INFLUENCER INSIGHTS: How to Make Money as an Influencer

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In this episode, I want to talk to you about the different revenue streams you can have as an influencer and the ways you can use them on your account. 

I think there is a saying that says the average millionaire has 7 sources of income. So if we are aiming for a pretty grand goal like that then we need to diversify our income. But even if your goal is to just cover your mortgage with your side hustle having a few revenue streams is going to make that much easier.

So today I am going to share 3 income streams that you should have as an influencer 

Affiliate Marketing 

Affiliate marketing is the process by which an affiliate (you the influencer/content creator) earns a commission for marketing another person’s or company’s products. The affiliate simply searches for a product they enjoy, then promotes that product, and earns a piece of the profit from each sale they make. The sales are tracked via affiliate links from one website to another. 

It costs the end buyer nothing extra, the company takes a small loss on the product in order to reward you the affiliate for doing the marketing and sharing the product with an audience that potentially wouldn’t have heard of them before. 

You should always add a disclaimer when working as an affiliate, on Instagram this might look like a little text that says Ad – Aff, or on your blog or mailing list it could say:

This content has a few affiliate links, which means if you click on them, I will get a commission (without any extra cost to you).

If you have an audience online even if it’s just friends and family you can still share affiliate links – there is no reason you can’t! But it is going to be much easier if you have an audience of people who are interested in your niche and the content you share, if you are wanting to grow your audience check out one of my most popular episodes,

episode 5 where I share how to get to your first 10k followers. 

There are lots of sites that help influencers link with big brands for affiliate marketing, you simply sign up, find the brands and products you love and then share the links regularly with your audience.

Site’s like Amazon Affiliates, rewardStyle, LikeToKnowIt, Awin can all be used to link to wider brands you love.

I’m not going to say this is the most profitable way to monetize your account but it can be… depending on how engaged and how much your audience trust you and highly your audience converts 

For example, Amazon’s structure, offers rates between 1-10% of product revenue for creators, providing the opportunity for affiliates to dramatically increase their passive income based on the vertical they’re selling on.

Plus it isnt just on the product they purchase it is on anything they buy whilst they are on the site having clicked through your link.

In order to be successful at affiliate marketing, you need to share often and widely, just sharing a link once most likely won’t bring in the big bucks.

Get creative about how you can share your affiliate links. Blog posts, if you get asked about the same things over and over create a blog post with your favorite items, which could be tools, make-up, go-to summer fashion accessories you get the gist. 

If you have 10k followers obviously Instagram stories is a great place to share your affiliate links as you can get people to directly swipe up and it will take them straight to the item. 

You can even create an amazon storefront where people can browse your own little corner of amazon full of your recommendations. And you can add that link to your Instagram bio, Facebook page, blog, email signature, etc there are loads of places to share these links. 

Little tip – if you have a website create a little landing page on your site for your multiple links. There are sites like link tree that will do this for you but it is far better to have your website be the landing page as then you will get the traffic to your site rather than a third-party site. 

Brand collaborations 

This is probably the income stream that first comes to mind when thinking about being an influencer and most obvious as a content creator on social media this is the typical advertising partnership

Brands partner with influencers in exchange for sponsored social media content. An influencer creates and posts content to promote your brand on their social media accounts.

A brand will typically share content guidelines and the campaign objectives to help you know what to create and what they expect from you. You will then go away and create content based on the brief then you’ll get paid in return.

These can be brands that have reached out directly to you or ones you have pitched to it doesn’t matter, it can also be a product in exchange for payment so a brand might not actually pay you (but if you have listened to any of the previous episodes you’ll know that isnt something I actually believe in).

The reason brand collaborations are great is they can bring in big chunks of income, I always recommend starting with what you want to earn a month. 

Let’s just say £1000 for ease (although in reality, it can be far far more than that quite easily, for my maths sake lets use an easy number, and this technique can be used for any revenue stream as you will have an actual goal and you’re not just stabbing in the dark) 

you want to make £1000 a month, let’s say you want to do one brand collaboration a week which means you need 4 brand collabs paying £250 a collab, even with 1000 followers that’s entirely doable if you charge £150 for a post or even more for a reel and £100 for a natural sequence of stories. And you can see how this is scalable right… So you want 2k a month well then you aim for 2 collabs a month and then when you can’t physically create more content for brands it’s time to put your prices up. 

If you want to know more about how to work with brands listen to

episode 7 where I talk about how to actually find brand collaborations.

But whilst brand collaborations are amazing and it genuinely is one of my favourite things about my business getting to work with the brands I have loved and grown up admiring is incredible. 

But you are obviously still relying on someone else, you need the brands to agree with your content, agree with your rate etc which is why I always recommend this final income stream as an influencer. 

Creating your own products or services

This could be physical or digital products 

About a year and at selling a digital product: I put together an ebook all about how to use hashtags as it was a question I was getting asked daily and did a little marketing (actually very little marketing, I maybe mentioned it on my stories a few times) but it actually did really well and sells a couple of copies a week with very little effort from me. Which means I get a nice sum of money each month from a product I created once.

Ebooks and courses are a great form of passive income if you haven’t listened to episode 3 which is my interview with passive income queen Lisa Johnson then go back and have a little listen as I think it will help spark some ideas.

The reason digital products like e-books, online courses, audio products, downloadable templates, memberships, lightroom presets, etc. are so successful is because of their low creation costs (your primary investment being your time and expertise) and their scalable nature. You create something once or spend a couple of hours a week on it and you can sell it over and over again.

The biggest thing that is going to get in your way is your mindset, telling yourself you aren’t good enough or knowledgeable enough to create a digital product. But you just need to be a few steps ahead of the person behind you and I can guarantee there are people who will pay for an accelerated learning experience through digital guides and instructional videos.

As for physical products you could have a shop where you sell products related to your nice, in my industry it could be easy for me to set up a business where I sell home decor.

Or if you have a particularly memorable personal brand you could create merchandise which you then sell through your website and social platforms. 

There is an entirely different strategy used on social media for physical products which I won’t go into in this episode but one thing to remember is that social proof whether its a digital or physical product is key to success and user-generated content which is other people taking photos of your product, it acts as inspiration and again a form of social proof. 

I also love it when you guys take a screenshot and share it on your stories and tag me  It fills my heart with joy to know you are listening! 

I am @thewhitethistle on Instagram. Please come say hi and tell me what you liked about this episode. I hope you have a lovely week and I will see you next Monday for more Influencer Insights. 

P.S make sure you join our community of like minded content creators www.facebook.com/groups/influencerinsights

Related Posts:

WHAT IS AN INFLUENCER AND HOW TO BECOME ONE

HOW TO GET YOUR FIRST 10K FOLLOWERS

THE THREE THINGS YOU NEED TO GET PAID COLLABORATIONS