7 Easiest Ways to Make Money on Instagram without Selling Anything

With over 1.2 billion monthly users and 500 million daily users, Instagram is a money-making machine.

While some Instagramers make fortunes by selling products and services, you don’t need to sell something to make money on Instagram.

What are some ways to make money on Instagram without selling anything? In this article, we will examine how to use the following ways:

Publish sponsored posts as an influencer
Become an Instagram consultant or coach
Become a brand ambassador
Give Shout-outs
Earn from your content
Become an affiliate
Write business captions

Let’s dive into the juicy part of how to monetize Instagram.

If you are a beginner, you might wonder between Instagram And YouTube: Which One Is Better for Influencers?

1- Publish Sponsored Posts As An Influencer

Becoming an influencer is one primary way to make money with Instagram without selling anything. But you need at least 1,000 followers and a high engagement rate to attract social media giants. You can improve your following by consistently creating quality content in your niche if you have a few hundred followers.

How do you build this following? You need to post quality pictures and videos of your interest. Your audience will identify with your personality and personal brand. Instagram followers like authentic influencers, and so are your true self.

As you consistently build organic influence through quality content, relevant brands will approach you to sponsor their posts.

Once you have built a substantial following and increased your engagement rate, you can make money using this simplistic approaches:

Create a sponsored Instagram post (a video or a photo)
Included a branded hashtag, a link, or mention promoting a brand
Share the post with your audience.
Once you have followed these steps, the brand pays you.

Note: Ensure you believe in the brand you are promoting and that its products are relevant to your content. Otherwise, your audience will feel spumed, and you may lose your credibility.

For instance, if your content is about exercise and weight loss and writing supplement reviews, partnering with a fast-food restaurant can send your followers off because of the conflict.

Consider some people doing well with sponsored posts on Instagram.

A fashion and lifestyle influencer Adam Gonon with over 138,000 followers, may not have the largest audience on the platform, but he still creates sponsored content regularly.

But you don’t have to be in the fashion or lifestyle industry to attract sponsored posts. The world is rich in brands from every industry that wants to sell their product to your audience.

You could be in the health and nutrition industry, furniture, home improvement, etc., and you will still have endless promotional opportunities.

2- Become An Instagram Constant Or Coach

Many people struggle to break through on Instagram and are willing to pay good money to coaches or consultants who can help them.

So, if you are crushing it on Instagram with massive engagement and following, why not increase your income by teaching others how to do it?

You can see the demand for this knowledge by the amount of content on the internet dedicated to how to make money from Instagram. This article is just one of them.

If you have hands-on experience, you can create a course or video and make a lot of money.

For instance, Foundr, with 3.6 million followers, has stamped its authority on the platform. And because they have social proof, creator Nathan Chan offers Instagram marketing expertise through an online course for a whopping $1,997.

If you prove that your course generates results, many businesses and individuals will line up for your coaching or consultancy services.

But first, you need to have a big enough following. Regardless of your niche, you can highly profit as an Instagram coach.

3- Become a Brand Ambassador

While sponsored posts are an ideal way to make money from Instagram, some brands want to build a long-lasting relationship with an influencer. Therefore, they want brand ambassadors who can promote their products and business in good light regularly.

Suppose you have a brand you regularly talk about and generate good engagement with your followers. In that case, you may be looking for an opportunity to be a company brand ambassador.

Of course, you will need a massive following of an engaged audience on your account to qualify as a brand ambassador. As an ambassador, you are the face of the company on Instagram because your audience associates the product with you.

Instagram is the best place for influencer marketing; it is here that you can discover opportunities for brand ambassador programs. If you believe in your engagement rate and following, you can collaborate with companies to promote their products.

Brand ambassadorship allows you to make money without selling anything on Instagram. All you have to do is to talk about another company’s products.

If you wonder what an Instagram brand ambassador is and how you can become one, I wrote a whole article that I encourage you to read.

4- Give a Shout-Out

Giving a shout-out is one of Instagram’s simplest ways to make money. How is it done? You simply promote or mention a product or service of a relevant company or brand in your content. It can be a one-time advert- temporary or permanent, depending on the agreement with the brand.

Shout-outs differ from sponsored posts because they are less formal and do not need an established relationship with the brand.

Nevertheless, the brand product must be relevant to your content; otherwise, you may confuse your audience.

It is easy money for those with a substantial following on the platform.

5- Earn Money From Your Content

Making money from content is not just for YouTubers alone; you can also monetize your Instagram content. Consider some practical ways to do so below:

Instagram videos

If you are still not convinced about how to make money from Instagram, Videos could be your “hail, Marry.”

Instagram has simplified its videos, putting an end to IGTV. Instagram video features merge IGTV and feed video; users can access them from their account profiles.

You can load your videos the usual way, but there is more. The platform allows you to:

Trim
Filter
And track people and location

You can make money on Instagram by including ads on your live streams if you are eligible.

Here are some creative ideas to monetize Instagram videos:

Use videos to market a company’s products or include a customer testimonial.
Create engaging original content for other brands and pitch to clients.

These ways allow you to directly or indirectly promote a brand while entertaining your audience.

Other ways to make money on Instagram content include:

Live Badges

Do you sometimes love to live stream on Instagram? This can provide your followers the opportunity to support you and your content. They act like tips your followers give you for excellent content during the broadcast.

There are different levels of badges priced differently. For instance, level one goes for $0.99, level two is $1.99, and level 3 goes for $4.99.

Badges help many creators earn money as they interact with their audience. For instance, if you are a fitness influencer training your audience on various fitness routines, the audience can show their love by purchasing badges.

Patreon and Substack

If Instagram’s in-platform features are not paying you well, you can use third-party sites like Substack and Patreon to monetize your content.

However, before your followers can follow you to these platforms for exclusive content, you should incentivize them with free-value content.

6- Become An Affiliate

If you think affiliate marketing is for bloggers only, think again. Many Instagram influencers are making a kill with affiliate links.

You can include affiliate links on your post, and you earn a commission when your audience buys a product from your account.

This method allows you to make money on Instagram without selling or holding an inventory. The products belong to another business; yours is promoting them.

However, you want to ensure the product is relevant to your audience and is related to what you stand for.

Also, ensure you do not flood your post with affiliate links. Your audience needs value from your content, so if they realize that you are only interested in them buying the products you promote, they may feel short-changed.

7- Write Business Captions

Today, it is not only the big brands that pay for Instagram marketing. Even small brand names want to promote their services or products on this social media platform.

While big brands can hire agencies or have quality in-house content creation personnel, small brands seek freelancers to create their content. They may want to reduce their social media spending.

And because you already have Instagram skills, you can leverage these skills to write captions for these organizations at a reasonable rate.

Wrapping Up

Undoubtedly Instagram is one of the most popular social media platforms. It continues to improve its features, and with millions of people using the platform daily, it is worth investing time and resources to know how to make money on Instagram.

The key is choosing a niche you love, consistently creating quality content, and building an engaging audience. Once you have increased your following, you can monetize your Instagram account through the following:

Sponsored post
Becoming brand ambassador
Becoming a coach or consultant
Becoming an affiliate
Ads on your content
Giving a shout-out

Do you have an Instagram account? How are you making money on Instagram? Share your experience below.