Wondering how to monetize social media if you’re just starting out? Is it true that you have to have a large following before you can monetize it?

Once you started your small business, cultivating a community or a following on social media becomes one of the first priorities. The moment people started following you anywhere, you became a leader. The next step is developing a monetization strategy. While it may sound intimidating, learning how to monetize social media is actually quite simple.

How to Monetize Social Media for Beginners

1. It Starts and Ends With Relationship Marketing.

Relationship marketing is all about marketing through our relationships and connections. We do this all the time already. We refer friends to great restaurants. We tell friends where we got our cute dress that they complimented us on.  We post on our social channels about an amazing new product that we love. We ask our social media friends for their opinions, advice, and recommendations on every subject one can possibly ask about.

Relationship marketing is based on trust.  

Relationship marketing is the driving force behind what makes an influencer. And when you’re an influencer, you are cultivating the trust of your community based on what you recommend to them.

When we package our marketing efforts around a community topic, hobby, or subject, we can make referrals based on that topic. So if you have a parenting group, maybe your referrals are around child-friendly products your community loves. If you have a fashion group, perhaps your referrals are to complementary products like jewelry and accessories.

2. Decide on your Promise

What is it you want to help your community achieve?

Perhaps you want to help them get more organized, or strike balance between work and family, or learn how to set better goals.

Whatever your mission is, it will be much easier to do the next step once you know what the ultimate goal you want your following to achieve is. And the more complementary this goal is to your primary offerings, the more natural and easy it will be to fit it all together into your groups and pages.

3. Put Together Your Supplemental Offers

Once you know what you are trying to help your community achieve, you can put together the offers and deals they can use to make that happen. What else do you have to offer your followers that will have the impact you’re after besides your primary products or services?

Could you record videos that offer some sort of value to your following (hey, ad revenue off those YouTube videos can really add up!)? Or how about offering a course that will teach them how to do something you already know how to do really well.

And don’t forget, there’s always good old-fashioned affiliate marketing, where you can refer products and services you’ve vetted to your community for a small commission or referral.

4. Build a Strong Content Strategy that Cultivates the Relationship

Remember what I said: everything starts and ends with the relationship. So you can’t put that relationship on the back-burner. If you want your community to be there for you whenever you have a new offering to promote, then you need to be there for them: offering value

You don’t have to have a large following, or just your own products to sell. The strategy remains the same big or small. Building trust why people will buy things that you reccomend.

#EmpowerSocial