Instagram is one of the most used social media channels in the world, with over 2 billion people using it on the regular. This makes it an extremely powerful social media tool for both businesses and personal users. Businesses can use it to increase their reach (and therefore profits) whilst personal users can use it to share their life updates and potentially grow their following until they become an influencer, which is where they can start to make an income from it.
If you look at some of the biggest influencers on Instagram, such as Cristiano Ronaldo, Selena Gomez, Ariana Grande or Kyle Jenner, they have hundreds of millions of followers, which can be extremely lucrative for them! Yet while this is all good and well, you don’t have to be a big celebrity to bring in a generous income. Yes, the big celebrities get paid a huge amount with brand collaborations, but that doesn’t mean that smaller accounts can’t make a nice living off it, or a pretty healthy side income. In fact, there are a lot of normal influencers who use Instagram to make a good chunk of (or even all of) their income.
Once you have accumulated a reasonable following, this is when you can start making some money and can score paid Instagram collabs like a pro. Whether you’re a nano-influencer with under 10,000 followers or a growing creator trying to turn your platform into a business, here’s your no-fluff guide to scoring paid Instagram collabs in no time at all.
1. Understand the Basics of Instagram Collaborations
Before we start with how to make an income, it’s useful to understand the basics of Instagram collaborations. At their core, Instagram collaborations are partnerships between creators and brands. In these partnerships, a brand compensates you – either through payment, free products, services, or a combination – or by promoting their product or message to your audience. These promotions can take many forms: a feed post, a series of Instagram Stories, a Reel, a giveaway, or even long-term brand ambassadorships.
To be successful with these collaborations, you need to be savvy, tactical, and know what you’re doing. The more revenue the client you are working with makes from you advertising them, the higher the chances they will work with you again. Measure things like how much reach your posts get – for example, if you have 30,000 followers and 10,000 of them view your post, this can be very rewarding. Brands often like to see that your audience is engaging with your posts, whether that’s sharing it with their followers, liking the post or commenting.
2. Build an Engaging and Targeted Instagram Profile
Your Instagram profile is the first thing a company that is looking to collaborate with you will look at. What this means is your profile needs to be engaging, exciting and align with their brand values – for example, a travel company may want to collaborate with an influencer or post a lot about their travels, as this is very relevant. Make sure your posts are aligned with who you are and are consistent. Brands want to see that you are posting a lot and engaging with your followers. They will also want to see that you are utilising all of Instagram’s tools, such as Instagram Stories, videos and hashtags.
3. Develop Your Unique Brand Identity
When you run a business, there are two things you should be doing: 1. Ensuring you have a USP, which makes you stand out from the crowd, or 2. Doing what someone else does but better. This rule applies to Instagram. You want to either be doing something that other influencers do but better or have a USP about you, which is why people would want to follow you. Ask yourself what is unique about you. Is it the content you put out, the story you are trying to tell or are you more consistent than other creators? By developing a unique brand identity, you’ll find brands appreciate this, and when you are pitching for a collab, they are more likely to choose you over someone else. An example may be, you are a family influencer who posts about travelling even when they are young – this could align with a brand that is trying to link their product to travel, such as a new travel pram.
4. Connect with Brands for Collaboration Opportunities
Once your profile is polished and your content reflects a strong brand identity, it’s time to actively seek out collaboration opportunities. The biggest tip we can give is to not wait for brands to come to you (as this may never happen). Be active in the market and not afraid to reach out to brands and pitch to them about your offering and why they should work with you. A lot of content creators on Instagram land their first deal but DM’ing a brand directly or reaching out to them via their media team.
What can be useful is writing a list of brands you may want to work with, then, when you are planning your content, have them in mind. This way, when you are ready to pitch, you have good examples of what that brand would be a good fit for you. For example, if you are a fitness influencer, you could start posting about nutrition, with the goal being that you collaborate with a supplements company, which produces Protein shakes. Or you could start talking about the benefits of supplements and try and pivot to working with a company that creates creatine.
5. Craft Compelling Pitches for Potential Partners
This is when the hard work and challenge come in. You may have a great profile and a USP, but if your pitches for potential partners aren’t right, then you may not get the collabs that you are hoping for.
When trying to score paid Instagram collabs like a pro, you need to have a bulletproof pitch so that you know the brand you want to work with can’t say no. Your pitch should be short, personalised, and show that you’ve done your homework. Avoid generic messages that could be sent to any brand – instead, speak directly to why you want to work with that specific brand and how your content aligns with their mission, values, or target audience.
It can be useful to find the email address of the person who is in charge of that company’s marketing or social media profile (instead of pitching to a generic email or profile DM) and attending their events (if they run them). This way, you can speak to them directly about who you are and your offering.
6. Negotiate Terms and Maximise Your Earnings
This is a tricky step and something that a lot of influencers struggle with. You don’t want to ask for too much money that they think you are overpriced and instantly say no. On the other hand, you don’t want to say a price that is too low and they instantly say yes, and you feel like you are being underpaid.
It can be useful to speak to other influencers whom you know to ask them about their pricing strategy, or reach out to influencers online and ask them for support (you are all in the same boat, so often people are more supportive and helpful). What we would say is to try and understand your value and pick a number that will make a difference to you. For example, if you are working with a travel brand and using a discount code to track your bookings, you will know how much they have made. If you make them 100 bookings at £1000 each, that’s £100,000. With this number, you know you can demand a reasonable rate, considering you have made them a lot of money.
When entering negotiations, be clear about what’s included in your rate: the number of posts or stories, the type of content and whether you will be posting pictures or creating a video (videos tend to cost more).
7. Track Your Success and Optimise Your Strategy
Once you have landed your collab like a pro, this is when you should start tracking the results, as you can use this to land future clients as well as encourage the brand you are collaborating with to work with you again.
Pay attention to metrics such as reach, impressions, likes, comments, saves, story views, and link clicks. These insights demonstrate how well your content performed and how engaged your audience was. Many brands appreciate receiving a short post-collaboration report summarising these stats. By doing this, you show you are proactive, and brands appreciate the transparency. It also increases the likelihood of them instantly signing you up for another campaign.
When you can, try to put together a short document (Canva is great for this) of all the stats and successes you have had with the campaign. Include a few other campaigns with other clients as well, and ask for testimonials to include in this document. You can then send this document to other brands when you are looking for additional collaborations as you grow your business. Often, brands like to see previous successes before committing to using you for their campaign.
8. Take the Next Step: Enhance Your Collaboration Skills
As a creator, you should always strive to improve and land new clients. Never become complacent with the clients you currently have, as you never know what will happen with their budgets in the future. You may be very successful with them, but then they close down, and suddenly you are out there frantically pitching for new collabs.
If you want to keep growing as a creator and attracting high-quality partnerships, you need to continuously work on improving your collaboration skills. Brands are always evolving their expectations, and the influencer marketing space is becoming more competitive. Make sure you are still attending events and sending pitches to new brands, even when you think you have enough in your roaster.
9. Diversify Your Income Streams Beyond Collabs
Once you have become a pro at landing collabs on Instagram, now is the time to think about diversifying your portfolio and adding other options. By diversifying your offering, you will give yourself a chance to bring in additional income streams. What you find is that a lot of Instagram creators have additional skill sets that they utilise on top of their Instagram page. For example, you may want to start a podcast and make some income from advertising throughout it. You could launch a blog and make an income from sponsored posts, or you could turn to YouTube and create long-form content, which can be very profitable.
The best thing about having additional income streams is that when one thing dips, you are not stressing that you aren’t making any money. Once your Instagram profile is a success and you have a lot of followers, you will also find it easier to grow your new venture, as you can promote it to the people who are already following you. This means you aren’t starting your ‘pod-cast’ from scratch and trying to grow it from nothing. Instead, you can grow your podcast by sharing your content with your already-engaging followers, resulting in them listening to it straight away.
Landing paid clients for your Instagram like a pro isn’t just about posting photos whenever you like on your page. It requires strategy, consistency and a lot of dedication. From understanding the basics to building an engaging page and developing your unique identity, each step helps you create an identity which will help encourage brands to work with you. Remember to track your results, learn from every experience, and continuously sharpen your skills to stay ahead in the fast-evolving creator economy.
What type of Instagram account do you run, and what are your unique selling points? What have you been doing recently to land collabs like a pro? What advice would you give to someone trying to improve their Instagram page? Let us know in the comment box below.
