INSTAGRAM POWER BUSINESS – 6 Steps to Monetizing your Passion on the Gram!

Building a Passion Business on Instagram…?!!

Isn’t that just for millennials and celebrities…?

Yes, and no… 😎

What… do I mean?

Instagram has become one of the powerhouses for business marketing in recent years and is much more than a hangout for groupies and teenagers.

Businesses have grown to 7 and 8 figures just through Instagram marketing – that’s how powerful this platform is!

The best known form of Instagram marketing are so-called influencer “shoutouts”.

What are Shoutouts?

When a page with a large, engaged following recommends your services or products to their followers – basically an ad on their page – it’s called a “shoutout”. This can be in the form of a post right in the feed, or in “Instagram Stories”.

Shoutouts can be incredibly powerful and result in thousands of dollars in sales in just a day due to the “influence” the page owner has over their audience. Meaning, their followers like and trust them and will listen to their recommendations.

Even better, if that influencer features a photo of themselves with the products.

“Influencer”, btw, does not mean, you have to be famous as I explain in my book “Influencer Fast Track”, but rather that your page has a significant following and that your audience actively engages with your posts every day. Comments, likes, saves, tagging friends, etc.

Some pages get paid for shoutouts with only 5,000 followers, so you don’t have to be in the millions. In fact, shoutouts are usually more effective when done by a “micro influencer”:

=> a page owner with up to 100K followers who keeps a close, active conversation with their followers.

Their audience is much more likely to respond, because the relationship to the influencer is much closer than on a page with millions.

Make sense?

The key metric is “engagement”, meaning lots of longer comments (not just one word or emojis, which can easily be faked and automated)

Apps like Heepsy let you check influencer engagement, so you can avoid fake followers which were rampant for years. Instagram has now started to heavily crack down on fakes, so don’t even think about buying them… 🙂

How can this become passive income?

Instagram has different types of influencer pages. The best known ones are celebrities or personal brands.

Even as a micro influencer you can make some nice extra cash selling shoutouts on your page.

However, that will require you to personally run the page. Your followers expect to hear from you and want to see photos with you, follow your stories, etc. It’s more like a reality show where people follow along with your life.

Personal brands are just one option though:

The following two page types are much better suited for automation and therefore passive income:

Local pages and Niche pages

Let’s have a look at each:

Local pages will be easier to grow, because you are facing much less competition. The follower count also doesn’t have to be as high since you are dealing with a smaller pool of people.

Local pages can focus on specific aspects like restaurants, coffee shops, sports, or local news, events and so forth. You can feature reviews (linking out to a blog or Vlog) while sharing images of dishes, etc.

Local businesses will love to get shoutouts and exposure, and you can offer the occasional coupon.

“Niche” pages face a lot more competition, but also offer a much larger pool of potential buyers once you reach a good follower number.

With a niche page, people follow because they love the niche, not specifically you, the page owner.

Think cats & dogs, cooking, fashion, cars, fitness and anything else people are passionate about.

These pages can also be sold or flipped for a profit. You can’t do that with a personal brand.

Not being the reason why people follow a page frees you to eventually outsource management to a well-trained VA.

Niche pages are also easier to grow, because people are already passionate about the niche. They don’t have to be passionate about you, the page owner… 😎

All you need to do is show them what they love, add engaging captions – and you have a happy following.

It’s Doug the Pug has a huge following and you can probably see why.

Also, Youngest Old Cat Lady, one of my favorite cat pages.

Don’t get me started…😻

Shoutouts are not just for business owners, btw, but often for fellow pages, esp. personal brands, who are trying to grow.

For example, travel bloggers often buy shoutouts on large travel niche pages to quickly grow their following.

So…

For this blueprint, you want to grow a large Niche page or Local page that you can then mostly automate with a VA and sell shoutouts through. Sponsorships are another option.

From there, you can build more pages in different niches – rinse and repeat.

To speed things up, you can even buy existing pages that already have a large following. Flipping Instagram pages is another lucrative IG monetization option though not exactly passive.

Here are the basic steps to set this up. Obviously, this blueprint does not cover the ins and outs of growing a following on Instagram. Entire books and courses have been published on that, but I will mention a few resources at the end to get you started.

STEP 1 – Research

Pick a niche with a passionate following and look through the top pages.

Are there a lot of shoutout offers?

If not, it might not be a good option for this blueprint. Always check if there are businesses who could benefit from your shoutouts. Is there a large pool of potential buyers?

Also, check what type of content these pages post.

Find their viral posts. A big page will always have a few if they have an engaged audience and you can easily spot them by looking at the number of comments, views and likes. With viral posts these will be significantly higher. Easy to spot (keep in mind that videos always get a lot more engagement than photos, so compare within each).

STEP 2 – Create

To gain traction quickly, you want to post similar content. You can even repost their viral content. Very normal practice and as long as you credit the source and tag them, this is usually ok since you are giving them free traffic – free shoutouts. You can even reach out to them and ask, which is great for networking.

For Instagram, your content needs to be visually stunning and the mosaic feed needs to fit well together. You need a professional “look” and stay focused on one topic.

Engaging captions are important, always ending with a CTA (“Call to Action”):

Tag a friend who needs to hear this?

Would you do this?

Thoughts?

and similar.

STEP 3 – Grow

To speed things up, you can buy a few influencer shoutouts yourself. This – once again – only works if your feed looks amazing and compelling enough for people to follow. High on Life are the masters of this and this video shows an extreme example of how powerful shoutouts for page growth can be.

Sadly, the main creators you see in the videos passed away last summer in a tragic accident. You probably heard in the news about 3 YouTubers plunging to their death from a waterfall in Canada. That was them.

Obviously, there are many more ways for growth. Please refer to the below resources.

STEP 4 – Offer Shoutouts

Once you reach a good number of active followers (the “active” part is important, more so than your follower count since engagement will usually be checked by potential buyers), you can start to offer shoutouts in your bio. Mention a way to get in touch with you, either via DM, email or platforms like Kik or Telegram.

Kik is a typical place to find shoutout partners. Shoutcart is another and also now offers influencer bundles. If you get listed there, you get shoutouts on autopilot.

You can also reach out to suitable businesses or pages, especially if you are local, and offer introductory rates. Or – start with a few free shoutouts to get testimonials.

STEP 5 – Automate

Eventually, you can outsource the posting and scheduling to a VA and move on to building more pages.

STEP 6 – Scale up

Once you “master” IG and have a strategy that allows you to grow pages quickly, you can replicate the process and grow multiple pages in different niches. Eventually, all run by VAs building more and more income producing assets.

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