Influencing for cash

#HybridDaveTuesdays has landed again! Straight into the flow this week, as it connects to last weeks post.. here goes!

We’ve all scrolled through Instagram and seen, usually 4th post from the top, a sponsored post. These paid ads end up there direct from companies who are paying Instagram for the spot, but here’s a secret for you… Just like last week when I told you that you can make money from stock, you can also make money by posting on Instagram! Take a look…

That’s me leaning awkwardly on the rear wing of a £130,000 supercar, but it isn’t my supercar! That car belongs to BMW. In fact, it only has 200 miles on the clock. It’s loaned out as a promo car as part of a larger fleet and, in exchange, BMW gets an invoice from me for posting about their awesome car and the expenses associated with that. Thing is, and perhaps this is a little nod to Scott, I’m not sure I enjoyed shooting the car quite as much as I enjoyed shooting the burger for Byron Burger!! So there’s a time when it’s appropriate to be ‘social media loud’ and as an influencer, so long as you’re backed up with justification for being loud, you should be! Let me show you that post and then we’ll get into the how’s of monetising Instagram!

Number One on your list is to establish yourself on Instagram. By this I mean checking the things off this list:-

• Having a consistent theme to make yourself attractive to agents.
• Having a substantial following, over 1k, to maximise your reach.
• Having a good engagement rate to show your images are actually noticed. 5% is a good baseline.

Once you’ve got that sorted you can move on to dangling the carrot to agents to get the cash flow started.

This shot is one of the first I posted that made me some money as an influencer. Thing is, I took this photo 2 years before I posted it. The approach taken here was that the client, in this case The National Lottery, took their budget and split it across a load of influencers. The correct term here is Mirco Influencers, meaning that the brief has been sent out far and wide rather than to one or a handful of influencers. For this shot, bearing in mind I’d already taken it, I picked up £46. It starts out as pocket money and grows on success all the way up to the likes of @beautifuldestinations which is essentially an influencer account – let’s discuss the kind of things they achieve which you can achieve too.

As well as cash, and sometimes instead, you can get products too. This shot was taken for BoxFresh and as well as paying the bill they sent me a pair of trainers they were looking to promote. You’ll have noticed a lot of flat lay shots, I’m sure, where the product is the centre of attention but these ‘situational’ shots are also a big deal and as long as you have the time to get them they’re an easy income stream. Below is a Wilkinson Sword razor which is part of the range launched to coincide with the Star Wars release and both of these shots were taken on my iPhone in a few minutes. It really can be money for nothing sometimes.

So how do you make the cash start to flow? Well, once you’ve hit the three points on the checklist above it’s time to do these two things:-

1. Get onto Facebook and search for ‘influencers’ – you’ll find a whole bunch of groups and pages dedicated to connecting influencers with brands, some big and some small, but wherever you start it’s a foot in the door to bigger things.
2. Search Google for influencer agencies. One such agency is Tribe. When you’re signed up you can access their entire list of campaigns and find something that suits you. From there just compose a shot and caption and submit it along with your asking price – if you’re approved you can post it and get paid!

When you’re being noticed by agencies and brands after posting a few times you’ll find it becomes easier to get briefs and if there’s a particular brand you want to reach out to for any reason they can see from your account that you have some credibility behind your offer. Chances are they’ll contact you though, and from the first job there’s always the opportunity to prove yourself with repeat work and become a brand ambassador!

It’s as easy as that. I’ve given you 5 points altogether and once you’ve hit them you can start to work with the brands, score some free products, have cool experiences like hotel stays and activities, and see extra money start to be injected into your bank account.

I hope this has been helpful, and if you need an extra hand with anything I’ve talked about here please feel free to ask! I’m @hybriddave on Instagram and I’m happy to help :)

Much love

Dave