Instagram Influencer Marketing: Your Go-To Guide for 2024

TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram are the most popular social media platforms competing for brands’ influencer marketing dollars. However, the platforms differ greatly when it comes to running influencer campaigns.

When you run Instagram influencer marketing campaigns, you should take into account factors such as the app’s algorithm changes, user engagement, influencer’s content style, and your campaign goals, to name a few.

Instagram rose to popularity quickly and swiftly as a social networking platform that allowed users to share captivating visuals – photos and videos – with their followers.

Launched in 2010 and later acquired by Facebook, Instagram took social media by storm and has dominated influencer marketing for quite some time. It has helped expand the reach and influence of creators by releasing new content formats.

In this post, I’m going to break down everything you need to know about Instagram influencer marketing. Let’s dive in!

Why Should Brands Use Instagram for Influencer Marketing?

Instagram has over 1 billion monthly users and 500 million daily users. Looking at the demographic of Instagram users, the majority of users are under 35 and encompass a variety of socioeconomic factors. Clearly, it is a great option for brands hoping to reach a wide audience and increase brand awareness.

In addition, influencer marketing campaigns on Instagram have proven to be successful. While large brands like Subaru, Maybelline, and Coca-Cola have received great results, a number of smaller brands have also grown and reached their goals through Instagram influencer marketing.

However, running successful influencer campaigns totally depends on your selection of influencers and content quality. Platforms such as NeoReach can help you find relevant influencers for your campaigns and track results.

How to Use Instagram for Influencer Marketing

When it comes to influencer marketing, there are endless strategies a brand can utilize. With the Explore page, Story, IGTV, and Reels options, the platform is suitable for publishing all kinds of content.

Although it’s difficult to break down everything, I’ll discuss how every brand should strategize to promote their products and services via influencer posts.

There are two main things brands must take into consideration when starting an Instagram influencer marketing campaign: influencers and types of content.

1. Influencers

One of the first things a brand should think about when partnering with influencers on Instagram is influencer selection. While evaluating potential Instagram influencers, you should assess their:

• Audience demographics
• Engagement rate
• Follower count
• Content niche and style

When choosing influencers, reviewing audience analytics is essential to find the perfect match. For optimal results, a brand’s target audience should align with the followers of the influencers they partner with.

For example, say a brand is hoping to reach a target audience of young women living in Los Angeles, California.

If they can find an influencer whose main audience fits that demographic, they could be an amazing fit for the brand’s campaign. On the other hand, if an influencer’s audience demographics consisted primarily of middle-aged men living in the south, they will not be as viable of an option.

It is also important to evaluate an influencer’s engagement rate and the authenticity of their followers. This is mainly to avoid partnering with an influencer whose followers do not interact with their content. If an influencer’s engagement rate is low or their following looks suspicious, partnering with them will not be as effective as a brand would hope.

Follower count is important to consider when evaluating influencers because, as stated above, an influencer’s audience is the audience you will be reaching out to.

There are four tiers of influencers corresponding to their follower count, which include:

• Mega-influencers: > 1M followers
• Macro-influencers: 500K–1M followers
• Mid-tier influencers: 50K–500K followers
• Micro-influencers: 10K–50K followers

An initial assessment may be that brands are better off hiring macro- and mega-influencers because they have the largest audience groups. But, it is important to note that smaller influencers may suit specific campaigns better than larger ones. The desired size of an influencer must be decided on a case-by-case basis.

As usual, it seems that the target audience is the most important aspect of an influencer marketing campaign. This is where an influencer’s specific niche and content category comes into play.

This is important for brands to evaluate because they should choose influencers whose niche fits the products they are promoting.

For example, fashion influencers are often seen partnering with clothing brands and gamers usually partner with tech brands and gaming companies. This is because, if their audience is interested in their content niche, they are more likely to be interested in products that align with that niche.

2. Types of Content

Another important thing to consider when developing a marketing strategy for an Instagram campaign is the types of content that the influencer will create for your brand.

The most common types of influencer collaborations on Instagram include:

• Sponsored feed posts
• Sponsored Stories
• Giveaways
• Brand account takeovers

Sponsored feed posts refer to the photos or videos promoting a product that an influencer posts directly on their profile. It is called a feed post because it shows up in the main feed of their followers and, potentially, gets featured on the Explore tab.

Source: Instagram

Sponsored Stories are photos or videos promoting a product that an influencer posts on their Instagram Story. Although Stories only last for 24 hours, they can be saved as Highlights on an influencer’s profile.

Giveaways are posts where an influencer promotes a specific brand by hosting a giveaway of their product or service. These giveaways usually require participants to comment, like, share, and follow the brand’s account. These can be posted as a feed post or a Story and usually draw in an audience larger than the influencer’s typical audience.

Source: Instagram

Brand takeovers take place when an influencer takes over a brand’s Instagram account for a certain amount of time. An influencer will usually announce the takeover on their own profile, which helps attract their followers directly to the brand’s account.

For example, fashion influencers are often seen partnering with clothing brands and gamers usually partner with tech brands and gaming companies. This is because, if their audience is interested in their content niche, they are more likely to be interested in products that align with that niche.

Instagram Influencer Marketing Pricing

Influencer marketing campaigns can be expensive, especially without accurate planning and budgeting beforehand. I’ll break down the different factors that affect the cost of Instagram influencer marketing campaigns.

1. Influencer Size

Earlier, I discussed the different tiers of influencers based on their following. It is also important to note that the price of each influencer will vary based on the number of followers they have.

The larger an influencer’s following, the more expensive it will be to partner with them.

This is how follower count typically affects the price per post of an Instagram influencer:

Follower Count	Pricing Per Post
> 1M (Mega-Influencers)	Can Vary Greatly (Most Expensive)
500K-1M (Macro-Influencers)	$10,000+
50K-500K (Mid-Tier Influencers)	$500–$5,000
10K-50K (Micro-Influencers)	$100-$500

2. Types and the Number of Posts

I already broke down the four main different types of posts for Instagram influencer marketing. These include sponsored feed posts, sponsored Stories, giveaways, and brand takeovers. The prices influencers may charge for each of these social media posts vary based on how much effort they need to put in to formulate a post.

For example, sponsored feed posts, giveaways, and brand takeovers typically cost more than sponsored Stories. This is because sponsored Stories are the easiest for influencers to create. They also only last for 24 hours and the influencer has the option of whether or not to save them as Highlights on their profile.

Sponsored feed posts are more expensive because they require an influencer to take the time to take a picture and post it permanently to their page. These posts can also be presented in the form of Reels or IGTV videos – both of which will be posted on their main feed. Overall, much more effort must be put in.

Giveaways are similar to sponsored feed posts because they are typically posted within an influencer’s regular feed. But, they are likely to cost more because they require additional participation from the influencer, after the original post. This is because the influencer must typically remind their followers about the giveaway by posting more than once about it on their page.

Brand takeovers are on the more expensive side because they require an influencer to take time out of their day and create content for an account that is not their own. Many of these also include hosting Live videos and Q&A events that require constant attention and effort.

In addition to this, the price will rise as the number of posts rises Therefore, each giveaway reminder or brand takeover post will cost more money for the brand. Nevertheless, more posts typically lead to better results – more bang for your buck!

3. Instagram as a Platform

The price of an influencer marketing campaign varies slightly based on which platform is used. Instagram, while less expensive than some, is more expensive than other platforms. As stated earlier, the main social media platforms are Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Twitter, and Facebook.

Similar to what was mentioned above, these platforms vary by pricing based on the amount of effort and time it takes to formulate and post sponsored content. YouTube requires the most effort while Twitter requires the least. Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook are more or less equal to one another regarding time and effort.

Therefore, YouTube is the most expensive social media platform when it comes to influencer marketing. On the other hand, Twitter is the least expensive platform. Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook all lie in the middle of the spectrum.

FAQs

Final Thoughts

Influencer marketing is on the rise – and it’s not slowing down anytime soon. As a social media platform, Instagram was monumental for the success of the influencer marketing industry.

If a brand is looking to start an influencer marketing campaign, they should not overlook Instagram. There have been many successful influencer marketing campaigns on Instagram from big brands to small businesses. Being the most popular social media platform with millions of daily users, Instagram is an amazing place to start.

Need help planning your next influencer campaign? Discuss your campaign idea in the comments below.