You’ve decided to become an Instagram influencer, great! That’s in a nutshell what careers look like in 2022. Here’s a stat for you, the Instagram influencer market is worth at least $10 billion dollars. You want a piece of that cake too? Well, in this article we will help you reach your financial goals at being an effective and successful Instagram influencer, be it as a novice who just wants to grow their audience or as a long-term user of Instagram who wants to diversify and make some cash on the side.

In this article, we will focus on some of the most important factors to consider when growing your audience and getting paid for your services. Things like mastering the Instagram algorithm, understanding Instagram insights and creating captivating posts and stories are essential to success. If you’re looking to make money through Instagram as an influencer, read on.

What’s an Instagram influencer?

An Instagram influencer is someone who uses Instagram as a platform to affect or sway their audience to have a desired perception on whatever brand or product they are influencing. Think of Kim Kardashian posting a video of her new clothing range and tagging musicians Lecrae and Andy Mineo’s song it and the song garnering a million streams thereafter. That’s it. Influence.

Getting started as an Instagram influencer

You’re probably thinking you need millions of followers to start making money as an Instagram influencer, that couldn’t be further from the truth. On average, users with less than 10 000 followers can make up to $88 a post or more. This of course depends on the type of account and what kind of business you’d be advertising but it is now possible for anyone to make strides as a notable Instagram influencer as long as they follow some steps, which we’ll dive into.

The good thing about being a micro-Instagram influencer, this is someone with less than 10 000 followers is that you’re likely to get more engagement. Contrary to popular belief, it is estimated that Nano and micro-Instagram influencers get 4% more engagement more than the average macro accounts. This stems from the fact that there’s a level of intimacy and accessibility which micro accounts offer thus becoming enticing to the average Instagram user and likely potential customer.

Step 1 – Finding Your Niche

Like most disciplines in content creation, finding your niche is second to none in importance. Your niche is your forte or position – your area of specialty. Think of your favorite content creators, on YouTube, Tik Tok or your favorite podcasts, they all focus on particular brand of content and that’s not by accident. Joe Rogan’s podcast content will lean on ridiculous conspiracy theories and Spotfiy’s Dissect takes a deep nuanced approached to music album breakdowns. Like them you should find your voice, look and the type of content you want to produce.

If you want are a fan of fantasy sports, you tailor your profile to focus on related content, this means that a brand that deal in sportswear or video games are likely to be attracted to you because your audience is mainly sports fans. So, find something you are passionate about and focus on creating that.

Step 2 – Master your audience

What’s the point of creating content which no one resonates with? So, it is important that you know who you’re talking to before pressing “Post”. Figure out your demographic; how old are your followers, their employment status, what they like doing in their free and the type of content they consume aside from what you’re offering

You can easily do this by checking your Analytics Dashboard, from there you could be easily determine their location and age range. As time goes on, you’ll need to invest in more detailed analysis, and Instagram Analytics is a great tool for this. You can also run polls, questionnaires and even engage your followers in the comments to know who they are and how they think. Master this and you’ll be an effective Instagram influencer.

Be great at short form video content

Ever heard the phrase, “Seeing is believing”? Same principle applies here. This is the reason Tik Tok is one of the most viral and most used social media platforms. A person is likely to remember something they saw than that which they read. Let’s begin with a cool username, use a great one.

Luckily Instagram has this feature called Reels, this should be your bread and butter. There are a few hacks you can employ to ensure that your audience grows and easily shares your videos to go viral.

1. Do your research

Before you start creating any form of video content, dedicate at least 10-15 minutes to finding out what other content creators are creating. Even better find out what is trending right now and how people are engaging in it then curate your content to fit in a video.

2. Create a great hook

Just like almost every platinum selling song with a great chorus, your content also needs a great “chorus” or hook in this case to get you off. You probably know this but people have a low attention span and therefore as an aspiring Instagram influencer you want to make a post that says “Hold up, watch this”. Hooks could be in your dressing, posture or font size. Once you hook them in, that’s how they stay and invite others.

3. Make your Reels in advance

Visual content is being prioritized these days across social media, and Instagram is no different. So to ensure you get consistent audience engagement, batch your reels to be released in a scheduled week at the very least. As you create more and more reels, the more your chances increase of exposure.

Step 3 – Be consistent

Last but certainly not least, this is the most important step above all. Consistency creates competence, and it is actually harder to consistently create subpar content than it is creating great content sparingly. Every successful Instagram influencer started somewhere but they didn’t just grow their accounts off one post. It’s the consistency that wins. Take for example, with the ever-growing podcast community, most podcasts fail before reaching their 10th episode. This same principle applies as an Instagram influencer, you need to keep creating to maintain your audience engaged and ensuring you’re not bypassed by the algorithm.

Closing remarks

You’d be right to be wondering, if being an Instagram influencer is this easy, why isn’t everyone doing it? There’s a myriad of reasons for why people do what they do, one of them is that it is a lot of work to be an Instagram influencer. While the template can be followed by anyone, it takes a lot of emotional capital for one to willingly put themselves out there for the world to see.

If you’re reading this and thinking about starting but aren’t sure about the right time to start, our advice would be just start. A journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step, so go ahead. You never know what awaits.

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Written by Stop The Breaks
Stop The Breaks is an independent music marketing company focused on showcasing independent hip-hop artists. Our goal is to help motivate, inspire and educate independent artists grinding around the world. We provide branding, content marketing, social media, SEO and music promotion services.