Companies may find it hard to turn a profit from using social networks. Monetizing your social networks is a skill that requires time and should have room for trial and error. This article features 8 tips that could help your business turn a profit by using social media.

8. Store

For Facebook, you can implement a store on your Facebook page. Having a store for your fans is highly recommended. Your store can serve as a place for fans to purchase products and merchandise associated with your brand. To encourage more interaction, implement a “Like” button on some of your store items.

To increase monetization, combining a mailing list service like Topspin with direct-to-fan marketing and having an e-commerce platform with BandPage (for Artists) is one simple way of enhancing your monetization skills on Facebook. Find detailed instructions on how to do all of this here!  

7. Special Promotions

Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and Mailing Lists are all great services to reach out to fans by providing special promotions such as coupon codes, previews of a new track, or a new product. Using various social media platforms for flash sales and promotions for example, could get a rapid and vast response from your fans and overall audience. In order to receive an even larger response, your company, brand, or service could offer a large prize to the person who shares your flash sale or promotions information to their friends through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or any other social media service.

Utilizing a mailing list service like Topspin or MailChimp for special promotions is also highly recommended. Promising ether special discounts or pre-sales for your fans subscribed to your mailing list will help with monetization.

Special contests can also be used in order to execute your special promotions. A clothing company for example could ask their fans to style a particular product in a way that matches their own personal style, and instagramming the photo with the clothing company’s name as a hashtag included in the comment. The best styled outfit could win a special discount or prize from the company. MyHauteCloset is another great example for monetizing on Instagram. MyHauteCloset has over 38,000 followers on Instagram, and began a new trend of consignment through this social media platform. Milysan Troche, the founder of MyHauteCloset became extremely popular on Instagram because of her tasteful style choices. Soon her followers began asking her if she would ever sell her elegant pieces. She began doing so, and MyHauteCloest became too difficult to handle on Instagram as her requests were flourishing. Now, MyHauteCloset.com exists, and Troche began buying and selling luxury goods to her several followers and subscribers in order to fill their demands. Troche says that a 100% of her clients are from Instagram, which turned MyHauteCloset into this monetizing success.

6. Creative Campaigns

All of the special promotions mentioned above can be a part of a creative campaign for your company, brand, or service. By implementing several creative campaigns, your fans will come back for more incentives and offers, which will keep your flow of monetization. Creative campaigns are also interesting and will engage your audience, which is crucial for monetization.

5. Insights

Facebook Insights offer an understanding and analysis of trends within user growth and demographics, consumption of content, and creation of content. Insights provides Facebook Platform developers and Facebook Page owners with metrics around their content. Understanding Facebook Insights is critical for monetization. You will have the ability to understand the trends of your fans and create campaigns and post content catered towards your specific audience.

4. Advertising

After understanding Facebook Insights, you can create several ads on Facebook that target your fans based on their location, demographics, and interests. Learn more about Facebook advertising here.

3. Mailing Lists

Mailing lists are a direct line of communication between artists and their most dedicated fans. It is recommended that up-and-coming Artists focus on touring and building their mailing list as they gain traction in localized markets. Actively engaging a fan-base from area to area using mailing list growth campaigns can translate directly into revenue increases at any point in an artist’s career.

When artists treat their mailing list like a preferred method of contact, fans feel a special connection to the artist. This presents the artists with many opportunities to maintain relational communications apart from social media.

2. Cross Promote

Creative campaigns, special promotions, mailing list offers, etc. should be cross-promoted throughout all social media services in order to increase monetization. By sharing your content across all platforms, your content can become viral! YouTube is a great example since you can use YouTube as your video hub for your audience across all platforms. Wherever you want to share video, start with YouTube and send a link. This allows you to virally share your content while keeping view statistics on a single social platform.

1. Engage your Audience

Interacting with your audience is necessary for monetization. You need to have a conversation or some type of dialogue with your fans if you want monetization to be effective. Running an effective campaign, advertising, and even creating your online store is all about engaging with your audience. It is much easier to promote a product, tour date, or service if your audience is engaged.