Have you wondered how to make money on Instagram?
Hi GUYS!
There was a time when I was curious about how to get paid brand collaborations as an influencer.
I bet you are curious too!
If you don’t already know who I am, let me tell you.
I am Marika, and I help people to monetize their online content creation.
This post may contain affiliate links. If you purchase or click a product or service with the links that I provide I may receive a small commission. There is no additional charge to you and in some cases, you will receive a discount!
BRAND COLLABORATIONS
There are three different ways to land brand collaborations online.
The first one is to post content that a certain brand notices you.
The second one is the brand reaching out to you and asking for a collaboration.
The last one is that you reach out to the brand and ask them if they are interested to work together.
In all of these cases, you have to negotiate the deal.
How to get Brands to notice you are the first you need to do is to make your profile public!
Super important!
If your page is private brands cannot reach out to you or see anything that you do or post.
Next thing you need to make your profile clickable.
It means, your profile picture needs to be good, your name needs to be your name or business name so that brands see your account as professional.
For example, if your name is asg789 and your picture is a blurry small screenshot from your Facebook profile picture, that alone will make anyone turn away from your account.
If you focus on clothes for example then-fashionable profile picture showcasing you with fashionable clothes and as a name you could choose your name and add fashion to it as an example: katysfashionday or anything related to your topic or just your name.
Use your name and description to add as many keywords related to your niche as possible, then you will show up on search more, and more people can find your profile!
Add these together with your name.
My Instagram name is @marika.anneli.kim and my Instagram name description is: MARIKA KIM | Business | Mom
See how I have added keywords describing my niche and fields I create content about.
People need to know exactly what you are about!
Your bio needs to have as many keywords about you as possible, because based on these keywords brands are making searches on Instagram, if they are looking for influencers in new york and your bio has new york in it, then you will show up on the search.
Understand how important that is!
Add anything that you want a brand to know about you.
Anything that is in your bio is because a brand can search that, remember that!
Then try to make your feed as consistent as possible.
This does not mean only about the pictures like everything needs to be pretty and pink and look great together.
This means more that you need to be consistent with your posting.
Maybe you want to post once a day Monday to Friday or post once every other day or maybe you want to always post at noon.
Find a consistency with your posting that works best for you.
Then you can work and make your picture quality more better and appealing.
If you guys want to know how to make better quality pictures and transform your photos awesome for Instagram, let me know in the comments section below.
I will make a video about that for you guys! That will do wonders for your pictures.
Or transform your old photos so much better and more appealing looking.
It’s quite simple and free, with no need for any expensive software or special skills.
So that you do not get frightened from the start.
How to get brands to notice you are also to engage with brands posted photos, like their photos, and comment on the photos the brand is posting.
Mention a brand on your story, they will get the notification and get informed that you are interested in them and use their products.
Buy that brand’s product and use them and make content about those products on your account and make sure that brand is something you really want to work with.
Create a relationship with that brand.
Choose a brand that you use and love and would recommend anyway and this way you will benefit each other.
Now If you have a problem that you do not have a lot of following, let’s say you have only 500 people following you on Instagram.
Do not worry, in some cases that could be enough, if your engagement is good.
Then you could get brand deals even at this point.
ALTERNATIVE WAY TO GROW
You also have another choice to grow, let someone create an Instagram account for you and create the following.
Interesting can this be done?
YES.
BUT!
It will cost of course.
Nothing too good is free, right.
But if you are someone that wants to concentrate on content creation and it is hard for you to grow you could think about using a service from Fiverr.
There you can hire a freelancer of a specific niche, for example creating your Instagram content for you, give a makeover for your account, hire an account manager for Instagram growth.
You can find almost anything and people will work for any goal.
If this could be the solution for you check it out here.
HOW BRANDS CHOOSE WHO THEY WANT TO WORK WITH
When brands are deciding who they want to work with they are considering two different aspects.
The first one is your influence like mentioned before.
The second one is your niche.
Your influence is how much you can move your audience towards the desired actions you want them to make.
If you post a link how many people are going to take action and click the link or does hardly anyone click the link.
This is your influence.
Do you have a community of people who listen to you, This is why creating connections with people who follow you is super important.
Your followers also need to engage with you.
Why would any brand pay you if they get nothing in return, they want traffic to their site and products through you, and if you cannot move your audience towards the brand’s products or services.
Then it is bad and maybe you should consider if the partnership works or not.
Brands want access to your audience.
Brands also are not stupid, they can see who is buying followers, likes, comments, and all that.
So this is why it does not matter if your audience is 500 people or 500,000 people.
Brands will pay the influencer who can connect with their audience.
The second one is the niche, when you have a clear niche, then it’s also more clear of your audience’s demographics.
And from demographics brands can measure if your audience is the right target for their campaign or not.
In other words, is it profitable to pay you or not, let’s say your audience is mainly in the US and the brand wants to reach a Korean audience, then there would be no sense in working with you since your target audience is nowhere near that demographic area they are trying to reach.
Let’s take an example of the number of followers you have.
The brand wants the influencer who can offer them the biggest ROI (return on investment).
If you are a huge account like 100,000 followers and you do not really have any clear niche, only let’s say lifestyle in broad terms and a small account under 10,000 followers with engaged audience and community who are in the specific niche they are looking for let’s say traveling.
Then the brand will always choose the smaller account.
MONEY
Now that we have covered the basics let’s talk about MONEY.
Think about joining third-party platforms:
AspireIQ
Liketoknow.it (LTK)
#paid
Fohr
Popular pays
Obviously
Curacity social
Activate
Tribe
Rewardstyle
These platforms connect brands and influencers and they are always gifted or paid partnerships.
Now to mention do not make brand collaborations your only source of income because they can be very inconsistent.
Sometimes you could have no brand deals at all.
Other ways you can monetize your blog are through affiliate marketing and ads.
I have separate articles and advice about these topics.
Keep brand deals as a bonus on your business and your income when it happens.
RELATIONSHIP WITH BRANDS
Focus on building relationships with the brands you are working with or planning to work with.
when you are just starting, maybe you should consider only accepting gifted opportunities.
This is why:
Because you are just starting, you are new and learning how to shoot good quality content for your business as how to take photos for branded photos and create branded content you might not produce the best material immediately.
This is why when you are learning to be the best version of yourself, you should start with gifted deals.
It means free stuff for content.
Later when you get better you should upgrade and start asking for money for the deals and then you know your worth and how good quality content you can create.
You might be thinking why can’t you do it immediately for money.
Let’s take an example.
If you suddenly decide to be an actor, with zero experience, would anyone hire you as a lead actress immediately…
You most likely start as an extra with zero money and work on your experience and relationship to grow, build your portfolio and experience, get better and later apply for bigger paid roles.
Eventually, you should get paid,
Definitely!
Build your confidence and experience!
When you feel you would be ready for paid partnerships, it would be easier to reach out to companies you have already worked with before and already have a relationship with.
These opportunities are easier to transform into sponsored opportunities.
You might have to reach out to brands multiple times and many times you will get denied.
Do not get discouraged about that.
I reached out to one brand three times and got denied three times.
Then I send them one of my articles and they approved me.
Because they saw I was genuinely interested in them and I had already created content about their product that I was using and I was not expecting to do it for money, I had already done it and they saw that it was an opportunity for them as well.
This way you are building trust between yourself and the company.
You could reach out to the brand you have been working with like this:
Hi,
I have been getting a lot of collaboration requests, so I am excited to share with you that I am transitioning to sponsored partnerships,
And since we have been working together for so long time, and my audience loves your products.
I would love to continue to grow together.
That’s it really, all you need.
This will be so natural and not hard for you at this point.
HOW MUCH ARE YOU WORTH?
How do you know how much to ask money working with the brand?
There is a simple calculation that will give you a rough average about how much you can ask for money.
You can use this calculation to make a rough average rate.
Multiply your follower number with 0.02.
It means 2 cents for every follower. This is what brands are paying you for, your reach amount.
Then how long does it take for you to create content?
The whole process, from start to finish.
Photo, video, Instagram story, a blog post, a youtube video.
For example a YouTube video, how long does it take to get ready, make-up, hair, shooting, editing, writing captions, keyword research, everything that goes into the process of creating that content.
Then multiply that with minimum wage.
Did you have any expenses? Did you buy something to create that video?
Adding these all together is the amount you should charge.
EXAMPLE:
If you have 1000 followers multiply that 0.02 = 20
1000 X 0.02 = 20
It took 7 hours to complete the video from start to finish.
Multiply 7 by 12 and this is the minimum wage here.
7hr X 12 = 84
I also bought some make-up to create the video and that cost me 20 bucks.
Makeup = 20
To add everything together it is going to be 20 + 84 + 20 = 124.
Let’s round everything up for 150.
So your first-rate with your 1000 followers is 150 dollars for a YouTube video.
This is a rough estimate and for something more simple like a post, it is going to be a little lower than this because it will also be easier and faster to create.
this amount is how much you can charge for your first paid collaboration.
If you feel like you are worth more and should charge more, then charge more!
You decide on this!
In the future, you can raise your rates as you continue to grow online.
How to ask for more money.
If your follower number is not very big, you can always focus on for example your engagement rate.
Or the social media account followers that you have more, let’s say in Pinterest for example.
Maybe you have experience in the marketing field or any experience, education, skill, or platform you can use to get your rates higher.
Maybe you only have those 500 followers on Instagram, but those 500 followers are really engaged with your content.
And your engagement rate is somewhere 10-20%.
That might not sound too much, but trust me.
Generally, brands are looking for an engagement rate of 2-3% on influencers’ posts. A ratio of 4-6% is excellent, while posts in the high tens and twenties are considered “viral.”
To calculate influencers engagement rate on Instagram:
Divide the average number of likes and comments they get on their posts by their follower count, and then multiply by 100 to get a percentage.
Engagement rate = (Likes + Comments) / Followers X 100
So if you notice that your engagement rate is amazing, make sure to mention that to the brand and you just might be closer to your first brand deal.
NEGOTIATIONS
When you continue to grow you will be contacted by brands asking you to collaborate with them.
The most simple way to negotiate a paid collaboration for yourself is to ask a brand how big is your budget?
If you are already moved to paid collaborations or going to move from only receiving free stuff.
Say that you are only accepting sponsored opportunities and you would like to hear about what kind of budget they have for these partnerships.
Try not to tell your rates first and if you need to, tell them a rate that is higher than you normally ask, then you have room to negotiate that rate lower.
If you tell your real rate at this point, you might get paid less than you are worth.
Remember it is negotiation.
Example situation:
Brand contacts me: “Hey Marika, we want to send you this gift.”
Me: “Hey, I am only doing sponsored opportunities. What is your budget?”
The brand might ask for your rates or not be interested. Let’s assume the brand would be interested to work with you.
If the brand does not tell their budget right away, it might go like this:
Brand: “What are your rates?”
Me: “Well, that depends, what are you looking for deliverables?”
Try not to say that number first.
You might have to say the number first if the brand goes: “here are the deliverables, how much do you charge for them?”
If I charge normally 400, I will tell the brand 800. Then I have room to negotiate because they might go: “oh, that is a little out of budget for us how about how about 600? or 400?”
Then I got my rate or even more than I was expecting and not below the rates that I am worth.
Remember that sponsorships are not for selfish money-making, but you both need to benefit from each other.
You want to grow, the brand wants to grow, that is why you create a partnership.
never use brand sponsorships for your personal gain because you want free stuff and money.
This is not a sustainable long-term strategy for you.
If you are not enjoyable to work with, the money will not follow, people tend to see who only does things for money.
You need to offer value for the brand.
This way you will lose:
I really like this brand, I like clothes, so I want the clothes for free…
It might work at first but eventually, there might be no brands left that want to work with you anymore.
Don’t create the situation for yourself that you make your online business fail because of this.
Create a genuine connection and then the money will follow.
CONCLUSION
Contacting brands and negotiating deals can be very scary at first, but you will get better more you do it, the better you will get.
Also, you might get many NO answers at first, do not get discouraged.
Continue to reach out and even the same brands after some time, then they might see your value again with new eyes and say, “let’s work together.”
WANT TO LEARN MORE?
If you have any other questions about how influencers make money on Instagram, let me know in the comments section below.
Or if you have a video idea that you would like me to create, you can send me a DM on Instagram @marika.anneli.kim
And don’t forget to subscribe to my channel!
I’ll see you back here for more helpful tips soon.
XO, Marika Kim
