I Made Over $11,000 Last Month From Social Media
Plus, 14 ways you can monetize social media
I made more than $10K from social media last month. I actually was projected to make closer to $18K but some late payments and late contract starts will force that extra income onto June.
I have multiple income streams and social media is one of them.
Here’s more about how I make a full-time income from social media alone.
Social media — one of six income streams
My six income streams include:
- Social media
- Digital products
- Client work
- Publishing
- Affiliate marketing
- Personal projects (I usually include affiliate marketing and personal projects into one group on my income report I share with my paid Substack members.)
My social media income comes from brand deals, social media clients, and creator funds/programs I’m a part of.
Here are some ways you can break into each of these micro income streams…
Getting paid from brand deals
Cultivate an audience online (it can be a small audience) then, work with brands that will pay you to talk about them with your audience.
One of the easiest ways to get brand deals is through sponsored networks like Activate.
But, the highest-paid opportunities can come from pitching, where you contact brands and ask them straight up to sponsor you.
Social media client work
This can be work as a social media manager or UGC content creator.
Find clients on freelance marketplaces, social media, and your personal network. Some of my first social media clients were from Upwork and Facebook groups.
Today, there are networks you can join to find content work like CreatorX or Pipiads.
Creator Funds/Creator Programs
From Pinterest to Tik Tok, Youtube, and other networks, creator funds are a neat incentive to create content on a network.
I made $5,900 from Pinterest last month from it!
If you’re looking for ways to make money from social media, here are 14 money-making ideas to consider…
1. Brand deals (aka sponsorships or sponsored posts)
Connect with brands who will pay you to post on social media.
For example, if you’re in the blogging niche, talking to your audience about becoming a blogger, then an invoicing app might approach you for a brand deal.
You’d share the invoicing app with your blogger community and get paid for it!
There are many ways to make money with brands deals:
- Compensation
- Affiliate commission
- Compensation + affiliate commission
- Free product
- Compensation + free product
- Compensation + free product + affiliate commission
- Free product + affiliate commission
Some of my latest brand deals paid me: $500, $1,250, $750, and $4,500 to name a few amounts.
Here’s my free course which shows you more about how brand deals work.
2. UGC (user-generated content)
Companies pay you to create content for them.
For example, a company may want to outsource their Tik Tok videos and they might pay you $3,000 per month to make 30 Tik Tok videos per month for them.
I’ve been paid as much as $750 for one piece of user-generated content for a company.
This is cool because no social posting is required which means that you don’t need a social following to make money with this.
Go to Tik Tok and search for UGC content, UGC content creators, and related keywords. There are a bunch of creators that share a ton about this. You can learn a lot including tips and strategies for finding companies to work with.
I’ve heard of creators making as much as $5,000/month from one company!
3. Selling products
Selling products, whether it be physical or digital products is another lucrative way to monetize your social media.
Some ideas I’ve seen from other creators:
- Their cookbook
- A digital planner
- A physical planner
- Lists and spreadsheets
- Memberships and subscriptions
- Chocolate bars
- Chamoy and Tajin coated candy
- Freeze-dried candy
- Cookies
- Natural hair products
- Soap
- Bath bombs
- Waist beads
And, people love to support creators and support small businesses. I’ve bought a ton of products from small businesses on Tik Tok, myself.
4. Selling services
Services you can sell can include anything from auditing, SEO reviews, Tik Tok account reviews, accounting or bookkeeping, website audits, and more.
5. Consulting
If you’re an expert in your industry, make money consulting.
I’ve made hundreds of dollars for an hour of my time to consult others. By the way, though I don’t advertise it at all, I do offer one-on-one email coaching, if you’re interested.
6. Coaching
This can be life coaching, business coaching, student loan payoff coaching, or whatever your forte is.
This is kind of like consulting but, coaching tends to be more long-term whereas many consulting gigs are a one-off kind of thing.
Coaches can work with students over a period of time, like 3 months or 12 months, etc.
If you enjoy helping others and you’re an industry expert, this could be something you want to pursue. High ticket coaching can fetch up to $10,000 to $20,000 per client!
On the low end, if you charge $1,000 to $2,000 per month per client, you only need a handful of clients to make a full-time income with coaching alone. And, social media can deliver those clients to you.
7. Dropshipping
Dropshipping is an e-commerce model. It’s a cheap way to start running an online store.
I’ve done dropshipping many times. My last dropshipping store made around $1,000 in 9 days or so with little advertising work.
With dropshipping, you just need to find a supplier. Many people use Aliexpress. There’s also Spocket and other suppliers you can turn to.
Dropshipping can transform your income overnight, literally. But, it’s a ton of work and one of the reasons I personally won’t go back to e-commerce long-term.
But, if you’re into it, it can be very lucrative and rewarding.
8. Ecommerce
Ecommerce is online selling.
You will be running an online store selling what you want, from homemade brookies you whip up in your kitchen, to bath salts, face masks, knitted beanies, maxi dresses, coffee mugs, etc.
Social media is the perfect place to share your business with the world. And, if you can get customer testimonials or live demonstration videos showing consumers using what you sell, you can be off to a great start.
9. Client work
From social media management to copywriting, illustration, photography, SEO work, web development, or other client projects, social media is a good place to snag clients.
Make sure you share your business email address or contact form publicly to make it easy for prospects to contact you.
10. Selling courses
You're good at something. Package it into a course and teach it to others…
- Watercolor painting
- Grocery shopping for a large family
- Speaking German
- Playing violin
- Flipping pallets
- Flipping websites
- Handknitting chunky blankets
You can sell on a platform like Teachable or join a site where an audience already exists like Udemy or Skillshare.
11. Selling ebooks
The idea behind ebooks is similar to courses.
Take your knowledge, passion and/or expertise and bundle it into an ebook. I’ve even seen authors take 5 or 10 articles around a topic and create an ebook from it.
Ebooks are usually easier to create and sold at a lower price point.
My ebooks are a fraction of the cost of my courses and because of that, they sell hundreds of copies each month, which pales in comparison to how many courses I sell.
But, you’re comparing apples to oranges, a roughly $20 ebook to a $250+ course so keep that in mind, too.
I sell my ebooks on Gumroad and there are other platforms out there you can explore as well.
12. Selling templates, e-guides, digital planners or other digital products
Instead of putting together an ebook, you can create a digital product like a template, e-guide, digital planner, etc.
You can use Gumroad to sell or other platforms like Etsy, Creative Market, AppSumo, etc.
13. Growing your email list
For a long time, I didn’t get how bloggers were so focused on growing their email lists. They’d create hordes of freebies to give away in exchange for an email address.
I just couldn’t wrap my mind around why they did that but, it makes perfect sense.
An email list is so valuable.
With an email, you have the opportunity to put your content in front of a targeted audience over and over again.
Imagine if you had a list of 5,000 people and got a 2% conversion rate on your $20 ebook launch. That’s $2,000!
Or, if you got a 2% conversion rate on your $300 course. That’s $30,000!
Email lists are so easy to grow, too.
This is one of the biggest money makers on this list!
I use ConvertKit. I’ve been with them forever but, I’m going to test out Systeme (haven’t gotten around to testing it yet) since it’s a fraction of the cost and I get webinar software, course hosting, and a bunch of other amazing tools included.
14. Growing your website/blog traffic
Take your social media traffic and funnel it to your website or blog.
If your site is monetized with ads from Mediavine or another publisher, it’s an opportunity to make more money.
You can also grow your email list in the process.
Takeaways
Social media is powerful. There are many ways to monetize your social influence.
If you’re curious about breaking into social media to create additional income streams, go for it. Take action!
I hope some of these ideas gave you some inspiration.
What do you think about making money on social media?
Note: Affiliate links are included in this article.
If you want to learn how I created a $72,000/year faceless Tik Tok channel, learn how you can build a profitable faceless Tik Tok channel of your own in my ebook.
