Have you ever wondered how influencers make money? The influencer industry is a booming business, so there are several ways influencers make money. According to Influencer Marketing Hub, “The market grew from $1.7 billion in 2016 to $9.7 billion in 2020“. Depending on the platform, content, and audience, the influencer space is a great way to bring in a full-time income or some extra side-hustle cash. Some influencers have been super creative in finding ways to make money. Alright, let’s dive into how influencers make money.
1. Sponsored Posts
This is one of the most common ways influencers make money online. Whether it’s a sponsored Instagram post, sponsored YouTube video, sponsored TikTok video, or sponsored blog post. This is often the largest moneymaker for influencers. Some newer content creators may not realize it, but creating sponsored content is a service, with the brand being the client.
For most sponsored posts, the brand will provide the influencer with a creative brief to give a clear idea on messaging and overall goals to help promote/market their product(s). Influencers/content creators will help bring the brand’s vision to life and post the content to their social media platforms. I like to think of this as ad space. If you post a sponsored post promoting a product on Instagram, that is an ad you are sharing with your audience. You share sponsored posts with your audience, so you can charge for creating the actual content and access to your audience. Not sure how much to charge? Here’s how to figure out how much to charge for sponsored posts.
2. Content Creation
A brand may ask you to create content, but instead of posting to your own platform, the brand may only want to post to their platform(s). This is nice because you do not need a large following to create content for brands. You just need to create high-quality content that matches the brand’s overall aesthetic.
3. Affiliate Links
Sharing a link to a product, specifically, an affiliate link means when someone clicks the link, the influencer will receive a small commission (or percentage of the sale). Commissions can range from 5% to 40% (sometimes more or less). There are several affiliate link platforms you can sign up for. Such as MagicLinks or ShareASale. Affiliate links are great to share in blog posts, Pinterest pins, youtube descriptions, and Instagram stories.
4. Digital Product
Selling a digital product is a great way for influencers to bring in extra income. Common digital products are ebooks, online courses, printables, templates, presets, etc. Check out my digital product, The Influencer Rate Calculator.
5. Physical Product
Influencers can also sell physical products. Merch is pretty popular (like t-shirts, mugs, totes, planners, etc.). Other physical product examples are planners. Some larger influencers will also team up with brands to co-create a unique product or even create their own line of products. Think Jackie Aina’s Anastasia Beverly Hills makeup pallette.
6. Consulting
Some influencers offer social media consulting, while others offers consulting related to their niche. For example, thrift blogger, Dina’s Days offers retail consulting, visual merchandise consulting, and event planning/consulting.
7. Ads
If an ad is shown on a blog post or youtube video, the influencer will receive ad revenue. You can join different ad networks, like Google Ad Sense, SheMedia (requires ~20,000 or more pageviews per month), or the best MediaVine (requires ~60,000 pageviews per month). Some people make the bulk of their revenue through ads. This is a great passive stream of income.
8. Speaking Engagements/Events
Influencers can be invited to speak at events, as a keynote speaker, panelist, or moderator. They also can get paid to make an event appearance.
9. Live Selling
A lot of thrift groups on Facebook or IG do live auctions to sell their thrift finds. The most unique way to make money through live selling I’ve seen is by Thrifting Divas. She literally has it where you can pay to go live in her FB group of 97K+ members. She charges people to be able to live sell to her audience. It’s so unique and a great money maker. Click here to listen to my interview with her to learn how she did it.
10. Badges
When an influencer goes live (on FB, IG, youtube, etc. ) they can turn on badges. This means their audience can buy a badge to pay them money. The badge shows support for the influencer. Sometimes the badges are $1-$5, but I’ve seen people buy badges for $200-$500!
Okay, so those are 9 examples of how influencers can make money. These are only some of the ways they can make money. The influencer space is really interesting because you can get super creative in how you make an income. If you’re interested in seeing how much money I make as an influencer, check out my income reports.
