find out if it has an affiliate program (a simple Google search is enough, e.g. the e-shop Alza, the insurance company Axa, as well as many foreign companies use affiliates), which you sign up for online. Then you just need to follow the instructions - put a link or discount code in the post, on the basis of which you will be paid a reward in case of an actual purchase. This is usually based on the total value of the service/product sold, and on average it is 2-5% of the price of the physical product and 6-15% of the price of information and online products.

Practice makes perfect

No matter what your interests are or what industry you work in, Instagram can become your source of funding. And it's up to you to decide to what extent. In addition to influencer marketing itself, of course, Instagram can also be used to promote your own income-generating activities (and then the more visually appealing work you do or the more interesting things you produce, the more likely you are to attract attention) or even to start your own Insta-business.

But if you really want to become an influencer, count on the fact that behind every successful profile are hours of work. So don't expect business offers to come pouring in soon after you've gathered enough followers. So don't be afraid to approach companies about working with you - but be sure to include a media kit that shows all the important information (Instagram stats including profile traffic, active users, etc.). Another option is to partner with agencies that represent influencers. There are countless possibilities, just use them properly...

BOX: ROI

The abbreviation refers to the English Return On Investment. In the case of advertising on Instagram, ROI is of interest to advertisers who are looking to see if their profits exceeded the investment made in the campaign. The basic equation used to calculate ROI is ROI = ((profit - investment)/investment)*100 [%]. If the ROI is greater than 0%, it means that the investment has been recouped and any percentage above zero indicates the rate of appreciation. If the result is negative, it is a loss-making investment. According to statistics, the ROI for influencer marketing on Instagram is then up to 11 times higher than when using traditional Facebook or Adwords campaigns.

Quality photography is essential

Reach

The number of unique users who view your content each day is shown by the so-called reach. Currently, the (organic) reach of each Instagram post is about 1/3 of the followers of the user who posts it. This is also why Instagram is so advertiser-interesting, because on Facebook today the organic reach of posts is practically zero.

There's no such thing as a hashtag

Hashtags (or "tags") are meant to help make content more navigable. They fall into two categories - searchableand submittable. Searchable hashtags are used for searching and are denoted by # (#travel, #nature, #lgbt). Users can find content tagged in this way through filtering on the search bar. The purpose of submittable hashtags, which are quoted with the @ symbol, is to target selected feeds (e.g. @dametraveler refers to a community posting only images of women travellers) where content can be presented to a larger group of users. The handle is also used to tag specific people.