Stretching Your Dollar: How to Monetize Your Social Media Accounts

<div class="block">Having multiple streams of income has been a proven way to begin wealth building. Now, social media users are beginning to monetize their digital personas in an effort to make extra cash. Alessandro Bogliari, CEO and co-founder at The Influencer Marketing Factory, joined &#39;Stretching Your Dollar&#39; to provide tips on social media monetization and ways to diversify your offerings.</div>

Stretching Your Dollar

It does seem like more and more on social media that you see ads from everyday people, like moms, students, people advertising their own niche hobbies and in case you didn't know those people are making money on their posts. So now it could be your turn to make some cash and monetize like an influencer or a creator. And to help us do just that and understand the economics behind it is Alessandro Bolia Ceo and co founder of the Influencer Marketing Factory, Alessandro. It's great to have you. Thank you for having me. What do our viewers need to know? They might be intimidated by the word influencer. Can the average Joe monetize their social media following? Yeah, like nowadays everyone can, right? So even if you don't want to use, let's say, you know, the term influencer, but you know, there are so many content creators, they might have like, you know, just let's say 5000, like, you know, followers or 10,000 and still have a really great strong community, they care about their content and they can still make money. Not only thanks to brand deals, but thanks to, you know, other ways you know, advertising on their podcast, for instance, selling merchandizing or even, for example, uh excluded content on a monthly basis to have a more stable income. How would you define strong, how do you determine a strong community one that is engaged enough to really make money off of it? Absolutely. So, you know, these days, a lot of content creators are trying to shift from having a passive audience to an active community. I mean that some of these people have, for instance, channels where their community ask questions, they comment on youtube to use, they brainstorm on new ideas. So there is to be different, I mean, someone that only like your pictures, it's something but I think someone that actually care about your future as a content creator is something else. And you want that type of people again to create your personal branding, you know, month over month. And I mean, basically a future as a content creator, how much money are we talking? How much money can you make as a creator? Really good question. So Sky is the limit these days to be honest because there are so many different ways to make like, you know, revenue streams. But I would say that from as small as let's say a few dollars, if you are a nano creator in a specific niche, up to 5 to 6 digits for a single post. If a million of followers again, it's not just about the number of followers. It's about the location, your niche. What you're talking about again, how strong is your community? But I would say that we're seeing people making more than a living, I would say, OK, so obviously, step one is you got to grow your community. Maybe the step before that is you kind of need to know yourself, right? Be in touch with what you're selling per se. How do you go about then growing that community that will help you make money? Absolutely. I would say the content is king these days, you know, we're looking at different things. So it's not any more just about the network that you have right before you maybe had a million followers. And you know, the organic creature was maybe, let's say 3% and only some of them were able to see your post, right? So it took like more time and it was again, more about the network that you had these days is about the content, right that you make. So you might have let's say only 5000 followers, right? On the, but the video it's like push it to millions of people right out there, right? So again, if you invest in content, people will come, sometimes people think that they have to, you know, think about like, you know, a crazy plan, right? But sometimes it's like just do what you love doing and people will notice if you're really good at what you do in terms of content and you are consistent with that people will come. OK. Our consistency is key, I think absolutely, every single day you have to be there and you have to plan in advance, right? This is not like just a hobby, right? For many people, you have like a calendar with a lot of different activities during the week. You know, where to post, what to post. It depends also on the social media, right? There are certain algorithms that might change it by like Tik Tok or is real and shorts and depending on that, you have to, you know, do it accordingly. So let's talk about the time commitment, right? In order to make the money, I mean, obviously, it sounds like this is a very big time commitment. How can you be sure that it will pay off and what are the steps, the building box that you put in place to make sure that this is schedule that will work for you and it's sustainable. Absolutely. So I saw many people that maybe got a couple of videos going viral and be like, I'm gonna just quit my, you know, daily job and do this. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't. So I would say that before like, you know, quitting your job or maybe going from, you know, just a hassle gig to full time, be sure that you again, you are consistent and you know that your community is going to be there for you. So I wouldn't do like just after a few videos, maybe you want like, you know, months of work and sure that you have not just like stable, you know, views about potentially a stable income. And I said before, it's not just thanks to brand deals that sometimes can be a bit bumpy, right? But it's maybe thanks to, for instance, you know, monthly subscription from your followers. Ok. So it sounds like I've been hearing you say Tik Tok several times, sounds like Tik Tok might be the platform of preference. What about some of the others? Absolutely. So tiktok is one but I would say in general overall anything that is short for video. So I'm talking about tiktok youtube shorts and Ingram real. Why? Because as I mentioned before is what I call the inverse funnel, right? Even if you don't know, like you don't have that many followers, you can still be seen by millions of people. And then if you do have, let's say a typical youtube channel, you can actually use youtube shorts for instance, to drive your potential followers and viewers to long form video. The same you can do also with is real and Tik Tok as well. And just quickly before I have to let you go to put it in perspective for our viewers, how would you describe your firm? I understand you represent brands. Are you an influencer, marketing firm? Absolutely. We help brands basically doing all their activations when it comes to influencer marketing from influencer identification, strategic creativity, passing by legal and agreements and analysis. In addition to that, also, two years ago, we also opened a talent agency. So we do represent prima talkers in the US and we help them with negotiation of brand deals. Alessandro, I gotta get on this uh this party. I think this time. Absolutely. It is. It is. Oh, Sandra Bug Ari. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me.