Social media marketing: how to earn money on Instagram

Once upon a time, social media was just an online extension of our social lives. It was all about top friends, band lyrics you were obsessing over, and trying to decide if you should send a message to your high school crush a decade later. People still use the platforms for this sort of thing, but over the last ten years or so, the medium has developed a much more popular and exciting purpose: making bank.

Instagram is one of the most powerful social media platforms in use today—its advertising revenue in the US has climbed from $6 billion US in 2018, to a projected $39.7 billion in 2023. These kinds of numbers leave a lot of opportunity for entrepreneurs, small businesses, and companies to make serious money off the platform.

In this post on how to earn money on Instagram, we’re going to go over some of the ways for you as a creator or business to make money on Instagram. We’ll discuss the basics of who earns how much, what the major challenges are you’ll face, and some tips on ways to make money on Instagram. 

Of course you can. We could reel off a bunch of stats revealing Instagram’s highest earning creators and how that number just keeps going up, but you already know the truth. Even if you don’t use Instagram, you’ve no doubt heard of the ‘influencer’ craze and seen Instagram-famous content creators partying on remote islands to which they flew all their friends on a private jet. The more important question than whether you can, is whether or not you will. Being a social media influencer comes with a number of challenges all influencer hopefuls have to be willing to face. We’ll get into these below, but first let’s go over some of the figures on Instagram earnings. 

Most Instagram creators keep their earnings private, so finding an average of earnings for creators is difficult. Often, influencers will use Instagram as a platform to promote their other channels. If you make a short film, post it on Instagram, it goes viral and you land a Netflix deal for a movie or series, how much of your earnings from that deal can you accredit to Instagram? Same for businesses who direct their followers away from their Instagram page to their personal website: do sales made on their website count as making money from Instagram if that’s where they initially hooked the customer? That said, the basic rule of earning on Instagram depends on how many followers you have. The more followers you have, the more likely big advertising companies are to pay you to host their ads and create content for them. The following figures are in USD and come from Thrive My Way. 

Also known as ‘micro-influencers’, creators with 1000 to 10,000 followers typically earn the following: 

Typically not the account of a famous person but one very successful on the platform nonetheless, creators with 100,000 followers earn:

Usually an account owned by a traditional celebrity or extremely successful Instagram celebrity, earning a million followers can lead to earnings like: 

Creators with followers beyond these numbers are making multi-millions. Put simply, being a successful influencer is a lucrative business. But how can you actually go about breaking into that business? 

People who make money on Instagram can choose from two different account types: creator accounts and business accounts. The central tenets for earning with both of these accounts are the same: attract followers and land advertising, but there are crucial differences between the account types. Understanding them and how earning strategies may differ will help you make the right decision for your own venture. 

Launched in 2019, creator accounts were designed to make it easier for content creators (influencers and users with a personal brand) to facilitate brand/creator relationships, build followings, and become notable opinion leaders on certain issues. With the Instagram creator account, you can:

Creator accounts are ideal if you have a creative talent and you want to start showing it to people. Building an audience takes a long time, but the flexibility afforded here gives you many avenues through which to do that. 

If you have a clear monetisation strategy and an established business, a business account is likely the better choice. Where creators are building their personal brand and establishing connections, business account owners are building a customer base and creating a convenient way for customers to pay for their products and services.With the Instagram business account, you can: 

Go with an Instagram business account if you’ve already done the groundwork setting up your business. These features are designed to accelerate an existing business. You should already have your products made or your services finished and ready to offer. 

Before we get into the specific ways to boost your earning potential on the platform, we have to talk about the hard part: getting started. The beginning of any entrepreneurial venture requires above all persistence and patience. Don’t look to overnight successes or viral sensations as paths to follow: take your time, build the right audience for you, and stay focused. 

At the core of the influencer mission is to amass a following. For creators, this means bringing in people who are interested in the content you create and want to see more of it. For businesses, this means attracting people to your company ethos, becoming loyal to your brand, and developing a need for your products or services. 

As we mentioned, Instagram success takes patience and perseverance. If you have to pay rent, bills, groceries, and all the other daily expenses, chances are you’re going to need a more stable income than an Instagram page or boutique business.This means keeping your day job. If possible, reduce your hours so you can put more time into your online side hustle. Look at the tax situation in your region for freelancing with part-time hours and make sure it suits your situation. Budget carefully if you have to take a hit financially and, if you’re really committed and this is an option for you, move back in with your family while you get things off the ground. Otherwise, get ready to spend weekends and weeknights devoted to a project that may take time to pay off, if it ever does. Ultimately, like writing a novel, starting a band, or doing paintings, your Instagram business or profile is your passion project, and you should treat it as such. 

Now, let’s get into some of the more concrete ways to increase your chances of financial stability as an Instagram business or creator. Each of the below methods and features is partly dependent on a mixture of timing and luck, but these methods have been shown to help others. 

Did you know instagram ads have the potential to reach 1.2 billion people? Running paid ads on Instagram costs money, but the potential for payoff is huge. Paid ads look the same as normal posts, but show a ‘sponsored’ label on the post to let audiences know why it is appearing in their feed. With sponsored posts, you can add links, a CTA, and product catalogue. They are more engaging to users and more focused on conversion than an average post. The cost of paying for adds on Instagram depends on a few things: 

When you’ve figured out your budget for advertising, it’s time to pick the kind of ad you want to use. Each type of Instagram ad best serves different content and businesses, so it’s important to familiarise yourself with the types and pick the one that’s right for you. The six major types of Instagram ads are:

Getting sponsored might sound like a privilege reserved for Instagram’s most-followed few, but fortunately this isn’t the case. Even micro influencers just getting started can secure sponsorships—and see a huge boost in their revenue because of it. Here are some of the best ways to secure sponsorship:

For businesses selling products, this is a given. But more and more content creators are finding ways to sell merchandise and it’s working well. Youtubers often create a lore through their content, sometimes a long-running narrative or universe, which rewards viewers with payoffs only loyal viewers would catch. These are the viewers who will buy merchandise if you offer it. Take Youtuber Patrick H Willems, whose googly-eyed plush doll Charl started out as a joke on his Youtube channel and ended up selling out its first run of merchandise. Merchandise requires building an audience first and listening to your audience. Read the comments on your posts and see what people want, because they’ll let you know. 

In addition to crafting good content and posting consistently, actively promoting your content will help expand your reach to channels and audiences you might not have anticipated. These are some of the top ways to further promote your posts and content: 

How you need to legally register yourself or your company as an Instagram content creator or business will depend on your region. Most likely, you will be registering as a freelancer or company, because you are earning just like any other.Check the requirements and processes in your particular region. Below, we have included links to our content on registering as a freelancer or business in Germany: 

There’s a lot of money to be made on Instagram. With huge and climbing advertising revenue, the platform has sent creators and businesses running like prospectors to the gold rush. Always remember however that only fools rush in. Establish your niche and your brand, build your audience, keep your day job and, above all, be persistent and patient.