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Making money through Instagram is comparatively easier than making money by running ads on Google or Facebook.
In this last decade (2012 – 2022), the use of social media for advertising and marketing really took off.
Especially the use of Instagram and Snapchat. And now TikTok has also become a prime source for marketing products.
In this article, we will learn simple, beginner-friendly methods to make money on Instagram without any followers.
Yes, you read that right! I am going to show you methods to earn from Instagram with literally 0 followers.
Let’s dive in!
Why use Instagram to make money?
Instagram is one of the most popular social media platforms for millennials. It is a great tool for growing your business or increasing your brand value.
Let’s take a look at some statistics for Instagram to help you get an idea of what you should expect from the platform and how you can use it to make money.
- Instagram has over 1 billion monthly active users worldwide. [source]
- Around 71% of users on Instagram are below age 35. [source]
- 51% users are female and 49% are male. [source]
- Instagram users spend around 53 minutes per day on the platform on average. [source]
Some more useful stats:
4 ways to make money on Instagram without followers
Now that you have learned a bit about why Instagram could be a great place to make money, let’s now get into the actual methods that you can use to make money on Instagram without followers.
Method 1: Using niche accounts to make money
This is by far the fastest and the easiest way to make money on Instagram without having any followers.
In this method, we will utilize existing niche Instagram accounts to promote something in order to make good profits.
Let’s look at the steps:—
Step 1: Find a product or service to promote
In this first step, you’ll have to find products or services that are good for the consumer and also pay a good commission to its promoters.
There are endless possibilities here. You don’t need to do affiliate marketing with this method.
You can in fact start your own eCommerce or dropshipping store and promote your own products.
It’s all up to you.
No matter what path you choose, you’ll find success with this method.
In this example, we are going to choose an affiliate product from Clickbank.
- Step 1(a): Go to clickbank.com and create an affiliate account by clicking on the “Start Promoting” button.
You can search the web if you find problems in creating an account with Clickbank.
- Step 1(b): After you’ve signed up and confirmed your account through your email, you’ll have to log in to Clickbank.
- Step 1(c): After loggin in to Clickbank, just go to the marketplace as shown in the screenshot below.
- Step 1(d): Now click on the little magnifying glass button to show all the products that you can promote as an affiliate (as shown in the screenshot below).
You can also search for a specific product and then hit the magnifying glass button to show that product and also some related ones.
- Step 1(e): Now choose a product that you want to promote. Here, we are choosing a weight loss product as shown in the screenshot below.
The things you need to consider while choosing a product on Clickbank are:—
- It’s “Grav”, meaning gravity should not be 0. It should be above 30 – 40 at least.
- It’s “Avg $/conversion” should be high. I prefer it to be above $80.
- Step 1(f): Now click on the “PROMOTE” button to get your unique “hop link” that you will use to share so that when you get a sale, Clickbank will know who to send the commission to.
NOTE: You can check out the affiliate page by clicking on the link (http://okinawatonic.co/affiliates/) shown in the above screenshot to find more information about the product. You can also find some useful promotional materials like email swipes, promotional banners, etc.
That’s it for Step 1, now let’s move to Step 2.
Step 2: Prepare your promotional materials
In this step, you’ll be preparing the promotional materials that you will provide to Instagram niche pages.
As we chose a weight loss product, we will have to create some content around that.
This is not a design tutorial but I’ll state the important points to help you create a basic Instagram post and story that you can use to get your shout-out.
Step 2(a): Learn more about the product that you’re promoting by visiting their website or affiliate page.
Step 2(b): Find some important points that you can use in your Instagram post and note it down somewhere temporarily.
For example, you can find these useful points from the affiliate page provided by the example product that we chose in Step 1.
Step 2(c): Go to canva.com and design a few posts for Instagram. Desing both Instagram posts (1080 x 1080 pixels) and Instagram story posts (1080 x 1920 pixels).
You can get design inspiration from Pinterest. Just head over to Pinterest and search for the product name and see what comes up.
NOTE: Make sure to give a clear call-to-action like, “Learn More”, “Swipe Up To Learn How”, etc. to make your visitors more inclined to take action and go to your affiliate link.
Step 3: Find a niche Instagram page
In this step, we will start by searching for a good and engaging Instagram page within the niche that we chose. In this case, it is weight loss.
Step 3(a): Open Instagram on your smartphone or on the web.
Step 3(b): Start by typing relevant keywords related to weight loss in the search bar. For example: “weight loss”, “keto diet”, “losing weight”, “burn fat”, etc.
Step 3(c): Open a bunch of accounts that show up and look for engagement on their posts. It shouldn’t be like the account has 100k followers and the likes on their posts are just in hundreds.
You have to look for likes & comments both. If you think there’s good engagement on the posts, make note of the account, we’ll come back to it later.
Repeat the process and gather a few accounts. 10-15 accounts are good in the beginning.
Step 4: DM them about your offer
In this step, you’ll have to do some work.
You’ll be DM-ing the 10-15 accounts that you extracted from Step 3 asking them to give you a shout-out.
To do that, prepare a paragraph about how their Instagram account is really good (be genuine) and has some great posts in it.
And then slowly suggest to them that you want to promote an affiliate product and would like to get a shout-out from them.
Also, make sure to ask them the price for their shout-outs.
Turn the paragraph into a template that you can use for all the 15-20 accounts with a bit of tweaking.
Now start sending the messages to all the 10-15 accounts you gathered earlier and wait for their response.
Not all of them will respond right away, but some of them will respond eventually.
They will reply to you with their price for the shout-out according to their followers.
More followers = more expensive the shout-out = more people you will be able to reach
Step 5: Sit back and enjoy the profits!
After giving the post materials to the niche page owner and paying them, you just have to wait and get paid for every sale you pull off. 💪
Method 2: Buying & selling Instagram accounts to make money
The second method is also an easy way to make good money, and it is by flipping Instagram niche pages.
Now, before you think otherwise, let me tell you that many people around the world are already doing it and making really good money.
Let’s take a look at the steps on how it is done:—
Step 1: Look for the right Instagram pages/accounts
In this step, you have to find good Instagram niche pages that have the potential to grow.
To find a good niche Instagram page, go to your Instagram app and search for a specific niche. For example—“weight loss recipes”, “outdoor living”, “fishing”, etc.
You have to look for the following metrics while searching for a good Instagram niche account/page:
- The account should not have less than 5,000 followers & not more than 100,000 followers.
- The account should have good amount of likes and comments according to the number of followers.
- The owner of the account should have been posting consistently.
Step 2: Buy Instagram pages/accounts
After you’re done with your search for a good Instagram niche account, you now are ready to DM the ones you would like to buy.
Start messaging them about your interest to buy their account, one by one.
Moreover, there are many third-party sites that allow you to buy & sell Instagram accounts. But I don’t recommend buying from those sites.
Reasons to not buy Instagram pages from 3rd-party marketplaces:
- Most of the listings are the ones who already have bought from somewhere and are now selling it on the platform to make profit. Hence, the prices are almost always expensive.
- Those pages might not be engaging enough for you to make profit from it.
- They might have bought fake followers for cheap and then listed the page for sale to make a quick buck (It happens a lot).
- Most of the times prices of these accounts are higher becuase the platform also has to get a cut from the sale.
To avoid these problems, you should use the basic strategy to find potentially good Instagram niche accounts as explained in Step 1.
NOTE 1: Once the deal is final, remember to use PayPal’s goods & services mode to pay for the account. Do not use the “friends & family” option, because you will not be able to get your money back if the account owner tries to scam you.
NOTE 2: Also, make sure to ask them not to log out immediately after you’ve purchased the account. Because, while transferring the account, there’s a security step in which the previous owner gets a prompt which they have to accept when the new owner tries to log in for the first time.
NOTE 3: Change the email and phone number associated with the purchased account as soon as you get it. If you don’t do so, the previous owner could get back the account by sending a password reset code to their email or phone number.
Step 3: Prepare to sell it for profit
In this step, you have two options that you can go with—
- The first one is to sell it immediately for more money than your bought it for.
- The second option is to grow the page and then sell it at 2x, 5x, 10x, 20x times profit.
To find potential buyers, head over to marketplaces like Fameswap, SocialTradia, and more. You’ll have to create an account on these platforms and then list your account for sale.
NOTE: You can get an idea of the price to sell from existing listings on these marketplaces.
The other way is to put a sentence in your Instagram bio saying that your account is for sale and if someone is interested, they can contact you via email, phone, etc.
Step 4: Sell it and enjoy the profits
Once you find your potential buyer, simply strike a deal and sell the account and enjoy the profits!
Method 3: Growing your own niche account and then selling it for profit
In this method, you have two options—
Either you can grow your own Instagram niche page from 0 and sell it when you gain a decent amount of followers and then sell it for profit.
OR
You can follow Step 1 of Method 2 from above and buy an existing Instagram page and then grow it more and sell for a profit.
Either way, you will make good money if you do it right.
Let’s take a look at the steps:—
Step 1: Create a niche Instagram account or buy an existing one
In this step, you have the option to either create a new Instagram niche account OR buy an existing one using the methods explained in Method 2, Step 2.
If you choose to create a new niche account, make sure to choose a niche that has monetary benefits. Creating celebrity fan pages, gaming pages, etc. won’t give you many monetary benefits.
Here are some niches ideas:
- Health & Fitness
- Beauty & Makeup
- Fashion
- Business & Investing
- Photography
- Food
- Pets
There are countless other niches & micro-niches within the topics mentioned above. Just think about how you can monetize your followers while choosing the niche.
If you want to buy a niche account, buy in the niches mentioned above (refer to strategies from Method 2, Step 2) and then move on to the next step.
Step 2: Grow it to at least 5,000 followers
In this step, you have to grow your newly created niche page to at least 5,000 followers.
If you have bought one, as mentioned above, you will still need to grow it to some level so that you can get a decent profit when you sell it.
To grow your Instagram niche account, here are some tips—
- Post on a regular basis, every day, and stick to the schedule.
- Use relevant hashtags with each post.
- Cross-promote your Instagram account with other platforms like Facebook, Twitter, etc.
- Use Instagram Reels to gain a massive amount of potential new followers.
- Try getting shout-outs on other similar Instagram accounts.
- Engage with your followers via comments, DMs, going live, having Q&A sessions, etc.
- Optimize your account’s name & bio for optimal SEO. Think about what people would type in the search bar if they want your niche page to show up.
Step 3: Find buyers to sell it & enjoy the profits!
Now just follow Method 2, Step 2, and sell it for profit. You can rinse and repeat this process to keep making good money over and over.
Method 4: Growing your own niche account and using it to make money
This method is similar to Method 3.
The only difference is that instead of selling your account, you can use it to do sponsorships, give shout-outs, or promote your own business (dropshipping, affiliate marketing, etc.) to make money.
Let’s learn how you can do so.
Step 1: Create a niche Instagram account or buy an existing one
This is the exact step as in Method 3, Step 1.
Follow the points mentioned in that step and then move to the next step.
Step 2: Grow it to at least 1,000 followers
Now, once you’ve created or bought a good Instagram niche account, it is now time to grow it to at least 1,000 engaged followers.
To grow your Instagram account, please follow Method 3, Step 2.
Step 3: Start monetizing
Once you reach at least 1,000 loyal followers, you can start to push some related products to them.
Make sure to promote genuine & valuable products, and not spammy & junk ones. Your primary goal should be to help people solve their problems.
There are many ways to monetize your Instagram account, here are some—
- Promote affiliate products & services (from marketplaces like, Clickbank, CJ, etc.)
- Promote your own shop (e-commerce, dropshipping, affiliate website, etc.)
- Do sponsorship (aka Shout-outs) for other companies & fellow Instragram influencers.
- Start you own Instagram shop (make sure to read more about eligibility and other useful information here)
- Promote your coaching program. If you’re good at something and want to teach others, Instagram is a great place to spread awareness about your coaching program.
- Promote your other social media & content creation channels like YouTube to help you accelerate growth on those platforms which will in turn make you more money in the long run.
Final thoughts
I hope you liked and gained some value from this post.
Let me know in the comment below which method you liked the most and you’ll be following to make money on Instagram.
Also, share this article with people who might benefit from it.
Until next time, adiós! 👋
Sources:
- https://blog.digimind.com/en/trends/instagram-key-global-figures-2019/
- https://startupbonsai.com/instagram-marketing-statistics/
- https://www.facebook.com/business/news/insights/how-instagram-boosts-brands-and-drives-sales
