Do you make money from social media?
Have you ever seen those ads telling you, you can convert your social media account into a cash machine? If you have then am sure the question “Do you make money from social media?” Wouldn’t sound strange at all.
In this post, I will be providing some valuable answers to the above question using personal experience and knowledge gained over the years of using social media and I will also tell you if I make money or not using social media.
Read: Best Ways to Make Money from Your Skill in Comfort
Is it Really Possible to Make Money from Social media?
It is possible to make money, through social media but this is usually not as directly as most people make it sound because the social media platforms don’t usually pay you(some new platforms like future net said they are working on it) for using the platform but people make money as a result of some activities performed on social media which in turn you get paid by the company or individual for performing the assigned task.
Making money on social media and How it actually works
A whole lot of people still see it as impossible when you talk about making money online why others hear a tiny word in their head saying “scammer” when you tell them you make money online and adding social media which some people see as a playground to the list of ways to make money still sounds ridiculous to many but here is the big deal of how making money on social media really works.
Read: How to Make Money Trading Cryptocurrency
The principal of making money through social media
In one of my early post titled the 4 places money hides, I did mention that money hides in people hence, where there are people, there is money to be made irrespective of how much it is. This is the simple principal people adapt to make money using social media.
People gather on social media platforms to do one simple thing which is connecting and sharing with existing friends while making new ones. While they are busy trying to do this, business owners are working hard to reach them and you will agree with me that the best way to catch a fish is to go to the ocean so these business owners go to the founders of the social media platforms to advertise their business thereby paying the company(facebook, twitter, Instagram, etc) and the site owners makes money and that is on the founders side.
How does Individuals make money using social media?
As an individual who has grown his or her social media handle(facebook page, Instagram, Twitter handle, etc) you can make money using social media through one of the following;
- Become an Ad manager/ Social media manager: Some companies understand the benefit of using social media and for such companies, they pay individuals to manage their social handles by adding daily contents like images, videos, text etc and also help them run paid ads on social media.
Read: How to get started making money on YouTube
- Sponsored content: this is the major option used by individuals who have large followers or likes on their social media handles. Celebrities and other individuals who have managed to grow their audience to thousands on Instagram, twitter, facebook etc are usually approached by companies to promote their products or service to their fans and in return, they are paid for doing so. Such persons are referred to as social media Influencers.
- Market your products/ Affiliate offers – most times when you hear people talk about making money on social media, they are referring to this option. This method simply involves promoting your personal product on social media to attract customers or promoting an affiliate offer to generate leads or sales and get paid for doing so.
Read: 10 Things you can do to make more money daily
To get started making money through the last option above, you can start by promoting your current products/ services which you are currently selling offline to online audience which you think needs them and this can be done using Facebook ad, Twitter ads or Instagram ads or you can even use the free option of joining groups related to your product. If you don’t have a product, you can join affiliate networks like JVZoo, Clickbank, commission junction etc for digital products.
But if you prefer physical products, you can check Amazon, Jumia and Konga (if you are in Africa) Flipkart(India) or Aliexpress affiliate program. All these companies have options to help you make money using social media by promoting products belonging to other people and in turn get a commission when any sales are made using your personal link. You can also check a site like Sharepop which allows you to monetize your Facebook, Instagram and Twitter fans by promoting apps for download which pay as much as $1 per download.
How to grow your social media audience to become a social media influencer
Since you need to become a social media influencer to make money from sponsorship deals from companies, here are simple steps you can take to top your game.
- Create a social media profile or page with eye cache name to attract people to follow or like you as soon as possible
- Use professional and quality looking pics on your profile
- Follow the audience you think your future prospects would like to target
- Update good contents (images, videos, and text) to create engagement
- Reply to trends and use trending hashtags
- Add some styles to make your response look unique.
- Attract the attention of celebrities and top members of your target market by replying to their updates on time.
- Reply to messages in your inbox as fast as possible.
- Follow at least 200 active persons daily to grow your followers faster
- Organize simple giveaway events online (use recharge cards, gift card etc)
- Run live video updates like once or twice a month and announce when next section will hold before the end of the current section.
- Like and reshare interesting contents that will be useful to your audience.
- Post during peak hours to get good engagement.
How to secure your first social media influencer deal
Now that you have grown your social media fan base, is time to attract some deals to get the money coming and here are some tips to help you secure your first deal
- Use LinkedIn to find company staffs of your desired agency/ organization and send them messages with a link to your profile and also state some reasons why your audience is a good target market plus why you are the man for the sponsored deal
- Use sharepop which is now hisharepop and register as an influencer so they can help you secure some deals
- Meet startups around your environment and offer your service
- Use Sni.ps to monetize, and track audience engagement and performance.
- Run some free service to test your engagement and also attract paid
- Spend some money on ads to showcase your follows(this is a very rear approach but am sure this should work)
Final words
Making money through social media is more of an indirect process than direct and how much you make depends on your monetization option and your audience.
Do you have a question or you can think of any other means of making money using social media, please do share it with us using the comment box below.
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