Make Money From Instagram While Keeping Your Followers Happy

No One Is On Social To Stare At Ads

I started my Instagram account, @ThinkGrowProsper back in January 2014.

I’m not a traditional entrepreneur in the sense that I came in with a business plan and set goal in mind. I was simply following my passion and wanted to contribute something positive back to the world.

Along the way, my business formed around what I was putting out there and the growth since then has been incredible.

What I’ve been able to do with @ThinkGrowProsper is to create what I consider to be a new kind of media company.

Our company is able to thrive in today’s ever-changing landscape because we’ve erased the gap between content and advertisement.
When you watch a network TV show you may think of it as a 30-minute show but in reality, a lot of these shows are only 22 minutes with 8 minutes of ads!

We don’t do that with our “shows”, or posts in our case.

We’ve built a tremendous audience with our content and having command of that many eyeballs is valuable to many other brands and business.
We wanted to lend our platform to other people as part of our business model, but we had to do it in such a way that our audience would find it valuable as well.

We’ve done this by integrating our sponsored content into the page so that it’s almost indistinguishable from our regular content.

 

Keeping followers and advertisers happy

One of the most challenging aspects of my business is figuring out how to deliver quality content to my audience that still gives great exposure to our advertising partners.

There needs to a balance, but the content is always put first.

Staying true to your voice and within the realm of your niche is non-negotiable.
Keeping this in mind has meant that I’ve had to say no to over 70% of the advertisers who’ve approached me in the last year.

I’ve only partnered with sponsors who’re highly aligned with the mission of @ThinkGrowProsper and are OK with creating original content that works within the parameters of our channel.

Up until recently, all my advertising partners have come to us organically.

Our native content has been successful enough that simply putting a link to contact us in our bio has sufficed in generating interest in working with us.

The theme, message, and unlying intentions are everything when showing up on Instagram. Followers are very savvy these days and if your content slips off the mark they’ll let you know in the comments or simply by giving you the boot with an unfollow.

I never want my content to be an interruption to my followers, I want to add value.

 

Action Steps

1. Create amazing content that’s both valuable and shareable for your audience.
2. Always put your brand and message first before any advertiser message.
3. When you partner with a sponsor do due diligence to make sure they truly are in alignment with your own mission.
4. Create sponsored content that fits in seamlessly with your own branded content.

 

Result You Will Achieve

Monitize your Instagram
An Instagram content model that maks money but still remains highly branded and relevant to your audience.

 
This article is based on an EHQ interview with the mentor.