Social media usage is one of the most popular online activities. Today, there are over 3.48 billion people on social media.
According to a recent report, internet users now spend more time on social media platforms than ever before (approximately 2 hours and 16 minutes each per day). If you are a suave entrepreneur, these numbers should excite you.
Now that everyone is on social media, there’s an opportunity to make money on different platforms. While social media started as a platform to connect family and friends, it has now metamorphosed into an entrepreneurial tool.
If you are looking for unique ways to make money, it is time to learn how to leverage social media for income generation. This guide explores different ways to use social media to make money.
Table of Contents
1. Sell Your Products and Services
Selling your products or services on social media is the easiest way to make money from these platforms. According to reports, 43 percent of people now use social media to research products online.
If your products and services are on social media, it is easier for your target customers to find them. Social media networks from Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter, among others, now come with marketing-centric features to help marketers promote their products. Knowing the best time to post on these platforms including YouTube can significantly enhance your reach and visibility, ensuring your content connects with the right audience.
Working with a social media marketing service can help unlock your company’s potential through social media. You can hire a professional to write your social media posts, if you have trouble keeping up.
2. Become an Influencer
You can now make money online by becoming a social media influencer. You will join an A-list of celebrities from Beyonce, Kylie Jenner to Ronaldo, among others.
As an influencer, your job is to endorse products or services based on your knowledge or specialization. If you already have a large following on social media, you can target brands looking for customers who are in your fan base.
It is important to have a specific area of expertise to make it easier to collaborate with specific brands. For instance, if you are big on travel and have created a solid social media following, you can join influencer networks to connect with brands selling travel merchandise or travel packages.
3. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing entails referring your social media, blog, or website followers to merchant websites. If you have an active social media following, merchants will pay you to promote and refer their products through links on your accounts. It’s worth considering that you can enhance your follower count with Twicsy on TikTok and other similar services for other platforms. Using these services can increase your follower count and push your content more often through the algorithm to other users organically, this can be an effective way to kickstart social media growth and begin to see affiliate sales sooner.
You will feature the merchant’s product ads on your website and get paid if they click on the same. After clicking, the link redirects the visitor to the merchant’s website where they learn more about the products or services. You get paid a commission for the referral.
If you have a large following, social media affiliate marketing is an easy way to make money. You only need to promote the product on your page to get those clicks. For example, if you are into blogging, you can earn a passive income promoting Hostpapa reselling hosting.
4. Online Coaching, Training and Consultancy
Are you good at fitness training? Maybe you are an expert in the guitar? If yes, these are just a few of the things you can train people through social media.
Social media is a powerful tool for lead generation, and you can redirect people to your blog where you can interact better.
There are unlimited opportunities for training and consultancy skills and social media provides the best platform to start building your services.
5. Become a YouTube Sensation
Logan Paul, Daniel Middelton, Jake Paul and Jeffree Star; ever heard of these people? If not, it is time to discover the highest-paid YouTube stars of 2018. These are individuals who leverage the popularity of video content to advertise their content, do affiliate marketing and cash in on the influencer remarketing rage.
You can learn from their best tricks to build your YouTube channel and start making money from the same. To make money from your YouTube channel, you have to offer unique and interesting content.
From hair styling to motor vehicle modification, there’s so much you can offer on YouTube. The more views and clicks you earn, the more money you make on your YouTube channel.
Getting started on Social Media Entrepreneurship
Whether you want to get started on social media or you already have a following, there are some crucial factors to remember. Many people have tried exploiting social media to make a living to no avail.
To avoid such an eventuality, you need to strategize. Some of the first steps in your strategy include identifying your goals and objectives, defining your audience, carving a niche, and choosing the right social media network.
You should also carry out competitor research, create a content strategy and leverage trends on your chosen social media platform. Social media entrepreneurship is not a trial and error project, and as such, you have to use analytics and keep tracking the performance of your campaigns.
Final Thoughts
Thinking of how to make money from social media? These few ideas will get you started.
However, you have to build a strategy for your money-making idea, choose the right social media network and leverage trends on that platform.
It is a tough world out there, but with the right strategy, social media presents a great opportunity to make money.
Phillip Dews says
When I spotted this on BizSugar Erik, I thought oh another post about Google Adsence.
Yep good to see Affiliate marketing on here and yes I do both on mine but these past ten years I have made my living by building and coding websites from scratch.
A lot of effort is needed to become an influencer though. My twitter following is about 10.6K yet when I tweet a post I am lucky to get 1 or possibly 2 hits to the post if at all.
Personally I think it’s not the numbers people should concentrate on hitting but gettign others to ReTweet and share our stuff is the secret.
Anyway that is my two pennies worth for you Erik.
All the best
Phillip
Philip Verghese Ariel says
Hi Erik,
Good to read yet another motivating and influencing post on making money online.
Yes, the tips you shared are worth trying but, it needs a lot of hard work and patience to win over.
Ãs you put it well in the concluding lines. It is a tough world out there, but with the right strategy, social media presents a great opportunity to make money. Yes, I fully agree with you, it is tough at the same time a well-planned approach can win the result.
I found this post on the pages of BIzSugar and upvoted and commented.
Best Regards
~ Phil
Amar Kumar says
Hey Erik,
Now-a-days, people spending lots of their time on different- different social media platform and this become genuine option for affiliate marketers to sell their product and services easily.
For a successful online marketer social media is powerful tool but it requires organized strategy to generate revenue. Eventually, thanks for sharing your experience with us.
Thanking you.
With best regards,
Amar Kumar
Vishwajeet Kumar says
Hello Erik,
Social media is now an integral part of an individual’s life and it also helps you to make money online. Influencer Marketing is quite popular and people love doing this. Thanks for sharing these amazing ways to make money online through Social Media.
Sathish Arumugam says
Erik,
Still, there are people struggling to make money online even though they have good social followers. All they lack is the strategy that works. Every day, social channels come up with new faces and options to enhance any individual’s online promotions. and, social media forms the platform to street play and showcase our credibility to the people. Keeping upgraded ourselves with the latest trends and promotional strategies can keep alive.
Also, we must be potentially strong about the subject matter what we are broadcasting. So that people start turning their eyes on our products or any business offerings. If we have good products or services in place, then our minimal efforts are enough. Referrals will grow our business and brings consistent money.
Thanks for showing different ways to make money from social media. It’s ultimate!
Lisa Sicard says
Hi Erik, I’m working on strategy for this today and with a new coach to boot 🙂 I want to sell courses online about social media and using the social media channels to drive traffic will be key!
I do have one affiliate that I love and promote and would love to add others but I must really use the services/product before I do. Much more effective that way!
Thanks for the tips here Erik and have a great day.
Gondal says
Hi Erik,
Really informative post. Just thinking to give a try to sell my eBay products using social media ads. Haven’t seen any similar ad so far but I think it till work. Any such experience?