Feature accounts are getting extremely popular on IG, and the only thing they do is curate and collect content around a particular theme. Nevertheless, this brings value to the audience, so they have a lot of opportunities to monetize their profiles. Why is running a themed account on Instagram in trend?
- The audience values well-curated content. Think about it – billions of items are uploaded on Instagram daily. It’s getting really tough to explore truly valuable or eye-popping content. When a user starts following one curated, themed account, there’s no need to follow hundreds of similar photographers, influencers, etc.
- It’s easier to monetize thanks to clear targeting. When running a feature account, the topic around which you collect content is clear-cut. A precise niche is a key to success – followers and advertisers can easily distinguish you from others. You can adjust the target growth feature in Promo Mode (we’ll be discussing this below) and explore niche-specific hashtags for better growth.
- It’s possible to run such an account from home, without creating original content. You will only need to spend time collecting media and/or contacting experts. It’s unlikely that you’ll have to rack your brains about photo shoots. Even a downloaded image with a quote can bring you a huge following.
In fact, in order to promote an account from zero subscribers to several thousands, you need to choose a certain narrow topic in which you want to grow and promote your profile. When a new Instagrammer visits your account, they should have a clear idea of what your profile is about. If it matches their vision and needs, they will definitely tap on Follow.
Even if now you have no ideas or precise Instagram growth strategy, keep on reading to get inspired.
Spoiler alert: $21K+ is the potential income from features. Of course, this won’t’ happen in a week – the account reputation and engagement should be strong.
Feature account on IG: how to monetize it and their real rates
If you are just starting a themed account or are thinking about it, you may have questions like:
Is it really profitable? How will I make money? Can it be the only income source?
Next, you will find the answers to the most typical questions and understand that launching and maintaining such an account is the easiest and most enjoyable way to monetize your hobby or any theme that interests you. At the same time, you can start promoting and working on such an account from scratch, even if you do not have other gadgets for advertising and promotion.
How do Instagram feature accounts make money?
While growing, such an account will not bring you profit, so you need to be patient and consistent. To begin with, you have to “niche down” around one specific topic. Essentially, your audience shouldn’t include thousands of bots that are not engaged – people will not want to buy ads from a fake profile (which can be simply calculated).
Even a small number of followers can result in income growth, if you sell your merchandise, for example. Here are basic ways that such accounts make money:
- Affiliate links. You can link every post on Instagram with a specific URL to affiliated products or online markets. If users buy from this link, they will get a discount and you will receive a commission on each sale. Thus, your content will begin to generate passive income.
- Sponsored content. When you gather a certain audience around your content, stores and bloggers will want to place ad posts. The main thing is to clearly define the niche in which you want to monetize. At the moment, top accounts are focused on the field of travel or fashion, or dedicated to certain cities, movies, and horoscopes. Pick a theme that will be Instagrammable in order to attract as large an audience as possible.
- Sell your branded products. As a rule, the creators of such accounts begin to sell certain products that will be of interest to their followers. And when you gather people around certain thematic content, you can already predict their interests, so it will be easier for you to create a product that will be in demand among them. For example, a fashion feature account might start selling stylish hair bands or create a capsule collection.
When we connected with various themed accounts, only one out of ten responded within one hour. The speed of response to the message in the direct messenger impacts the income that you can receive from sponsored content. Therefore, it is very important to set up automated responses so that the advertiser does not have the feeling that there is no manager online or that this is an empty account.
After the first auto message is sent, you can start communicating personally with the prospect, offering custom terms of cooperation based on their preferences.
However, the first message should ideally arrive within 5-10 minutes. Set up an automatic message for keywords in the Direct Module. This way partners who want to place ads with you will receive a timely response and you will gain more profit.
How much can you earn from sponsored posts?
As I mentioned earlier, we contacted several large and medium-sized accounts to find out rates. Based on this information, you can estimate how much you can potentially get from advertising.
Based on our survey, one sponsored post plus a story can cost up to €180 (maximum reach up to 3.5 million viewers per post). In accounts with a smaller reach (400K viewers per post), the package of one post + one story will cost €80.
By the way, if you need to analyze an IG account for the number of monthly publications, you do not have to scroll through the entire feed. Get this information with the help of a pro Analyzer that will calculate the statistics absolutely free of charge.
Therefore, if you have a hobby and you may be sitting on Instagram for hours looking for something eye-popping, think about monetizing this passion. In half a year it may become an excellent passive income.
These two questions reveal the potential of earning from themed accounts. The third question is probably how it is possible to promote and grow an audience around a certain topic. We will not say that this will happen quickly or with a wave of a wand.
After all, now the competition on Instagram is becoming more intense and you need to think about a visual code that will attract the audience and how to grow the value of your content. So this should be your top priority. In the next section, we will share the main three steps that will help you professionally attract an audience and begin to earn money from home.
3 milestones to grow a feature account from scratch
#1 PROMOTE ON BIG THEMED ACCOUNTS
For a start, you can select around 10 top accounts in your niche. Try to reach out to them to attract their audience. If people are subscribed to similar thematic accounts in this niche, then most likely they will also like your content. Therefore, the first step is to try this type of promotion instead of the usual paid advertising that Facebook offers. You can also promote through bloggers. The easiest way for you to find partners is by using the Inflact User Search. Enter keywords and the system will show you accounts in this niche that are available in the database.
#2 TAKE ADVANTAGE OF HASHTAGS
The simplest Instagram promotion tool is hashtags – and they’re free. If you look closely at themed accounts, they have an influx of organic followers via tags. The fact is that hashtags are the only tool users have to search for content in the application.
If you want to have a database of actual hashtags, it will be difficult to do this through the IG app. Better to use a smart Hashtag Generator that will show relevant and suggested-by-Instagram tags based on keywords.
#3 TRY AUTOMATED TARGET PROMOTION
With the help of targeted growth tools, a newly started account will be supplied with potential followers and viewers. Usually, social managers need to go to competitors' followers to like and subscribe to them. All these actions can be performed for you by a smart system. And when you show your attention to others, they will check on your profile, and if they like your content, they may become your loyal audience.
To set up the Promo Mode, you will need to specify the competitors' nicknames and the tags you want to use for promotion. The system will then perform actions to attract followers to your account. With this feature, you can simply grow while you sleep.
Using the above methods in combination will help you to build a community where brand advertisers will be glad to show their products.
Explore more details in the Beginner’s Guide to using Inflact to gain a massive following.
