Every brand should be on social media. With an estimated 3.6 billion people using social media worldwide, your target market is already out there.
The great thing about social media is that it’s always changing and growing. So whether you’ve been in the game for years or you’re just getting started, there is always more to learn. New trends, engagement tactics, and entire platforms pop up every day. So how can you utilize this ever-changing landscape to make money for your business?
The answer can be complicated, but starts with social media monetization.
What is social media monetization?
Social media monetization is how you generate revenue from your audience on social media. This can happen via content creation, promotion, on the social channels themselves, or later on in the buying process when your audience becomes paying customers.
Social media monetization strategies can be more than sponsored posts and affiliate links. While yes, those are perfectly good ways to monetize your content, there are ways to think outside of the box. You want to make sure that if you’re investing time and creative resources making great content for social, you’re getting the most out of your posts.
Here are 5 ways you can begin to monetize your content on social media:
5 ways to monetize your social media
1. Video marketing
For social media monetization, video is the best way to encourage your followers to interact with your product or service. According to Social Media Today, video marketing remains the best digital content type by driving more views and more engagement than any other content type. And this remains true across all social media platforms.
- Tweets with video see 10x more engagement than those without.
- LinkedIn users are 20x more likely to share video with their followers than any other type of post.
- Pinterest users are 2.6x more likely to make a purchase after viewing brand video content.
- Video generates more engagement than any other content type on Instagram.
Whether you’re a growing business, an established brand already exploring with video, or a content creator, it’s time to take your marketing strategy to the next level with impactful social video. With video, you can generate revenue and receive ROI on the assets you’ve spent time developing.
Using Vimeo Create, you can make and share high-impact social video from anywhere. Start with an Instagram video or Facebook video.
FAQ: What does monetization mean?
2. Freemium to premium
Offering something for nothing may not seem like the best business model at first. But what better way to prove your content is worth paying for than offering some of it for free? This way, your customers know the value you’re able to provide them and willingly convert to paying customers over time.
Fitness video subscription businesses are a great example of this. Vimeo OTT customer 305 Fitness uses YouTube to offer their classes for free while promoting a 7-day free trial to their OTT, or over-the-top, streaming service. In their video descriptions, you can find links to free trials to give their followers direct access to the premium product.
Y7 has a similar tactic using Instagram TV and Instagram Live, and creates social-specific content with industry leaders and instructors to engage and build their audience. Both brands have harnessed the power of video on social media while offering part of their offerings for free on the platforms.
Live streaming to social networks has never been easier. Vimeo live plans can stream simultaneously to Facebook, YouTube, Twitch, LinkedIn, and Periscope — along with wherever you embed the Vimeo player. Live streaming across multiple platforms is one of the best ways to reach a wider audience and simplify your workflow.
3. Direct sales
Providing a direct CTA on social media is one way to bring traffic directly to your website. For B2C brands, selling your product on social is a little easier thanks to Instagram Stores and Facebook business pages. Paying to promote your posts will also help to get your content in front of the right people at the right time.
For B2B brands thinking about monetizing social media, you have to picture the steps a possible buyer needs to take before becoming a qualified lead. We’ll have more on this later.
Striking the balance between interesting content and selling your product can be difficult. Nearly 3 out of every 4 users (74%) think there are too many ads on social media. And yet, marketers said they expect spending on social media to increase by 89% by 2022. This increase is partially due to the need to cut through all that brand noise.
Remember to make direct sales offers only if your content holds value regardless of that offer. You can create stand-out content with videos that inform, entertain, and educate.
4. Lead generation
Maybe your social posts link to a blog that requires an email form. Suddenly, that follower is now a marketing qualified lead, or an MQL, who is on their way down the sales funnel. If you can’t make a sale directly off of your social platform, set your followers up in a way that encourages them to buy in the future.
Think of every follower as a potential customer. Leads will not just appear by doing nothing. Your content strategy must be well-developed in order to speak to potential buyers and encourage them to take action.
Social media content that is developed with the sales journey in mind is the first step. Promoting webinars, virtual events, live streams, and free resources that bring followers to your website or landing pages is a great first step. The key is adding value to your potential customers' experience.
FAQ: How do I monetize my Facebook page?
5. Sponsorships
Sponsorships are a tried-and-true method to social media monetization that have been around for ages. In a good sponsorship deal, the sponsor reaches their target audience through genuine endorsement and the creator gets paid in return. These days, there are lots of variations to this relationship, such as the content creator receiving a discount on a brand’s products or an all-inclusive trip.
In most sponsored content, the creator will leave a section promoting the brand or run an advert during their content. Oftentimes, there is also a requirement to link to the brand’s website as well.
Sponsorships are great for influencers with a defined audience. For brands, sponsorships become a little more complicated. If a brand is already reaching their target audience, why would they waste time to promote a competitor?
This is where influencer marketing comes into play. Many businesses have a marketing budget specifically dedicated to influencer marketing — because it works. Influencer marketing campaigns earn $6.50 for every dollar spent, but you’ll have to do research on influencers in your space that have access to your target audience.
FAQ: How many followers do you need to make money?
Challenges with social media monetization
Growing your business with social media has limitations. You’re going to have to play by the social networks’ rules. Driving customers from social media platforms to purchase using any tactic can be difficult. And those hours spent posting, interacting, and strategizing don’t lead you to obtaining more audience information like emails, company names, or personas.
Marketing only works when you understand your target audience. Finding ways to gain access to that extra information is crucial for your future campaigns.
Creating a subscription video network is another great way to take advantage of your expertise and monetize your video content. But we’ll get more into the pros of OTT networks a little later.
FAQ: How do you monetize social media content?
1. Scaling your efforts with paid
A lot of companies have a paid social media marketing strategy to target a specific audience that may not be following them. We’ve all seen Facebook ads and Instagram ads, and sometimes they work wonders.
Paid offers the ability to target audiences on various parameters and demographics with the hopes of generating leads online. The key to success is having a dedicated and balanced budget that keeps your cost of customer acquisition lower than your ad spend. If these demographics and targets are set up or managed incorrectly, you could see little or no return on a costly investment.
Compared to a paid Google Ads campaign, your conversion rate is likely to be lower for paid social media ads since you aren’t targeting prospective customers based on behavior or recent searches — you’re relying on interest and demographics. ROI from paid social media ads is known to be somewhat unreliable. You have to put in a lot of time, effort, and money to make a positive business impact.
2. Difficult to measure success
Any experienced social media marketer will tell you that their reporting stack is complicated. You have to rely on a mixture of social scheduling and analytics platforms, in-platform metrics, different engagement rate calculations, and much more.
Add the fact that social media platforms calculate metrics like reach and engagement differently, which can cause confusion if you’re trying to look at the impact of social media on your business as a whole.
3. Potential for spam
Throughout this blog post, we’ve been imagining the potential of monetized social media content. But let’s get real: Nobody is going to follow you if all of your content revolves around the sale.
A cardinal rule for social media monetization is the 60/30/10 rule. 60% of your content should be relevant to your followers, but not sales-oriented. This could be your freemium content that educates or entertains, a funny meme, or a quick poll. 30% of your content can be shared from other accounts or community members. This is also known as UGC, or user-generated content. Then the last sliver of content, the remaining 10%, can be monetized or sales-oriented.
If your primary method of monetization is that 10% of your social media content, you’re missing a huge opportunity to create recurring revenue and engage your audience.
How subscription videos can accelerate your monetization strategy
Complimenting your social media monetization strategy with an OTT subscription channel is the best way to get the most out of your content and expertise.
Let’s take a step back and introduce OTT, or over-the-top streaming, which allows you to monetize video over the internet via TV and mobile apps. This format of video monetization goes “over” the cable box (hence the name).
Revenue from an OTT channel is reliable because you are building customer loyalty through your subscription model. Whether your customers find you through social media, email, or a Google search, if you’re spending the time on content development and promotion — you might as well find a home for it that guarantees a recurring revenue stream.
If the OTT monetization model is completely new to you, think about it this way: Content creators who release regularly can charge a monthly fee of $7.99 - $9.99. Even if you only have 100 subscribers, that’s a monthly income of $800 - $1,000.
- Revenue from OTT subscription channels is expected to grow to $25.71 billion in 2021.
- Many Vimeo OTT customers find success with having social media monetization strategies that lead to a subscription network.
- 80% of U.S. consumers are subscribed to a streaming service
How can I sell my videos online?
Recap: Monetizing your social media and utilizing OTT
Social media offers businesses the chance to connect directly with their target market. For any marketer, this is a dream come true — but converting those followers into customers takes some serious strategizing. Like any other marketing strategy, your social media monetization has to be customer-centric and true to your brand to work.
- Marketing only works when you understand your target audience. Make sure your content is created with your audience in mind — monetized or not.
- Many methods of social media monetization have been on the map for years. Tactics like influencer marketing, affiliate posts, and video marketing are proven ways to make money from social posts.
- If your brand is conducive to direct sales on social media, go for it! But remember your cardinal social media monetization rule: 60/30/10.
- If you’re spending time on creating video content for social media, building an OTT channel can accelerate your monetization and grow your business.
Learn how to develop a video-first social media strategy.
Discover advanced tools for social media video creation, editing, hosting, and analytics. Enhance your content by adding music, resizing videos, and more to create, share, and manage your projects seamlessly.
