The Complete Guide to Succeed on Instagram as an Influencer

Ultimate guide to be an instagram influencer

Introduction

Here, we will explore how to build a powerful Instagram account and succeed as an Influencer. We will speak about the importance of setting goals, and measuring your performance. And the move to creating compelling and attractive content. Lastly, we will go through some great ways to earn money from Instagram.

Table of Contents

Influencers can be found on various platforms. But any marketer knows that Instagram is by far their favorite digital hub. And, there are some good reasons for that. Instagram, in a nutshell, has tightened its grip and is outperforming other social media giants.

Instagram has more than 2 billion active users! This means that every fourth person on our planet is on Instagram. And on average, a user spends 28 minutes a day on Instagram. Moreover, almost 70% of users log in to the platform multiple times a day.

That’s a pretty immense chunk of time to be hanging out on a platform!Instagram has also revolutionized how influencer marketing works. Experts estimate that the influencer marketing industry will reach $16.4B in 2022.

These numbers are impressive, but there are far more remarkable things we are going to talk about.  83% of Instagram users discover new products and services on the platform. They become more interested in a brand or product when they see ads on Instagram or get information from Instagram influencers.

These Instagram insights clearly show that the platform is rapidly growing.

Without a doubt, the world’s leading brands favor Instagram over other social platforms to promote their products and services. And that can be traced back to the fact that users prefer to get information about brands and products from Instagram influencers.

Still not convinced?

Instagram has forever transformed the ways people communicate and share. It has created new approaches to marketing, brought new visual media aesthetics, new visual cultures and economies… And a lot more.

One simple notion elucidates the power of Instagram just perfectly -Brands are striving to become ‘Insta-worthy’. 

With all of that in mind, let us discuss how to succeed on Instagram as an influencer.

The first steps to building your Instagram career

Instagram likes



Whether you’re looking to create compelling Instagram content for your audience or to promote your brand, Instagram has plenty of opportunities to achieve your goals. The medium is a rapidly changing and ever-evolving platform, with thousands of influencers saturating the market.

This can only mean that success on Instagram is not very static! It requires constant work, dynamic actions, and adaptation.

That being said, finding ways to create powerful content for your Instagram -and promoting it- is a must. But before you start tailoring this vision, you should first determine what your goals are!

Successful Instagram influencers have some things in common. For instance, they have defined & detailed paths. And have effective content strategies in place, to lead them down those paths.

In this section, we will discuss how to set measurable and achievable objectives. 

How to Set Reasonable & Achievable goals for your YouTube Journey:

If your Instagram presence isn’t quite as vigorous as you’re expecting, it might be time to sharpen up your content strategy. It’ll help obtain real, organic followers on Instagram, and other social media as well. But before you proceed with this challenging journey, first you need to define goals. 

But, what should those goals be?

A social media goal refers to what you want to achieve with your activity on a platform; in our case: Instagram.

Set the right YouTube goals

Get more Followers

Whether you are starting a new account or just looking to grow your community, getting more followers should be your prime goal.

Data is crucial for setting realistic goals for increasing the number of followers.  After all, goals require context. You should know perfectly well what you can achieve without burning out. Plus, you should understand what is not tangible for you at this stage.

For instance, let’s assume your Instagram is growing by 500 followers per week. Rising to 700 or even 800 per week within a couple of months is not an unachievable goal. With clever strategy and careful consideration, you can do that!

However, expecting that average to increase by 1,000 or 1,200 followers isn’t realistic. Though it might happen, you better bet on work, rather than luck!

But where can you find that data?

Once you have an Instagram business or creator profile, you get access to your analytics through the Instagram app. If you don't have an Instagram business account. You can easily create one by following the steps below:

1. Go to your profile and then to your settings
2. Click on account
3. Click on Switch to business account

How to switch to instagram business account


To view your analytics you should follow these steps:

Tap on the menu icon in the top right corner of your profile. After that, click on the Insights tab, which will open the analytics for your business or creator profile. 

How to see your instagram analytics


From Instagram Analytics, you can get every piece of information on your performance, engagement, and growth.

But let’s make it easy!

There are many useful features you can use to get Instagram insights fast and easily. Let’s take Mysocial’s MediaKit. 

A MediaKit is like your influencer’s report on insights. It includes in-depth insights about your audience’s demographics, engagement, account growth, and many other insights.

Usually, a MediaKit is a PDF file that has to be updated manually every single time you want to use it. And nobody wants to keep on updating, re-updating, and then re-updating the re-updated file…

Mysocial’s MediaKit solves exactly that problem because once you connect your social media to Mysocial App, your mediakit will be updated automatically every single day!

Also, remember that the mediakit is useful not only for you but for sharing with others. This is super important when searching for other influencers to collaborate with or brands to work with. But, we will speak about this later… for now, let’s check how to:

Build a Loyal Community

While growth and constant increase in the number of followers are important metrics, influencers should also focus on the quality of the community they are establishing.

You might have a very large number of followers, but that does not necessarily mean that they trust your recommendations and listen to your advice.

No matter if you have just started your account, or you are already well-off, cultivating relationships within your community is probably the most important thing you can do.

Have conversations with your followers! Try to respond to their comments. After posting on your feed, stay on the platform for a few minutes to engage with people.

Always give your followers a sense of belongingness. Share your expertise and knowledge and people will feel connected to you.

Identify Your Niche

The more focused and niched you are when you start your channel, the easier you’ll be able to grow a community that trusts and loves your content.  If you really want to turn your channel into a long-term investment, an actual asset, then you need to look at yourself as somebody who specializes in a certain topic.

Try to narrow down your niche as much as you can. Think about what you can contribute to the Instagram community & want to talk about for the rest of your life, for instance!

Why? It’s better to be a specialist on a few things than to be a Jack of all trades. People follow Instagram influencers because they want to get valuable information from them. Think about what you know better than others. Understand what you are passionate about.

Answering these questions is not only important for attracting more loyal users, but it’s crucial for your own benefit. You should be creating content on the topics you are passionate about. You should enjoy the process. It must make you happy! Otherwise, you will quickly burn out!

After you have determined your niche, you can work on sub-topics. Think about 4-5 very specific pillars you want to concentrate on. If you are a beauty influencer, for instance, you can choose to post on skincare, make-up, hairstyles, etc.

Post Consistently

When it comes to setting the right goals, ensuring channel consistency is a must. With that in mind, you might be asking yourself: “How often should I post on Instagram?”

Last year, Instagram head Adam Mosseri recommended that posting 2 feed posts per week and 2 Stories per day is ideal for building a following on the app.

But, of course, it is a generic piece of advice. There is no ready-to-use formula on how frequently you should post. Think about how often your followers want to hear from you. And remember that you should know when your followers on Instagram are most active to increase engagement!

You may be wondering what is the best time to post on Instagram. Well, as with frequency, there is no ideal formula for that. Golden times are different for various Instagram accounts. Even still, benchmark data can give you a solid starting point.

These are -roughly- the golden times:

I know what you are thinking about right now. You think it’s a mistake. Well, we thought so too. We could not believe our eyes when we saw that the best times to post were so early.

According to the LaterBlog, by posting during early morning hours, content creators take advantage of less competition (globally, people post content between 9 AM-1 PM each day). By posting early, you increase your chances to be seen by users during their very first scroll of the day!

Does it mean you need to wake up by 5 A.M. each morning to succeed? Luckily, you can schedule your posts. Taking the time to schedule a few days’ posts all at once is a great way to stay active on Instagram without burning out!

How to Produce Great Instagram Content

Once you determine measurable and achievable goals for your Instagram, it’s time to think about the ways to create powerful content.

You can start by analyzing your posts by following metrics: Instagram bio links, engagement, number of shares and saves, etc.

Let’s start with Instagram bio and bio links, as they are the one and only permanent, external links to get more traffic from your Instagram to your blog or website.

Craft an Impactful Instagram Bio

When someone visits your Instagram profile, they should instantly grasp who you are, what you do and why they should follow you.

Even though it may seem like a small part of your profile, coming up with powerful Instagram bio ideas for your account can be challenging. Your bio sets the first impression about you. And, as being said:

“You never get a second chance to make a first impression.”

At this point, you might be wondering what information should go into the Instagram bio.

The first step to forming a great Instagram bio is making sure that your Name Field is optimized with your name and/or a searchable keyword.

If you are a healthy lifestyle influencer, for instance, you may want to include your full name along with your job title. For instance, if you are a professional BodyBuilder, make sure you mention that alongside your name.

Since you only have a 150-character limit, it’s crucial that you have a clear sense of direction when writing an Instagram bio. Make sure that you clearly state your goal and explain your mission.

Instagram lets you add clickable hashtags & profile links in your bio. So make the most of this to direct your followers to tagged content or your blog/website.

Stick around and we’ll show you the best way to share links on IG!

Through Instagram Insights you can find the number of website clicks. To do that, navigate to  Insights > Accounts Reached.

Instagram web clicks

Through analyzing this data, you will be able to understand what content is more interesting for your followers.

Besides links, clickable hashtags are also crucial. Whether you’re promoting an Instagram challenge or an awareness-raising campaign, including clickable Instagram hashtags in your bio can help drive engagement.

Including your branded hashtag in the bio is a great way to get your followers into the habit of using it. Plus, note that Instagram users can follow certain hashtags. So, if users follow your branded hashtag, it means that they always remember your account.

Analyze Your Content Performance

You are probably well aware that there are different types of content on Instagram, including: 

Make sure you use all of them and have a different strategy for each of those types. And, to create an appealing content strategy, you should start analyzing the performance of each of those types and understand which of them works best.

When you are creating feed posts, consider using carousels.

Why?  Carousels, mostly used for storytelling purposes, bring a higher engagement rate for small accounts. For accounts with 5K followers or less, well-made carousels can result in a 4.9% engagement rate.

Does it make you wonder why carousels increase your Instagram engagement?

Well, it’s all about discoverability!

If you create a carousel post, and a follower scrolls past the post with the first image, Instagram will show them the same post a second time with typically the second photo or video from the same carousel!

This gives you a second chance to grab your follower's attention if they didn't react to your first post’s image or video! So, make sure that the first two parts of your carousels are catchy and attractive!

Carousels are great, but there is no ready-to-use recipe on what kind of content works best for your account. That’s why you should be constantly experimenting & analyzing the performance of different content types.

For instance, you might have noticed that for bigger profiles, between 10K - 100K followers, video is the type of post that brings a higher engagement rate, up to +2.88%.

Don’t neglect the potential of Instagram Reels and Stories. If you want to learn more about Instagram stories, check out our comprehensive blog!

To sum this section up, try to create the content that performs the best on your account!

Analyze Engagement

Instagram engagement is crucial for determining the performance of your content. Analyze which posts & what type of content gets better engagement. Think: what encourages your followers to engage in conversation? Comment on your videos? Save your photos?

Answering those questions will help to create content that resonates with your followers.

But, how exactly can you measure Instagram engagement?

There are many definitions of Instagram engagement & various ways of measuring it.

Some people prefer to calculate the Instagram engagement rate by dividing the total number of likes & comments by the number of followers.

Others prefer to calculate the sum of likes and comments by impressions (number of people who saw the post), and then multiply by 100 to get a percentage.

There is also the third way: divide your total number of likes, comments, & saves by impression. Then, multiply it by 100 to get a percentage.If you are wondering how to increase engagement on Instagram, check out our guide!

As you can see, measuring Instagram engagement might be a little bit complicated. So, why not automate this whole task?

Luckily, Mysocial’s MediaKit offers self-updating reports on the performance of your Instagram account (and other social media channels of yours). All you have to do is connect your social media accounts to the MySocial app and you’re ready to go!

Top 4 Apps to Create Content for Instagram

Now that we have discussed the importance of data in creating Instagram content, it’s time to have a look at the top Apps to create powerful posts for the platform.

There are several different types of Instagram apps, including photo editing apps, video editing apps, and many features to help you with design and templates; apps for engagements, and analytics.

We have identified the best apps in each category. So, let’s dive into it!

Best App for Photo Editing

Best App for Video Editing

Best App for Templates

Best App to increase engagement (and a lot more)

How to Write good Instagram Captions!

How to write good instagram captions


Beautifully designed and edited photos and videos are great. But remember we were talking about the importance of boosting your Instagram engagement?

We simply can’t talk about increasing engagement, without highlighting the potential of crafting cool Instagram captions.

Captions are a fabulous opportunity to start the conversation, provide value, and form meaningful connections with your community.

There are a few different types of captions you can create. Let’s discuss some of them!

1.  Attitude captions for Instagram

What are those? Well, in an overcrowded space like Instagram is, being loud and bold is in your best interests. In order to spotlight your vivacious existence, attitude captions are a must!

Here are some good examples of attitude captions:

“Pick a good attitude and everything shall fall into place.”
“It’s the will, not the skill.”
“I can’t stop being awesome. It’s in my blood.”

Attitude Captions are amazing because they are short and catchy. They go especially well with selfies. Think about the captions in photos of entrepreneurship common figures, Like Tom Bilyeu, for instance.So, if you want to spice up a simple selfie, try out one of those captions.

2. Microblogging Captions

Another very popular type of caption is called ‘microblogging captions’. As you can guess from the name, those captions are just like mini blog posts. For example, if you are a food blogger, and you post a photo of a beautiful avocado toast, add a mini-blog caption about superfoods.

 One of the best IG microblog captionists is the Canadian psychologist Dr. Jordan B. Peterson.

There are many other types of Instagram captions. And it’s up to you to decide which one suits your content & niche. Also, hesitate not to try & use more than one style on your profile! All goes down to you being original and establishing your own unique personal brand.


Yet, there are a few useful tips and tricks that will help you in writing powerful captions.

How to Monetize Instagram?

How to Monetize YouTube: a Step-by-step Guide

Here comes the most interesting part! You have worked hard, curated beautiful content, planned your posts well ahead, and relied on data-driven insights to choose what and when to post.

Doing so will ensure you’d succeed in attracting a worthy deal of views and engagement. It’s now the time to learn how to harvest your hard work and effort into financial gain.

If you are wondering how to make money from Instagram, keep reading to discover our top techniques!

Work with Brands

When it comes to marketing, brands gleam with excitement at the opportunity to partner up with influencers. And, numbers can prove that! Brands have spent more than 13 billion USD on influencer marketing in 2021 and this number will only grow!

Yet, securing a good partnership with top brands is not an easy task. Truth is, discovering good collaboration opportunities is not always easy. Luckily, there are features that make things easier. Let’s take Mysocial’s BrandOutreach feature.

The biggest challenge with establishing partnerships with brands is that communicating with them can be a tricky task. You can try and send DMs on Instagram, but chances are you won’t get a response quickly (if you get any).

Mysocial App is the most convenient way to connect with brands. There, you have access to 3,000+ sponsors that you can contact with the touch of a button!

All you need to do is open Mysocial’s app & go to the sponsors' section. You will see recommended brands, their content, and the contact details of dedicated marketing specialists.

So, what are you waiting for? Download Mysocial Influencer Manager App!

Join Affiliate Marketing Program

In 2021, Instagram drastically increased monetization opportunities by introducing Instagram Affiliate.

Before we start talking about Instagram’s affiliate program. Let’s discuss what affiliate marketing means in general?

It is a quite simple concept: You share a trackable link to the product > customer buys that product through your link > You receive commissions from sales.

With the Instagram Affiliate program, you can add affiliate links to your stories. You can also add those links in your captions. Instagram allows this as long as you publicly state that this is an affiliate link.

In addition to that, you will also need to follow Instagram’s content guidelines and monetization policies.

Use Instagram Live Badges

Instagram Badges is a relatively new feature that allows you to earn money on Instagram.

The concept of badges is a similar notion to TikTok’s ‘tips’. With Instagram’s feature, viewers can purchase a badge during a Live stream that will stand out in the comments and unlock additional features, including access to a special heart.

Badges are available on 3 different levels. Viewers can buy one heart for 0.99$, two for 1.99$, or 3 for 4.99$.

Creators can see how many hearts a viewer has purchased.

And here comes a very simple, but crucial tip for you: when your followers buy hearts to support you, don’t forget to thank them. Appreciation equals retention & attraction!

Enable Ads on your Instagram Reels

Until 2022, Instagram offered an opportunity to enable in-stream video ads, previously known as IGTV ads. But now that Instagram Reels are becoming the main focus on Instagram, the platform announced that it will no longer support in-stream video ads.

Instead, Instagram is testing ad-revenue share for reels! Instagram Reels are the new best way to grow your account. So, take your time to focus on ads for reels, even before this new monetization option launches.

There are many ways for earning money on Instagram and it’s up to you to decide which strategy works best for you!

More Tips to KEEP IT UP as an Instagram Influencer!

Instagram influencer chasing likes

Let’s explore even more tips on how to boost your Instagram account.

Promote Your Instagram on other Social Media Platforms

It’s important to spread the word about your Instagram as far as possible. For instance, if you are active on other social media platforms, make an announcement there, by linking your Instagram channel.

We suggest using Mysocial’s SmartLink feature to help you with that task!

The SmartLink feature is helpful for influencers with multiple social media accounts. For instance, if you have both Instagram and YouTube accounts, you would probably want to send traffic from one platform to another.

With usual links, it does not get great results because the app (YouTube for instance) opens the link within itself. You end up in the in-app browser where you can’t comment or like anything. That is super-inconvenient for users and in most cases, they will just leave in a couple of seconds.

With SmartLinks, you can create deep links that will open your social media pages right inside of the linked-to app. More engagement, higher follower conversion, and more traffic are to be expected!

Never buy instagram followers

Imagine how great it would be to wake up tomorrow with 10k more followers. It can be tempting to take shortcuts wherever you can to expand your community and gain more followers.

And, many people can’t resist the temptation and opt for buying Instagram followers. Yes, you can do that. There are a lot of very cheap services that offer 1000 followers for 5USD, per se.

Yet, you should be aware that you are only paying for a number. This means that they will never ever engage with your content. Remember we were talking about the importance of Instagram engagement and building a loyal community? Well, you won’t be able to achieve that through buying Instagram followers.

Plus, imagine you go to an Instagram account with 30k subscribers. You check out their feed posts and they only have 5 likes on average. Most probably you will instantly think that something looks suspicious. Will you trust that account? I would not.

Conclusion

Instagram has been one of the fastest-growing social media platforms for several years and it’s showing no signs of slowing down any time soon.

This makes Instagram very competitive and puts a lot of pressure on content creators and influencers. These are several key aspects that you need to know to create a successful Instagram channel. Use these tips to set measurable goals and create powerful content.

Use these fundamental tips, but at the same time don’t be afraid to experiment. Think out of the box!

Best of luck to you!

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