The Instagram economy is real: The influencer marketing industry is predicted to be a $5 to $10 billion dollar market by 2020. These billions go to the influencers you love to follow, for the affiliate links and sponsored Stories you see on your feed. But just how much can you make from influencing? In our new series My Insta Income, some of Instagram's biggest stars are (anonymously) sharing what that last Instagram ad they did paid for.
Today, we're talking to a yogi buying her first home.
The ad: "It was for a Matcha start-up. The post needed to be me drinking the Matcha, and they wanted to see my hands in the ad."
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Paycheck: $7,200
Time involved: "About 15 minutes."
Getting the deal: "I had personally reached out to see if they would send me product. I happen to teach a celebrity they really love and they offered to pay me for one post. [They could have offered] $1,000 or $1,500 and I would have been totally stoked with that. But they were like, 'Are you okay with $7,200?'"
External costs: "This was probably the quickest money I’ve ever made in my entire life. There was zero cost — I took the picture with my iPhone and that was it. My friend's little sister is a barista, so I said, 'Does she need to come over and design something?' But they said no."
How I spent the money: "It went towards the down payment for our first home."
Usual rate for Stories: "Today, it typically ranges from $500 to $1,000 for a swipe-up post. I generally am quite picky with brands I work with since I’ve spent the last few years building my brand. I get about two to three different offers from random people a day. Some of them are scammy things where it's the same sort of product from different Instagram accounts. It takes about one hour a day to sort through everything."
Usual rate for profile posts: "$1,000 to 2,000 for something that’s going to live on my feed. Right now I’m only working with two brands per week so that’s about $3,000 per week. If this was my only job, I'd probably be doing more."
The other ways I've spent my influencer income: "I grew up in a large family that had zero money. We were poor. So I’m totally frugal with my money now. I’ve learned from my younger years when I used to spend my money and time on frivolous things like taking all my friends out and buying things I didn’t care for. I choose to do everything in-house — my entire business — so a lot of it is invested back into creating content, podcast equipment, website maintenance and traveling."
Are you making money on Instagram? We want to hear from you. Email us with your story.