become an instagram influencer

How To Become An Instagram Influencer | An Ultimate 2020 Guide For Beginners

Hey, buddy why do you look so stressed? What should I tell? I want to grow my business online but didn’t get any way to do that. Why don’t you become an Instagram Influencer, it will help you a lot in expanding your business online. I didn’t get it, will you please elaborate it. Ya sure.

In this article, I am going to demonstrate each and every aspect of Instagram Influencer like what it is, how to become an Instagram Influencer, how do they make money from their content, and so on. So let’s begin our journey to become an Instagram Influencer.

What Does Instagram Influencer Mean?

Instagram Influencers are those who create content over Instagram related to a particular niche one at a time and also build communities of followers interested in that particular niche.

Since Instagram is a visual-content sharing social media platform, so Instagram Influencer uses appealing photos and videos as their tools, for influencing the audiences interested in particular products or services. 

Instagram Influencers focuses more on encouraging or persuading their huge audiences to view the products which they are advertising and if the audience likes the products, they also pave the way to buy them.

Instagram Influencers are the third-party people who play a very crucial role in shaping the decisions of customers to buy a product or service offered by the organizations or industries, through their visual contents and Microblogging

How To Become An Instagram Influencer?

become an instagram influencer what is it

As now we know what the term Influencer signifies, let’s move further to know how to become an Instagram Influencer and how to make money from this.

To become an Instagram Influencer some quick steps you need to follow are mentioned below: 

Choose a niche or topic for your Instagram Account

Choosing a niche that suits your passion and personality plays a significant role in transforming a personal account holder into an Instagram Influencer, as a niche of your choice provides you a field related to which only you should create content on Instagram to Influence your targeted huge audience. 

Selecting a niche of your choice like something that you are crazy about and can create awesome content related to that, for a longer period of time, is very important because on social media you can’t attract people with your fake content. People get attracted only when you build trust regarding your content and product through real images in your audience’s mind and this is a critical thing to remember if you want to become an Instagram Influencer.

So don’t try to follow the niche that is trending, rather than follow the one that interests you and makes you feel passionate about it.

Some of the categories of Instagram niche that may interest you and help you in choosing the one that best suits you are nature, art/craft, travel, fitness, business, fashion, photography, photo manipulation, lifestyle, interior designing, parenting, coaching, motivation, animals, or best of something you want to showcase such as the best foods in some cities, the best photos of dogs, the best nature photos, and so on.

Make Your Instagram account As An Instagram Business Account

After selecting a niche of your choice, you are one step closer to become an Instagram Influencer, let’s move to create an account or a platform to influence your audience by exhibiting your content.

For becoming a powerful competitor in the field of Influence Marketing you need a business account i.e., public or open to all, rather than a private personal account. If you already have a business account then you can skip the below steps for converting personal account into business account otherwise step ahead along with me.

Steps To Convert Normal Instagram Account Into An Instagram Business Account

The steps are:

  1. Open your profile and tap on the hamburger icon present in the top right corner.
  2. Click on the Settings tab.
  3. Then click on the Account option.
  4. Select the Switch To Professional Account option.
    (Make sure your account status is set to the public because we can’t convert a private account into a business account.)
  5. Tap on Business to create an account for making your own brand or for thriving your business online.
    (Connect the Facebook page associated with your business to your Instagram account is an optional step. If you do that you will get the privileges of using all the features available for your business in all the apps which are the part of the Facebook group.)
  6. At this time, you can connect only one Facebook page to your Instagram business account.
  7. Enter the information such as your business category and contact information so that your audience can easily contact you.
  8. Then click on the Done button. 

That’s it your personal account is now get converted into the business account. But to know what are the benefits of a business account and how it is different from the personal account, we need to move forward. 

Difference Between Instagram Personal And Business Account

Personal and professional accounts are the two types of Instagram accounts through which one can either connect with their friends and family or one can use it for business purposes. Both of them have some pros and cons. 

So let’s see the differences between them and select the one that suits your need best.

  • By using an Instagram Personal profile you can add multiple Facebook pages whereas with an Instagram business profile you can connect only one Facebook page that is associated with your business.
  • With a personal account, one can set their profile status to either private or public but with a business account, you can’t set your profile status to private, it will always be public.
  • While the personal Instagram account only provides basic facilities for posting content, chatting with friends, etc, business Instagram accounts provide advanced features such as Instagram Insights, promoted posts, contact information, and the ability to schedule and publish posts automatically using different tools.
  • An Instagram business account provides you the facility to run your own ads campaign on Instagram which is not possible with an Instagram personal account.
  • An Instagram business account provides you a “Contact” button present at the top of your profile which allows your audience to contact you via call or email directly without visiting your business website, but this can’t be done with an Instagram personal profile.

Benefits Of Having An Instagram Business/Professional Account

As above we have seen how an Instagram personal account is different from an Instagram professional account, now is the time to be aware of the benefits you get from your Instagram business account. 

The benefits are:

  1. By using an Instagram business account, you will get access to Instagram Insights. This feature of Instagram allows you to get the details of your Instagram performances along with the number of times your profile viewed, a number of posts, website click, email click, new followers added, etc.
    It also helps you in getting the demographic details of your followers such as their age, location,  gender along with their activity details, which is useful to become an Instagram Influencer.  
  2. An Instagram business account allows you to run your own ads campaign through the same advertising tools that Facebook uses for creating Facebook ads. 
  3. After switching to an Instagram business profile a Contact button present at the top right corner of your profile gets enabled which helps your audience to contact you through call or email directly without hunting your details on your business website. 
  4. By using an Instagram business profile one can also promote their posts from the apps itself. This feature is somewhat the same as promoting your posts on Facebook.
  5. The most recently added features to the Instagram business account is that you can tag the products directly from your Instagram posts. This will provide you a way to sell your products directly from your Instagram account.
  6. Being an Instagram business account holder you have the privilege to prevent one from tagging you in their posts as a branded content partner. It will help you in preventing people from falsely using your brand name for endorsing their profiles.
  7. The Instagram business profile also allows you to add links to your Instagram stories and helps you create a direct way for sales and brand engagement – much needed to become an Instagram Influencer.
  8. If you have an Instagram business profile then you can schedule and publish the posts later in the time. Many tools or software are available in the market for scheduling your Instagram posts.

Focus On Your Bio

become an instagram influencer bio

Creating a creative and appealing Instagram bio is of utmost importance for any business brand or Instagram Influencer, as this is the first thing that appears on your profile to visitors landed on it. 

The bio is that section of your profile that showcases the content type the visitors of your profile will get if they follow you. It also helps you in promoting your business, showcasing their brand’s personality, and convincing people to follow you.

Tips For Creating An Influential Bio

As we have seen how bio helps you to become an Instagram Influencer, so creating the best one is very important.

Some of the points you need to keep in mind while creating your bio to become an Instagram Influencer are:

  1. When you click on the Edit Profile button the very first field appears is of Name. Use the keyword for your name field because when people search for your profile the keyword in this name field is analyzed for matches. This name also helps you in making your presence at the top in the google search. 
  2. If you belong to a specific niche and provide services related to it, then specifying the same in your bio clearly helps you to connect with the right audience immediately. 
  3. Sharing your skills and experience helps the targeted audience to build confidence in you and what kind of content will you offer them in the future if they follow you.
  4. If you are making a brand as an individual then sharing who you are, what you do, what are your hobbies, values, and interests, etc help you in getting engaged with the community of your type.
  5. If you are branding a business then using your business brand voice with a humor touch helps your audience to recognize it immediately and helps you in maintaining consistency throughout all social media platforms.
  6. Add emojis to your bio along with texts. This will help you make your bio look fresh and charming and also emojis take less space as compared to text. Using emojis as a bullet point helps you in breaking your bio contents into phrases and make it easier to read for the visitors.
  7. Using a branded hashtag in your bio not only helps you in driving posts engagements but also helps you in building a community around your brand.
  8. The last and most important one is that adding a  Call-to-Action(CAT) point in your bio helps you in paving a way for your audience what you want them to do, how to do it, if possible. It can be your business website link also.

Keeping all these things in mind, you are now really close to become an Instagram Influencer.

Try To Become A Micro-Influencer

The process of becoming a micro-influencer is the same as the giant Instagram Influencer so before knowing about the benefits you will get from becoming a micro-influencer, let’s first understand what the term micro-influencer on Instagram exactly means.

What does Micro-Influencer mean?

Micro-Influencers are the Instagram Influencers having higher engagement rates only with a smaller number of audiences. These influencers are the users on Instagram with followers ranging from 10,000 to 50,000. These users are especially effective in branding a particular niche as they are passionate about that niche.

Benefits Of Becoming A Micro-Influencer

Being a small businessman, micro-influencing provides you a lot of benefits such as higher engagement, niche audience, and so on. Some of the benefits are listed below: 

  1. Becoming a Micro-Influencer is easier than becoming a giant Instagram Influencer or creator as it requires only 10,000 to 50,000 followers and lesser efforts on a daily basis.
  2. As in micro-influencing, the number of followers is less, so engaging with each one of them on a personal level becomes easy and that’s the reason why micro-influencers have a higher rate of engagement. In studies, it is found that the engagement rate of micro-influencer is about 3.6% whereas the macro-influencers have only a 1.5% engagement rate.
  3. As the audience’s number is small, they are merely those who are really interested in that niche, so they will take your post as eagerly as you were while posting them. This ensures that by partnering with micro-influencers you will be able to get high-quality leads.
  4. The biggest benefit you can get from micro-influencing is that it is cost-effective, as micro-influencers charge only $100 per 10K followers, which is very significant for smaller businesses that have limited budgets.

Proper Use Of Caption And Hashtags(#)

hashtaggs become an instagram influencer

Writing meaningful captions provides you an opportunity to start conversations and build meaningful connections with your community. 

Maybe you know or not that captions are also called Instagram blogs or microblogging. So most of the time I prefer to use captions as microblogging as it allows me to write captions about the visual contents in a detailed manner. 

A few things you need to keep in mind while writing an effective caption are:

  • To become an Instagram Influencer, the first line of your caption needs to be eye-catching, having a larger font because this is the only line that is visible while scrolling your Instagram posts.
  • And always remember to sum-up your captions with the Call-to-Action line as the CTA line provides you an opportunity to engage with your audience for further interaction in the comment section.
  • This CTA line could be anything such as a question, a link, an invitation to share or ask for advice, etc.
  • Lastly, keep in mind that your captions should consist of short paragraphs as well as should entertaining and fun to read as reading such a long caption without any humor is a very difficult task for everyone. 

After creating an amazing caption, now the time is to select relevant hashtags for your post.

Hashtags are as important as the meaningful captions as it helps you in gaining more and more followers and making your posts searchable with that term. It provides you an engagement rate of 12.6% which is quite high.

The hashtags can be anything such as:

  • Community-specific
  • Challenge-or contest-specific
  • Subject-specific
  • Campaign-specific
  • Event-specific
  • Location-specific
  • Product-specific 
  • Lifestyle-specific
  • Brand-specific

In the stories, you can add a maximum of 10 hashtags whereas in captions maximum of 30 hashtags can be added. But according to experts, adding only 11 hashtags is enough to make your posts searchable.

Create A Proper Follow Up For Stories And Posts

stories become an instagram influencer

In order to become an Instagram Influencer, it is very significant to create a proper followup for your posts and stories in advance if you have to face a hectic schedule every day because consistency is the only key to succeed in this field. And scheduling your posts and stories is the only way to maintain consistency without any gaps. 

So, let’s see how we can schedule our posts, stories, and IGTV on Instagram. 

Schedule For Instagram Posts

For scheduling posts on Instagram, many tools are available in the markets. Some of them are Buffer, Later, Hootsuite, Sprout Social, SocialFlow, etc. But here I’m going to use Buffer to schedule posts on Instagram as it is extremely versatile and allows us to schedule 10 posts in a queue at a time.

The steps to schedule posts on Instagram using Buffer (the third-party software or app) are:

  1. Download and Install the Buffer app.
  2. Open the app and start the process of connecting your Instagram Business account with it.
  3. After completing the connection process login with your Instagram account in the Buffer app and grant access permission of your account to it.
  4. Now the Buffer app will ask you to authenticate using Facebook, so select the Authenticate With the Facebook option to start the authentication process. This will move you to the next screen where you can choose to enable reminders.

Now you are all set to schedule posts on Instagram.

  1. Now again open the Buffer app & click on the plus(+) button on the bottom toolbar. 
  2. Then add photos & videos with a meaningful and attractive Instagram caption. You can also add your location here if you want.
  3. After that click on the Share button & then select Schedule Post to specify date & time.
  4. Finally, tap on the Schedule button.

That’s it. Your Instagram posts are now ready to be posted on the designated date and time.

Schedule For Instagram Stories

While scheduling posts on Instagram using Buffer, we have done all the necessary tasks to connect your Instagram account to the Buffer app. So, let’s move towards the steps needed to schedule stories on Instagram and also one step forward to become an Instagram Influencer. 

The steps are:

  1. Open the Stories tab in your Buffer Publish dashboard.
  2. For creating a story, select Add to Story option to open the Stories Composer.
  3. Click on Add Media file to upload your Story images and videos. Here you can add a maximum of 10 media files at a time.
  4. Now arrange your media files by dragging and dropping in the order you want to create the story.
  5. After that add notes to each of your media files by hovering onto them (optional step).
  6. Now you can preview your story by clicking on the Preview button.
  7. After that click on the Schedule Story button to open up the date and time calendar. Select the designated date and time on which you want your story to be posted.

That’s it. Your Instagram Story is ready to be published on the selected date and time.

Schedule For IGTV Videos

In the above two sections, I have used a third-party app, “Buffer” for scheduling posts and stories on Instagram but that doesn’t mean we can’t do scheduling without these apps. So in this section, I’m going to schedule IGTV videos on Instagram using Facebook Creator Studio.

The steps for the same are as follow:

  1. Open the Facebook Creator Studio.
  2. If your Instagram business account is connected with the Facebook page then it will automatically be logged into your Instagram account with which your Facebook page is connected otherwise, so you first need to connect your Instagram business account with your Facebook page.
  3. Once connected, tap on the Instagram icon present at the top of the page to view your Instagram posts and insights.
  4. Now click on the Create Post button present in the left pane at the top. Clicking on this button opens two options: Instagram Feed or IGTV.
  5. Select IGTV as here we are going to schedule IGTV videos on Instagram. Then choose the Instagram account you want to select from the menu screen.
  6. Now the window with fields necessary for uploading IGTV will appear.
  7. Click on the From File Upload option to select videos from your computer or From your Page Content option for choosing the file from your Facebook page.
  8. If you want to replace your uploaded video with a new one, click on Select New Video beneath the Preview video option.
  9. After uploading the video, populate the fields such as title, description, and so on. The title is necessary to upload a video. Remember to add hashtags in the description field.
  10. Now select or upload a cover page i.e., thumbnails for your video from the computer.
  11. If your video is longer than 1 minute, then you can show the 1-minute preview of your video as an Instagram feed. As this option is checked automatically on the upload screen you can uncheck it if you don’t want to preview your video as an Instagram feed.
  12. Now click on the drop-down arrow button present besides the Publish button and select the Schedule Post option.
  13. After that, select a designated date and time on which you want your IGTV video to be published and then upload it by tapping on the Schedule button.

That’s it. Your IGTV video is ready to be posted on the scheduled date and time. 

Communicate With Your Followers

followers become an instagram influencer

Instagram being a social media platform, provides a stage for its users to interact with other users in the network. Interacting with other users helps you in building a queue of huge fan-following.

If you have joined this field recently and want to become an Instagram Influencer, then getting engaged with the audience interested in the same niche of your interest, is of utmost importance. 

And you can do that by commenting on their posts or stories, by following them, by using affiliate marketing links, by creating sponsored posts for the brands to get prizes, free products, discounts, and so on.

How To Use Stories For Interactions

There are many ways in which Instagram stories can be used for Interaction. 

Some of them are:

  1. If your account has 10,000 followers and more, then you can include the Swipe Up feature at the end of your Instagram Story to encourage people to know more about your profile.
  2. By creating polls, asking questions, and using a swipe meter to get feedback from your audience.
  3. Instagram Story also helps you to drag the audience to your posts. This can be done by sharing your new post with the “Add Post to Your Story” option.
  4. As Whatsapp status, Instagram stories also last for 24 hours only, so for being connected all the time with the audience, you are required to post Instagram stories consistently
  5. By adding broader and most popular hashtags relevant to your stories also helps for the same.
  6. Build as many creative and innovative stories as you can with the help of GIFs, font styles, background music, etc to attract a larger audience.
  7. If your story represents a particular person or brand, do mention them. By mentioning others you allow them to add that content to their story too.

Outreach The Brands

As you know, to become an Instagram Influencer, you need to work with the brand with whom you love to work. But you can reach a brand only when you have a good fan-following.

You can reach a brand by participating in their campaign or by using their branded hashtags in the caption of your posts. This will bring your business profile under their radar.   

You can also contact them directly via call or email and try to convince them how your collaboration with their brand will benefit them.

Platforms For Brand Outreaching

Some of the platforms that help you in reaching your targeted brands in your journey to become an Instagram Influencer are as follows:

  1. Grin
  2. InfluencerBay
  3. SocialPeeks
  4. TapInfluence 
  5. HYPR

Tools To Create Instagram Posts and Stories

There are a huge number of tools available in the markets to create appealing, attractive, and influential Instagram posts or stories. 

Some of the best tools used for creating Instagram posts and stories are: 

Instagram Posts

Instagram Stories

Fotor

InShot

ThingLink

StoryArt

QuotesCover 

Unfold

Boomerang

8mm

Giphy

PhotoGrid

iMeme

Typorama

Storify

Microsoft Hyperlapse

Lumen5

CutStory

 

Some of the tools that are common for both Instagram Posts and Stories are Canva, Adobe Spark, etc.

To know about them in detail click on Best Instagram Content Creator Tools

Frequently Asked Questions

How do Instagram Influencer get paid and how much?

If any Instagram Influencer charges money for influencing posts before reaching the threshold of 100,000 followers, he/she may be paid less and there is also a possibility that their account may collapse before it flourishes.

Instagram Influencer with 50,000 to 80,000 followers gets $200.00 per post but this amount varies based on advertisers. 

Instagram Influencers who have reached the target of 100,000 followers, can be paid $10.00 for every 10,000 followers they have.

Instagram Influencers with 250,000 to 500,000 followers have reached the jackpot level, so they get $670.00 per post. 

And once these Instagram Influencers cross the limit of 1 million, then they get the privilege of deciding how much money they will charge for each post.  

Kylie Jenner of 22 years is the highest-paid Instagram Influencer who charges more than $1 million per sponsored Instagram post.  

Does Instagram Influencing Work?

Yes, Instagram Influence marketing work and people have also made huge money from it, but not everyone can pay you in this field. In this field, people earn money from Instagram only when they work with reputed businesses or brands. You can become an Instagram Influencer but consistency is always the key to success.

Conclusion

Instagram Influencers are those who create content on Instagram in which they are interested and can create a myriad number of posts consistently. They also help in building communities of followers interested in a particular niche.

Some of the steps you need to follow to become an Instagram Influencer are pointed below:

  1. Choose a niche or topic for your Instagram Account
  2. Make Your Instagram account As An Instagram Business Account
  3. Don’t Take Bio Part Casually
  4. Try To Become A Micro-Influencer
  5. Proper Use Of Caption And Hashtags(#)
  6. Create A Proper Follow Up For Stories And Posts
  7. Communicate With Your Followers
  8. Outreach The Brands
  9. Use Tools To Create Instagram Posts and Stories

I hope you guys have met these steps very well and now you have enough content on how to become an Instagram Influencer. So, it is suggested that first, you start your career by becoming a micro-influencer and always remember that consistency is the key to success! 

All the best for your brighter career ahead.

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If you have any queries regarding the contents shared above feel free to ask me in the comments section below:)

Hi, I'm Rashmi - a Software Developer. Currently pursuing MCA through the Distance Learning Program at Sastra University.
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