Social media is big business these days. Today you have youngsters dreaming of growing up to be an influencer rather than the typical nurse, police officer, or professional footballer. And it’s hardly surprising with the amount of money they earn and the lifestyle that is portrayed through the medium of Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter.

Of course, it’s no easy feat. Making money from social media takes time and effort, with some people taking years to develop their presence before earning a single penny. For businesses, it’s big too, with social media offering more and more ways to make money. But what are they?

Naturally, you need to have developed a solid enough foundation with your website first. Building out a website with powerful platforms such as Duda can be a good starting point before hitting socials, as often you will need a place to direct followers too. Once that’s in check, here are some of the best tactics to monetize your social media account...

Attracting The Right Audience

First and foremost, you need to attract the right audience. There’s little point in trying to sell a product or service through social media if you’re not reaching out to the right people. Audience building is a vital part of any strategy and the way you do that is relatively straightforward.

Firstly, you of course need to understand who your ideal customer is. Consider their persona, interests, personality, and from there it’s a case of creating content that will appeal to that person. You can do this through the social media posts you create, linking to blog posts on your website through social channels, or even by creating videos. This will help you develop a core fanbase to which you can then start pushing your products to.

Use Engagement Techniques

A person is much more likely to purchase products from you if you’re allowing them to engage with you on social media. There are a number of ways to do this. Polls, competitions, and quizzes are all good methods of doing this, often generating hundreds of new followers, which then will be active with your brand.

Use Influencers

Of course, you don’t necessarily need to rely on your own followers to boost sales through social media. You can leverage influencers in the relevant fields to drive sales. Many businesses sign up influencers as ambassadors or get them to review products, with product links then in the posts for others to purchase.

It’s an incredibly effective way to drive sales as long as you get the casting right. For example, there’s little point in signing up a newsreader to promote a sports energy drink - the audience will be completely off-brand.

Social Media Ads

You can also use social media advertising to drive sales within your business. It’s a relatively cheap and cost-effective way to boost sales and you can reach thousands of people who fit your target demographic.

You are able to choose people by age, location, gender, interests, and much more and target them with paid advertisements. It’s a tactic used by most businesses these days and one of the best ways to increase sales through social.

Create Social Media Stores

Both Instagram and Facebook have social media stores in which you can sell products. Setting up shop on these sites will mean people can purchase your products without even having to change sites. You can upload your sales catalog to the platforms and it will cut out the journey from customers being on social media to entering the cart on your website, all is done under one social media roof.