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This was another question from my instastory Q&A earlier this week that I thought would be better as a blog. I get DMs with this question all the time, and I do answer to the best of my ability – but I wanted to spell it all out. I’m no expert but I don’t mind to share what I know 🙂

You can make money online. If you spend more than 3-4 hours on social media – there should be something in it for you financially. And there probably can be. There are 3 main ways to make money online – and most people combine these or progress from 1 method to another. I’ll go in the order of how I have progressed.

Direct sales. This is the easiest method to break into and the most common. A lot of people try and fail at this and it is the method of most MLMs (multilevel marketing companies like Scentsy, Lularoe, Beachbody, Herbalife, Thrive, Ziya, etc etc). I did this with Beachbody for over 2 years. This is selling a product directly to your followers. This is easy to do because you use your social media to talk about how you enjoy a product and then ask those who interact with your posts if they want to purchase the product (way oversimplified but you get it). The pros of this method is you can start at basically anytime and there are tons of products to choose from. The con is that so many people try direct sales (and try it in a terribly annoying way) that sometimes people are closed off to hearing about anything you’re offering. You also have to be careful if you join a company to make sure you understand the compensation and that they aren’t doing anything sketchy. I know nothing about any other than Beachbody – which I highly recommend. They were good to me.

Next, let’s talk about Influencer marketing. I saw a quote one day that everyone who makes an income online is selling something – and if they aren’t selling you a product then your attention is their product. Influencer marketing is where a blogger or social media personality is paid to use/review/share a product with their audience. Influencer marketing is on the rise – but a lot of companies are asking new influencers to work for free (or to purchase their products at a ‘discount’ to do it). The goal is always to secure a paid influencer gig.

Typically a company will find you online and invite you to their campaign (so if you want to break into this market make your email address easy to find and always check your DMs) – but you CAN reach out and ask companies too. The more interactive followers you have, the more you’ll be paid. Most paid campaigns I’ve done have asked for my pricing sheet and negotiate from there. For a price range guide, influencers with around 5k followers should expect around $50  for a post. 10k-20k should expect around $75-100 per post. and $20-50k should expect around $150-200 per post. Pricing continues to increase as followers increase. Some mega influencers get paid thousands of dollars per post. Once you and the company agree on a price you’ll get a contract to outline exactly what you’ll be doing, for how long, and when you’ll receive payment. A quick way to get some experience with this type of marketing is through the heartbeat app – however their pay is significantly less than what a brand would pay you directly.

Some companies will also offer you an affiliate link or discount code for your followers and give you a commission off of each purchase through your link. Larger companies, like Amazon, do not pay per post but give a commission off each purchase. Amazon also allows you to make a “storefront” of products you love and recommend. (This is a position you have to apply for and be approved). There’s also some new apps out that provide affiliate links to anywhere an influencer links.

This is my favorite type of income to make online because it gives me cool products to try and something to talk about to you guys :). Just make sure you are SELECTIVE about who you rep for and are ok with telling people “no” if you aren’t into their brand. You don’t want to be that person who will tell your audience to buy just anything. If you wouldn’t purchase it full price and use it – dont’ tell your followers to.

Oh – FYI – someone doing multilevel marketing is NOT an influencer – they are just using clever wording to get you to join their company. If they’re selling you a product directly – they are in direct sales.

Last is advertising. Another way to earn an income online is to gain steady traffic on your blog, and then add ads. This is an area I haven’t ventured into yet – but you can use add-ons through your blog host or google adsense. Also if you have a vlog on youtube – they add ads after a certain # of subscribers and view time as long as you give them the OK.

And that’s the short version of how to earn money online.

What questions do you have? Comment below and I’ll answer as much as I can.