I own some very well-followed social accounts. How can I make this a business?
I run a number of Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, and Instagram accounts which hundreds of thousands of followers in large niches (fashion, technology, film, music, student, etc) and through these can grow these and other accounts at a rate of 10,000 per day if I work on this full time (currently am a consultant with a background in content sites hence social/traffic driving background. Not necessarily looking to do a startup (i.e. a lifestyle or e-commerce business would work for now) but open to all ideas. As content is very hard to make money from (sadly) I'm thinking to sell a product through the site, i.e. clothes, possibly with a local focus. Am I thinking too small? I have a lot of experience in community management so can grow lots of accounts of engaged people and have sent millions of clicks to sites, but would like to use this for myself rather than clients so I have a fanatical startup focus. Any ideas really appreciated, thank you!
28 comments
You need a great product and once you have this you build out a product page (preferably physical product) and finally you drive your organic targeted traffic to said product page and capitalize on the sales. Ultimately you build a company from this and keep making more products. Depends of course on many factors. Much simpler to do affiliate marketing but like others have said fast money, no sustainability. You want to build something long term, lucrative and grow your follower base(s) to millions. You have a following, direct this following to your product now. Email me I have some ideas for you. Email in profile.
Could you please mail me at spankthespam {at} gmail {dot} com? I've few small projects where I think we could cooperate.
Great, sent!
I run accounts with hundreds of followers. Apologies!
Careful, for a second I thought you were correcting the hundreds of thousands part.
With hundreds of thousands of followers?
hundreds of thousands of followers across all networks, yes. Sorry for bizarre grammar.
Hell, I'll pay you to get me some more followers
Message me if you want. I can normally help, depending on what niche you operate in?
I don't think there is a message function on HN. Do you have an email?
Can you message me at {myusername}@gmail.com? I want to gather your info for a potential upcoming project.
Sent!
Maybe look at Pat Flynn's blog and podcast. He has a lot of info about monetizing.
Thank you, I will. Much appreciated. Anyone else I should read let me know.
Depends on your fanbase. Are the majority American/European?
Right now, slight majority american, lots of english. Generally, there are a lot more american people on social networks then Brits so that's what I have and am likely to have in the future, about the same ratio.
People will pay you to post something about their business on twitter.
https://www.fiverr.com/search/gigs?utf8=%E2%9C%93&search_in=...
https://www.fiverr.com/search/gigs?utf8=%E2%9C%93&search_in=...
Thanks, but I'd really like a major product I can build with community management, brand building, nurturing people to love a site/product/app. It's a personal passion of mine and makes me really excited thinking about it :)
Sponsored posts and affiliate offers seem like no-brainers if lifestyle / e-commerce is your goal. Depending on your ability to convert clicks > sales, you can formulate strategy around developing your own set of sites to benefit from the traffic.
There are definitely opportunities to think bigger (really, ANY idea can benefit from substantial / targeted eyeballs), but starting with sponsored posts / affiliate would give you an easy and instant monetization opportunity.
Just sign up to a few advertisers at CJ that align well with your niche to test it out.
There are definitely opportunities to think bigger (really, ANY idea can benefit from substantial / targeted eyeballs), but starting with sponsored posts / affiliate would give you an easy and instant monetization opportunity.
Just sign up to a few advertisers at CJ that align well with your niche to test it out.
[deleted]
Thanks, I've been considering this. It may be more work but I'd love to work directly with makers within a niche and set a 10% or so affiliate price, on a set of products e.g. a style of clothes, drones, IoT, wearables etc and create a long-term focus rather than trying to grab pennies/cents. Whoever's left that can still game the Facebook algorithm for millions of instant clicks (something I've never done/tried to do) would probably do great with these affiliates, like the kid who does dose.com
ITT: everything that is wrong with the world
I get what you're saying, but I don't want to be spammy is why I don;t just want to (aimlessly send traffic to pages) would like to create real value for someone. When my favourite clothing brand releases new clothes, it's genuinely exciting to buy and wear it when it arrives, it's a really good feeling.
Please don't. If I follow one of those groups it's because I have an interest in that particular movie/film/book/sport/whatever. If your posts are no longer relevant I will unfollow you.
Really depends on the targeting. For a forum about a book, an affiliate link to by the book or an upcoming sequel makes perfect sense. Recommendations for other books seems pretty fair too. For example, an Ender's game discussion that references Honor Harrington isn't crazy.
Spam about cat litter is just spam.
But it can't be constantly off topic. finding the balance is delicate, and most people do a shitty job.
Spam about cat litter is just spam.
But it can't be constantly off topic. finding the balance is delicate, and most people do a shitty job.
One of which groups sorry? Not sure which post you were replying to.
OP is saying "please don't go into the business of shoving ads at me when the reason I'm following you is because you have interesting things to say."
OP is channeling the average user telling you that if you do this you will be unfollowed.
I'm not sure I agree with OP, it depends on the topic. The HN crowd is not indicative of the general public.
For example, the fashion people would probably be happy to see curated ads.
OP is channeling the average user telling you that if you do this you will be unfollowed.
I'm not sure I agree with OP, it depends on the topic. The HN crowd is not indicative of the general public.
For example, the fashion people would probably be happy to see curated ads.
Buzzfeed's sponsored ads are pretty good for the Buzzfeed audience. I agree on the point yes, content links can be posted over and over as people get enojyment from them, posting products will soon lead to unfollowing, is why I'd like to find a good niche and something people want and build a community.
Have you thought about creating an information product? I really like the podcast I Love Marketing by Dean Jackson and Joe Polish. Some other names worth checking out might be Eben Pagan and Jeff Walker who focus on the information product niche. I've had success with their material.
Please email me at {myusername}@gmail.com
I have a question for you!
Are you open to cooperation with small scale projects? If so, message me and we can get in to the details!
I don't think I can Direct Message on here. What's your Twitter or email?
I'm interested in exploring synergies. Ping me if you want (email on my profile)
In your shoes I would use your success as social proof to sell info products about replicating your success.
However, if you really want to monetize... You need to think long and hard about exactly WHY these people are following you. You need to understand what they are getting out of the relationship and than you need to think of products and companies that are native to that experience.
For example with fashion, you can simply put a link to an e-commerce site in your profile and drive hundreds of not thousands a day in sales (there is case study out there of someone selling thousands of dollars worth of ties on instagram but I can't find it from my phone)
If people are following you because they like your content...you can try to charge them a buck or two to get exclusive access to more of your content.
Just remember, social media is not meant for advertising and unless you can find a native monetization you will not be capturing most of the value you can.
Feel free to email me if you want to brainstorm this with me. Check my profile for contact info.
However, if you really want to monetize... You need to think long and hard about exactly WHY these people are following you. You need to understand what they are getting out of the relationship and than you need to think of products and companies that are native to that experience.
For example with fashion, you can simply put a link to an e-commerce site in your profile and drive hundreds of not thousands a day in sales (there is case study out there of someone selling thousands of dollars worth of ties on instagram but I can't find it from my phone)
If people are following you because they like your content...you can try to charge them a buck or two to get exclusive access to more of your content.
Just remember, social media is not meant for advertising and unless you can find a native monetization you will not be capturing most of the value you can.
Feel free to email me if you want to brainstorm this with me. Check my profile for contact info.
Thanks for commenting. So:
- Replicating success: It's quite niche and not entirely one-size fits all my successes (e.g. wouldn't work with fintech or more "serious" "deep tech" products) and marketing is only one slice of what I'm passionate about, others being startups, tech, music etc, so wouldn't call myself a master marketer like Nir or Neil Patel)
- Why following: great point. Someone said this to me at a community management conference in San Francisco in November. The accounts I have are great but I could have amazing accounts if I put more effort into building/maintaing them
May email you also, thank you!
May email you also, thank you!
What kind of technology accounts? We might be interested in affiliation. Can you DM me?
There's way more money in this than you think. I pulled in 2-4k/month from adsense from a little Pinterest traffic back in the day, and I wasn't even trying (proof - http://austen-screenshots.s3.amazonaws.com/Home_Google_AdSen...). If you can bump those numbers into the millions, you're really going to cash in. There are little kids selling promotions on Vine that make more than their parents.
Interestingly enough, I find you can either get spammy and low-quality and cash out a lot now, or build a legitimate audience and following, and create revenue that lasts for a long time. The spammier you are, the faster you make money, but the faster it disappears.
There are four obvious ways you can make money from this:
1. Find a good affiliate program, hawk their goods every now and then, and make a small percentage. This is surprisingly hard, but when done right makes a bunch.
2. Drive traffic to a site with adsense. You have to drive more traffic than you would ever believe, but it's relatively secure.
3. Sell tweets/promotion to other folks. This is pretty easy, but obviously you won't have much control over what people are using your accounts for.
4. Create/license what blackhatters call a "panel," and write an automated way anyone can come and use your accounts for a fee. This usually requires a lot of really small accounts, not a few big ones, but even blackhat noobs can make $100/day with a couple thousand accounts doing this (you can buy accounts for cheap). This gives you even less control, and basically turns you into a giant spam bot.
Contact me off-list and I can explain a little bit more in depth how it's done and put you in contact with some good folks (email in bio).
Be sure to check out sites like instafluence.com and sponsoredtweets.com (even celebrities). Legit companies pay a lot of money for promotion from big accounts. I know candycrush was paying over $1/download, and a few people pulled in $10K+/month. There are even people making a few thousand dollars a month selling cheap tweets/posts to places like fiverr.com or seoclerks.com - generally lower quality, higher volume accounts. It sounds like you've figured out how to grow them though, and if you can scale that out you've got a money making machine.
Interestingly enough, I find you can either get spammy and low-quality and cash out a lot now, or build a legitimate audience and following, and create revenue that lasts for a long time. The spammier you are, the faster you make money, but the faster it disappears.
There are four obvious ways you can make money from this:
1. Find a good affiliate program, hawk their goods every now and then, and make a small percentage. This is surprisingly hard, but when done right makes a bunch.
2. Drive traffic to a site with adsense. You have to drive more traffic than you would ever believe, but it's relatively secure.
3. Sell tweets/promotion to other folks. This is pretty easy, but obviously you won't have much control over what people are using your accounts for.
4. Create/license what blackhatters call a "panel," and write an automated way anyone can come and use your accounts for a fee. This usually requires a lot of really small accounts, not a few big ones, but even blackhat noobs can make $100/day with a couple thousand accounts doing this (you can buy accounts for cheap). This gives you even less control, and basically turns you into a giant spam bot.
Contact me off-list and I can explain a little bit more in depth how it's done and put you in contact with some good folks (email in bio).
Be sure to check out sites like instafluence.com and sponsoredtweets.com (even celebrities). Legit companies pay a lot of money for promotion from big accounts. I know candycrush was paying over $1/download, and a few people pulled in $10K+/month. There are even people making a few thousand dollars a month selling cheap tweets/posts to places like fiverr.com or seoclerks.com - generally lower quality, higher volume accounts. It sounds like you've figured out how to grow them though, and if you can scale that out you've got a money making machine.
Amazing reply, thank you (Grasswire looks amazing, I'd love to hear more!) I somehow don't feel like I should be running an affiliates for other people business, and wonder how much my heart would be in it. I'd prefer to do something more transparent, pointing traffic to my own site (but not competing with those companies that pull in thousands of shops and have data scientists working around the clock, like Lyst)
There's a company called the social chain doing this really well (influencer marketing as an agency) they have mulit-mutli millions of UK people in their network. Then there's the audience, who claim a billion people can be influenced by them every month. Woah.
How are you growing the accounts so fast? I started an account last week after reading Austen's awesome book (http://austenallred.com/user-acquisition/book/chapter/instag...),but only grow my following around 30 per day as opposed to 10k. Also I haven't tested out any bots yet.
Once you have accounts with followings they can support each other, RT each other's posts, get reach that way. I think that's how any in-house influencer marketing companies got started, they built Facebook like pages over the last decade then just used them to make new pages. Moviepilot did this also, apparently spending a year building the pages before they built the website! That is brilliant forward thinking. Regarding Insta/Twitter growth from zero, Austin's advice seems pretty solid?
Also would love to get your quick feedback on my niche account. I have some great ideas to monetize it once it gets to some scale that I can share too. Email is [email protected]
Sent!
WRT affiliate programs, I've never had a problem with an book review that has an affiliate link to buy the book. If you're a plumber, and you found this great robot camera for inspecting pipes, sell it.
I think the main thing, if you're in it for the long run, is to preserve authenticity. It's easy to start seeming spammy.
I think the main thing, if you're in it for the long run, is to preserve authenticity. It's easy to start seeming spammy.
Yes, totally. I just feel like a lot of e-books are 99p so 10% of that is so small. I guess the upside is 1,000 people could buy it at once, but then you'd need 100,000+ book fans for an ambitious 1% conversion. And even then you'd have to go author direct (so amazon don't also take a cut) which may mean lower quality books, and if people see you promoting bad product, end of brand, maybe.
I'm very interested to learn about internet marketing. Where can I learn the fundamentals and the workflow/process (as in: treat it as a project with measurements and stuff vs get-rich-quick-scheme).
Yeah, me too. Growthhackers.com is good but there are SO many bad posts out there and people self-promoting. Everything on Austen's site here is brilliant: http://austenallred.com/user-acquisition/book/chapter/instag... well worth reading in detail. I may not be the best person to answer this question, may be worth a new self-post for you
You need either an e-product (e-book, course, membership site with private forums, etc.) or a real product (your consulting time $400/h, a quality product you buy wholesale (from distributer here or from factory via Alibaba) and sell via FBA (Fulfilled By Amazon) through a sales page on your site. (no inventory at your home). You can also generate affiliate sales revenue through product demos, videos, recommendations and a "resources" page on your site, which are affiliate links.
Heard about FDA this week, really exciting. This all makes sense. I'd like to do something with quite broad appeal (possibly e-books then, but I have doubts about whether I could create a great community, and as mentioned above I don;t necassarily want to run through someone elses affiliate program, would prefer to creat emy own by going direct, though maybe this would be possible with authors..)
We've built a product that's highly community-centric and is about getting users into interest groups that they care about. Sounds right up your alley. Down to chat? Send me an email at pclget (at) gmail
This email didn't work? bounced back
Very interesting - I have a friend who works at www.viglink.com, and I think you could utilize their affiliate relations to drive some good commerce earnouts for yourself.
Feel free to email me at [email protected] and I'll connect you.
Feel free to email me at [email protected] and I'll connect you.
Sent!
I feel this belongs in /r/startups or /r/entrepreneur.
I just listened to this James Altucher podcast on the subject, about monetizing high followed accounts via sponsored posts:
http://www.stansberryradio.com/Frank-Curzio/Latest-Episodes/...
I thought it was pretty eye opening and seems relevant to your situation. Talks about streamlining the content creation process, getting advertisers to pay for sponsored posts, and he is now developing his own products to sell that would otherwise be pitched by advertisers in his sponsored posts.
http://www.stansberryradio.com/Frank-Curzio/Latest-Episodes/...
I thought it was pretty eye opening and seems relevant to your situation. Talks about streamlining the content creation process, getting advertisers to pay for sponsored posts, and he is now developing his own products to sell that would otherwise be pitched by advertisers in his sponsored posts.
Thank you so much! I love James Altucher's writing, will definitely listen.
No prob - I'm also a huge fan. Should've mentioned it is an interview with Brendan Hampton who is the one playing in the space.
email me at jack at snapunit dot com please, as I may have something interesting.
Ebay?
Thanks, but I feel like if I do affiliate I should be the only one taking a %, both unfair on the creator and less margin for me most likely, though I could well be wrong.
related - http://www.fastcompany.com/3036880/how-to-make-500000-a-year... (article about uber facts)