For freelancers looking to boost their income or create new revenue streams, Facebook is a potential gold mine. This stalwart of the social media scene can not only help you generate more income for your existing freelance business, but it can also be a source of alternative money-making means. We’re going to take a look at the many ways you can make money on Facebook and boost your profits.
How can I make money from Facebook?
Facebook is a social media colossus with around 2.9 billion monthly users. That’s a lot of people, with a huge diversity of interests. Some people are just there for the memes, others to share updates on their lives. With such a huge portion of the global population surfing Facebook’s pages, the opportunities for money-making are many and varied.
Ready to diversify your income streams and make money on Facebook? Read on.
Promote your brand
Whatever your freelance business is, Facebook represents a golden opportunity to advertise it to the masses. Sure you want to showcase your skills, but you also want to create a lasting image of your personal brand. Your Facebook page should show off your talents and accomplishments so potential clients can see the value you offer at a glance.
Be consistent
A strong online presence is all about consistency. Make sure your status updates and content are insightful, creative and relevant to your industry. Regularly share details and examples of your most recent projects so potential clients can see clear evidence of your skills in action.
Deliver high-value content
Whether it’s video content, reels, blog posts, or even memes, make sure that the content you share provides the viewer with some value. That can absolutely mean it’s just entertaining and relevant to your work, but be judicious in what you post. Remember that anything you share can either add to or take away from your credibility.
Additionally, if you share too much poor or irrelevant content, you may find your audience dwindles. So, for example, if you were to share a blog post entitled “What is a power dialer?”, you need to make sure that the audience you’re targeting has a vested interest in call center software.
Drive traffic to your website
Facebook is an invaluable tool in generating more traffic to your professional website. Include links to your page with your posts as frequently as you can. Make sure you use engaging CTA’s to encourage those all-important click-throughs. More traffic to your website means more potential clients, so make sure to optimize your portfolio for massive conversions.
Sell your possessions or products
If your freelance business involves actual products, then Facebook is your sales-facilitating friend. Or, if you’re finding freelance life to be a bit unpredictable (as it often is), selling your unwanted possessions can be an easy way to make money on Facebook with little effort. After all, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.
Sell to your friends
You never know if someone among your Facebook friends is looking for just the thing you want to sell. Whether it’s one of your crochet products or an old laptop that’s still functioning, you can start by posting on your personal feed. People will be more compelled to buy something from a friend than a total stranger, as there’s already an established level of trust.
Sell on Facebook Marketplace
Outside of your immediate circle there are many, many other potential customers to be found on Facebook Marketplace. There’s an incredibly diverse range of items for sale here and presentation is key in making yours stand out. Take good pictures and write an accurate and positive description. Listing your product is easy and all you’ll need to do is wait for buyers to get in touch.
Sell on your business page
If you want a more professional platform from which to sell your wares, set up a business page. This is what you should be doing if you have a range of items to sell and the stock to sell them regularly. Visitors will be able to contact you through this page if they have any questions so be sure to keep on top of your communications to avoid lost sales.
Flipping for profit
Another lucrative side job to make extra money is the art of flipping. This avenue requires a keen awareness of current trends, an eye for hidden gems, and the willingness to put in some hands-on work to upcycle or restore products with underlying value.
Opportunity spotting
Local buy-and-sell groups are a great place to start. These veritable treasure troves can offer great opportunities in terms of antiques, vintage items or perhaps even poorly presented wares. Sometimes, simply marketing something better can get you a higher price for it. It takes time and research to master this, but it can be a great way to make a few extra cents.
Revitalize your finds
Once you’ve secured some items for flipping, it’s time to breathe new life into them. Again, this may require specific skills, but you can learn a lot online these days with a few tutorial videos. Perhaps it’ll mean some extensive cleaning, restoring a table to its former glory, or fixing a defect with a bit of tech. Regardless, a bit of time and patience can massively up the value of an item.
Market it wisely
Your almost-good-as-new item is ready to go back on sale, so it’s back to Facebook. The listing can make all the difference in achieving a profit on your flipped item. Make sure those photos look slick and professional, then write an attention-grabbing description and creatively sell the benefits.
Become an influencer
You don’t have to have hundreds of thousands of followers in order to become an influencer. They come in all shapes and sizes with a whole range of interests. A small dedicated following can still be very powerful and help you to make money on Facebook.
Here are a few tips to help you do it.
Establish your niche
Think about what makes you unique in your field. Make a list of your key achievements, your areas of expertise, and what knowledge you feel you can share with others. This might be focused on your freelancing business, or perhaps your experience of being a freelancer yourself. This is how you narrow down what kind of influencer you want to be and the audience demographic you want to target and build.
Monetize your influence
Seek to partner with brands that fit in with your niche. At the beginning, you will likely have to approach them. When you are more established and have a bigger audience, you may find that relevant companies come to you. You can make money as an influencer through sponsored posts and long-term partnerships, which will vary in value depending on both the company and the size of your following.
Engage regularly
If you want to be a successful influencer then you need to engage consistently with your followers. Whenever you post something you should monitor comments and replies and respond promptly. This helps to foster the very loyalty and trust with your audience that makes influencers so valuable to brands.
Affiliate marketing
If selling physical products isn’t your thing and you’re looking for more of a passive income stream, then it’s time to learn how to make money with affiliate marketing. Essentially, it’s when companies pay individuals on social media to promote their products and services.
This is a particularly good method if you have a significant following on Facebook. Otherwise, you can start small and work on building your audience. To make brand connections, you can either approach the companies directly or use affiliate marketing networks.
Choose the right products
It pays to be scrupulous when choosing the brands and products you want to promote. These should closely align with your personal brand, interests and values. They should also be things you think will be of interest to your audience or followers. The value in affiliate marketing is that your audience trusts your opinion. You risk eroding that trust if you promote irrelevant products that you don’t genuinely believe in.
Using Facebook for Affiliate Marketing
Facebook is perfect for affiliate marketing because it has such a vast user base. You should use your business page for your affiliate marketing posts and take great care to target all of this content with careful consideration for your audience.
Make sure you are genuine, which is easy if you legitimately like the product. Some ideas for your posts would be detailed reviews, step-by-step tutorials, or simply video content that highlights the benefits of a product.
Pay-per-click and affiliate codes
The usual way you will earn money through affiliate marketing is via a link or a code. The company will give you a unique link to use when you post about the product or service on Facebook, enabling them to track how many people click it. You then get paid per click, at a rate you have negotiated.
Alternatively, you’ll be provided with an affiliate code to share that is specific to you and offers some kind of deal to customers. When they use it to make a purchase, you earn a bit of commission.
Start a subscription group
A great way for freelancers to grow passive income is to create a community in your field that people will pay to join. This Facebook subscription group should be specialized and be a space where members can access valuable guidance, insights, and resources.
Encourage engagement
This should be a safe space where members can engage with like-minded people about topics they’re interested in. You should regularly encourage this engagement by contributing yourself, asking questions and sharing content just for members. This level of exclusivity is what they are paying for and should be offered regularly to keep them interested and paying.
Be personally available
To give your subscribers the best value for money (and therefore your group its best chance of success) consider providing personalized consultations or advice. From constructive criticism of their work to friendly career advice, if you’re an expert in your field you may find yourself in high demand. Plus, this personal touch will set your subscription group apart from the crowd.
Subscription fees
You have options when it comes to the structure of your subscription fees. It’s a good idea to give people a choice between an annual or monthly payment. Some groups offer tiered membership, with more expensive tiers offering greater benefits. This is a good approach as it makes it accessible for people with different levels of income while maximizing your potential earnings.
Host virtual events
Use Facebook live streaming to host ticketed virtual events. What this looks like will depend on your personal style and niche. Some options include webinars, social gatherings, and workshops.
Target a global audience
Facebook live events are unaffected by geographical boundaries—although, you may want to bear time zones in mind when you schedule it. The great thing is you can involve people from all over the globe and expand your reach and influence.
Clear agendas and takeaways
Structure is a good thing when it comes to live events. Map out a clear agenda for your event to help ensure it is useful and engaging for all participants. You should know what you want your audience to take away from the event from the beginning. This will help inform the event you deliver, whether it’s a hands-on demonstration or an interactive Q&A session.
Ticket tiers
Think carefully about the ticket price you set. You don’t want to put people off with sky-high prices, but you also want to make money and value what you’re offering appropriately. Do as much research as you can into prices for similar events, either someone with a similar sized audience to you or an individual within the same industry. This will give you a good benchmark for fair ticket prices.
Targeted advertising and engaging event pages
Facebook has some seriously powerful promotional tools, so make the most of them to make your event a financial success. Use targeted advertising and take care in creating an event page that shines. Use your existing network to get the word out and post about it regularly. Investing in this promotion is worth it for the financial returns you could make on ticket sales.
Extra resources
Even when the event is over, you may still be able to make money from your hard work. Consider repurposing your content into purchasable recordings or creating resources like ebooks or guides. This prolongs the value of your live event and keeps the money rolling in.
Monetize content
Have you ever wondered if you can get paid for Facebook content? The answer is yes. Whether you’re making informative videos about how artificial intelligence for call centers works, or entertaining reels of your daily life as a freelancer, your content can be monetized.
The Facebook Partner Program
If you can create interesting video content then you are on to a winner. The Facebook Partner Program gives you the chance to make money on Facebook via in-stream ads that are strategically placed in your video content. The amount of money you make will be directly correspondent to the number of views your video receives.
Meeting eligibility criteria
There are some rules about who can join the Facebook Partner Program. These include strict adherence to Facebook’s platform content policies and ensuring you maintain a dedicated and loyal audience. If these requirements are met then monetization tools are at your disposal and your income as a freelancer is set to rise.
Natural breakpoints and viewer experience
Don’t worry about in-stream ads disrupting your viewer’s experience too much. They are placed at natural breakpoints with the aim of preserving the smooth enjoyability of your content. After all, it is the level of engagement that makes a video successful, so Facebook avoids turning viewers off with annoying, poorly timed ads.
Align ads with content and audience preferences
Ads are more effective and less obtrusive when their theme actually aligns with your content. Say you post gardening videos—an advert about gardening supplies would be relevant to your audience and more likely to get a response. Consider your audience first and foremost when managing which ads should be integrated into your content.
Go Make Money on Facebook!
When work can be unpredictable it is entirely natural that freelancers want to create multiple streams of income. Facebook offers an array of opportunities to make that a reality. You can promote your own brand, monetize your content and even sell your unwanted possessions to get more cash in your pocket. Used wisely, Facebook can help your freelance career take off and furnish you with a few side hustles along the way.
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