The social space is full of emerging media platforms such as Tiktok, as well as established giants like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, or LinkedIn. However, if you have something to sell or promote, Instagram is still the number one social channel you should embrace.
The good news is that you don’t even need to have a popular account with 10k followers, that would allow you to place links within your stories (using the “swipe up” feature).
If you have something trendy on sale, you should instead work with people who already spent hundreds of hours building their accounts and leverage their social clout.
You can achieve success with Instagram influencers, especially if you’re working in an industry owned by female consumers, but if you sell new sneakers, sports equipment, or tech products, you can try to attract the male audience as well.
Collaborating with Insta influencers is often quite affordable. The market isn’t fully developed yet, so it’s not like Google Ads, where you have to pay high rates for a single click. Instead, you can make a deal with an influencer for less than $100 and have them promote your stuff in one of their posts, and even include a link to your offer within the bio section for 24h – 48h.
But before you start direct messaging random people on Instagram, you should keep a couple of important things in mind.
Conduct thorough research and make sure that the influencer you’re approaching is a good fit for what you’re trying to sell. Next, check the quality of their content and see if it’ll be congruent with your product and industry. Moreover, you should take a closer look at the levels of engagement they get with each post, and the quality of their followers. After all, you don’t want to be promoting your hot offer to thousands of bots.
To get a better idea of how much you should pay for each post, visit a couple of Instagram marketing marketplaces like Social Bakers, Massfluencer, or Izea. By checking individual offers, you will quickly get a better understanding of the typical rates. Finally, always use a personalized approach when direct messaging influencers and offering them a deal. The shotgun approach won’t work here, so take the time you need to connect with your social media partners on a deeper level.
