Is it Possible to Make Money in 2021 with Social Networks? The short answer? Yes!
The slightly long answer is- the combined user-base on all the social networks on the planet is estimated to be 4.20 billion as of 2021!1 That’s nearly half the world’s population!
This proves there’s audience! Anywhere that an audience exists, the opportunity to make money exists, doesn’t it?
In fact, social media is open for more monetization sources than websites in 2021. Let’s start with the basic ways you can make money off social networks?
1. Influencer Marketing
In the simplest words, it’s when you grow your social media page/profiles to a certain level, you become an “influencer”.
Because you have a lot of followers, companies and brands pay you directly for every single post you make for them because they’ll be gaining exposure.
How much you ask? Well, Kylie Jenner, Ariana Grande and Cristiano Ronaldo all charge nearly $1million for a single Instagram post!
You’re no Jenner or Ronaldo, I get that! The above fact only proves that the market, or companies do spend a fortune on social media!
According to a report, FMCG companies spend around $22,151 per year globally on each influencer!2
Here’s an example of Influencer Marketing done right-
And these influencers aren’t necessarily “celebrities”, they’re just people with a good number of following and engagement on social media platforms!
Influencers can even charge separately for “stories”, “bio links”, “reels”, “videos” and other forms of content which can be created on these social networks. This is why I earlier mentioned social media having more monetization possibilities than a website.
2. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is the second most popular way of making money off social media in 2021. It doesn’t involve any company or person paying you directly for “posts”.
It involves more direct sales and you get a commission on the sales you generate. You do not have to own the products or stock them. This is really as easy as sharing a custom link to a product.
In order to make this work, people generally share reviews of the products they’re selling, or use their brand value. The review will work if you share a product that’s related to your page niche/industry.
E.g. if you have a page on beauty or makeup, people with interest in those areas follow you. You already know what they like, when done right, it’s not that hard to sell people something they’re already interested in. Is it?
The “brand value” sales are a bit different. In this case, people buy products because they’re interested in “you” or the content your “page” creates.
This is why the some celebrities endorse a dozen different products and make sales on each of them. This allows them to sale many different products in different industries.
The guys over at Lemonade did a pretty detailed social media affiliate marketing guide 2021, check them out?
3. Selling your own products
This goes without saying, you can always sell products and services that you directly own, right? Again, people only follow pages which are in industries/markets/niche which they’re interested in.
You can even start from scratch, build your social media pages around a certain niche, and then sell your products or services on it.
Here’s an example:
The page isn’t “too big”, neither is it associated with a celebrity. Yet, with sheer content it has built a loyal following and now sells services related to Cryptocurrencies!
(I’m not endorsing the course/training provided by the Instagram page above. It’s just an example. I’ve no experience with the mentioned services.)
4. Ads
This is literally the most direct, traditional and somewhat “easy” way to make money off social media.
The only problem is, it needs investments before there’s an ROI (Return on Investment).
Doesn’t matter which social network you’re on, it can be Instagram, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter or anything else.
These platforms have millions of users. Ads let you target the “interests” of these users directly. It’s like when someone’s already thinking of buying shoes and they see an ad for a shoe the conversion probability increases, doesn’t it?
Did you know that the post-COVID (or, late-COVID) social media ad spend increased by over 56%? 3 Would companies really be flushing money if it didn’t bring money back?
Now, there are two sides to this coin. You can either run ads for your own products, or for a client. You make money with a social network either way!
Factors influencing your conversions/sales on social media
I’m pretty sure some of you have tried social media and failed. Now you’re probably sceptical about the whole “making money with social networks” idea.
Well, do note that it isn’t an exact science. A number of factors have to come together in order for this to work. Let’s discuss them in brief?
- Followers/ Brand value: Regardless of “which” social network, you must have an audience before you can start selling to them. On Instagram it’s followers, on Youtube it’s “subscribers”, on Facebook it’s “number of people who like your page” and so on.
- Engagement: Simply a fan-base doesn’t work either. You must have “active” users. Having a million followers but 300 likes and 20 comments wouldn’t work. (There sure are exceptions.)
- Industry-relevance: If you have a social media page on “food”, you shouldn’t try to make money by promoting/selling door handles! I’m sure you get the point I’m trying to make?
- Ad-copy/Marketing skills: A lot depends on the graphic/banner/poster you use for promoting whatever it is you’re selling.
Wrapping it up- Is it Possible to Make Money in 2021 with Social Networks?
I’d conclude this piece exactly the way I started- YES! It’s totally possible to make money, substantial money and I’m talking 6-figures with social networks.
It may not work for everyone, or for every single industry but it sure does work!
The first step obviously is to build quality which will in turn build loyal audience for you. The last step (where most fail) is to market “truly good quality” products to your followers instead of just chasing the money.
Hey, that’s me signing off. I hope I’ve made my point? Go away, do some research and see if you can’t make yourself a few bucks with social networks, eh?
Sources:
These are the sources for some of the data/number/stats mentioned throughout this article.
- https://datareportal.com/social-media-users?rq=global%20social%20media%20stats
- https://www.livemint.com/companies/news/fmcg-companies-shift-ad-spends-towards-influencer-marketing-11604419727865.html
- https://martechseries.com/social/social-media-marketing/global-social-media-ad-spend-soars-signaling-brand-confidence-digital-channels-covid-19
