In the last part of the blog, we identified and understood how do you become a social media influencer.
In this Part 2 we will be focussing on how we get paid, and what are the income streams that you can look forward to as a social media influencer.
There are many ways to get paid as a social media influencer.
Some people make money through sponsorships, paid to advertise, or even product reviews.
It all depends on what type of social media influencer you are and what type of offers are available to you.
If you’re just starting out, you might just grab all the opportunities that come your way even if it’s for a barter.
Barters
Let’s get started with the most common form of collaboration which is a Barter, here the brands and companies would not directly pay you but they would offer you their product for FREE and would expect you to create a video or a post for their promotion.
If you are just starting out, it may not be a bad idea to pick up this deal as it would help you build your portfolio.
Additionally, you would be getting FREE products and services.
Your popularity as an influencer would also increase as the brand would also endorse and reshare the content that you have published on your social channel.
Sponsored content
Have you ever noticed the posts on Instagram saying “Paid Partnership with <Brand Name>” ? that is Sponsored Content.
Whether you are an influencer on YouTube or on Instagram or on Facebook, you can create sponsored content for brands and can get payment from them.
The brand typically analyses a plethora of metrics before they sign up for any form of sponsored content such as –
(i) Number of followers and Subscribers – Brands are smart enough to check the legitimacy of followers and subscribers your channel has, so ensure that your fans and follower growth are organic and genuine.
(ii) Engagement levels – Brands pay close attention to how active your fan base and followers are, if they are liking, commenting or sharing your content, are they interacting with you, are they interested in your content. All these factors are important while a brand considers you as a part of their next influencer campaign.
(iii) Reach – It does not matter if you have 1M followers or 10,000, are you creating content that is reaching out to the right set of people, how much reach your average post gets, how many views on average your reel gets, all these crucial metrics is what the brand manager is keeping an eye on.
Check out – How to start earning from a YouTube channel
Affiliate marketing
While watching a YouTube video, I am sure you must have observed this line coming out of from the content creator –
“Links to purchase this product are in the description section below, go and check them out”
What exactly are they referring to here?
They are referring to Paid Affiliate links which means the moment you make a purchase through that link, they get paid.
Where to get started?
This will depend a lot on what type of content you are producing. If you are creating Fashion related content you may want to push out relevant products from Amazon or if you are writing about Technologies, SEO, you may just want to push out Affiliate links from Godaddy or bluehost.
We are sharing some good affiliate partner links for your ready reference below –
Amazon – https://affiliate-program.amazon.in/
https://www.godaddy.com/en-in/affiliate-programs
https://affiliates.fiverr.com/
Product reviews
There are a number of companies that offer payment for product reviews, and as a social media influencer, you could make extra money by sharing your recommendations with your followers.
Here are some tips on how to get started:
- Search for the companies that offer payment for product reviews. There are a number of them online, and you can find information about them on various review sites or search engines.
- Make a list of the products you would like to review. This will help you narrow down which products to choose from and will also make it easier to come up with content for your reviews.
Some of the product testing sites are mentioned below for your convenience –
Content Collaboration
Collaboration is what most content creators aim for as its one of the best techniques to pitch to similar types of followers, normally content collaborations happen in the same domain influencers which is if you are an auto blogger, you might just want to pitch to another auto blogger for a collab.
Sometimes the content collaborations can also be a paid gig, if you are someone who has only a few followers and would like to collaborate with a bigger influencer who has many more followers, this entire exercise could become a commercial one.
There is a ready reference list we can offer you, but this is something you would have to connect with influencers at an individual level to find out their commercials and offerings.
Webinars
One of the best techniques of monetization is giving out some content for FREE and some content as paid and webinars can come under the second umbrella to some extent.
You do a FREE webinar and get the users to register for another paid webinar, reveal only some secrets in your FREE webinar and entice them to sign up for your paid gig, this way you build a funnel and get the users interested to pay up for your offering where they also get value.
As per recent reports, the influencer marketing industry is all set to grow and reach 24.1 billion USD by 2025 and offers some really amazing opportunities, the only thing it asks is consistency and dedication in creating content while offering value to your end audience, if you can do this, they you can definitely make it big.
Want to check out some of the other trends in social media, and graphics?
Here are some additional links.
8 Social Media Trends that are set to rule in 2022
8 In-Demand, High Paying Social Media Jobs You Can Do Remotely
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