One of the first metrics that users and brands look at to determine account influence is your follower count, mostly because it is front and center for everyone to see. Even so, there is no set Instagram follower number to make money in 2018 that works for every influencer in every niche. In today’s post, I am going to go over how to approach your follower count and when should you monetize them.
One of the most popular ways (if not THE most popular way) that influencers make money on Instagram is through sponsored posts. Influencers are responsible for setting their own rate for working with brands, so the income potential varies even more here.
For instance, an account just branching out into influencer marketing and sponsored posts may start by charging $25-$50 a post and accounts that are already established as influencers with 30-80k followers can charge hundreds of dollars per post. Once influencers reach over 100k followers, they tend to start charging at least $1,000 for just one post such as Sam Ushiro who has 283k followers and charges $1,500 a post. Not to mention, celebrities like Kim Kardashian West with 107 million followers can rake in over $500,000 for a sponsored Instagram post.
Couple influencers’ wide variety of rates with the varying amount of brands they work with and the number of sponsored posts received, and it becomes completely possible to make a full-time living just by posting on Instagram!
Engagement rate is gold
While the number of followers you have can be anywhere from 1,000 to 1 million to make money from Instagram, one thing that is constant is high engagement rates. There’s no point in posting content on Instagram if your followers aren’t seeing or interacting with it.
For instance, imagine you had $100 and wanted to make more money with it. You could invest it with a person who had hundreds of thousands of potential buyers at their fingertips, but you noticed that only a hundred or so were actually paying attention to what they said. Your best bet would be investing that $100 with someone who only had a couple thousand potential buyers, but they are all constantly paying attention to what they say.
The key to making money on Instagram is not a follower count. It is having good a engagement rate. Your engagement rate is the total number of likes and comments on a certain number of posts, divided by the number of posts, divided by followers, multiplied by 100. (There are plenty of online tools available if you don’t feel like doing the math yourself!)
Later, an Instagram marketing and scheduling platform, states that engagement rates between 2-3% are average and rates between 4-6% are considered high. An engagement rate that breaches double digits is considered to be “viral.”
When your engagement rate is high, that tells brands that your followers are hearing what you are saying and, better yet, listening! They will invest their money with you because it will, in turn, result in your followers buying their products.
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