Social media has become a wonderful tool for digital marketers that can be used to advertise your company, or interact with your potential or current customers. You can even use it as a large function of your customer support efforts!
But that’s not all social media is good for. Many businesses are using it to make money. While you may have tackled many uses of social media, making money through Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram may be a bit more difficult.
But, with a few steps you can monetize social media too; here’s how…
Set the Stage
The fact of the matter is, monetizing on social media won’t happen overnight. There will be several ways you should set the stage for your social media sites before you will be able to monetize successfully. The good news is, you may already be laying the ground work without even realizing it!
First, you’ll want to make sure you are building brand awareness. If you don’t have a strong social media presence, you need to start there. Use more traditional advertising methods to drive traffic to your Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram pages. What if you get traffic to several different social media sites? Even better.
Another way to set the stage is to make sure you have a history of strong content, should someone stop by and look at your post history. Make sure your brand a logo are solid, too.
Engage Your Audience
Your goal should be to engage your audience. Social media platforms are a great way to do this because you’ll have endless opportunity to communicate with your audience and they’ll be able to like, share, or comment on posts.
If you have interaction, keep it going by sharing interactive posts or information that will cause your audience to react.
Hopefully this will grow your audience as well, which is an important aspect of monetizing. For example, to successfully monetize on social media you should expect to have at least 10,000 likes or followers on Facebook or Twitter.
The more you engage your audience, the more data you’ll be able to gather that will in turn help you monetize.
Monetize
Next, you can begin to monetize. You’ll want to sell your own products or services through your social media sites, but it doesn’t end there. You can also sell through sponsored posts, though it may be more difficult to make sales this way. Another option is to utilize an affiliate network where you can sell your relevant content.
If you’re new to the monetizing game, try focusing on Facebook first. You’ll be able to grow an audience quickly with such a wide reach as well as advertising options.
Another great way to help your efforts to monetize on social media is to offer sales, exclusive coupons, or other promotions. You can reward loyal followers while also using it to create more awareness or generate follows/likes.
When you limit specific promotions to a specific social media site, it also becomes a great tool to measure your success for that site.
Finally, be patient while you continue to build and engage your audience. Monetizing on social media is sure to follow.
