It might seem overwhelming when starting out to become a social media influencer. For many, it’s difficult to gain followers, create quality content and drive steady engagement. That’s why many people fail to reach their dreams of being a social media Influencer. But what if the barriers to finding paid sponsorships weren’t as insurmountable as you thought? What if you only needed to have 500 followers to start earning money as an Influencer, wouldn’t that be awesome? A little known Instagram feature called “Shopping from Creators” could be your ticket to collaborating with brands and getting paid to do so.
What is Shopping from Creators?
Instagram launched this feature in 2019 and only allowed major brands and a select group of Influencers access until just recently. Now the feature is open to any brand and any Influencer who has more than 500 followers. The feature allows Influencers (Referred to by Instagram as “Creators”) the ability to Tag a brand’s shoppable products in a post. That means a customer who sees your post can purchase the brand’s products without leaving the post using Instagram Checkout.
The Creator and Brand receive insights into how successful the post was and allows for collaboration between the brand and creators.
How do I become a “Creator” on Instagram?
Becoming a “Creator” on Instagram is simple. You just need to switch your personal Instagram Account to a “Creator” account and have more than 500 followers with some level of engagement. You can find a step by step guide to switching to a Creator account on Instagram. It only takes a few minutes to switch and is completely free!
How do I find Brands to Collaborate with?
Finding Brands to collaborate with isn’t as difficult as you might think. Brands are utilizing Micro Influencers in larger quantities than ever before. There are a few platforms that connect Brands with Micro Influencers like EngageCreators that are free to the Influencer and provide access to hundreds of brands and sponsorship opportunities.
Because “Shopping from Creators” is such a new feature, not many Influencer platforms have taken steps to prepare Influencers for these types of collaborations. For instance, Influencers must have a “Creator” account on Instagram to collaborate with brands using this feature. Influencers also need to know how to create tagged product posts and this requires educating Influencers on the process. Micro Influencers also need to build a reputation as an Influencer by taking on collaborations without an upfront payment by the brand.
Instead of an upfront payment, Influencers can receive a percentage of any sales generated from their posts or enter contests that reward Influencers for posting tagged product posts to their feeds. As you build your credibility with Brands by participating in these contests, you’ll have the opportunity for better types of brand engagements.
Collaborations help build followers
Participating in these collaboration contests have another huge benefit, they help you gain lots of new followers because “Shopping from Creators” posts get ranked at the top of the Hashtag search results where tens of thousands of people are searching Hashtags and finding your post. This results in a huge increase in organic followers for your Instagram account. This benefit can’t be overstated. Ranking at the top of the Hashtag search results for popular hashtags is the quickest way to increase followers.
Optimize your Instagram Account to Attract Followers and Brand Sponsorships
Make your Instagram Account Brand friendly, targeted to a niche and attractive to new followers by following some content creation rules and standards. Use the suggestions below to accomplish these three core objectives.
Brand Safe Content — Stay away from posting content that contains sexually suggestive content, NSFW posts and offensive or controversial content.
Pick a Niche and Stick with it — It’s important that you find a niche you’re passionate about and only create content for that niche. However, you shouldn’t paint yourself into a specific topic like just Yoga or Workout tips. Instead, focus on “Health and Wellness” types of posts that could cover a wider array of brand sponsorship opportunities.
Do Not Buy Fake Followers or Engagement — You might be tempted to buy followers and engagement to make it look like you have more influence than you actually do. This couldn’t hurt your account more. Instagrams algorithms easily discover accounts with Fake followers and will forever lower your accounts ability to rank in the Hashtag search results. Instagram ranks accounts by “Authority”. When you buy fake followers and engagement, your “Authority” goes to zero and you literally have no long term viability as an Influencer. Most platforms like EngageCreators also use algorithms to find and weed out accounts that have bought followers.
Don’t use Bots and Follow for Follow types of strategies to build followers — This also hurts your accounts authority and diminishes engagement. You should create content that attracts people in your niche organically.
Make your content stand out — There are some amazing Apps that help you create content that will stand out and increase the rate of new followers organically. One of our favorites is an App called MotionLeap. This allows you turn still photos into moving animated and highly stylized posts that will pop out in the hashtag search results. These types of posts increase new followers, likes and comments by over 4,000%.
Participate in as many contests as possible when starting out — When Brands see you collaborate with other brands, this creates credibility with not only other brands, but also new followers. You might not make a lot of money participating in every contest, but the ability to work and collaborate with brands on any level only helps to grow your Instagram account and increase your exposure to new brands.
Conclusion
With lowered barriers to becoming a paid Influencer on Instagram, your dreams of Influencer stardom are much easier to obtain. As you collaborate with more brands, you will grow your followers organically and increase paid collaborations as you build Account authority on Instagram. Follow the steps and suggestions in this article and you’ll find your way to a successful future sooner than you imagined.
