If you have a computer and internet access you likely have some sort of social media account.
With the majority of the population on sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and almost countless others, you undoubtedly have a direct connection with literally thousands of people at the very click of a button. So how can you make this direct connection work in your favor?
Is it really possible to make cash using the very site you log into, each day, to see what your old friend from college is up to while watching the latest cat videos?
The truth is, believe it or not, you actually can!
Don’t believe me?
Here are five things you too can do, in no particular order, to put social media to work for you.
One: Social Network Means Networking Socially
Social media, by its very nature, is sociable.
Again, thousands upon thousands of people log in every single day. This means everyone from the janitor up to the CEO of any given company is online somewhere right now.
What this means for you personally is a vast array of possible networking connections that can give you an edge in business and pair you with business men and women from around the globe.
This is extremely useful when it comes to online remote business skills such as coaching, mentoring, or advising certain skill sets. If you even have so much as a degree in a field, you can use video messaging such as Skype or Facetime to not only meet your goals of working from home but to help others meet their goals as well.
Two: Selling Your Talent, Sell Your Skills
If you are an artist the internet has an endless supply of possible business ventures for you to explore.
Even the everyday painter can find a niche on certain forums and chat rooms and, by using social media, can promote themselves all over the world wide web.
The beauty of this very concept is it doesn’t really matter what your talent is; if you can market it, you can sell it.
Everything from handcrafted dolls to tasteful black and white photographs of garbage dumpsters can be bought and sold making you a pretty penny.
Use Pinterest as a virtual pinboard. Sell items on Instagram. Post pictures for download on Flickr. If you can create it, there is a definite chance someone out there wants it.
Three: Writing For Profit
If the written word is more your style you will find just about as many forums to promote your books and articles as a painter will find to promote their art.
Ebooks are a hot ticket item these days and almost everyone has some sort of eReader often times downloaded directly to their phone.
We live in a fast-paced world that does not always allow us to crack open a book, but if you can create content for someone sitting on a train lost in a tablet you may find yourself a decent living.
You may have to take the time to build up a following but once your name is known you can find yourself making hundreds if not thousands of dollars a month just through Kindle downloads alone.
All you need is a little spare time and a lot of inspiration and you could be writing bestsellers in no time.
Four: Promoting Others By Promoting Yourself
This could well be one of the more difficult and time-consuming methods of making money via social media but it is also one of the highest paying.
If you have a sizable following and a company thinks that by paying you to promote their brand that they can make a bit of money. Chances are, YOU are going to make a bit of money yourself.
The more followers you have the more people are going to see their product on your social media page. By this logic, they can pay you a mere fraction of what they would pay to advertise on television or radio and they would likely get the same amount of exposure if not more so.
This saves their company potentially thousands in advertising but still gets their name out AND puts that money directly into your bank account.
The difficult and time-consuming part, of course, is getting that number of followers in the first place so be ready to put in the effort!
Five: Managing And Affiliations
The wonderful thing about social media is how may people you will find need help. Sometimes you will find already active social media groups and pages that need a little extra hand staying on top of things. This means you could potentially be paid to run a site for someone else.
It may not be glamorous or wholly rewarding having to do the job of dozen or so people at once, but if it happens to be a group you believe in it could be just the stepping stone to bigger and better things. Along these same lines are affiliate programs.
Affiliate programs are when you agree to post ads on your active social media page for a company and you receive a certain commission each time someone clicks your link and purchases one of their items via your personal site.
Again, this goes along the same lines of “doing the work for others” but, let’s face it, you are doing that now at your average 9 to 5 so at least this way you can stay home in your pajamas all day (don’t worry, we won’t tell if you don’t)
Last Thoughts
While these are just five ways you can make money via social media, the truth is, if you do the slightest bit of research with enough perseverance you can find a variety of ways to work online.
It may not be easy and it may not be overnight but it’s not impossible.
You can do it. Stop “liking” someone else’s life; start “subscribing” to your own success.
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