50 Tips on How To Make Money With Social Media

If you are working with social media and aren’t sure why it’s not making money, why you can’t measure a return on investment or you just cannot track it, here are 50 tips on how to make money with social media.  If you have any other things you’d like to add to this list, please feel free to leave a comment below.  Later on I’ll do a more detailed post breaking out a lot of these points and going into more detail about how to make money with social media.

1.  Use clear images that load into all channels.  Click on your own share buttons and also copy and paste the url of your page or blog post into each major social media site.  If your images aren’t loading or pulling, figure out why they aren’t getting pulled and get them too.  Images can help to grab attention and drive more click throughs.

2.  Watermark your images.  People will grab the images, spread them around and use them if they like them.  Watermark them with your url or twitter handle or something else so that once people start stealing them, you still get exposure and credit as the person that created it.

3.  Thumbnail your videos.  Not all social sites pull in videos.  Others will use thumbnails in search results like Google next to your ranking.  Make sure to have or create a thumbnail for all videos and include them in your rich snippets.

4.  Set all sharing information on every page to be shared the way you want it.  If you have a blog or a website and you have twitter, facebook, linked in, etc… sharing, set up the share buttons when you are done creating the page or post to include the link back to your site and the wording and hashtags you would like the person to use.

5.  Make sure you recommend people share your content.  If you don’t ask them too, some people may not think to share your content or take the time to do it.

6.  Don’t put non relevant social icons on your site.  Page space is valuable.  If you’re product isn’t for consumers, don’t worry about Pinterest.  If it isn’t for B2B or business people, don’t worry about LinkedIn.

7.  Use url shorteners with tracking.  With sites like Twitter you are limited in space.  Affiliate Networks like Share a Sale offer url shorteners where you can track sales and clicks.   Other shorteners ones like Bit.ly can give you more tracking and show you where people are sharing and clicking through your links.

8.  Use descriptive words that are to the point and describe what you are sharing.  Instead of repeating the title of the post, talk about why the person should click through and what they will find.

9.  Try to gain attention with the link.  Try to let the person know why they should click.  If it will help a specific cause, why it’s important to you, why you are sharing, etc…

10.  Use images and videos.  People like to look at images and videos.  By using them with everything that is relevant you may be able to increase the click throughs on your posts.

11.  Try to make it as interactive as possible.  My client Viewbix lets you add clickable links, newsletter sign ups and other things to your videos and when they are shared you can measure the effectiveness, etc… They also offer a free version of the player if you want to try it.

12.  Find ways to curate content easier and quicker.  Finding tools that let you curate content and schedule posts is a huge time saver.  My other client Pagemodo has a new tools for Facebook that can help with this.  I also use stumble upon’s toolbar and other things to help find posts and articles to share.

13.  Use a scheduling tool.  You can find tools that let you schedule posts and some have a dashboard like this one that will let you respond and post to multiple channels at once.

14.  Don’t forget about smaller sites.  If you are in a specific niche and there is a social site with your audience, remember to use it.  They won’t have as much traffic as the larger ones, but the audience can become fans, followers and can help to drive sales at a higher conversion rate.

15.  Use MySpace and other sites.  MySpace still has a ton of traffic.  Don’t forget about it if you have a product that could be a good fit for sites like MySpace.

16.  Build lists for posts.  People love lists.  They share them, recommend them and sometimes link to them.  This can help drive sales, build backlinks and drive more traffic.

17.  Relevant landing pages.  Make sure your landing pages match the theme of the post you are sharing on social sites.  If you talk about one thing and your landing page doesn’t match, you may not keep them on your site.

18.  Newsletter sign ups.  It is important to have a way to market back to people again once they’ve found your site.  Make sure to have things like comments and newsletter sign ups on your page.

19.  Include social sharing on your landing pages.  Make sure your landing page allows people to share it if they like the content they found.  This can help you to drive more traffic from social media.

20.  After a post is shared, recommend other people and posts.  You can sell ad space on your social icons.  After someone shares on Twitter, recommend following someone else and sell the space to them for the amount of time, impressions, shares, etc…

21.  Don’t forget to respond to people.  If someone asks a question on Twitter or other sites, don’t forget to respond to them.  It can help build a following, make them happy and could help them to start sharing more of your content.

22.  Use it for customer service.  If someone is complaining, their followers and friends may see it.  By making them happy and getting them to post about it you can help to gain more attention and possibly drive more traffic and sales.  This is a great way to make money with social media.

23.  Build a list of influencers.  Build a list of the top influencers in your niche and try to build a relationship with them.  If they join your following or fans it can help to boost your followers and drive more traffic.

24.  Keep everything relevant.  If you have a Pinboard or a niche, make sure everything within it is relevant.  If you start posting things that aren’t relevant then you may lose your readers and following.

25.  Trying doing a giveaway to get people active again.  If you’ve noticed that your following is getting inactive, try running a giveaway to see if you can get them active again.

26.  Run a survey to find out what they want to read or hear about.  If you’ve noticed you are getting less of a reaction on social media sites, survey everyone to see what they want to hear about.  You can also add a prize to the end of the survey to help get more people to respond.

27.  Guest post on other sites.  One way to build a following is to guest post on other blogs and websites.  By being mentioned or getting a guest post on another site, you gain access to their readers and followers.  If their followers like your content, they may follow you as well.

28.  Make sure you have clickable links back from all of your profiles.  If someone looks at your YouTube Channel, Twitter account, FanPage, etc… make sure you give them a way to find your site.  It is great if they follow you, but if they can get to your site then you can help to sell products and remarket to them over and over.

29.  Share your competitors posts.  If your competitors have good quality content, share it.  They may start sharing yours as well and you could form a relationship with them.

30.  Offer discounts.  If your goal is to drive sales, make sure you offer discounts for the products you are talking about.

31.  Don’t always offer discounts over and over.  If all you do is post discounts then people will get tired of them.  You may also lose full priced sales if you constantly promote discounts on products.

32.  Don’t just post about your products and services.  Although people are following you because they like your content, make sure you talk about other relevant things.  If you only talk about your company or your site then people get bored and may become inactive.

33.  Don’t buy fans and followers.  If you buy fans and followers, they may not actually have an interest or actually exist.  This could cause advertisers to see that your audience isn’t active and that you may not be worth working with.  It could also show the social sites that something is wrong with your account.

34.  Don’t incentivize people to follow you.  If your goal is to make money with social media, incentivized people aren’t always real followers with an interest.  They followed you because you paid them to or offered something for free.  You may have more followers but they may not be relevant or shop.

35.  Use infographics and solve problems.  Use infographics that help to solve an issue or explain something.  By helping to solve an issue or show how to do something you help to show that you are an expert and can drive more shares and traffic.

36.  Don’t post just to post.  If you are posting because you feel like you should, your followers will notice.  This could end up causing them to stop following you or lose interest in you.  Make sure your posts are relevant and something that will interest them.

37.  Include a call to action.  If you don’t include a link or a call to action, you don’t give your followers a way to convert into a sale or lead.  Make sure you always give a call to action if you want to drive traffic or get a response.

38.  Don’t get angry or leave negative responses.  Make sure that you always try to give a positive response to people.  Being friendly and helping to resolve an issue will help to make people see you or your products aren’t bad and that it is just one or a few people.

39.  Keep track of negative comments and make sure you follow up.  Keeping track of negative responses online and making sure you follow up with them is a great way to show you are active.  It also lets people know that you are dedicated to helping your customers.

40.  Use social media for press releases.  By sharing news and new things about your company, your followers may enjoy being the first people to hear about them.  They may also share them more often because they are the first to find out.

41.  Build a list of influencers you have a relationship with.  When you have something new to announce, let them announce it first.  It can help to keep them following you, give them something unique to share and can help them to become more active with following you.

42.  Don’t follow people just because they follow you.  Anyone can follow you if you follow them back.  This doesn’t always create a real or active following.  Try to make sure the people following you are actually following you because they are interested and not just because they want you to follow them back to grow their numbers.

43.  Let people know where you’ll be speaking or which tradeshows or events you’ll be at.  By letting them know where they can find you they may come up and talk to you.  This is a great way to put a face with a name and make them feel closer to you.  If they feel like they have a bond with you they may be more likely to share your content and continue to follow you.

44.  Develop a personality for your account.  If you give your accounts a personality, people can start to bond with it and like it.  If you have multiple people posting under your accounts, make sure they use the same tone and personality.  This helps to build consistency and something people expect which can help to build a stronger relationship.

45.  Try to create conversations.  A great way to get more people active and to build followers is to start a conversation with your followers.  By having a conversation other people might be curious and join in.  This could get you in front of more people and help get them to follow you.

46.  Cross promote other relevant sites and products.  A great way to increase your click throughs and drive more sales is to cross promote other relevant products or products that have the same demographics for people that shop for them.  If you notice your followers have a common interest besides what you talk about or promote, try sharing products or services that they might also want to buy.

47.  Include social sharing on emails and press releases.  Make sure your emails and press releases have a way for people to share your information.  You can also include links to follow you on other social sites.  This is a great way to get exposure to new people who could become customers or follow you on social sites.

48.  Thank people.  Don’t forget to thank people and other websites for mentioning you.  This helps to let them know you saw it and can help to drive traffic to them.  It could also help to make them want to share your content more often or build a relationship with you.

49.  Use long tail keywords and hashtags when you post.  Using long tail keywords and hashtags can help your posts to stay towards the top more often and let the search engines know what your content is about.  You may not get as much instant traffic, but you could get traffic for a longer period time and the traffic could be more relevant.

50.  If something is going viral, help to push it.  If you notice a post or something on your site is going viral, make sure to reach out to your influencers, local media and other channels to see if they would share it as well.  This could help give it more life and get you more traffic and sales.

Learning how to make money with social media can seem tricky.  The most important things to think about or remember are to be relevant, keep your followers and fans active and to always make sure you have a call to action when you want to drive a sale.   If you have an active following that trusts you and you can get them to want to share your posts and click through when you post a link, you have a good chance at building trust and being able to make money with social media.  Thank you again for reading and please feel free to share your tips and advice by leaving a comment below or by sharing this post.