Social media has evolved into more than just a space where we share our selfies and cat videos. It is now a regular place where many business owners and entrepreneurs go to grow their companies, sell products and services and network with other professionals. You honestly don’t even need to have a business to make money these days─ just a little bit of hustle and patience for technology.
If you have a smartphone then you could be next in line to make some good cash flow right from your own home. People of all ages are learning how to make money on social media in their spare time. Although it typically doesn’t happen overnight (but with the possibility of going viral it could), putting in the time to set up streams of income from social media is well worth it.
Technology is going anywhere anytime soon so this is the perfect time to figure out how to leverage something that’s already a significant part of most people’s daily lives. Check out this guide of how you can start to make money on social media using affiliate marketing today.
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What Is Affiliate Marketing?
Before you start learning how to make money on social media, it would be best to understand what affiliate marketing is. Affiliate marketing is basically promoting someone else’s product and making profits from the sale. There’s hardly a pay cap because, as long as you can sell the product, you will always make a commission.
This avenue of making money works for many people who don’t necessarily want to create a product or sell a service. It also equally works well for people who already have products and want to add another stream of income.
Affiliate marketing is great because it is a supplemental model in some cases. For instance, let’s say you are a personal trainer selling your fitness services. If you wanted to add a wellness product, affiliate marketing would allow you to without taking the extra time and effort to create one.
Besides being an almost done-for-you method of cash flow, affiliate marketing is fairly easy to get started with. There’s no short of options for people looking for help with promoting their products. Getting started with affiliate marketing combined with the power of social media is a great plan for success.
Choose an Affiliate Product
Once you’ve decided that you want to learn how to make money on social media using affiliate marketing, it’s time to actually choose a product that you can sell. As mentioned before, there are tons of different high-ticket programs and products for you to choose from. In this case, most people might get a little confused about which one to start with.
Picking a Niche
One of the best ways to find a product is to choose a niche. Picking a niche is a great method for narrowing down your options. However, this is a portion of the process that many people get stuck on.
Check out these key factors that can help you decide on a niche to choose:
- Something your passion about
- A topic/industry you’re an expert on/in
- A field you’d like to know more of
- A trending topic/industry
- Something that’s lucrative
- A cross combination of more than one topic/industry
- A random option
Try not to stay in the stage of figuring out a niche for too long. This is one of the things that can easily stop people from moving forward and beginning.
How to Find Affiliate Products
Now that you’ve established which niche(s) you’d like to promote, it’s time to actually find the products to sell. So we’ve mentioned there are tons of people and brands waiting to partner with you but where exactly are they? There are a few places to start.
Firstly, the concept of revenue sharing, or affiliate marketing, has been around since 1994. So this isn’t really a new lane, which means that there are definitely lots of community build around it─ and that’ exactly where you go.
One of the most popular places the affiliate marketers go to include marketer forums and platforms. Some websites to check out are JVzoo, ClickBank, MaxBounty and Shareasale. These spaces are great because there are typically serious business owners that are ready to form partnerships so you don’t have to worry about filtering your search too much.
Another way to find affiliate programs is by Googling your niche along with the phrase “affiliate program or products”. For instance, “women’s fitness affiliate products”. You can also consider signing up for programs with large companies such as Amazon’s and Ebay’s affiliate programs.
Overall, make sure you do your research before settling on a final product. Be sure that it’s something that is sellable and that you can stand by.
Do Market Research
Before you start promoting your product(s) online, it’s best to do some market research. This part of figuring out how to make money on social media can save you a lot of time, energy and frustration in the future.
Doing market research allows you to figure out who exactly your target audience is and the details about them. You’ll find out what they like, desire, dislike, where they hang and how to speak directly to their pain points. It also gives you an opportunity to take a look at what competitors are doing to attract (and repel) customers.
You can use tools, such as Google Analytics, keyword planners, market data websites and surveys to gather information. This will also help you find the most appropriate platforms to advertise your products on.
Make Social Media Accounts
Since you’ve done your market research, you should have already chosen the best social media platforms for selling your affiliate marketing products. A few things help you to determine which ones will work best for you.
You’ll definitely want to make sure your target audience has a presence on the platform. Also, take a little time to think ahead about the type of content and budget you’ll need to effectively gain traction.
Once you’ve done these steps, create a profile on each of them.
Creating a Killer Profile
There are a few key things that you’ll want to do when creating your profile/bio for your business account. First of all, make sure you fill out the complete profile. Leaving details out could make your brand look shady or spammy and cause people not to purchase from you.
Some other factors will depend on which platforms you’re using. But, in general, it’s important to include important information about your industry and product. For instance, if you’re advertising a financial eBook on Instagram, you should add keywords in the bio that let people know finance if your main focus, such as “Financial help”, “wealth building”, etc.
Write a Marketing Strategy
Most people have found great success in running an online business by creating a strategy. Even if you don’t craft a full-blown business plan, you should still write down some strategies for marketing. This will give you direction and help create consistency in your advertising.
Create Quality Content
It’s time to start applying the information you’ve acquired on how to make money on social media to real-time action steps. If you want to attract people to your product, you’ll need to do things to attract them. On the internet, this translates to creating good content that catches people’s eyes.
The forms of content you create frequently may vary depending on which platforms you’re using. However, there are a few staple types that comprise internet content in general. Here they are:
- Videos
- Blogs/Written
- Vlogs
- Podcasts/Audio
- Infographics
Run tests to figure out which content works best for your market. For instance, a wellness product may benefit most from creating videos regarding the topic. On the other hand, a business product might do very well attracting the majority of its buyers from podcasts and infographics.
Consider the audience you’re selling to (B2B versus B2C) and the industry you’re selling in.
Start Promoting
No one will ever buy a product that they don’t know about. Promoting your affiliate product effectively is going to be one of the main factors of driving traffic and sales. The good news is that there are many ways to advertise on social media─both free and paid.
Check them out below.
Use Instastories
Instagram rolled their “stories” feature in August of 2016. Not only was this a thoughtful addition for using the platform, but it also became a great opportunity for business owners and entrepreneurs.
The Instastory feature allows you to make mini-videos that disappear after 24-hours (similar to Snapchat format). It allows you to get up close and personal with your audience to provide value in video form without editing (more of documentation). There are also cool features within it that you can make surveys and polls with for your audience to engage more.
Certain accounts are admitted a “swipe up” button that lets you embed a link directly in a story. Using this feature can help you get lots of traffic and eyes on your profile and product.
Create Boards on Pinterest
Pinterest blasted its way through the social media world and has become one of the top preferred platforms for internet users. People engage on the there through creating “boards” and “pinning” images to them.
Consider creating some boards and uploading original content. You can also share viral content as well. Be sure to include links back to your own website, eCommerce shop or landing page in your posts.
Start a YouTube Channel
YouTube is one of the largest search engines on the internet. If you are good at creating and editing engaging videos then this may be the perfect platform for you.
One of the biggest keys to thriving in this space is being consistent with your content. You should also aim to provide value to your audience while being entertaining and informative. YouTube also has the extra perk of monetizing your videos for another income source.
Write Think Pieces on LinkedIn
One of the best tips on how to make money on social media is to position yourself as an authority and thought leader. LinkedIn is one of the best platforms to share longer-form think pieces on various topics.
LinkedIn was initially created as a digital meeting space for professionals and business-minded individuals. Building a solid reputation amongst other experts and respected names can help with selling your affiliate product easier.
Answer Questions on Quora
Quora might not seem like much but it is definitely a powerful resource to use for attracting buyers. A great strategy for this platform is to go through questions related to your niche and given thorough answers.
Providing this type of free, quality help can encourage people to seek you out for more information. You can then sell your products to them since you’ve already built up some trust.
Run Facebook Ads
Most of the methods for how to make money on social media that have been mentioned were free. However, if you’d like to invest some cash into possibly speeding up sales then try Facebook Ads.
You can find tons of help and resources on how to run effective Facebook ads online. Start off with a small budget then continue to reinvest capital when you make profits.
More Social Media Tips
Some social media platforms have specific strategies that work best. However, there are a few universal methods that you can try in almost any digital space.
Here are a few of those tips:
- Running giveaways
- Commenting and engaging on other posts
- Working with influencers
- Fostering partnerships
- Building trust with your audience
- Sharing high-quality images
- Including links in your content
- Create an email list
Learn How to Make Money on Social Media and Affiliate Marketing
Learning how to make money on social media and becoming an affiliate marketer has a lot of benefits. This can lead you to financial freedom and living a life you’ve always dreamed of.
Don’t worry about the small details right now. The important part is that you begin with what you have. Stay focus and committed to start seeing some amazing results.
For more in-depth information on how you can succeed and thrive as an affiliate marketer, check out this step-by-step guide.
