The prize of being a successful social media marketer can be very lucrative. We’ve all read stories of how influencers can make millions online by simply promoting and marketing products. It’s quite the lifestyle!
If you want to make money online, you will have to work really hard though as unfortunately, there are no shortcuts. It is difficult work and takes a lot of time and effort because you have a lot of competition. You are competing with every teenage sensation who posts on social media, every corporate marketing department that has tons of money to outspend you, and of course all the other people who want to make money with social media.
Here are five ways to make money with social media (you don’t need a degree or a big budget), but if you want to make money consistently, be prepared to put the effort in.
Get People To Your Website To Sell To Them
Back in the old days, you created a product and then a website which you used to sell the product over the internet. Nowadays, Shopify is the big driving force behind this money-making method. In short, you set up a Shopify website, which can be done for a fairly low cost, you start selling things, and you promote your website through social media. You can make your website more visible by adding a blog and lots of content about your services and products which may include tutorials, demonstrations, support and so forth.
Create a symbiotic link between the content on your website and what you post on social media. Let’s assume that your website has its own blog section or that it has articles about certain subjects. When you create your social media content, base it around the topics that are discussed on your website. You can then direct traffic to those relevant pages with the hopes people will not only read the content but also stay and buy something. Also, when people visit your website, it makes it look more popular to the search engines, so even if people do not make a purchase, you gain by getting more attention from the search engines.
Your website should also have troubleshooting sections, FAQs, tutorials, demonstrations and so forth. The best way to do this is to create social media posts about them and then embed them into your website. If the content is embedded, then it draws people from social media onto your website, and it draws people from search engines too.
Making Affiliate Sales Through Your Social Media Profiles and Posts
If you want to stand out on social media, then you have to create content that provides your own take on the matter at hand. It doesn’t have to be anything over the top or instantly viral. If you create solid content over time that provides value to your audience, they will come back for more. Eventually as you continue producing more content, you’ll get better at it and your audience will grow over time.
There’s no point copying content from other people as it simply degrades the value of your own brand on social media. Never underestimate your audience as eventually they’ll realize that you are just pasting copied content.
You make affiliate sales by simply having an affiliate code or affiliate link on your social media posts. For example, if you are trying to sell football shoes, then you put lots of content about playing sports on your social media accounts. Make it, edit it, steal it, whatever you need to do. On your account, you have an affiliate link that people click if they want to know more. It takes them to websites where they may buy football shoes and you get a slice of the profits. Do a bit of research into the topic because there are literally thousands of companies that will pay you for referrals through affiliate links.
Exploit The Influence Economy To Get Sponsors
The phrase “attention economy” has gained traction as a way of explaining how people who gain attention are able to make a lot of money. The things we see on the Internet, from the obvious adverts to people’s social media posts, are all there to draw your attention. The people who are good at getting your attention are the ones who can often make money. If you want to make money via a specific route, then you need to understand the “Influence economy.”
As such this concept is nothing new – even in the good old pre-internet days, newspaper, radio, and TV marketing tried to do the same thing. TV-based shopping networks were the precursors to today’s e-commerce platforms.
What is the influence economy as we look at it today? Consider the attention economy and combine it with the attention-getter’s ability to influence. For example, let’s say someone is able to gather a lot of social media attention with practical jokes. If that person wants to sell gym memberships, then that person is going to struggle. That person has plenty of attention, but little influence. Now, if that person wanted to sell ice cream, then that person will probably be very successful. That is the influence economy, it is based on how much attention that person gets, multiplied by how much influence that person has over the group.
You can exploit the influence economy to promote your own business or your own money-making hustle, or you can use the influence economy to get sponsors. You do this by building up your audience (attention) and then seeking out sponsors based on your content and audience type. For example, if you make social media posts about video games, then you could approach several indie and larger game developers and ask for sponsorship. Many game developers have a ready-made program for social media influencers, so getting free stuff and sponsors isn’t as difficult as it used to be.
Consider your type of content, your attention, and the people who follow you, consider the influence economy, and then seek sponsors who would get the best economic benefit from sponsoring you.
Using Social Media Advertising-Affiliate Platforms
When you reach a certain number of social media followers, you will get offers from the platforms themselves about affiliate advertising. The most famous is YouTube. When you get enough followers and you have enough viewer time and positive PR, then you can join their affiliate program. This is where you get a certain amount of money every time somebody watches an advert on your videos. This is the traditional method for making money through social media, but it is hard work because you need to create good content that people are going to want to watch. Still, you can make affiliate advertising money through social media if you are dedicated to the task.
For example, if you wanted to make money from YouTube adverts, then you need lots of followers. In this case, you could buy other people’s social media accounts and exploit their audience. The other social media accounts will not be monetized, but that doesn’t matter. Your job is to buy other people’s social media accounts and then get those people to visit your primary social media account to watch your adverts (though you don’t tell them that).
Go to a social media marketplace and look for the most suitable accounts you can find here. Now, let’s say you have a great video on YouTube. It’s the sort of video where people watch the adverts because they really want the content. Go and buy some social media accounts, and promote your best video to all those accounts. Out of sheer curiosity, all the followers of the other accounts will visit your video, they will be forced to watch the adverts, and you make money.
Create Content For Other People
As a content creator, you could make good money by creating social media content for other people. You may be great at creating content yourself, but you may struggle to promote your content. Perhaps you are not that great at marketing, or perhaps you don’t have the sort of budget that allows you to launch big campaigns for your content. If you are struggling to get a good following but you are creating really good stuff, then start promoting your services for sale.
Do a post and promote sandwich. This is where you put up a piece of content, then you put up something promotional, and then you put up another piece of content. A simple but effective example of this case can be seen on Instagram. You have probably seen those stories where it starts with a picture of a model, and then flips to a picture of them with a tagline about 30% off a product, and then it flips and there is another picture of the model. It is a way of hiding/sneaking your ads into your posts. Except in this case, you are promoting yourself when you make these posts. You are promoting the fact that your skills are for sale.
Your skills are not just limited to content creation. Perhaps you are a great musician, a great sound technician, a brilliant artist, an amazing animator, an exceptional writer, a terrific video editor and so forth. Social media content creators need all of these services and more, and you can offer them for a fair price. Strongly consider promoting your own services through your social media channels and become a freelancer. Perhaps even start a social media post creation business that you double back and promote through social media. If you are good at what you do, then your talents are probably in great demand.