YOUTUBER and influencer SaraFinance has found a way to turn a side hustle into a full-on money machine.
Sara makes $15,000 each month through affiliate marketing, and she laid out the strategies and sites she uses on her YouTube channel.
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Affiliate marketers earn money by promoting products or services for brands via affiliate links.
Whenever someone clicks an affiliate link and buys a product or signs up for a service through it, the marketer gets a percentage of that sale.
As Sara explains, affiliate marketing and social media go hand-in-hand, and you can earn some cash by following the tips she laid out.
1. Pick your niche
Before you get started, you need to figure out what you want to promote.
Topics can include anything from finance, which Sara focuses on, to health and wellness, to traveling.
Whatever you settle on should be something you’re interested in.
Obviously, you’ll want to find a popular, profitable area, but unless you’re passionate about the subject you may have a hard time connecting with advertisers or consumers.
Once you have your niche, Sara recommends setting up social media accounts for your affiliate marketing efforts.
Sara called out Instagram, TikTok and Pinterest as the best sites to build your brand.
When setting up your accounts, make sure you pick handles that are related to your niche, and similar to one another, if not the same.
Sara uses the simple but effective “SaraFinance” across her social platforms, as an example.
3. Finding affiliate links
Now that you’ve set the groundwork, it’s time to get affiliate links that you can start promoting.
Sara uses a few sources to generate affiliate links, all of which are free to access.
First, she shows off ClickBank, a site that shows you lists of products broken out by topic and lets you generate affiliate links for the ones you want to promote.
She also utilizes Amazon Associates, which functions similarly to ClickBank but lets you promote products listed on Amazon.
Once you make an account, you can find items under the “Product Linking” tab and start generating affiliate links.
ClickBank will show you the average amount you can earn per conversion, while Amazon pays commission at different rates depending on the product area.
4. Create a home page
On all her social media platforms, Sara includes a custom link to a site she made that features all her affiliate links in one place.
You can do the same by building a page with Linktree, which essentially creates a launchpad to any other links you feature on your page.
As you get affiliate links, add them to your Linktree and feature your custom link on your social media pages.
5. Content creation
Now it’s time to use those social media accounts you created in Step Two.
Sara promotes her affiliate links on Pinterest, Instagram and TikTok, and makes content for her accounts that she can use to push the links.
On Pinterest, you’ll need to turn your profile into a business account through the settings before you can post videos and really start to turn a profit.
Sara recommends posting three times per day on Pinterest, either creating simple images and videos with Canva or reposting videos from TikTok with credit to the creator.
TikTok won’t allow you to post links in your bio until you have 1,000 followers, so your primary goal should be growing your account.
Sara recommends posting videos you share on Pinterest on TikTok, as well, to keep content constantly flowing, in addition to creating simple videos of text on images relevant to your niche.
For Instagram, Sara’s biggest tip is posting videos on Reels, which can help your account grow quickly.
In her experience, Pinterest is the best and easiest platform to use for affiliate marketing.
Once you’re creating a steady stream of content you should start to pick up followers naturally, and your affiliate links will begin gaining traction.
If you want to make extra money but aren’t sure affiliate marketing is for you, we compiled the top 10 side hustles of 2022.
And if you had a side gig last year, learn more about how it will impact your taxes.
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