Instagram is one of the hottest social platforms in the world. With more than 800+ million users and a focus on visual content, images, and video, it’s not only the place to be — it’s where all the big money, traffic, branding, and eyeballs are at.
Why? For the most part… visual content is king these days. More people are accessing the internet through their mobile devices than ever before, and people want instant gratification as well. This means fewer people are reading text content, and attention spans are dropping at a rapid pace as well.
Throw in the fact that Facebook owns Instagram, and it’s hard to come up with a reason why Instagram would fail anytime soon.
With all of that being said — Instagram is where you want to be right now. Let’s take a look at some of the most important things you need to know about Instagram right now, and how to grow your reach, make money, and maybe even become famous in the process!
Instagram Success is All About Visuals and Branding
When it comes to social media, everyone has their favorite platform or reason for why they use them. Twitter is all about ‘status updates’, while Facebook is more about seeing what your friends and family are up to. On Instagram, it’s all about visual content.
As massive and huge as Instagram is, it’s still a tough beast to master — especially for any brands or bloggers that want to share their URLs and recent blog posts with their audience. Since Instagram doesn’t offer linking options within their status updates, it’s really all about the visual content, branding, and engagement that each user needs to create and focus towards their audience.
Again, this is something that will take time and patience to master. If you’d like to learn more about getting the most out of Instagram and discovering the right ways to create content and market to an audience through visual content, I recommend you take a look at this marketing on Instagram guide. It’s loaded with a ton of resources, tools, marketing trends, and examples of top name brands and how they are finding success on Instagram, while so many others are struggling.
You can also watch their video on the importance of Instagram #Hashtags below as well. If you aren’t currently using hashtags to reach new audiences on Instagram, you are missing out big time!
How to Make Money with Affiliate Offers on Instagram
Just like any other social platform, there is plenty of money to be made on Instagram, especially for affiliate marketers and anyone familiar with paid advertising. Something many people don’t realize is that Instagram is actually owned by Facebook, and all advertising through the social network is done through the self-serve FB Ads Manager as well.
Leadbit had the following to say:
When it comes to Instagram marketing, it’s crucial to understand the importance and influence behind visual marketing. Instagram is a social platform, so you need to create content and call to actions that “pop”.
Jumping into Instagram marketing will also require a solid understanding of the FB Ads Manager (Business Manager). Most affiliates are seeing success through mobile campaigns, but this can take some time to mastet. You need to optimize your creatives, double check the settings and see which campaigns convert best when using Insta ads. It’s also important to understand your Instagram audience, grabbing their interest with unique ad copy, and making sure it’s an offer that is relevant to their browsing habits.
Mobile traffic and affiliate offers are hot right now, but desktop traffic and offers are also doing quite well. There are a lot of CPA Ads partners that provide offers for this kind of traffic, but always check if they have the sites optimized for mobile or not to avoid failure with Instagram ads. In short, split test and build seperate campaigns for mobile/desktop audiences and landing pages.
Speaking about the niches, the more profitable ones seem to be: Beauty, E-Commerce, Biz-Opp and anything related to Fashion or Self-Improvement
You can also follow Leadbit on Instagram to see how they are continually using social media and visual marketing to grow the reach and branding for their own network. I also recommend you take a look at their Events Page on their blog, as they actively highlight and attend many of the top affiliate marketing conferences in the world today,
Know and Follow the Top Instagram Users and Accounts
We can talk about Instagram all you want and the many different ways to make money with the platform, but to really see where success and profits are being made, we need to look at the accounts with the most followers.
As with all social network platforms, it’s usually the celebrities that lead the way when it comes to follower count. With Instagram, it’s really no different. However, you don’t need to be a rich and famous celebrity to find success on Instagram (discover why below).
According to various news outlets and NewTheory.com, the following celebrities can earn up to roughly half a million dollars for a single update to their Instagram accounts. In the cases of Selena Gomez, Kim Kardashian, Cristiano Ronaldo and Kylie Jenner, they all have follower counts of over 100 million.
| Celebrity | Instagram Followers | Paid Per Sponsored Post |
| Selena Gomez | 122 million | $550,000 |
| Kim Kardashian | 100 million | $500,000 |
| Cristiano Ronaldo | 104 million | $400,000 |
| Kylie Jenner | 100 million | $400,000 |
| Kendal Jenner | 81.7 million | $370,000 |
| Khloe Kardashian | 68 million | $250,000 |
| Kourtney Kardashian | 57.8 million | $250,000 |
| Cara Delevingne | 40.4 million | $150,000 |
| Gigi Hadid | 34.7 million | $120,000 |
| Lebron James | 30.7 million | $120,000 |
But don’t feel left out just yet… many other Instagram users are cashing in big time on their audiences as well. For the most part, these usually travel and fashion bloggers/influencers, as their content and expertise are best delivered through visual content.
You can view a list of many of these “non-celebrity” Instagram users in this article from Uproxx, along with a list of top richest Instagram users here. Don’t be surprised when you discover everyday people who started with Instagram to share pictures of their interest and passion and are now making thousands of dollars online daily.
Quick Tips to Find More Success on Instagram
As expected, Instagram is where most of the action is these days. Not only is it owned by Facebook and still growing in popularity, it’s also more in touch with internet users of today. With more people using their mobile devices to access the internet, and relying on visuals and video to consume content — this is what Instagram is best at.
For anyone wanting to grow their online following, brand, or reach through Instagram, it really comes down to these three simple steps.
- Step 1: Build A Stunning Instagram Feed
- Step 2: Get Your Instagram Photos Noticed
- Step 3: Engage With Your Instagram Followers
Instagram is not easy to master, but the concept behind it all is quite simple. New accounts will take some time to grow out and scale over time, but as your following grows, it will continue to do so at a faster pace.
Be sure to reach through each of the references, resources, tools, and recommendations in the article above. Instagram still has a lot of room to grow, and they also have a massive audience and advanced advertising platform that is accessible to everyone. Take the time to invest in Instagram, and watch your brand and business growth in the process.