New Instagram Feature Allows Anyone with 500+ Followers to be a Paid Influencer
LEARN HOW INSTAGRAM “SHOPPING FROM CREATORS” IS PROVIDING REVENUE OPPORTUNITIES FOR MICRO-INFLUENCERS
Micro-Influencers are finding more and more opportunities to earn money representing brands on social media. With the launch of Instagram's “Shopping from Creators” feature, Micro-Influencers with a minimum of just 500 followers can switch their Instagram account to a “Creator” account and post a brand’s “Shoppable Products” to their feed and earn a portion of the revenue generated from sales. The timing couldn’t be better to start monetizing your social media accounts even though you might not have millions of followers just yet.
Even though Amanda Thomas has fewer than a thousand followers on Instagram, she was able to make $249 last month as an Influencer for a small, little-known Jewelry brand. Amanda’s Instagram account is hardly focused on fashion and her followers consist mainly of close friends and family. That hasn’t stopped her from generating sales for the Jewelry brand though because most of the people who see her sponsored post have found it in the Hashtag search results for hashtags the company requested her to use in her posts.
Instagram has placed more ranking power on posts utilizing the “Shopping from Creators” feature in the hashtag search results. This makes it easier to find, engage and sell to potential customers searching for a brand’s products.
Minimal Requirements to become a Creator
Instagram has opened up the “Shopping from Creators” feature to Influencers with a minimum of 500 followers. Aged Instagram accounts with authentic followers are also a requirement to become a “Creator” on Instagram. You should have at least a 5–10% engagement percentage of followers to post engagement. That means if you have 500 followers, you will need to have at least 25 post interactions on your average post in order to qualify. Interactions consist of likes, comments, saves, or shares. Engagement is a big indicator of authentic reach.
In order to work with brands and post their shoppable products to your feed, you will need to switch your Instagram account to a “Creator” account. Follow this link “How to Switch to an Instagram Creator Account to learn how.
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.
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 account's 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 fake 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. Using automation Bot’s also has a high risk of getting your Instagram account suspended.
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 to 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 400%.
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.
