I almost didn’t write this blog post.
Talking about money is taboo in normal circumstances, and I worried it would seem like bragging while so many are suffering in this pandemic.
I decided to write it for 2 reasons:
1) To inform and inspire people who want to make money from Instagram like I do. It’s 100% possible! And, it’s a great way to make money remotely while we can’t leave our homes.
2) To help fight the money taboo and encourage others to share their stories.
The week of April 13, I made $1,300 from Instagram!
It was my most profitable week on Instagram yet. I don’t make that much most weeks because I’m usually focusing on my freelance writing career, which I find more rewarding. But thanks to COVID-19, I found myself with a lot less freelance business than usual and was desperate for something different.
I challenged myself to make $500 from Instagram in a week.
I was already averaging $100 per sponsored post with 10k followers, but those deals were sporadic — maybe one every 3-4 weeks. I rarely pitch new brand partnerships and I still mainly use Instagram for fun.
Maybe if I pitch 20 new brands, I thought, 5 of them will agree to a sponsored post? I thought it was a stretch. But when I challenged myself to make $500, something shifted. I ended up making $1,300: enough to pay my rent and utilities for the month with a little left over.
Here’s how I did it:
Sponsored Posts – $950
Adams Flea and Tick – $850
Hardees x Beyond Meat – $50
Kodiak Cakes x Kroger Co – $50
Adams Flea and Tick – $850
Hardee’s x Beyond Meat – $50
Kodiak Cakes x Kroger – $50
Why such a price discrepancy between the posts?
First, the Adams Flea and Tick photoshoot was much more involved. I shot hundreds of photos and videos in 4 different locations with 3 outfit changes (on a hike, in my bathtub, around the house, and in the backyard) to get the perfect action shots, then edited and organized them into a folder by product. I made a cute compilation video of Juno shaking in the bathtub. I did a full re-shoot after the client decided they didn’t want to use the photos from my hike and focused on the backyard instead.
In addition to the photos and post I provided , I signed an agreement with Adams to promote my photos in a Facebook and Instagram ad campaign, which meant my photos saw a lot more action beyond my personal Instagram page.
While this was mostly a good thing for me —free advertising, resulting in tens of thousands of views and a few hundred new followers— I was also responsible for responding to comments on the promoted posts, which was extra work on my part. Most people were incredibly kind and complimentary, especially towards Juno, but there were a few rude, raunchy, off-color and off-topic comments I had to weed through on my own time.
At the beginning of the campaign, I’ll admit, $850 seemed high: I’d never been paid so much for a single post! But I quickly realized that with all the work required, it was more than fair.
For the Hardee’s and Kodiak Cakes posts, meanwhile, I did a mini photoshoot with my self-timer (one location/pose, one outfit) and edited the photos on my phone. Each one took less than an hour of work (and included free, delicious food,) so $50 felt okay.
I usually charge $100 for a single-image sponsored post, but was happy to make exceptions for Beyond Meat and Kodiak Cakes because I needed the money and I really wanted to work with both brands.
Affiliate Income – $50
One common way bloggers make money is affiliate income. When someone buys a product using my links, I get a small percent of that purchase.
I shared an REI link on my stories and mentioned that I get a small commission on each sale. A few friends and followers decided to support me by clicking the link, resulting in $52.25 in commissions from Instagram alone!
(I also make affiliate income from this blog. Any link you click on BonjourBecky.com for retailers like Amazon, REI, and Backcountry will automatically give me a tiny percentage of your purchase. Thanks for your support!)
Client Referrals – $300
I don’t talk about my freelance writing work on Instagram all that much, because I kind of assume that a) most people already know about it (not true!) and b) no one would be interested because they only follow me for adventures and dog pics, anyway (also not true!)
I posted an Instagram Story mentioning that I’d lost a lot of work due to COVID-19 budget cutbacks. In the next slide, I mentioned I was drafting emails about coronavirus response for one of my clients. One of my followers, someone I’ve never met in real life, asked if I could write a series of coronavirus response emails for her small business. We started chatting and I ended up writing a short email campaign for her company: 3 hours of work. At my freelance writing rate of $100/hour, that was $300 of work that I wouldn’t have gotten otherwise. Sometimes it pays to promote yourself!
Total = $1,300 in a week
3 tips for microinfluencers and nanoinfluencers
1. Use brand tags, hashtags, and locations even before you’re paid
My first brand partnership was with Whole Foods in 2016, when I had just 3k followers. They found me via Instagram and asked me to promote a fundraiser they were doing for the Bay Area Ridge Trail in exchange for a small gift card. (I honestly can’t remember how much it was, maybe $25, but it really wasn’t much!)
Why did Whole Foods pick me? It wasn’t because I had tens of thousands of followers. (Again, I had 3k, which was low even for 2016.) They picked me because I’d geotagged the trail they were fundraising for just for the fun of it and they liked my photos. By sharing my experience with cute photos of Juno and a thoughtful caption, I proved I could promote the cause authentically. (Or maybe they just thought Juno was cute. Can’t blame ’em.)
It was the perfect first partnership. Promoting Whole Foods felt zero percent scammy or sleazy because it was a brand I already loved and shopped with regularly. Even better, I was promoting a local trail I loved and hiked on several times a week. (This was before Amazon acquired Whole Foods and centralized the marketing team, so the Whole Foods Northern California team I worked with no longer exists. :\)
2. Don’t wait for brands to come to you
The best way to partner with a brand? Pitch yourself! Send the brand a well-crafted DM (or better yet, an email) summarizing your brand, what you can offer, why you’d be a great fit, and a couple examples of your previous work (ideally with results.) Spending all day tagging brands and hoping they’ll notice you won’t get you very far.
3. Focus on authenticity, not audience numbers
If you have 10k followers or less, brands aren’t paying for your audience so much as they’re paying for your authenticity — your content. As someone who’s managed large social media accounts, I know the struggle of hunting down hashtags trying to find a good, authentic-looking photo to post that hasn’t already been posted a million times. A well-lit, high-quality photo of you enjoying a product is often worth the cost of paying you, even if your following is small. If you can offer good photography of a product in use, a brand might not need to hire a professional photographer — which actually saves them money!
It’s a little scary to hit publish on a post like this.
Most of the income reports I’ve read from other bloggers are so far removed my own experience (like Michelle Schroeder Gardner, who routinely makes $100,000+ per month with her blog!) that I end up more intimidated than inspired. If you feel the same, don’t worry — I didn’t just wake up and start making $1,300 a week.
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