Take a look at these top 5 tips to find out how to make money on Instagram:

• Get a good following
• Use it as a platform to sell your own products
• Build contacts and earn money by promoting other products
• Become an Insta Influencer and charge a fee for promoting goods on your page
• Sell your account once you’ve had enough

In 2016, there were a recorded 600million active Instagram accounts. That’s almost twice the entire population of the United States! So it comes as no surprise that plenty of businesses use this social media platform to promote their products, and build brand awareness. Even if you don’t have your own business, you too could earn money and benefit from the world of Instagram. Mr Lender, a UK based leading short term loan provider, has brought to you five tips on how you could start to make money on Instagram.

Build your fans

Making money from Instagram doesn’t necessarily mean you need to have a following the size of Kim K. A few hundred is often enough to start your Instagram money making venture. Though the more followers you have, the more money you can expect to make. Building your own Insta army also doesn’t have to be an incredibly difficult task. Follow these five steps to gain more followers, and start making money:

1. Update the link in your bio regularly to link it to your most recent content. Whether that’s on a website selling your own products, or content on your blog.
2. Take good quality images and use descriptive captions. By giving lots of detail and telling a story through your posts, you are more likely to gain followers and shares.
3. Find a theme, and run with it. This could be using a particular filter, or style of presenting your images, or simply dedicating your page to something in particular – for example, only pictures of food, travel or make up.
4. Stay active. Post every day if you can, otherwise you will start to lose followers. The more active you are, the more likely you are to gain followers.
5. Comment and like plenty of other posts and accounts with a similar interest to yours. If you start to get yourself noticed on other people’s accounts, you may just gain a few followers from it.

Though it is certainly worth remembering, 100,000 fake followers will not produce the same results as 2,000 engaged followers. So keep your followers engaged.

Sell your own products

Just as other businesses use Instagram as a way of promoting their products, you can too. Make money on Instagram by setting up a business account, and start selling. Whether you offer a service such as personal training, consulting, tutoring, or products such as homemade clothes and cakes – you can sell your goods through Instagram. Include a link in your bio so people can easily access your website, and away you go. By dedicating your page to a particular product, you are more likely to gain true followers with a shared interest. This means your followers are likely to stick around – as long as you remain active.

Become an influencer

Another way to earn money through Instagram is to charge a fee to businesses for promoting their content. While this is incredibly similar to the last tip, this way of making money means you will earn a standard flat fee. Rather than setting up a partnership with another business and being paid commission per sale, you can instead charge a flat fee for posting sponsored content.

This will again depend on the number of engaged followers you have. The more followers you’ve got, the more money you can earn. If you have a significant number of followers, brands are likely to come to you and offer you a price to promote their product. But this doesn’t mean you can’t still earn money if you only have a few hundred followers. The only difference being you are more likely to need to approach them, rather than waiting for the business to come to you. When choosing a brand you want to work with, choose someone who shares the same values and beliefs as you. Don’t post sponsored content for somebody who acts against your beliefs, as posting sponsored content will ultimately reflect back onto you, and could harm your reputation.

While sponsored content is a great way to make money on Instagram, there are rules around it. You may have seen a few celebrities posting content which is quite clearly sponsored, but they don’t mention the fact that they have been paid to post that image. While this may be okay in some instances, it is usually better to be safe than sorry, and to use #sponsored at the end of the post to make your followers aware that it is a sponsored post.

Contacts are key

Build a bond with other companies to promote their products – for a fee, of course. By setting up this partnership, you could make money each time a customer buys something by clicking on the link on your page. All you have to do, is use an Instagram picture or video to promote a business’s product or service, and include a link in your bio – it’s as simple as that. Of course, the amount of money you earn will ultimately depend on the number of engaged followers you have on your page. The more the better. Use a link shortener such as ‘Google Shortener’ or ‘bit.ly’ to make shorter, neater looking URLs.

The more followers you have, the more people will see the product you’re promoting. This means you’re more likely to earn a better share of sales compared to if you only had a couple of hundred followers. You also don’t necessarily need to ask for a cash payment – you could request a free gift or service instead.

Sell your account

Had enough of Instagram? Sell your account. If you have had enough of posting pictures, or just don’t have the time to update your account, you can sell your Instagram page for a fee. Of course, if you only have 47 followers who are mainly made up of family members and a random neighbour, you probably can’t expect to earn too much. Though if you have a following large enough for a business to make money from it, you certainly can sell your account. If you have an account focusing on a particular subject, cooking hacks for example, you can expect to have a better chance of selling your account.

Use websites like Fameswap or ViralAccounts to sell your account once you’ve had enough. But remember, they will usually require you to have a minimum number of followers before they consider buying your account. ViralAccounts for example, would prefer you to have at least 40,000 followers before they consider buying your account from you. Fameswap, however, are a little more lenient. At the end of March 2017, one account with 2,600 followers was up for sale at £28 ($35 as of April 2017), while another account with 52,000 followers was being sold for £1205 ($1,500 as of April 2017).