7 Ways Instagram Influencers Make Money And You Can Too

Influencers are people who use social media to promote a product or service. They are the ones who post pictures and videos on Instagram, Facebook, Tiktok or other social media platforms.

When they post a picture of themselves with a product, they are providing an endorsement of it.

Lots of people see the benefit of using Instagram as an Influencer to replace their 9-5 job to make money online from the comfort of their home.

As of me writing this article, many Instagram users are jumping on Instagram Reels to leverage this new feature of creating and uploading short videos to let the Instagram algorithm show it to as many people it thinks it can resonate with

…with the purpose of converting the viewer into an Instagram follower.

The next phase after acquiring the follower would be building trust and credibility on the Instagram platform before sending the follower to a website to get what the influencer is trying to sell them.

Here is where the term influencer kicks in, Instagram influencer.

Anyone can become an Instagram influencer but in order to become a successful one, you must laser focus on one market such as: skincare, pre-workout supplements, email marketing tools, travel, anime products, dog food, CRM software, WordPress plugins, etc.

If an Instagram influencer starts mixing in markets such as auto-car parts and gardening tools to their audience, they are destined to doom!

Think about it, it is like going to a pizza restaurant because you are craving an extra large pepperoni pizza with tons of cheese and bacon and as soon as you arrive to the counter, the cashier says “apply here to get a free pre-approved credit card with 0% APR interest rate”.

… My point exactly! People will unplug from the space they initially came into contact with because it feels like “clickbait” just like the pizza restaurant selling credit cards.

If an Instagram Influencer knows how to execute flawlessly his role, they can live off of the social media platform as long as it exists and stays relevant within the realm of the social media market.

In this blog let’s go a bit more in depth when it comes to Instagram Influencer as well as the different ways they are getting paid! If you want to become an Instagram influencer, these tactics apply to you too!

What Is Instagram Influencer Marketing?

To begin with, Influencer marketing is a way to leverage an existing fan base or build one based on the credibility of being connected to a celebrity, brand, or other subject of interest.

Marketing by itself is the act of changing people’s beliefs in order to get the sale or get them as close as possible to the sale so they can be aware of the solution to their problem.

The ways Instagram influencers promote the products or services they are attempting to sell is by using distinctive marketing techniques that can cause an epiphany inside the mind of a potential prospect to convert him or her into a buyer.

Here are 3 examples of Instagram marketing strategies influencers use:

3X Benefit Formula

This is where the Instagram Influencer talks and shows the benefits of the product on their Instagram Stories or Instagram Reels or Carousel posts or all three of them including paid ads if they want to!

A quick example could be an Influencer promoting Neighbor: A website who helps house owners rent their empty spaces in exchange for a profit:

1.- “Have a spare bedroom you are not using in your house, rent it out for money”

2.- “Get paid every 30 days making money online without doing any type of changes in your life”

3.- “Need extra money to pay your bills, rent your empty space you are not using starting today”

Purchase & You’ll Also Receive

This would be exchanging something of value for free when the customers swipes their credit card to get the offer you are promoting.

This could be a shoutout on your Instagram Stories, part of a community, a thank you letter, discount on a product, $20 gift card, etc.., The sky's the limit when it comes to this marketing strategy.

Giveaways

These are Instagram Influencers favorite methods to drive traffic to a product or services website. It’s like the example above but in this case only X amount of people will get usually a BIG REWARD for winning the contest.

The last giveaway I was part of was to win a MacPro Laptop and in order to get it, I needed to exchange my email address, tag 3 friends and follow the Instagram page and I was able to enter the contest.

Overall, Instagram influencer marketing is knowing how to drive Instagram followers from your account or from someone else's Instagram account to a website to generate leads and sales by using internet strategies.

How Are Instagram Influencers Making Money?

Most of the time Instagram influencers think that in order to start making money online with Instagram, they must build a huge following of over 10K to start generating an income from the comfort of their home. This is not true!

As you know, the bigger the following one has… The higher the chances of making more money online is possible but I’ve also seen Instagram Influencers with a following under 1k making over $10,000 in revenue over a 3 day weekend which is so awesome!

Like I mentioned earlier, successful Instagram influencers are the ones focusing on one type of industry and finding their dream customer in that market. They study the market and their dream customer so much

…Instagram Influencers know what they are thinking before they go to work, what keeps them up at night, the type of music or podcast they listen to, what they are afraid of and so much more.

When an influencer (also entrepreneur or marketer) goes this deep, they have a higher chance of repeating their success over and over again vs others who are just getting lucky at making sales!

Here are the 7 ways Instagram Influencers Are Making Money Online From The Comfort Of Their Home:

1.- Affiliate Marketing:

Affiliate marketing allows you to make money by promoting products and services on the internet. Yes, you can make money without owning the product or service, this is why this business model is so lucrative to start generating a second type of income.

Instagram Influencers usually apply for an affiliate program to be part of the company or the online brand to receive a commission payment every time they refer and close a client through an affiliate link provided by the organization.

An affiliate link is a personalized URL tracking link that lets the company know which affiliate marketer or Instagram influencer made the sale, therefore that individual can get paid!

Here are 3 quick examples of affiliate programs:

Chatmatic:

Lead generation marketing tool that allows you to set up friendly human automated conversations through the power of chatbot to connect with people who are interested in your engagement.

Grow your IG following and monetize it on autopilot with a certify Instagram partner tool

... use this tool for Facebook Messenger as well to reach and capitalize on people outside Instagram too, doubling your chances to make more sales!

Squirrly:

Helps Instagram Influencers who have blogging websites to get more eye-balls on their articles to help find what the “dream customer” is looking for!

It’s very beneficial for Instagram Influencer who have blog reviews about affiliate products to bring awareness to their audience and promote it through the process and if the reader clicks on the affiliate link, the Instagram influencer will get the sale!

Squirrly is easy to set up when you are writing your next blog so it can appear in the google search engines within a matter of weeks instead of taking 4-6 months like other plugin software's!

GetResponse:

This is an email marketing tool that helps you acquire the information of your potential leads and potential buyers as well to follow up more with them, through their inbox.

Instagram Influencers usually like to promote their affiliate products through the leads inbox so they won’t feel like a “pitchy salesman” all the time posting videos about the same product over and over again on IG.

GetResponse makes it easy to create an email letter and shoot it straight to the inbox of any one of your leads as easy as 1 2 3.

Overall, Instagram Influencers are tapping into the affiliate marketing realm to start generating money online by promoting products or services on their Instagram page.

This could be done by the comfort of their home by browsing on Google and applying for different affiliate products!

2.- Sponsorship:

This is when an online brand reaches out to an Instagram Influencer because they may have a similar audience the brand wishes to reach through their following to gain more sales or

…because the online brand loves the UGC (user generated content) and wants to hire them to create Instagram creative content for their Instagram business profile!

Over 90% of the time, online brands sponsor Instagram influencers who have a following of over 100k… This is why tons of influencers are focusing on building their following by posting up tons of content.

What is working right now from personal experience and new influencers I see starting from 0 a few months ago and all of a sudden they have over 50k followers, is by creating engaging IG reels that connect with the audience they have in mind.

An example could be if the Instagram Influencer is focusing on building content around on how to “make more sales on Amazon”. They will approach this topic with many different angles and have study cases on how the Instagram Influencers was able to accomplish this.

The audience who resonate with this, will follow the Instagram influencer to learn more from him/her because they too want to be successful in this industry!

If the online brand related to this market finds this Instagram influencer with a huge following, they will most likely DM this person or send them an email about being sponsored by them and selling their product (most likely an amazon marketing tool) to his/her audience in exchange for a commission.

Overall, the Instagram influencer can create content from their preferred working location and start generating sales when they post their stuff on Instagram. The sales may not come in immediately but through time they will see one sale one day and another sale another day!

3.- Brand Partnerships:

This is when multiple brands come to an agreement to help out each other to promote a product by sharing the same audience. This is a smart way to get more sales organically instead of paying for Instagram Ads.

In this case the Instagram Influencer would only be generating content for the products so the brands can make more sales. Yet, they are still paying the Instagram influencers so at the end of the day, everyone wins!

4.- Email Marketing:

Email marketing is the act of collecting email through an opt-in form, from people who are interested in a specific topic from the entrepreneur, marketer or business.

List building is the most valuable asset anyone can own because one can email their following about something important coming up like: weekend discount only, new blog post, going live today at 2pm on Instagram, free fun quiz to take, etc.

The way Instagram Influencers can use email marketing to promote a product is to educate their followers who opted-in to their email list (with the leads consent) and send them a series of emails explaining the benefits of the product.

The best part about email marketing is that you can see who are the leads, who are opening your emails and who are clicking on the link.

One great tactic to convert the lead into a sales through email marketing is by creating an offer that complements the product you originally want them to get!

This could be giving away a 30 minute consultation, your blueprint to get 1000 followers under 30 days on Instagram, etc.

Overall everyone should be doing email marketing to build their list, because sometimes when you find a very cool affiliate product or if a brand reaches out to you to sell their product…

An email list is like your money machine when you need to get some quick cash from the ATM!

5.- Product Demo

I’ve seen many Instagram Influencers doing IG reels when it comes to a physical product and explaining how one can use it in their daily lives! Doing Instagram videos is the best way to capture the viewer's attention to see what the product is about.

One of the examples that comes to mind is when I saw an Instagram influencer promoting “Black Toothpaste that makes your teeth white again”!

When I saw the influencer brushing their teeth with it, it was like the best hook to subconsciously persuade the Instagram viewer to see the entire video from beginning to end to attempt to get one for themselves and give it a try!

I believe this is one of the most lucrative ways to make money online as an Instagram influencer, find a physical product you connect with like dog toys and show how cool it can connect with the viewers dogs so they can encourage themselves to get one too!

6.- Video Testimonials:

Video testimonials are people talking about how incredible the product or service they have purchased is and how it has impacted their life in a positive way.

In order for an influencer to promote a product under this category ethically, they first must purchase the product or service and get real results from it. Of course, apply to the affiliate program to get rewarded for every product or service you sell!

Instagram Influencers can also sell the rights of their video to the online brands in exchange for a profit as well! Then again, this would be another way to make an extra income but it will be added to this bulletin!

7.- Instagram Live

Instagram live feature is like a huge TV studio with only one channel and behind the screen are thousands of people waiting for you to go live to share your expertise with them, so you can improve their quality of life.

This feature is very underutilized because people are afraid of going live because they may be thinking “My followers are going to judge”. “I may stutter and fumble a few words”, “what if my friends and family see what I am doing”, “I’m not that good yet” and so on…

Yet, once the Instagram Influencer overcomes these self belief blocks… Instagram live feature is the best way to create trust and credibility at a faster speed than any of the other features on Instagram.

Your audience will feel more connected with you like a friend they can trust.

Once this “factor” is achieved, every now and then Instagram Influencers love to go Live to promote a product or a service to make some quick sales to generate fast cash!

Overall, when using the feature Instagram Live make sure to have everything ready like how to send your Instagram followers to the website, what to type, how to get it and so on so you can get the sale!

What Are The Best Instagram Influencer Marketing Tools?

Most of the time Instagram Influencers are so focused on just coming up with the UGC to keep building more followers and promoting affiliate products they either don’t have time to research on some very cool marketing tools to make the process easier or they just don’t know they exist!

In my journey as an Instagram growth expert, I’ve connected with a few Instagram influencers and they have no clue what I’m talking about leading me to know exactly why they are not being as profitable as they should be!

I then introduce them to some amazing marketing tools I personally use so they can use them for themselves, but if they don’t really have the time to learn these marketing tools

…I usually charge them a monthly service fee to set it up and create marketing campaigns, to help them grow and monetize their Instagram followers into dollars!

Here are a few products I use myself that has help me make more sales through the journey as a marketer:

1.- Chatmatic:

I already mentioned this software once but the reason I mention it again is because thanks to this tool, I’ve been able to build my email list far much faster than having an opt-in page and on top of that, make sales with it too!

When people interact with this tool, it’s because they raised their hand, they want to know more about the topic you posted or talked about on your Instagram. Meaning these are high qualified prospects that can turn from just being a simple IG follower into a hot buyer of yours.

This blog here explains how to use Instagram to drive traffic to your website to get leads and sales.

2.- HashtagsForLikes:

This software aims to get more likes for every post the Instagram influencer uploads to reach a new audience who perhaps may be interested in the stuff he or she offers to hopefully later convert them into Instagram followers for his Instagram account.

At least this is the way the Instagram influencer should be thinking like a marketer to acquire as much as attraction and attention as possible to take the new audience off of the Instagram algorithm into their inbox, as leads and then buyers.

Here is a HashtagsForLikes review 2022 to learn more about this hidden gem almost no-one is talking about and I can see why!

What Kinds Of Products Does An Instagram Influencer Sell?

As long as the Instagram influencer don't violate the terms and rules of Instagram, they can sell anything they want: a product or service they own or an affiliated product or service they recommend to their audience and followers.

Here is a small list of what I’ve personally see Instagram Influencers selling on IG Reels:

Anime Gear

Digital Marketing Books

Electronic Gear

Kitchen Glassware

LED Lights

Phone Cases

SEO Services

School Supplies

Cat Food

Security System

Skincare Products

The smart Instagram Influencers batch anywhere from 10-15 videos in one week to have content to post up on Instagram for about 2 weeks excluding doing Instagram stories and Instagram live

Overall, this is just a small selection of what Instagram influencers are selling on a daily basis to their audiences.

They are always coming up with different angles on how to sell the same item to cause an epiphany inside the customers mind to make them realize why they must have it.

How Much Money Does an Instagram Influencer Make In A Month?

Without a doubt, the biggest way Instagram Influencers are making money online these days is through affiliate marketing and the two most famous payment structures are:

Pay Per Sale:

The Instagram Influencer gets paid by the amount of sales they make. If the payout for the affiliate product is $20 and they sell 10 products, they generate a total of $200.

Recurring Payments:

As long as the influencer referral keeps on paying the weekly, monthly or yearly subscription of the affiliate service every month, the influencer will be receiving residual payment every month till the customer decides to stop making payments.

If the affiliate commission of the service is $40 per month and the customer stays with the company for a full year, the Instagram influencer would make $480/yearly from one customer. If it was 3 customers, the influencer would be making $1440/yearly.

Naturally, the more followers and engagement the Instagram influencer has, the more money they make per month vs those who don’t have many followers or engagement on their Instagram.

To keep the math simple, let’s say a big influencer with 100k followers decides to post a full week about an amazing affiliate product that has a payout commission of $5 per sale. The influencer thinks that the cheaper the affiliate product the more his followers will be willing to pay.

Let's say he only sales to 10% of his following making him a grand total of $50,000 in about a week! Now that is some real freaking awesome online money.

Now let’s go with an influencer who only has about 10k but decides to promote to its followers an affiliate service which the influencer can earn $50 every month as long as the customer is paying for the monthly membership fee.

Same scenario, the influencer sells to 10% of his following making the influencer a total of $50k/monthly.

This is why selling a monthly service fee product is more of a stable affiliate marketing business to do vs a one time payment per sale because the influencer sells once and gets paid every single month!

What Are The Risks Of Becoming An Instagram Influencer?

I believe there are no risks when it comes to becoming an Instagram influencer, but there are multiple risks when it comes to using Instagram since the influencer doesn’t own the social media platform.

Here are some examples:

Not Owning The Social Media Platform:

Unlike a website where you get to change the theme of how your pages look, add more links to your homepage, create a pop-up to get your visitors information, giveaway a free PDF download or anything else you can think of… Instagram does not allow you to do any of this!

Influencers have to play by the rules of Instagram and if they don’t, they risk getting their accounts suspended or even shut down.

Yes.., all the energy, amazing content & engagement the influencer did to build up his IG followers, would be for nothing. That’s scary!

This is why I suggest for anyone who wants to become an Instagram influencer to take their current and future following, out the algorithm and drive them straight to their inbox to own this asset!

This means, if the influencer ever gets his account terminated… They can still reach the people who used to follow them through email, having access to your audience is like having access to an ATM machine to withdraw money.

Withdraw money? Yes, if the IG follower gave the influencer their email address this means they want to stay connected with the influencer because he or she was providing real true value to the follower and they probably want some more of it! Even at a price!

This is why lots of entrepreneurs and marketers love this saying “the money is in the list”, with a list, you will never go broke! Of course, as long as you keep on providing valuable and useful content or stuff to your audience!

Instagram Algorithm Changes:

At one point it was easy to post an image or a video on Instagram and get thousands of eyeballs to look at your content and get tons of views, likes, comments, shares and new followers like back in the good golden years of 2012, 2013 and maybe 2014.

Now that we are in 2022 and soon 2023, it has been massively difficult to reach new audiences and get new followers because as the platform evolves and acquires more users, the social media platform cuts down the organic reach and instead focuses on paid advertisement.

Paid advertisement is how Instagram gets paid and this is not “cute” for us who are posting high end quality content to reach like 10-15 people outside of our following!

Yet, Instagram Reels by has the highest reach so your videos can be seen by other people who Instagram thinks people may like and if those users like it, the algorithm will show it to more people… Kind of like, free advertisement for you to get more likes, comments and shares!

However, do not rely on the algorithm and like I mentioned a few times by now, start building your email list to have another way to access those who want more from you!

Overall, in order to make money as an Instagram Influencer it is necessary to find a way to take your followers off the platform to acquire their personal information so you can always stay in touch with them. This will allow you to profit from your list!

Conclusion: How To Become An Instagram Influencer And Get Paid For It.

Anyone can become an Instagram Influencer but it is hard work because one must be consistently posting on Instagram almost on a daily basis and there are some influencers that even post up to 3-5 times a day!

Yes.., smart Instagram influencers batch out like 15-20 content posts in one day to schedule them with a productivity tool for every day of the week and the only time they manually post is when they want to do an Instagram story or Instagram live.

This method is to get more followers but if you want to start generating more leads and sales, getting an Instagram automation tool is the way to go to convert your Instagram followers into buyers!

At the end of the day, this blog post is full of useful information on how Instagram influencers get paid and how you can start making money on this platform too!

Take your time reading it and go slow to digest everything to make your first or next dollar online!