How to Use Social Media to Earn More Affiliate Revenues
Imagine waking up every day, going to your office, slaving away all day, returning home, eating as if it were a task, and sleeping early to wake up early the next day and repeat everything all over again.
At the end of every month, you make the same amount that barely provides for your needs. There is no financial growth.
Sounds sad, right?
But what if you could have a passive income and earn money anytime and anywhere, even when you are asleep?
You can generate money without struggling with the monotony and dullness of the rat race.
Wondering how?
The answer is affiliate marketing.
You may or may not be aware of the concept of affiliate marketing, so let’s learn about it and how you can make money with it by using social media.
What is Affiliate Marketing?
When you promote a brand’s products or services, you earn a commission every time they make a sale through your referrals. In layman’s terms, that is affiliate marketing.
Sounds effortless, right?
But let’s delve a little deeper and split down the many roles of affiliate marketing into three important segments.
1. Brands
Brands, sometimes also called the seller or the creator, are the ones that create and sell the products and are also on the lookout for partners to promote them. These brands can be huge companies or even individual entrepreneurs.
2. Affiliates
The affiliates are the ones that promote and refer a brand’s products and services to potential customers. Affiliates are also sometimes called promoters or publishers. They can be individuals like the brand’s existing customers, bloggers or influencers, or other companies.
3. Customers
Customers are consumers that complete the circuit of affiliate marketing. Without them, neither will there be any revenue generated nor any commission to pay off. Generally, customers are driven to the brand’s products or services via affiliates.
Leading potential customers to a brand’s products isn’t always a piece of cake. You have to choose a niche and go for the right strategy to drive in potential leads.
You can pick a niche that interests you heavily or resonates with your professional background. This will help you in affiliate marketing as you’re already familiar with the products and services.
But even after that do you think you can earn a decent amount of commission through affiliate marketing?
Not to worry if you’re clueless. We’ve all been there so let’s uncover that for you.
How Much Money Can You Earn Through Affiliate Marketing?
According to Statista, affiliate marketing spending has shot up remarkably since 2010, and by 2022 it is estimated to reach $8.2 billion in the US alone. And as stated in Zeropark, the affiliate marketing industry is also predicted to go way beyond $16 billion worth and to skyrocket even further in 2021.
These stats are loud enough to tell you that affiliate marketing is a highly profitable way to generate income.
But regardless of the stats, it might not work in your favor if you are not committed to it sincerely. You need to invest adequate time and some money initially to grow it into a full-fledged business.
Affiliate marketing can be done through several mediums successfully. But there’s one such great platform where affiliate marketing is currently very popular and trending.
Social media!
Why Use Social Media to Earn More Affiliate Revenues?
The recent hit of the Covid-19 pandemic has given a huge boost to affiliate marketing through social media.
Wondering how?
When people started disconnecting from the real world due to Covid-19 restrictions, they found solace in connecting with the world virtually through social media.
The increase in scrolls, taps, and clicks gave brands a motive to showcase their products and services all the more intensely. They set up affiliate program campaigns to get potential customers.
This creates an opportunity for affiliates like you to find a lot of brands that fall under your niche. When you promote their products on your social media platforms, you reach a lot of people through your audience/followers base.
Thereafter, when brands make a sale through you, you earn a piece of commission in the form of an incentive. Consistently following this strategy leads to a high level of affiliate revenue.
All you need to decide is which brand is right for you to begin affiliate marketing.
How to Pick the Right Social Media Platform for Affiliate Marketing?
Before jumping on the affiliate marketing bandwagon, you need to do some relevant research and find out which social media platform is the one for you. Then, you narrow down affiliate campaigns to products and services that fall under your niche.
Moreover, you must know which social media platform your target audience uses the most. Ultimately, it is they who will assist you in earning commissions if they make purchases through you.
Let’s explore four prominent social media platforms one by one and discover how they might help you generate more affiliate revenue.
As of January 2021, Facebook is still the king of social media with 2.80 billion active users. For most brands, Facebook is like a second website to attract customers by showcasing their products.
Think about it for a second – You wouldn’t want your friends to think that you are spamming them and compelling them to click on the links of your affiliate partners posted by you, would you?
If you want to do this for the long term, then set it up professionally from the very beginning. You can do so by creating a Facebook page or group. Next, you set up a theme for it according to your niche and share relevant and engaging content for your audiences.
You can certainly grow your audience base on Facebook pages and groups over time as they are easy to use and free to run. You can send invites to your friends who are aware of your work and are interested in helping you.
Always remember, you need to engage with your audience first and then promote products of affiliate campaigns. That way, you will be able to build and gain their trust.
When you successfully engage with your audience and also gain their trust, they will find value in your content. They would turn into potential customers for the brands whose products you are promoting.
Another great feature of Facebook is Facebook ads. Although you can’t directly promote product links of affiliate marketing in those ads, they will surely help you grow your audience base. You can promote some of your engaging content through targeted Facebook ads and attract a lot of followers quickly.
Here’s How to Earn Affiliate Revenue Through Facebook
- Creating photo galleries
You can build an image gallery by uploading enticing images of the products you wish to advertise in individual posts. For each post, you can write a detailed description or review of the product, including your affiliate link.
- Creating video reviews
Videos are a great strategy to keep your audience interested in what you’re saying. You can write reviews or tutorials about the affiliate products you want to promote.
Add your affiliate links to the various products you used or reviewed in your video in the text area of your post. You can also do this in a comment, which may increase post engagement and visibility.
Do you ever scroll away on Instagram watching trending reels and wonder how people make money using Instagram?
We’ll tell you how.
Instagram is a popular photo and video sharing platform where many influencers monetize through their audiences via affiliate marketing.
Instagram is as popular as Facebook with over a billion active users. Many influencers are earning affiliate revenues by creating and posting highly engaging content on Instagram.
But unlike Facebook, you cannot share links (affiliate campaign products links) on your posts. This is one of the drawbacks of Instagram. But worry not, there are several other ways where you can share links for your followers.
Here’s How to Earn Affiliate Revenue Through Instagram
- Share affiliate link in your bio (permanent)
This technique is favorable if you’re always promoting the same product. While posting engaging content regarding the product you want to promote, you can always write in your caption “link in the bio” to lead your followers to the actual site.
- Share affiliate link in your bio (temporary)
If you’re promoting multiple affiliate campaign products, then you can keep changing the link in your bio with every post and update about it in the caption.
- Use swipe-up feature in Instagram Stories
Another great way to add affiliate links on Instagram to earn revenues is to add them as swipe-ups in Instagram stories. But this swipe-up feature is only possible if you have a business account. If you don’t already, then consider switching to business account mode.
- Mentioning in Instagram Stories
You can add affiliate links as part of your photo or video description on Instagram stories too. Write engaging and catchy descriptions to get more taps. The more your audience taps on your affiliate links, the more your chances of earning affiliate revenues.
LinkedIn isn’t far behind Instagram. With almost 800 million members all around the world, LinkedIn is certainly a great platform to earn affiliate revenues. It offers a lot of ways for affiliate marketers to share product and service links with their target connections.
You can join LinkedIn groups relevant to your niche and engage with group members to drive more leads for affiliate marketing. You can do the same by creating a LinkedIn group of your own.
You can also invite people to a webinar by sending them personalized invitations or creating a general post. Webinars that offer free, valuable training are a very quick and easy way to advertise your affiliate products to your LinkedIn connections and communities.
Here’s How to Earn Affiliate Revenue Through LinkedIn
- Share valuable blog posts
Write a blog post that will be beneficial for your audience and provide value to them. You can then add an affiliate link to that relevant blog post and publish it on the platform.
- Utilize the benefit of direct messaging
You can reach out to your connections and non-connections as well through direct messaging and offer them catchy deals that include your affiliate product links. Avoid making your message look spammy.
- Share sponsored content
Another great way to earn affiliate revenues is to share sponsored content on your feed. This can be very effective for a targeted audience, gives off authenticity, and won’t come across as spammy or unethical.
- Influencer marketing
And just like Instagram, you can also be a LinkedIn influencer. You can promote affiliate products by incorporating them with appropriate content for your target audience.
That way, your posts will seem more reliable and trustworthy and will lead your connections to click and convert into customers.
YouTube
YouTube is second only to Google in terms of popularity. You can showcase your creative visions using YouTube.
You can create and use your YouTube channel to provide extra value to your audience while earning revenue at the same time through affiliate marketing.
You must produce engaging content relevant to your niche to build your subscriber base before beginning affiliate marketing. Having loyal subscribers, who trust your word when you promote affiliate products and services, will help you gain business in the long run.
Here’s How to Earn Affiliate Revenue Through YouTube
- Create video reviews and tutorials of affiliate products
Make reviews and tutorials of products you want to promote to gain the trust of your audience and provide valuable content. The simplest option to integrate affiliate links into your videos is to include them in the video descriptions.
There is no limit to the number of links you can post in the description part, which appears beneath each video.
- Be a part of the YouTube Partner Program and use End Cards feature
It’s also a wise idea to mention affiliate product links in the videos. This should encourage viewers to read the descriptions.
You can also include links directly in your videos if you’re a part of the YouTube Partner program. End cards are a feature on YouTube that you can add to the last 20 seconds of each video.
These cards can include links to other YouTube videos along with links that would lead to affiliate products. While all users have access to end cards, only Partners can insert external links.
You can build a large audience network that trusts your word when you promote affiliate products and services. You can do so by consistently incorporating all of these different methods pertinent to different social media platforms.
Tips to Maximize Your Affiliate Revenue
Now that you understand the significance of several social media sites for affiliate marketing, let’s discuss some practical tips that will help you earn more money.
1. Use Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Affiliate Programs
The majority of merchants reward you for generating sales for them. You earn payment when a user visits the merchant’s website via the link you shared and buys the product. This is the traditional method, which some merchants still practice.
However, many businesses are now paying for various affiliate marketing schemes:
- When a user clicks on a link you’ve shared, you’ll be rewarded per click.
- When a user clicks on your link and signs up or subscribes for the merchant’s services, you are paid per subscription.
2. Conduct Paid Searches
The more cash you invest, the more money you’ll make. This simple rule also applies to affiliate marketing. Paid advertisements or paid searches are the quickest way to acquire a significant amount of traffic to your affiliate post.
3. Shorten Your Links For Better Results
Did you know that you can decrease the URL clutter of affiliate links by using approved link shortening services? This allows you to post short links while still ensuring that you are paid for sales that are monitored from click to finish.
Lastly
With roughly half of the world’s population as users, social media has evolved into more than just a medium of communication. It’s no longer only a platform to connect with family, friends, and coworkers.
It has provided opportunities for many people to make money during the last decade. Affiliate marketing through social media is one of many strategies for promoting, marketing and selling products and services to earn revenues.
With the right blend of content and social media strategies, you can generate affiliate money by enticing your audience to click affiliate product links. We hope the article proves to be beneficial in increasing your affiliate marketing conversions.
Devi is the Content Specialist at SocialPilot. When not learning about the latest SaaS trends, she likes to explore alternate history or get lost in etymological rabbit holes.