You have probably heard stories of social media users making money from their posts and followers and thought to yourself “I could do that”.
You are not alone, a huge amount of people get to the point of thinking they could do something like that. Even day dreaming about how they would spend the extra income: holidays, new clothes, reduced working hours, 3 day week or funding other projects.
A much smaller percentage of those people actually go on to make money from their followers, most people don’t even try.
It’s difficult to get out of your comfort zone and try something new. A lot of people feel they don’t have the platform, knowledge or even the luck to make money with their followers.
Have you ever thought to yourself, how can I make money with my followers?
Sponsored posts
This is the most common and easiest way to start making money with your followers on social media.
A brand will engage with an influencer to create and share content featuring the brand either directly or indirectly.
This can be a single post, a number of posts over a period or a long term contract including weekly posts.
A sponsored post can be on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, a combination of all of them or any other social media platform.
You can be sharing content created by the brand, developing your own unique content featuring their product or brand, working on a product launch, reviewing a product or any creative way to get the brand in front of your audience.
Become an affiliate
This works in a similar fashion to traditional affiliate marketing, you are paid every time someone clicks on a link in your post, makes a purchase or visits the website.
It can follow multiple models but generally speaking you are paid per: click, sale or lead.
In a way, this is a very cost effective approach for the brand to get influencer on board and for the influencer they are paid for quality work and good engagement. Meaning if you are good, you can succeed.
Generally, this will make up 10 – 20% of an influencers revenue and shouldn’t be the only source of income.
It is, however, a reliable revenue stream and a good way to start making money from your followers.
Brand ambassador
This is a long term partnership between brands and influencers.
Whereas sponsored posts would be for a number of posts this is focused on forging a deeper connection between brand and influencer.
It would be for a month, a year or a number of years and would need a strong alignment and level of commitment from the influencer.
A brand ambassador can be macro, meaning they are large well-known celebrities or micro, meaning they are smaller with a targeted niche following.
Read about macro vs micro influencers here.
Is my audience important?
Short answer – yes!
This is what a brand will pay you for.
If you have an active, engaging and positive following across different platforms then not only can you make money short term from your followers but also long term.
Brands will see the high engagement rates and potential value to be derived from working with you as an influencer.
Don’t just work for the brands, work for the followers. It might be tempting to promote all kinds of products but remember it’s a double edged sword and both sides must be kept sharp.
How many followers do I need?
At this stage, you are wondering not just how to make money off your followers but also how many followers you need.
It’s not necessarily as many as you think, in fact, a small, highly engaging group of followers can be more powerful and effective than a mass following.
It all depends on a number of factors:
- Your chosen niche – whether it’s health, beauty, fitness, food etc. Are you very relevant in one of these and can easily tie it in with your product
- Engagement rates
- Social media platforms you use – YouTube, Instagram, Facebook etc.
- Revenue channels you want to use
What do I charge?
It’s important to remember that this is negotiable and at the end of the day you want to make money from your followers while maintaining engagement levels.
Most influencers charge a fee, you may, however, receive gifts (think watches, hotel stays) or benefit directly from the exposure.
Generally speaking, a micro influencer can charge anywhere from 50 – 500 USD for a post or even more (around 5 – 15 USD per 1,000 followers is a common rate on Instagram).
Remember your reach and influence are very important here.
If a great brand you would love to work with comes along but only wants to pay 100 USD, why not go for it, do a great campaign and increase the chances of working with them or similar brands in future.
Remember, it’s a real business. Focus first on building your reputation and increase prices in line with that.
How can I find brands to work with?
Once you reach a certain level, the big brands will come searching for you.
However, if you are serious about making money from your followers then you need to be a lot more proactive about the situation.
InfluencerBay offers budding and established social media influencers a platform to make proposals to already established brands who are actively seeking influencers.
The brand will detail specifics such as the product details, market details, audience and price.
Then it is down to the influencers to create a proposal with campaign ideas, relevancy, samples of work and pricing.
You could spend time approaching companies directly to discuss the possibility of becoming an influencer.
But why would you?
Signing up takes just 3 minutes and you can be online making proposals to brands actively looking for influencers immediately.