Full Time Instagrammer - A New Career

There are many social media sites that we can use and engage with right now. For example, I used Linkedin for professional purposes, mainly to share active jobs and anything to do with work and career on my timeline. I used Facebook for sharing mostly personal interests. And since I enjoy and do some photography in my free time, I just discovered that Instagram is a better medium to share photos and so I have been spending a bit more time on Instagram lately.

What I discovered is general knowledge to many by now but I was truly intrigued with the fact that Instagram has become the platform for some people to earn their income so much so that they can afford to quit their full time day job. And we are not talking about Celebrities or some famous people here. These are ordinary people and the following are a few of them.

Amanda Lee is a personal trainer and Pilates instructor by trade and also majored in modern dance. But it is neither her dancing nor her Pilates classes that is responsible for Lee's success. Instead, it is her social media presence – her Instagram account allows Lee to generate as much as $5,000 per post.

Ali Maffuci quit her job in corporate America in 2013 and now makes a living off Instagram. It all started when Ali has to make healthy meals for her mom, who has type 1 diabetes. Ali discovered the spiralizer, a tool that cuts raw veggies into noodles.

“I was so blown away by it, I started making dishes and posting them on Instagram. At first it was just for fun, but soon strangers started to follow me. When someone tagged #inspiralized, I’d comment on their post, and they’d follow me,” she said in an interview with Elle. Ali is now making a living off Instagram.

Shirley Braha worked with New York Noise and MTV, and she owns a dog. Shirley has quit her job and now on Instagram full time. And she makes more money than her previous full-time job by simply posting pictures of her dog, Marnie, on Insta. Marie has a massive following of 2 million people.

And then we have a photographer by the name of Eelco Roos, aka @Croyable on Instagram. He quit his comfortable day job as an IBM Engineer to take on Instagramming full time.

His feed is filled with beautiful landscape and lifestyle photography in and around Amsterdam and eventually caught the eye of Instagram themselves who then added him to their Suggest User list. His following has well surpassed 100,000.

And if you like traveling like Lauren Bath that resides in Australia, the job as a full time Instagrammer is a dream come true. From her website: Lauren Bath is a chef turned photographer turned social media influencer. It was in early 2013 when she saw the potential with her 200,000+ followers. She quit her Chef job and become Australia’s first professional Instagrammer. Since then, she continues to grow her skills set and now specializes in putting together her own instagram campaigns, drawing on her extensive knowledge of influencers and marketing.

In a nutshell, Instagram has helped many to an “insta-career”. To tell people you can have a full time job by sharing a couple of pictures via social media is almost unheard of in the past but now it has open up to new revenue stream and full time career opportunities. Of course, not everyone can easily quit their current job and choose this path. One of the qualified criteria is that you must have a great following, so it is not something that everyone can hop on anytime.

Note: If you are on Instagram, you are welcome to check my feed. I have two handles, @sinseeho if you enjoy travel photography (landscape and street) and @next.bite if you like food. Unfortunately, I don’t enjoy a great following at present, so I gather I won’t be having a new career anytime soon. :)