3 Ways to use Instagram as a Affiliate Marketer

Image provided by Giphy

Welcome back to another Affiliate Marketing post for our ongoing blog series!
If you’re new here, Delux Designs (DE), LLC is a Visual Arts Service that provides a number of different creative services to the public, along with marketing and business tips.

We began this Affiliate Marketing blog series in an effort to help others become successful Digital Marketers with a focus in Affiliate Marketing. If you haven’t seen the previous posts or would like to start from the beginning of this guide, follow the links shown below. Don’t worry, if you click a link it will open a new tab in your internet browser so you can come back to this page once you’re all caught up.

Now that you’re all caught up, let’s dig into our topic today on our 3 Ways to Use Instagram as a Affiliate Marketer.

Instagram has not always been the easiest social media platform to promote through if you’re using unique links as an affiliate marketer, or if you need to track engagement for profits, as an affiliate marketer. Through time more tools have been added, though, and are continuing to be added as we speak for this particular platform to make things more easier to use to promote products and services as a marketer. Lets get into three ways Instagram can help you as an Affiliate Marketer.

1. Link In Bio

First improvement I have seen from using Instagram myself is the link in bio section. This is where you are able to place your own link for your followers to visit on your page. When I first joined Instagram you could only add in one link and that was it. There were not any other options available at the time. Most of the time you would see most people just plugging in another social media platform like Twitter at the time, or YouTube for example. Overtime, we as Instagram users adapted as well by using third party site landing pages to create a webpage to host multiple links at one time.

Now Instagram gives you the option to link more than one site link at a time. So things have changed in this area making it more accessible for you to promote your channels and products, and easier for followers and visitors of your pages to visit your links.

Image provided by @K_DougDE

Right now, you have the ability to add in multiple links as you can see from my screenshot of my own personal Instagram page above. I have my website link, along with my TikTok page, and my YouTube channel linked as well in my bio for my personal Instagram page. The year is now 2024, so since I began this blog series a new social media platform has come about called Threads. I’ll get into this new social media site more through another blog post at a later time. But I did not link Threads here because it’s already linked right under my name (@k_dougde) since it is currently integrated into Instagram. With Instagram allowing the ability to add in more than one link I’m now able to link my other socials, and I can link in multiple unique links if I’m promoting a product or service at the time as an affiliate marketer.

I would recommend using this area of your Instagram page to promote products and services from affiliate partners directly to your audience. But only do this if it is allowed by your affiliate partner in your set contracts for partnership deals. Schedule out posts related to one particular product and service for static posting and for Instagram Reels. At least six (6) different static posts would be recommended in this manner to where you can direct your followers and audience to click those specific product and service links in your bio. This leads to direct traffic, and sometimes direct sales through Instagram. You could also do the same for Reels, but I will get into how for Reels below in our second way to use Instagram as a Affiliate Marketer.

2. Reels and Stories

Second way you can use Instagram as an Affiliate Marketer, is by posting more Reels and Stories. Video Content has really taken off over the last couple years now and it’s catching attention more than images and texts overall for social media engagement. With Reels and Stories, you do have the ability to add in Stickers on your videos that include links. So you could post a really cute video of an outfit, for example, and then add the link sticker to that particular video that includes your unique affiliate link. So when your followers, or audience, view this video and they click the sticker link included, that’s an opportunity that may lead to direct traffic and possibly more sales.

There is a difference between Reels and Stories, however.….

Instagram Reels

Live Published Permanently unless either you or Instagram takes them down.
Can be featured on profile individually.
Can be Short Clip Content or Full Length Video Content.
Own Feed.

Instagram Stories

Live Published Temporarily before being archived automatically by Instsagram overtime.
Can be featured on profile sorted by categories.
Short Clip Video Content.
Own Feed Temporarily before being archived automatically.

An Instagram Reel can be published and live on your page permanently unless you take them down yourself, or Instagram removes the Reel. An example of Instagram removing your Reel would be your video content for the Reel is violating their terms and agreement, or something along those lines. Always remember, as an affiliate marketer, you’re often posting onto a third party site so you have to abide by their rules right along with the terms you have agreed to with your affiliate partners. A Instagram Story is only published and live for a limited amount of time before they are automatically archived by Instagram.

An Instagram Reel can be featured on your profile and can be of an extended length, as they have their own feed along side your Static Instagram Posts. The only way to feature Instagram Story posts on your profile is by featuring each story in it’s own category, but even with that once you reach a certain amount of story posts added to that particular category, Instagram will automatically begin to archive the oldest story post of that featured category. Featured Instagram Reels on your profile aren’t archived and will only be removed if you do so, or if Instagram does so for a terms and rules violation. There is a whole seperate feed solely for Instagram Reels that you create as well, so you have two different audiences on the same platform that you have the potential to reach.

3. Broadcast Channel

Instagram now has a new feature where you’re able to set up full channels from your Instagram page. Think of them as like broadcast email messages, mixed in with a live feed channel to create Broadcast Channels.

Photo provided by @K_DougDE | DE Channel Broadcast Channel

This new feature is great for announcements, and as you can imagine affiliate marketers are always giving out a lot of announcements on a regular basis. You can post images in these channels, links, text, hosts polls and much more. Members would have to be fellow Instagram users, so you must have a page to join. You now have the ability to turn replies off and on within Broadcast channels as well so your audience can engage with one another. I think this is one of the best options to use on Instagram as an Affiliate Marketer so far.

Just to note here, this feature is not available for business accounts currently.

That is all for today.
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Thanks for reading everyone!

Reference Articles

Instagram Stickers
Static Instagram Post – One, or a group of, traditional image posts on Instagram Profile Feed

Disclaimer: Affiliate links have been included in this post in which Delux Designs (DE), LLC receives a commission from any sales made through this post. We assure you, the products featured through DE from product reviews are products that we recommend based off of our own personal experiences from using them. The information given in this post is from a Certified Digital Marketer. Results may vary.