Do you have ambitions of growing a large social media following of people with similar minds and interests as you? Do you have an idea, philosophy or belief that you follow passionately, and you want to share it with others? Have you found that when you post photos or videos of your life online, that there are so many others out there just like you, who share the same lifestyle dreams that you do? If you answered yes to any or all of the above, I have one last question for you…. Did you know that you can actually profit from your passion??
Profiting off of social media is nothing new, there are countless numbers of famous people who started out on social media. There are varying degrees of success, from the grammy winning singers who were discovered via YouTube, to the Instagram models now being featured in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition, to the hundreds of thousands of brand ambassadors for products like protein shakes, clothing lines and sunglasses… monetizing your social media following is one of the hottest trends now to put a little cash in your pocket doing what you love! But in this hyper competitive internet savvy market, how do you succeed in profitting from your social media following? Here are eight (8) simple tips and tricks to help get you started!
- Develop a brand message, and stick to it. People follow people on social media based on their relationships (i.e. friends and family), popularity (an already established brand), and similar interests (your brand). Unless you know tens and tens of thousands of people individually, to successfully monetize your following your going to have to reach out to people you don’t know. To do this, you’ll need a consistent message that people you don’t know will want to hear and see each day. So figure out what that message is, and stick to it. Believe me, people who follow you for your fitness tips do not want to see what you were doing in the club last weekend. You may get away with it once or twice, but people will start to unfollow you when you start bogging down their feed with irrelevant information to their lives. I’d recommend having a personal social media profile for you and your friends, and a separate profile for your brand to help you stay consistent.
- Be on point with your brand. Seek out others who share similar interests, or are already influencers in the space that you are in. Follow them. Interact from them. Learn from them. See what they are talking about, and how others are reacting to it. Let this information help you craft how you deliver your brand message to your followers. Deliver this information over and over again to your followers, in a variety of ways. People have to see a message multiple times before it actually sticks in their minds, so don’t be afraid to be repetitive. This DOES NOT remean post the same thing verbatim over and over again!!! It simply means don’t be afraid to come up with different ways to say the same thing 🙂
- Interact with your followers. Ask questions that people will want to answer, and when they do, thank them and take the time to reply back. This will help you create a personal bond between with your followers, which is critical to the sales process.
- Quality over quantity. This is key, and something many up and coming influencers always forget. The quality of your images, and especially how it relates to your brand, is waaaaay more important than the number of times you post. If you don’t have professional shots to share, then take the time to master your cell phone’s image capabilities. Learn the basics about photo composition styles, and incorporate them into your posts. Poor lighting and off centered images draw away from your message and brand. Don’t let that happen to you!
- Post consistently. This takes a lot of time and effort, because you want to speak to your followers on a regular basis, but sometimes it doesn’t always fit within your schedule. Utilize all of the tools that are out there to help you get your message out consistently. There are a ton of tools that can help you schedule your posts, such as Hootesuite, Zapier and more. Take advantage of the tools that are out there to ensure that you are reaching out and staying in front of your followers on a consistent basis. Be sure that you are posting at the best possible time to reach your followers too!
- Collaborate with others. This is a great way to do what I call cross pollinate. Reach out to other influencers in your space, and offer to collaborate with them. This could be photographers, other fitness models, personal traingers or bloggers. Through collaboration, you can reach out to their followers, and they can reach out to yours. You’ll often see that up and coming influencers ‘take over’ a brands social media profile for a day. There’s no reason you can’t follow suit, but on a smaller scale!
- Use shoutouts and relevant hashtags every time you post. ALWAYS shoutout to whoever you are with, and wherever you are. Using hashtags requires a little research, but using the right hashtags can definitely have a positive impact on growing your exposure and following! Always make sure that the hashtags you use are relevant to your post, and don’t use the same hashtags over and over again.
- Include a call to action. This is probably the MOST IMPORTANT tip that nearly everyone forgets! First of all, you should always have a link to your store on your profile bio. Secondly, if you are trying to monetize your following, you need to ask people to do whatever it is that you are getting paid for! If you are repping a brand, ask your followers to follow that brand. If you are offering motivational posters, ask your followers to go view and buy your posters. If you are going to be at an event, ask your followers to come support you at that event. So posting a photo of your motivational poster in your story without a call to action is simply posting a photo to your story. If you don’t ask, then very simply… you won’t get. So be sure to include a call to action in your posts when you are asking for something!
Generating a profit is no easy task for up and coming influencers. It takes a lot of committment, time and consistent dedication. But if you apply yourself, the above tips and tricks will definitely help you get started to monetizing your social media following!
Fotility Photography & Videography is a highly rated, published fitness and lifestyle photographer on Google Business, and people LOVE us on Yelp! Fotility Photography & Videography has been hired over 5,281+ times in San Diego alone, and many, many times worldwide (that’s right, Fotility offers professional destination photographer and videographer services)! PLUS, we now offer low cost, affordable Photo Print Packages! So let the Fotility team help you Feel, Capture & Share™ What Matters Most! If you’re a fitness and/or lifestyle Influencer on social media and you need high quality images to properly represent your brand, click the buttons below to see real samples of our influencer photographs, and to book Fotility Photography & Videography today!
View Fotility Photography & Videography Real Estate Photo Examples Book Real Estate Photo Session Now