UNLOCKING THE MONEY SIDE OF SOCIAL MEDIA

How To "Cash out" Doing What You Love on A Platform You Can't Get Enough Of!

So, you've met me already, and you know what I face doing SMM in Nigeria. Well, I'm here again and it's money talk I'm here for. I also assume you've read Ajibola's post on having multiple streams of income, and you're looking into SMM as one extra way to make the dough. Well, I'm here for you. As the cool friend I am, I'm going to show you how to  use these platforms to secure your bag, instead of allowing social media apps to drain your data and subsequently your bank account.

I'm sure by now you are familiar with Instagram vendors; people who are making the most of the platform by using it to sell to their online audience. But do you know that you don't have to own a product to make money on social media? There are lots of underutilized ways to turn your page to a cash vending machine and that's the soap I'm going to be cutting for you today. 

 So grab a pen and paper and let's get into it 

1. Monetise Your Existing Channel

Social media platforms such as Snapchat, YouTube, etc, reward creators by providing financial encouragement. For example; on Snapchat, there's a feature called "spotlight". It's a TikTok like feature that allows you to post entertaining 60 seconds videos; if your video goes performs well, you'll get a notification from Snapchat that you're legible to get paid. You get paid minimum of 250 dollars per video. Snapchat pays it's users about 1 million dollars every day due to this feature.  

Other platforms that pay creators include Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest etc. I would have gone into more detail but I don't want to take up too much of your time. Leave a comment if you want me to shed more light on this topic in my next blog post.

2. Advertise Your Skill on Social Media

There are lots of job opportunities out on social media. You can search for job opportunities matching your skill set that you can apply for. You can also use your social media page as a mini portfolio. Start by posting some of your work. E.g.: If you're a chef, post cooking videos or pictures of dishes you've made. This will greatly increase the chances of you being discovered by people who will appreciate and pay you for your services. It'll also come in handy when you need to show your work to a potential employer. 

3. Promote Your Affiliate Link on Social Media

An affiliate link is a unique link that is given to you when you sign up for an affiliate program. When a purchase is made using this link, you get a percentage of the sale. In order to make money from this you need people to purchase with your link. Which means you have to advertise to as many people as possible. But in order to do that, you need an audience to advertise to; so what happens when that audience isn't readily available to you? That is where social media comes in. You can use Twitter to get retweets for your link, partner with Instagram influencers to promote your link, or even ask that your guy to ask his guy with plenty followers to post your link for you.

4. Become an Influencer and Partner With Brands

All that following you have can be processed into hard cash yunno?!  Depending on how many followers you have, you could reach out to brands or have brands reach out to you for paid collaborations. The minimum amount of followers needed to get robust collaboration, promotion, influencing and ambassadorial deals is 10,000, but even with less than that you can still make a considerable amount of money on social media channels.

5. Become a Social Media Strategist or Manager

Now that social media managers are in high demand, you can take advantage of this opportunity by getting theoretical and practical knowledge of how to position a brand for maximum success on social media platforms. The skills you'll need to learn include content marketing, social media monitoring and listening, social media advertising, etc. Is it tasking ? Yes it is! But it is well worth it at the end. Also, social media managers in Nigeria earn from 20 - 300 thousand naira monthly. 

6. Promote Your Business on Social Media

This list wouldn't be complete without this one. Vendors are popping up all over Instagram, Twitter and even Pinterest. You too can take advantage of this opportunity. Create a business account on Instagram or Twitter or any social media platform that your audience frequent and start posting pictures of your products, run ads to gain visibility and watch how fast your products sell out. 

Yaay, congratulations, you made it to the end of this article! I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Do you have anything to add or any questions to ask ? Kindly leave it in the comment section. 

Thanks for reading and bye for now!