Monetizing Instagram Reels with Ads
The first way to monetize your Instagram is simply by just putting ads on Reels. In fact, you don’t even have to reach out for sponsors. Instagram is going to hook you up with them. So the way that this works is you need to get into the ads on reels program on Instagram. In just a second, I’m going to share with you that criteria. But first, you need to understand how it works. Essentially what happens, you post on Instagram reels and an ad can show before your video, during your video, or after your video, and then you and the other creators that have posted around that ad end up splitting the revenue, and you could basically get paid just based off of how many views you’re getting on Instagram right now.
Eligibility Criteria for Instagram’s Ad Program
And then the third thing that you need is to have a professional account or a Creator account. A lot of times they don’t actually give this feature to anybody that doesn’t have a professional or Creator account, so this is why I would strongly suggest that even if you’re a business that you have a professional or Creator account simply because there’s more ways to actually be able to monetize your Instagram and they actually prioritize reach to accounts like this.
Switching to a Creator Account
If you are using a business account, it could be decreasing in the amount of reach that you’re getting. Now I know it’s very scary to switch your account from business to personal or business to Creator, so if you’re a small account right now, I strongly suggest you just bite the bullet and go to either a personal account or a Creator account.
Recurring Subscription Products
Now the revenue that you can earn from ads on reels is absolutely nothing compared to this next method I’m going to share with you, and this is exactly what took him from working a full-time job to to being able to quit that job and make over $10,000 a month on Instagram without that many followers. So essentially what this creator has done is he’s recognized a problem that his audience has and then he has sold a recurring subscription product to his audience in order to solve their problem, and no matter what niche you’re in, I’m sure that your audience is struggling with something and you could set up something like this, get them on a recurring charge, and you’re going to be able to monetize your audience, and best of all, it doesn’t require that you have that many followers.
Avoiding Common Monetization Mistakes
On top of that, he’s also implementing method number three, which if you don’t want to start your own business or create your own product is going to be the right choice for you, but first we need to outline exactly how he’s doing this and that is that he’s not making that mistake that most creators on Instagram make. You see, most creators on Instagram try to sell something to their audience and they make every single post that they have be about selling that product, and this is the worst thing that you could possibly do. Instead, what you need to be doing is solving your audience’s problems and basically showing how your product or how your solution solves their problems, and if you do this, it comes off as a lot more organic.
Balancing Growth and Monetization
You’re going to get a lot more people converting and it’s going to allow you to both grow your Instagram account and monetize your Instagram account at the same time because a lot of creators actually fall into the mistake of getting a little bit of growth, selling people way too early, and then not being able to grow anymore simply because they keep trying to monetize their audience. Instead, what you need to make sure that you’re doing is providing value, providing value, providing value, and then doing a sales post. So every fourth post can be a sales Reel post, but remember you should never be saying link in bio within your Instagram post.
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In addition to that, you want to make sure that if you use sponsorships or use affiliate offers that there’s something that your audience actually aligns with and the earlier that you get started trying to sell people something, the better because a lot of people try to wait until they have 100,000 followers, 500,000 followers, a million followers, and this couldn’t be a bigger mistake because essentially what ends up happening then is you build an audience that’s not used to you trying to sell them something and then as a result, they don’t want to watch your content anymore.
Offering Value to Your Audience
It destroys your growth and you could have easily avoided this by trying to sell them things throughout the history of you growing your account. Now not saying that you should try to sell them something on your first post on Instagram, but they should be used to you pitching them stuff and another way that you can make sure that this goes over smoothly is that you need to actually be offering them something that you use or that you actually think is helpful because the offer that you present them with, be it an affiliate offer, a sponsorship offer, or your own product, is really going to matter and it’s actually going to determine whether or not they resonate with it and whether or not they end up converting to a paying customer.
Monetizing Through Affiliate Links
Now the next way for you to be able to monetize your audience is going to be through affiliate links, but I do want to warn you, you could not just be an affiliate for anything. I see way too many creators make this mistake. They have like a dozen different affiliate links when you go to the link tree in their bio and you shouldn’t be doing this. Instead, you should have one or two core affiliates that you have. For example, vidIQ is an affiliate of mine and guess what? It converts like crazy because it’s actually something that is going to help my audience grow quicker on YouTube. So you need to make sure that not only are you not promoting too many different affiliate offers, but you also need to make sure that it’s something that is genuinely going to be helpful for your audience.
Authenticity in Affiliate Marketing
I wouldn’t suggest being an affiliate for anything that you don’t actually believe in. Another example, teachable, the sponsor of this video. I literally had teachable. I built my business on the back of teachable and I was a customer teachable for years before I ever did a sponsorship deal with them. So if you’re going to do a sponsorship deal, you’re going to do an affiliate deal, you need to make sure that it’s actually something that’s genuinely going to help your audience. I have made millions of dollars on teachable and that’s why I really feel comfortable suggesting it. On top of that, I know that they’re better than all the competitors out there, which is why I feel fine putting my stamp of approval on it.
Promoting Products You Actually Use
I would strongly suggest that you never promote anything that you don’t actually use, that you are not a customer of, because your audience is going to be able to smell that and it’s going to decrease the amount of growth that you get. Nobody’s going to take you up on that offer and in addition to that, you want to make sure that the company that you’re promoting is actually going to help your audience. You don’t want it to be something where you put your name out there and say hey, you should be using this and put your reputation on the line and then as a result of that, the company gives them a really bad experience and now it makes you look bad. I’m sure you saw this happen with the huge FTX scandal that happened this last year and I don’t want you to get yourself involved with something like that because literally every single creator that was involved with that has seen a huge decrease in the amount of growth that they’re getting and even a lot of their followers and they ended up in a lawsuit.
Vetting Sponsorship and Affiliate Deals
You don’t want that to happen to you, which is exactly why you need to make sure that you’re actually vetting anybody that you do a sponsorship deal with or an affiliate deal and this brings me to the last way for you to actually monetize your Instagram account and that is going to be through brand deals. Now I know what you’re thinking. Obviously, Rob, this is incredibly boring. I’ve heard this before, but I want to actually give you four different pointers that I would strongly suggest from somebody that makes over half a million dollars a year from brand deals and I don’t even do that many of them.
Tips for Successful Brand Deals
The first thing that I would strongly suggest that you do is I would suggest that whatever brand deal that you do, you do not create a whole video for it. I see so many creators make this mistake. They’ll do a deal with somebody and they make the whole entire video about that deal. Instead, you only want the brand deal to be a section of the video and you want it to actually be as organic as humanly possible. For example, in this article, I told you a way for you to be able to monetize your Instagram account and then did a brand deal and gave you a solution for it. Now I strongly suggest that you try to make it as organic as humanly possible like that because that is why you’re still reading the article.
Long-Term Contracts and Negotiation
The second thing I would do is I would only do brand deals with really, really reputable companies. The third thing you want to make sure that you’re signing long-term contracts. I will never do a brand deal if it’s not at least a 3-month or six-month deal and the reason for this is you don’t want to constantly be having to chase brands down. The biggest mistake creators make that do brand deals is one month they make a lot of money, the next month they make no money, the next month they make a lot of money, the next month they make no money, and this is an incredibly stressful way to live and I strongly suggest that you don’t do that.
Valuing Your Content
Then the fourth thing that you want to make sure you’re doing is not settling for something less than what you think your post is actually worth because you need to understand something. You are never going to be able to negotiate up, so you want to stay as high as humanly possible and trust me, these brands have more money that they’re willing to give you if you just negotiate with them. Don’t make the mistake of just taking the first offer that they throw out to you because they need you more than you need them. So trust me, you want to be able to negotiate.
Growing Your Instagram Following
Now at this point, the only reason that you’re not making money on Instagram is because you don’t have any followers and that’s exactly why I created this article right here that shows you exactly how the Instagram algorithm works so that you can get more followers.