It’s a hotly asked question, just how do influencers make money? Of course, they get gifted amazing once-in-a-lifetime trips, they dine out in fabulous restaurants, are sent bumper hauls of makeup, clothing or home interiors products to name a few and that is such a humbling place to be. But the real question on everybody’s lips is how do influencers make money?
Firstly, it’s not an easy slog. Influencers, content creators and bloggers are not only writers, photographers, accountants, social media managers, SEO experts but they’re also strategic planners and PAs to themselves too. There is so much that goes into behind the scenes of the operation that is often not credited enough. This is saved for another day though. Here are the 5 main income streams of how to make money as an influencer.
5 Ways Influencers Make Money Online
Sponsored posts
These are usually indicated by the #AD on social media posts and blog posts. This is where a brand or an agency pays the influencer to create some content to advertise to their audience. This can be in the form of an Instagram post for example with a CTA to drive their followers to follow the brand or buy the product in a campaign to raise either brand or product awareness (or both) or via a blog post that usually contains a high-quality link back to the brand’s website which will help search engines view the brand as more relevant.
The amount that influencers are paid for sponsored posts depends on follower size, engagement, content quality, the campaign size – are they only doing 1 Instagram post or are they creating a long-term campaign of 4 posts with 5 Instagram stories a month? Typically somebody with 3,000 followers on Instagram could expect to earn around £50 per post while those with a 100,000 following could charge anywhere from £500+ for a post. Those with 1,000,000 followers can charge anything from £10,000 upwards per post.
This is a great way for influencers to make money. Tiktok is growing fast so is another platform that offers huge opportunities for influencers to make money. For those who don’t yet have the necessary number of followers or likes for this, you can take a look at the best site to buy TikTok likes to help boost your profile.
For blog posts and articles, this can all depend on the audience size (how much traffic visits the site), the niche and on something called DA (Domain Authority) which is a number between 0-100 which ranks websites on how authoritative they are. Again blog posts range in price for different factors. Things that should also be taken into account include if the creator is expected to creator images too. Blog posts range from £50-£1,000s given these different elements. Grab your FREE Social Media Strategy Guide
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Ad revenue
Many influencers who have their own website, YouTube channel or Facebook page utilise ad revenue on these channels. This is where the influencer is paid for displaying ads, on websites, this is usually on the sidebar, leaderboard or even in content and on YouTube and Facebook ads are usually placed automatically at optimum times.
How much you’re paid for this again isn’t as simple as giving a number as it all depends on the number of views and the number of clicks to the ad too. Many huge YouTube stars can earn tens of thousands just from ad revenue alone monthly.
Affiliate marketing
This is a system where the influencer promotes links either on social channels or their website which are called ‘affiliate links’. These specially coded links cost the follower (the buyer) nothing more than a normal link however when somebody purchases through these links the influencer receives a commission paid by the website where the sale was made.
There are affiliate networks in all niches and commission varies, for example for aviation the commission may be 1.2% (high order value) but for a clothes store it could be 15% (lower order value). Commission all depends on how many sales are converted from the links posted. With the correct affiliate strategy affiliates can earn an uncapped amount of commission.
Collaborations
Sometimes influencers who have a great reach and engagement with their audience are also scouted by brands for collaborations such as fashion influencers to create collections with fashion brands to sell to their fans who want to emulate their style. They can either be paid in one of two ways (sometimes both) firstly they are paid a fee for attaching their name to the collaboration or secondly, a little bit like affiliate marketing they are paid a % per piece of their collection selling.
Their own products
Many influencers create their own products such as courses, books, merchandise and physical products to sell to their audience who follow them. These can range from actual physical products to downloadable products and again can net influencers up to hundreds of thousands if executed properly.
See, there’s more than one way to earn money as an influencer and it’s not just a straight answer when asking how do influencers make money. If you’re looking to set up as a successful influencer then you should really implement a strong social media strategy from the start. We’ve got a FREE social media strategy guide to help you.
If you’re an influencer and used other methods to make money, we’d love to hear how in the comments section below. As always if you’ve found value in this article we’d love you to share it everywhere.
