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How to make money on Instagram even without a large audience

Feb 27, 2019 by Dunja Djudjic 3 Comments

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There are many tutorials for growing your audience on Instagram, since lots of followers potentially mean lots of earnings. But what if I told you that you can still earn money on Instagram without “playing the game” and gaining a massive number of followers? Well, let James Popsys tell you more about it in this video, where he teaches you how to earn money on Instagram even if you don’t have a huge audience.

Sure, having hundreds of thousands of followers can have its perks when if you’re chasing sponsorships. It can be a great way to earn money as long as you work with brands you believe in. But it can become a bother if you start promoting brands that you don’t actually like. James believes that there’s a better way to start earning from Instagram: focus on the quality of your followers, and not the quantity. But what does it mean, exactly?

Well, James refers to an article titled 1,000 True Fans and reads an excerpt from it to illustrate his point:

“To be a successful creator you don’t need millions. You don’t need millions of dollars or millions of customers, millions of clients or millions of fans. To make a living as a craftsperson, photographer, musician, designer, author, animator, app maker, entrepreneur, or inventor you need only thousands of true fans.”

A “true fan” is someone who genuinely likes and appreciates your work and who will buy any of the stuff you offer. It’s a person who will buy your prints, tutorials or presets, who will attend your workshop or a course, or who will hire you as a photographer. Let’s say you have 1,000 true fans following you on Instagram, and each of them spends $100 on your products or services every year. That’s $100,000 a year only from Instagram. Doesn’t sound bad, right?

Now, if you have hundreds of thousands of followers, chances are that there will be a lot of true fans among them. But keep in mind that it takes a serious amount of time to grow such a huge audience. Instead, you can spend this time on developing your craft. Also, having a relatively small group of true fans will give you freedom and flexibility to do what you love and do it your way. You won’t need to work for brands and let them dictate what you post and how you do it.

Personally, I like this approach, as I really don’t dig the “Instagram game” and I prefer quality over quantity when it comes to any interpersonal relations (even if they are on social media). And how can you find those true fans? It’s not a simple and straightforward process, but James suggests that you should focus on being different rather than being just a little better from other creators. And if you’re different and really good at what you do – you will get there for sure.

[How to make money without a big audience… | James Popsys]

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Filed Under: Inspiration Tagged With: grow instagram following, Instagram, instagram followers, James Popsys, Social, social media, social network, social networking

About Dunja Djudjic

Dunja Djudjic is a multi-talented artist based in Novi Sad, Serbia. With 15 years of experience as a photographer, she specializes in capturing the beauty of nature, travel, and fine art. In addition to her photography, Dunja also expresses her creativity through writing, embroidery, and jewelry making.

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Dunja Djudjic is a multi-talented artist based in Novi Sad, Serbia. With 15 years of experience as a photographer, she specializes in capturing the beauty of nature, travel, and fine art. In addition to her photography, Dunja also expresses her creativity through writing, embroidery, and jewelry making.

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