How I'd Sell a Digital Product with Just 100 Instagram Followers
Follower count no longer caps your reach, so a tiny account can still sell. What matters is a reel that shows the product and tells people how to get it.
On today's Instagram, reach is decoupled from follower count, so a small account can sell digital products by making reels that show the product and prompt a keyword comment.
Who This Is For
Read if. Skip if.
READ IF YOU ARE…
You sell or plan to sell a digital product and keep telling yourself you can't until your Instagram following is bigger.
You're a new creator with under 1,000 followers who wants to know what a money-making reel actually contains.
You post reels that get views but you send people to a link in bio and see few sales.
SKIP IF…
You already run a keyword-comment automation and want advanced funnel or ad strategy.
You sell physical products only and have no interest in digital offers.
TL;DR
The full version, fast.
Followers no longer decide how many people see your posts, because the current Instagram algorithm pushes content to strangers. That means a new creator can focus on sales from day one instead of grinding for an audience first. Maria shows a 19,000-follower account with million-view reels and an aquarium lamp account with 1,819 followers that sells repeatedly. Her formula for a money-making reel has two parts: show what the buyer gets instead of telling them, and give a clear way to get it, ideally a keyword comment that triggers an automated DM with the checkout link, which also boosts the reel.
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Maria names the comment she hears constantly and promises to settle it.
00:42 – 02:12
02 · Followers vs. the new algorithm
In the old model views were capped by follower count. Now small accounts can go viral.
02:13 – 03:02
03 · An even playing field
Her 2016 grind versus new students who can focus on sales from the start.
03:02 – 05:01
04 · Proof: small accounts that sell
A 19,000-follower account with million-view reels, and the aquarium lamp Maria bought from a 1,819-follower account.
05:01 – 07:07
05 · The two-part money reel
Show what they get, then say how to get it with a comment keyword that boosts the reel.
07:07 – 08:16
06 · Template tutorials offer
135 template tutorials for the top money-making posts, pitched as a shortcut.
Atomic Insights
Lines worth screenshotting.
In 2016 your views were capped by your follower count. Today an account with three followers can still go viral.
A new creator can skip the follower grind and concentrate on getting sales, which brings money and momentum faster.
An account with 19,000 followers can get 1.1 to 1.3 million views per reel, which would not have happened in 2016.
Views are one thing and buyers are another. The test of a small account is whether the views turn into purchases.
An aquarium lamp account with 1,819 followers makes sales by running one working format over and over until a reel pops.
Every so often one reel pops off, and that one reel makes most of the account's sales.
A reel that sells has two jobs: show what the viewer gets, and tell them how to get it.
Show the product, don't describe it. Making an intangible digital product tangible, like printing it out, does the explaining for you.
Comment a keyword for the link beats link in bio, because the keyword triggers a DM straight to the checkout page.
Every comment boosts a reel in the algorithm, so asking for comments helps small accounts most.
Reels with thousands of comments are often just people commenting a keyword to get a resource.
Takeaway
Reach no longer depends on followers
WHAT TO LEARN
A small account can sell digital products now, because views come from the algorithm and sales come from a reel that shows the product and says how to get it.
Reach is no longer capped by follower count, so a new creator can work on sales immediately instead of building an audience first.
Check small accounts in your niche for reels with views far above their follower count. That shows what topics the algorithm is pushing.
Views are not buyers. A tiny account proves the model by selling, as the 1,819-follower lamp account does with one repeated format.
Show what the buyer gets instead of describing it. For digital products, make them tangible by printing them or building physical props.
Tell viewers how to get it with a comment keyword that DMs the checkout link, rather than a link in bio.
Asking for comments boosts the reel in the algorithm, which matters most when you have few followers.
Glossary
Terms worth knowing.
Comment keyword
A word viewers comment on a post to receive a link, usually sent by an automated DM tool, so the checkout page reaches them directly.
ManyChat
An automation tool that sends a direct message with a link when someone comments a chosen keyword on an Instagram post.
Link in bio
A single link on a profile that posts point to, which adds a step compared with sending the link by DM.
See every word as it's spoken — crank it to 2× and still catch all of it. The same dual-channel trick behind Amazon's Kindle + Audible.
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People always tell me, Maria, I don't have any followers, so I can't make any money. In fact, one of the comments I get all the time on my videos is, well, this works for you because you have a big audience, but this would never work for me because I don't have anyone that follows me. In this video, what I want to do is show you how the amount of followers you have has nothing to do with the amount of money you make.
And people who have no audience at all can make a ton of money. And by the way, almost every time we make a video on selling digital products without having followers, I'll put testimonials on the screen. This student made this much amount of money selling digital products.
Oh, and by the way, they had no followers. This student did it too. This didn't do it too.
So I put these testimonials on and you guys still will in the comments say, well, that works for them because they have an audience or that won't work for me. because i don't have followers so i'm putting this issue to bed once and for all and we're gonna talk about how you can sell digital products without having followers let me show you what to do we are in a new era of social media where the way the algorithm works you no longer are limited by the amount of followers you have anyone can go viral anyone can get views even if they have a very tiny account now back in the day let's pretend that this is you okay this is you if you only had three people that followed you here's your three people that followed you your stuff could only ever be seen by three people.
Meaning you would never get more than three views per post. If you had 100 people that followed you, you could only ever have your stuff seen by 100 people. Now we are living in a new era where even if you don't have, you know, hundreds of thousands of followers, your stuff can go viral.
Your stuff can get views. And so even though it's the same you, who has three followers in this new era and this new algorithm, that same account with three followers can still get all these views, all this attention in a way little old Maria in 2016 could never have.
I think it is so important for you to understand this, especially in context of where I started. So when I started, the more followers you had, the more money you made. And so if I wanted to sell anything, I had to work to get followers.
And it was a long grind. You can see here, I really didn't get a lot of comments. I really didn't get a lot of views.
But... i look at my new students who are just getting started with selling digital products and i see such an even playing field for you i see that you instead of having to worry about getting followers you get to concentrate on getting sales which means you make money faster which means you have more momentum which means you stay in the game longer and you make even more money and so my perspective as someone that's been doing this for a very long time is just one of sheer joy and excitement for you as a new creator you do not need to focus on followers first and then try to monetize them later.
You can just get started making money right away. Now I want to show you an example of what this actually looks like. Here's someone whose Instagram account does not have a lot of followers, but her content gets a lot of views.
So you can see here the follower count is 19 ,000. But if we go over here to the reels, 1 .1 million, 1 .3 million. And they're very good.
They're very good, nice pieces of content. They get really good views. Their topics are on things that are very interesting to a lot of people.
And so this account, again, you can see here, even her most recent one, she's talking about fertility. She's talking about women's bodies. She's talking about what happens during menopause.
She's talking about what happens during delivery. And you can see here, her account and what she does gives many, many views far beyond her follower count. This would never have happened in 2016.
Now, I want to show you an example of how you can do this and make money because it's one thing to get views, even if you don't have a big account, but it's another thing to get buyers. So I want to show you a real life example of something that happened to me, something that I purchased from something I saw from a tiny account and I went out and bought it.
This is a real life example that happened to me. So I was scrolling Instagram and I saw, I'm going to pull this up right now. It was this aquarium lamp and I just loved it.
it was nostalgic for me so it's a reel that came up and then you could click the link to buy it which i did and i have the order number on the screen here you can see that i actually bought this aquarium lamp and it's in my daughter's bedroom and i'm going to go back to this account to just show you that this account is making money and they have 1819 followers they've literally just found a format that works for them that gets lots of views.
And they just keep running it. It's kind of insane when you think about it. And so every so often, they'll have one that pops off.
And that's the one that makes all of their sales. And you can see here, this account is experimenting with different things. They're testing different lighting, they're testing different hooks.
And it's so to me, it's so interesting. And there's if you search like aquarium lamp, which you can see I did in preparation for this thing you can kind of see that this is this this is one example of a product that is selling over and over again on a very small account now obviously your very next question is okay i believe you i'm seeing examples but how do i actually make content like that if i don't have followers how do i make content that gets views and sales i'm maria wen and i've got you covered so let me show you what to do so let's just use reels as an example we've been using reels our goal for a reel that actually makes us money, we need to achieve two things with a good reel.
First thing that every good money -making reel needs to explain is what they're going to get. If we use the aquarium for an example, it's an aquarium lamp. It's pretty obvious.
If you're selling something that's a digital product, which a lot of you guys are, you might notice that in a lot of my reels, I print off things that are digital. I've done pops like paint stir sticks and cardboard to show some of the courses I've made. We'll put some of those up on screen so you can see examples.
Anytime I can take something that is intangible and make it tangible, I do. And so you show a good reel that makes money, shows what you are going to get. It does not tell.
You don't use your words. You show what you're going to get. that's the first thing and then the second part is how you get it so in this aquarium lamp guy the example that i showed you he literally just said more info in my bio i would tell him to have people comment a keyword so comment lamp to get a link to go directly to the checkout page and i think the original one that i bought off of i think was like a year ago that i bought it i did have to comment lamp and it did dm me the link to the actual checkout page that's a much better model than the one that we did as our example where it just says link in bio it's it's less effective so for you because you're watching my video and you're hearing it straight from the source what i would tell you is have someone comment a keyword and that keyword will use many chat to send them a link to the checkout page so a good reel that makes money is what you're going to get how you get it and let me tell you a pro engagement hack if you have a little account this is even more important when you have someone comment
to get it every comment boosts the reel in the algorithm and so you especially if you don't have followers you want to get as much engagement as you can and so explaining showing this is what you're going to get and then having them comment to get it every time someone comments it boosts your reel in the algorithm which is exactly what we want that's why you'll see those reels that pop off and have thousands of comments it's because everyone else was commenting to get the resource Now, a lot of people watching this, they want to work smarter, not harder, which I totally get.
That's how I want to do it. And so what I did is I collected 135 template tutorials to show you how to create my most popular money -making reels carousel stories. So basically what I did is I went on...
instagram looked at my own account and collected the top money making posts and i showed you how to make them for your industry i've had over 10 000 students get a copy of these template tutorials and they rave about them you can see on the checkout page they talk a little bit about all the money they've made from these pieces of content these template tutorials and so if you want to shortcut the process which i highly recommend that you do grab a copy of my template tutorials it'll help you create this content that goes viral that gets a ton of comments it makes a ton of money and i will see you there
The Hook
The bait, then the rug-pull.
The objection every course seller hears: you have an audience, I don't. Maria takes it head on and says the algorithm has changed the rules.
CTA Breakdown
How they asked for the click.
VERBAL ASK
07:43product
“Grab a copy of my template tutorials.”
Soft pitch after the lesson: 135 template tutorials, over 10,000 students, link in the description.
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She has millions of followers across Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, and email, but she says affiliate links cap what any of them can pay her, so she sells her own products instead.
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