5 Ways to Make Money On Social Media

Discover how you can turn your social posts int to income with these 5 ways you can make money on social media!

One of the coolest aspects of the evolution of working at home is the ability to use skills and interests from outside your education or past work experience. Many graphic and web designers never took a class or designed as part of their job, but because they did it as a hobby, they were able to translate that into a home based career. The same is true with social media. Many of the big wig social media experts (i.e. Gary V) became gurus through their experience.

If you enjoy and are active on social media, you have the potential to make money at it. Here are 5 ways to cash in on your social media activity:

1. Promote Affiliate Products

No product? No problem. You can promote other companies’ products or services and earn a commission from the sale to make money on social media. There are thousands of products you can promote through social media. Some of the best places to find quality goods are in the Amazon Associates program, ClickBank, and Conversant (just to name a few).

Success in affiliate marketing, whether through a blog or social media, comes from picking quality products and programs, offering a review or tip instead of spamming your social media followers, and transparency (letting your followers know you’ll get paid). This last point is crucial for two reasons; 1) it’s the law and 2) followers won’t trust you if you’re not upfront with them. A way to do that is to include “aff” in your post. If you’re blogging (which is considered social media), you should include a disclosure in the post.

Check out this post at WAHS on How Super Affiliates Make the Big Bucks to learn more about affiliate marketing.

2. Sponsored Posts

In a sponsored post, you post to social media on behalf of a company. This could be a straight promo, or for better results, many companies will ask you to include a picture (i.e an Instagram with you and product) or to give a review. Like promoting affiliate links, you need to disclose a sponsored link. If on Twitter or other media that uses a hashtag, you’d use #sponsored, or in a blog post, you want to include a disclosure.

Getting sponsored posts requires that you have a large, engaged following or a niched, engaged following (i.e. military moms).

Some places to check to find sponsored posts include:

• Izea
• Mom Central
• Reelio

3. Promote Your Own Product/Service

For many years I did a podcast, and you’d be surprise how many of my guests who were running service-based businesses found their first clients and received referrals through social media. Social media is an excellent way to connect and engage with your market, network, and of course sell to make money on social media. While you can promote sales links, you can also offer samples (i.e. a chapter of your ebook or 15 minute consult) or helpful tips or info indicating full details are in the product. Remember, people don’t want to be sold, so give them something of value so they’ll want to know more about you and what you offer.

4. Become a YouTuber

You don’t necessarily have to sing or do comedy, but if you have something you can share on video, posting it on YouTube and participating in it’s advertising program, you can make money. How much will depend on many people view your video. Like most money-making options, the more eyes, especially targeted ones, on your offering the better.

You’ll need an AdSense account that you’ll connect to YouTube. Google makes this very easy within your YouTube account. You can learn more about video ads at YouTube’s Creator Academy. In fact, you might what to check out all of YouTube’s Creator Hub.

5. Social Media Manager

Everyone trying to sell something online, from home business owners to direct sales consultants to  authors and more, should be using social media to attract and engage with their market. The problem is that social media is time consuming. As a result, many of these entrepreneurs (including myself) hire people to help with social media.  Social media managers do more than simply post content. They also work with clients to develop social media strategies based on the client’s goals, set up accounts, post graphics and other content, encourage involvement by followers, provide customer support, analyze results, and stay on top of effective social media marketing trends.

You can search job databases for work as a social media manager such as:

Social Media Manager Jobs at FlexJobs

Or you can start your own social media manager business, in which case you have more control over the work and what you get paid. Read Start A Social Media Management Business to learn more.

Tricks to Social Media Income Success

Regardless if you use one or all of the above options, your success will be in part to following these 4 rules:

1. Share content your followers want or need.
2. Share appropriate and enticing content specifically designed for the social media outlet (i.e. attractive pins on Pinterest or entertaining videos on YouTube).
3. Engage and interact with your followers. Don’t just sell stuff, but have conversations with them. People don’t want to follow others who only try to sell them stuff.
4. Be transparent. Always let your followers know when a link/post is paid or could result in your earning money from their taking action on it.

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