There are approximately 3.2M – 37.8M influencers globally, and the number continues to climb every day. If you’re looking to become an influencer or already are, one something you might have on your mind is Instagram sponsorship.

This is one of the main ways to make money as an influencer, and let’s be honest, if you’re not making money, what’s the point? Still wondering how to attract the social media sponsorships you want?

Read on now and make your Instagram side hustle your main hustle!

1. Know Who Your Audience Is

The first step in attracting the right sponsors is knowing your audience. Knowing who your followers are is vital if you’re looking to work with certain brands, because they know whose attention they want to attract when it comes to buying their products and services.

Knowing who your audience is makes it easier to determine the brands that you’ll work the best with. The idea is for the sponsorship to be mutually beneficial for yourself and the companies you’re working with.

For example, if your niche is focused on homeschooling, you’ll want to target parents interested in this, which means working with brands that produce educational materials for people to buy. 

2. Understand Your Brand

Do you know your brand? If not, it’s going to become challenging to find companies that want to sponsor you. Companies want to work with influencers that already understand who they are and what their brand is about.

Knowing your brand makes it easier to engage with the right audience whenever you post. Not to mention, your brand will directly influence the type of aesthetic you stick to when you post content on your Instagram page.

For example, if your niche is about cooking, your page will feature images of dishes so vibrant your followers can almost taste them! If you’re not sure what your brand is, there are some questions you can ask yourself to help you.

What message do I want to send to my followers? What type of style can I use to set me apart from other influencers in my niche?

It also helps if you study the profiles of other influencers that are your competitors. Understanding what they do right and wrong on their profiles will help you avoid making some detrimental mistakes.

When you know your brand, your followers can pick out your posts from others and will begin to share them when they see them. The more notability you get, the higher the chances that companies looking to work with influencers will notice.

3. Stay Consistent

One thing about sponsored Instagram posts is the more you post, the higher the engagement is likely to be. Companies aren’t going to sponsor you if you don’t post on your social media regularly.

Depending on your audience, there is a specific time of day you should be posting. If you’re keeping an eye on the Instagram analytics you receive when using it for business purposes, you’ll gain insightful information about the types of content that gets the most engagement.

You’ll also get data about the best times to post. Based on this information, when working with companies that sponsor you, it’s best to post content at these times to ensure the highest number of people see it as possible.

Companies want you to push your products and help them increase their brand awareness and sales. We understand posting at least once every day can be a lot, but it’s best that you do because the algorithm on Instagram favors accounts that post new and exciting content. 

4. Get Their Attention

How else are you going to get brands to notice you if you don’t tag them? Tagging is an efficient way to get brands to reach out to you about working with them, especially if your post shows them why you’re the perfect fit for a collaboration.

If your profile focuses on posts that center around organic baby clothing, you need to tag brands that follow this aesthetic, like Hanna Andersson. Ensure the image you tag them in is quality, and you need to find a way to work their Instagram tag into your description skillfully.

Most of your followers will see the outfits worn by your little one in your posts and want to know where it’s from, therefore increasing the sales for the clothing company. If you don’t get their attention at first, you will the more you continue to tag them in your posts and send customers their way.

5. Call Me Asap

So, a brand has been watching you, and they think you’re an influencer they want to work with, but before they solidify a deal with you, they want to speak with you first. This means they’ll need your contact information to send you an email or text.

Don’t make it hard for brands to contact you because that’s one of the quickest ways to have them move on to another influencer. Take time to ensure you place your contact information in your bio, and it should always be up to date.

Putting your contact information in your bio lets brands know that you’re open to collaborating and want to hear from them.

6. Give It Some Thought

The last thing you want to do is accept any and every sponsorship that comes your way. Of course, if you are just starting as an influencer, it’s okay to accept some small sponsorships, but you’ve got to consider the work that goes into it.

If you’re only going to make $10 based on the number of followers you have, it doesn’t make sense to provide multiple posts, stories, and bio links for such a low price. This is where you’ve got to know how much you’re worth, and only accept sponsorships that reflect this.

Have a package in mind that you’re willing to offer when negotiating with brands, and from there, you can decide how much you’re ready to accept.

7. Reach Out to Brands Yourself

Playing the waiting game can take longer than you thought, and it could mean posting more than you’d like to try to get the attention of a brand. This is when we recommend reaching out to the brand and pitching a collaboration to them instead of waiting for them.

For example, if you purchase specific workout gear and tell your followers about them in your posts, talk to them about providing you with your own discount code to use.

If they agree, you’ll begin to attach this code to your posts and will receive a portion of the commission when your followers purchase exercise gear from their site.

Things to Know

If you’re going to pitch to brands on your own, you’ve got to do it the right way. When writing to them, let them know who you are and why they need to work with you.

It’s essential to include information they care about ahead of time, instead of waiting until the end. Information companies want to know about include:

• Post engagement data
• Number of followers
• Post insights

These will be critical factors in whether a brand moves forward with collaborating with you or not. One thing you shouldn’t do is come in with your guns blazing.

It would help if you were confident in what you’re asking for without doing too much. Before you begin negotiating, you need to be realistic about what you’re asking for.

Securing a sponsorship means you need to be open and flexible if the brand isn’t willing to meet you on your initial offer.

8. Hashtag It Up

Have you ever seen a post with a paragraph amount of hashtags under it? While it may seem like overkill, these influencers have the right idea.

The more you hashtag your posts, the higher the chances of brands finding you easily. We recommend you use the right hashtags, which means hashtags that are directly related to your posts.

If you mainly post about fashion and beauty, it would make no sense to use hashtags meant for influencers whose content focuses on cooking and food.

You should find the right balance between using ten and thirty hashtags. Make sure you use the right combination of broad and niche-specific hashtags on your posts to increase the chances of getting noticed.

Instagram Sponsorship: Things to Know

When it comes to getting an Instagram sponsorship, there are several things you need to know before brands will work with you. One of the first things to do is figure out your brand and ensure you have the right followers.

And if you’re not getting the recognition you want, it might mean it’s time to reach out to brands yourself. Before taking your influencer platform to the next level, check out some of the other posts we’ve created for readers like you.