How to Make Money With Social Media and Affiliate Programs

Since the number one question we get asked by our certified text message marketers is "How can I make money with social media", we thought we'd devote a quick article on the subject. Making money using social media is not a hard process, but it is a process and a significant amount of time must be devoted to it, especially at the beginning. But once that's done, the process gets a bit simpler as you continue to get checks in the mail on work that you did months ago. Here's a step by step formula for getting started.

1) Decide upon a niche marketing for what you want to concentrate on. Sounds simple, doesn't it, but this is the most crucial step in the process, because if you don't pick a topic that you're interested in yourself and can devote hours of work into it, you won't be successful. Think long and hard on this - it's crucial. Example: get a free WordPress blog.

2) Create a product or service based on the niche market you decided upon in step 1. No product? No service? No problem - it's easy to find affiliate programs out there that already have excellent products you can market and sell for a commission. Example: In keeping with the Free WordPress blog offer in step one, we hooked up with the folks over at Social Spin and became an affiliate of theirs marketing their FREE WordPress Blog offer.

2) Create a Facebook page, or group, or fan site, or whatever. The point is, get on Facebook. Then fill out your profile with information congruent to what the niche market you decided on in step one.

3) Likewise, create a presence on both Twitter and YouTube, creating a user name for these platforms with keywords based on your niche marketing. Example: twitter.com/textmessager (the Twitter account for GottaGoText.com). Note the username account has the word "textmessage" and the core company business is text message marketing.

4) Now that you're on all the social media platforms listed above and have affiliated yourself with a product and/or service (all at a total cost of $0.00 so far, by the way), go to a domain register (such as GoDaddy.com) and buy a ".com" domain (not a.net, or a.info, etc.), preferably one that contains keywords on your niche market. Unfortunately, most of the "good names" are pretty much taken, but you can still find word combinations that may make sense. Example: "freeblog.com" is probably taken, but "socialmediafreeblog.com" may not be.

5) The next step is crucial as well - use your domain name as a blog. Blogs will get you much better (and faster) free search engine traffic than you'd normally get from a static site, and WordPress Blogs are really excellent in integrating with social media features.

6) Now that you're all set up, you must link all your social media sites, (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, your website blog, etc) together, to create a ring of trackback links that the search engines will love. Your total investment to this point is the $10 you probably spent for your domain name. Sweet!

7) Now for the hard part. You must constantly update your blog, your Facebook, your Twitter, and your YouTube account with engaging content that provides value to your readers and inspires them to take action. What is that action? - to buy the service or product created in step 2. And what's the key to that action? ENGAGING CONTENT. Your failure or success in social media hinges on your ability to bring original content or to suggest interesting options from other unique content sources in a manner personal to you (and you alone) so people perceive you as an expert in your field. Read that last sentence again and again until it fully sinks in.

Be aware: this process does not happen overnight and at the very start, you'll be working like a dog and most likely seeing very negligible results until things start kicking in. Of course there are ways to accelerate this process, but most involve spending tons of money on AdWords, advertising, SEO experts, etc, - money that you don't really need to spend if you have the drive and patience to do it the right way.

Every day, you need to write articles. Create videos. Engage with others on Facebook and Twitter (without appearing "salesy"). Your goal is to provide information so people "like" you enough to buy your product or service (or the product and/or service you're promoting). As time goes by and you become more established in your niche, you won't have to work as hard creating the content you'll need to create at the beginning.

This entire process literally costs basically nothing (other than time). That's why social media makes such a great business. And depending on your own product or service, or how well your affiliation program pays, you can make a TON of money if you follow steps1-7 correctly and diligently. Lastly, when you're ready to spend some money on marketing, invest in a good campaign video email marketing software package, ComF5 costs $40/month, and a text message marketing service (GottaGoText.com has accounts starting at $50/month for text message marketing directly to social media sites) to bring your social media business to an even higher level and hopefully generate more and more sales.

Social Media - the best business vehicle on the planet!

By Ron Costa.  Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/4728276

Posted in: how to make cash money,social media