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Instagram Sponsored Posts: Everything You Should Know About Publishing It

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Instagram Sponsored Posts
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This article will focus on sponsored posts on Instagram.

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Most content creators are interested in becoming Instagram influencers because of the platform growth rate.  Also, a sponsored Instagram post can sell for $300 or more, thus a great platform to monetize your work.  In fact, some well-established and successful influencers such as Yogi Rachel Brathen earn as high as $25,000 per post.

Reaching a level where you earn such a figure requires a lot of effort and patience.  Can you imagine the photo you took skiing, hiking, or dancing generating some money?  You can earn from these photos when you do some marketing, such as tagging some brands who can begin sponsoring your content on Instagram if they like them.

The article will tell you everything you need to know about sponsored posts on Instagram.

Instagram Sponsored Posts Explained

Brands pay to post sponsored content on Instagram in order to reach a broader audience.  Two primary types of sponsorships include:

  • Brands create a post and pay this photo-sharing platform to access a broader audience.
  • Brand sponsors an influencer or another content creator to create and publish a post that features itself, its products, or services.

Aside from these, sponsored posts are in different forms, including:

Promoted Posts and Ads: Instagram has a native ad management platform just like other platforms such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.  Brands can customize their audience on Instagram in terms of age, gender, location, and interests.  Then the business can pay Instagram for the audience they want to access with their post.

Paid Sponsorships: This refers to the partnership between the brand and the Instagram user.  The user is an influencer with a personal brand and follower base.  The influencer can look for brands in their niche, pitch them, and generate and publish content to promote their products and services.  Influencers are similar to ad managers on Instagram because the brand uses an audience that it has no access to.  However, they’re different in that the brand pays Instagram to post an ad and the influencer to publish sponsored posts.

How Can I Get Started on Instagram?

Instagram has become one of the fastest-growing social media platforms and a powerful sales machine because companies have turned to it to promote their brand, products, and services.  In fact, Instagram has a great influence because shoppers turn to the platform when deciding what to purchase.

Although many brands and their customers are on Instagram, the platform is not already crowded.  You can still be more marketable on the photo-sharing platform.  In fact, brands are aware that ordinary people have a huge power to promote their products even though they have a small number of followers.

Therefore micro-influencers have a huge chance of getting the most engagement on Instagram than the big players.  For instance, you’re more likely to trust your best friend’s recommendation or advice regarding a certain product instead of Lele Pons.  The reason is that you have similar interests with your friend, and they’re more genuine than a celebrity who is earning to promote a brand and its offering.

For that reason with the right strategy, micro-influencers can succeed because their small follower base can trust them and start to view them as their real friends.  They will begin trusting you when buying, which can help you get sponsored posts on Instagram.  The same concept applies when you have zero followers on Instagram.

Who Makes Money on Instagram and How?

You don’t need to be a business owner to make money on Instagram.  There are many categories of people generating a decent income on this platform.  Indeed Instagram has become a sales machine for solopreneurs, brands, content creators, influencers, etc.

The following is the category of people making money on Instagram:

Influencers

There are many people making money on Instagram even though they’re popular celebrities.  Today’s internet users crave authenticity, follow opinion leaders and trust peer recommendations about products and services.  It’s an excellent opportunity to be an Instagram influencer because they earn a lot of money when they post photos about a brand and its products or services.

The following are top Instagram influencers based on their category.

Beauty: Huda Kattan – 50.1 million followers

Fashion & Style: Gigi Hadid – 73.1 million followers

Food: Salt Bae – 43.3 million followers

Lifestyle: Carlinhos Maia – 24.7 million followers

Fitness: Kayla Itsines – 14.1 million followers

Photography: Murad Osmann – 3.6 million followers

Travel: Jack Morris – 2.5 million followers

Instagram Experts

Many people visit Instagram looking for opportunities to make money.  However, many brands and individuals are using this platform, thus making it a challenge to cut through the noise.  As a result, people look for professionals to help them create an eye-catching profile, write captions, develop a strategy, monitor their brand mentions, and more.  Indeed, there is a high demand for Instagram experts.

Digital Creators

Generating high-quality content helps creators connect with potential customers as well as promote products on social media.  Since there is no restriction on who sets up a shop on Instagram, the platform gives digital creators a lot of opportunities to sell their products in-app.

Brands

More than 25 million businesses are on Instagram and use it to promote and sell their products and services on the platform.  On the other hand, more and more users visit this social network to discover products and buy them in-app.

How Can I Get Sponsored Posts on Instagram?

As mentioned above, you can get sponsored posts on Instagram even without any followers, as long as you have the right strategy.  The following eight key elements can help you get started on this platform and start monetizing your content.

1.    Establish Your Brand

What’s the field that you want to focus on?  Some of the most popular and highly profitable niches on Instagram include:

  • Traveling
  • Beauty
  • Fashion
  • Health and fitness
  • Lifestyle
  • Parenting
  • Music
  • Business
  • Photography
  • Food
  • Animals

Other than the niche, it’s important to consider your brand’s overall aesthetic.  This comprises the style of your posts, your messaging, and a cohesive feed theme.

In order to attract Instagram sponsored posts, your content should be unique and distinguishable.  Your audience should identify your content immediately after they flip through their feed.  Seeing your content regularly will help them build trust in your brand as an expert in that niche.

However, posting content from different niches leaves your followers confused.  They also won’t trust you as an influencer, nor will companies partner with you to promote their products because they randomly change course.

Further, unifying your social media accounts is important.  Therefore create a unique website with a similar aesthetic and messaging as your Instagram account.  This not only enhances your online presence but also helps brands to distinguish your business and find ways you can work together to promote their brands online.  Internet users will also trust your brand when they see you online using various channels.

Understand Your Audience

Brands want to work with influencers who know their target audience.  On the other hand, you also want to understand your target audience in order to identify the correct brands that will benefit from the partnership and that your followers want to see more.

Knowing your target audience means getting basic information like their age, gender, geographical location, the type of content they’re interested in, and the time of the day they’re active so that you can post your Instagram sponsored posts at that time for maximum results.

Further, brands want to see the demographic information about your audience when pitching them because they want to partner with influencers who can give them what they’re looking for.  They want to know the percentage of your audience they will reach, gender, location, when they’re active on Instagram, and the type of content they prefer.

Be Consistent With Your Posts

You should post as often as possible on Instagram.  At least your profile should have a minimum of one post a day or up to three times a day.  The best time for posting your content should be 2 AM and 8 AM to 9 AM.

Because Instagram algorithms prioritize new and fresh content, you should post at least one item per day.  Otherwise, your audience will forget about you when you lack consistency or even unfollow you.

Additionally, you should consider what works best for you and your audience.  For instance, does your audience feel bombarded when you post more than once a day, or do they prefer that?  Do they engage more with your content at noon or earlier?  You can gather this information using Instagram metrics tools or, better still, through trial and error.

Some of the common Instagram analytics apps you can use to track your progress as well as discover areas for improvement includes:

Instagram Insights: The free analytics tool enables you to monitor followers and mentions.  It also shows you when your followers are active on Instagram, your popular posts, profile impressions, and your reach.

Iconosquare: The three-in-one solution to monitor what people are talking about regarding your industry, schedule new posts, and track your Instagram analytics.  The analytics reveals the trends in terms of impressions, engagement, Instagram Stories, and your post’s reach.

Squarelovin: The free tool helps users conduct an analysis of their posts.  Actually, the tool can give you the history of your posts in terms of hours, days and months.  It can also offer you insights on how to drive further engagement to your posts as well as your followers’ interests.

Union Metrics: The tool offers a free monthly Instagram checkup which tells you the hashtags that can increase your engagement, the ones that resonate well with the audience, and when they’re active on the app.

HubSpot Social Inbox: The tool helps you build and publish campaigns on multiple social platforms.  Linking your blog with a social inbox tool can help you automatically post new content on social channels when you publish them.

Hootsuite: The tool enables you to monitor analytics for your multiple channels through a customized dashboard.  You can also use the tool to schedule several posts simultaneously across different social media platforms.

Use Hashtags

Hashtags help marketers to grow their following by making the content more discoverable.  As a result, you can use 30 or fewer hashtags to boost engagement.  These hashtags should be relevant to the content and shouldn’t be broken or banned.

Banned hashtags are reported hashtags because the posts using them failed to adhere to the platform’s guidelines.  The new posts that use the banned hashtags are hidden, thus hurting the marketer’s growth efforts and organic reach.

Further, because the list of banned hashtags keeps changing, it’s vital to be updated.  Some of the banned Instagram hashtags include:

#abdl

#adulting

#ass

#bikinibody

#curvygirls

#dating

#dm

#Kissing

#nudity

#pornfood etc

Aside from not using broken or banned hashtags, you should also avoid too broad and or those that are highly competitive.  This helps your content to be discovered easily.

Geotags are important because they help followers interested in specific locations to find you.  As a result, this allows you to gain more followers and appeal to brands trying to reach such a demographic.

Tag Brands in Your Niche

You don’t have to call or email brands to gain their attention.  One way of reaching out to brands is by tagging them in your quality, original posts.  It’s advisable to start small.  So if you’re focusing on skincare, don’t tag Nivea, Estee Lauder, and the like; instead, tag smaller startups or businesses in that niche.  In fact, you can tag them in your descriptions even if they have not paid.

Next, respond to comments from your audience.  Some followers might ask where they can get one or how much is the product or service you have posted.  Answering their questions accurately and professionally might lead to an Instagram Sponsored Posts.  Indeed brands are excited to work with influencers who have proven themselves as suitable sales partners.

Display Contact Details in Your Bio

Your bio should serve as a signal to brands that you want you to be their influencer.  You can include your website or email so that they can contact you.  You may also consider adding a press kit and a title such as content creator on your bio.  Brands open to working with you will definitely reach out to you.

Further, adding a blog or website to your bio demonstrates your versatility and expands your brand.  A press page gives brands a chance to look at your services.  You can build this section by adding the Instagram sponsored posts you create for your partners in order for other brands to see your influencer experience.

Reach Out Directly to Brands

Reaching out to brands and showcasing your services is also an excellent idea.  Actually, with the right pitch, you can land some gigs without waiting to be found online.  You can begin by searching for brands in your niche that are active on Instagram.  Further, you can research what similar influencers in your niche or industry are already sponsoring.  You can start small by looking for partnerships with smaller brands in order to build your portfolio.

You can also create a list of brands that might want to partner with you and then send them an email.  Outline in your pitch briefly and clearly who you’re, do, and possible achievements in your niche that make you an expert.  Briefly tell these brands why you’re a good fit by including data like follower count and your average engagement rate.

Another good way of reaching out to brands is by sending them a DM via your Instagram.  In fact, this is the most suitable method to get a job because you’re using the right medium to vie for the job.  The only downside of this method is that your application might get lost in the inbox if the brand receives thousands of DMs every day.

Set Your Fee

Know your worth.  You can begin by charging $10 for 1,000 followers since it’s the industry’s standard.  Later you can charge more when the brand grows and as your posts get more likes.

Now that you have your pricing structure set, the next step is to master how to sponsor a post for the brands you will be working with.  The two different Instagram sponsored posts are; posts that brands pay Instagram and those that brands pay content creators to generate and publish posts.

Conclusion

Instagram is growing fast now that businesses use it to promote their brands, products, and services.  Instagram sponsored posts to enable brands to access an audience they don’t have by partnering with influencers.

As a result, these influencers earn when they generate and post content that mentions and recommends the brand to their followers.  Most companies have increased their sales by taking advantage of paid posts.  If your business is one of them, you can share your experience with us in the comment section.

Kossi Adzo is the editor and author of Startup.info. He is software engineer. Innovation, Businesses and companies are his passion. He filled several patents in IT & Communication technologies. He manages the technical operations at Startup.info.

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