How to begin your journey as the Kardashian of your Instagram niche
TL;DR:
- Offer exclusive content to your followers for a fee.
- Collaborate with relevant brands for sponsored posts.
- Utilize affiliate marketing to earn commission from product sales.
- Sell your own products and services directly on Instagram.
- Leverage your authority to offer online courses and workshops.
It’s been a long time since Instagram was just a modern Facebook where you shared photos and provided updates on what’s going on in your life. Just ask the Kardashians.
It’s now a platform where if you can capture your target demographic there hook line and sinker, you can live a very comfortable life.
If you’ve amassed a big enough Instagram following to the point that you think it's reached a threshold where you can monetize it but are unsure how to, here’s all you need to know.
1. Offering Exclusive Content
Depending on how many followers you have and the amount of authority you’ve established over the domain your account is built around, you can offer your followers exclusive content to pay for.
Examples include personal insights and tutorials never shared before on your Instagram story, as well as regular Q&A sessions with followers who subscribe.
This can also be set up within Instagram by utilizing the Close Friends feature.
2. Sponsored Posts
Collaborate with brands, businesses, and individuals that are relevant to the niche of your account. They do not necessarily have to be accounts that have over ten times the following as you, though accounts with both a bigger following and a higher degree of authority over the domain than you is best for this method.
You can offer to sell their product or service in one of your posts in exchange for a payment, or regularly post content that is affiliated with theirs.
3. Affiliate Marketing
You can also utilize affiliate marketing to sell products and services. You can do this by sharing unique affiliate links of reputable third parties relevant to your niche on your posts or bio and earning a commission for every sale generated through the link.
4. Sell Your Own Products and Services
If you already have your own products and services or are considering to begin selling them, particularly advertise them on your Instagram as well.
You can use the shopping feature to tag and sell your products directly on your posts.
It is ideal to complement paid products with a free variation as we have done with the eBooks/PDFs we sell on our store. It is a classic persuasive method known as “foot-in-the-door”, where you get a person to initially agree to a small request before convincing them to agree to a large request.
5. Online Courses and Workshops
If you’ve established good enough authority in a specific area of your niche, leverage it by offering online courses, workshops, or consulting services to your following.
A great way to establish further credibility is by posting a high volume of content on the same topic to prove to your following and potential prospects that you know the ins and outs of that topic.
With how short the attention span of the average Instagram user is, it adds an extra dimension to the challenge of monetizing your Instagram following. But if you’ve already had a good grasp of how to create bite-size content that garners attention on Instagram, one piece of the puzzle is already solved.
The next piece is to master the art of selling yourself with bite-size content that people want to throw their money on, just like with the Kardashians.