You can use Social Media to your advantage in two ways. You can promote the content you create or put links in your posts. You probably already use social media to promote your website or blog. If not, what are you waiting for? Let’s face the facts – people don’t want to click links to go to websites that require them to click many more links.
Nearly half of all affiliate-referred traffic comes from mobile devices. You know better than I; most of your time spent on your mobile device is spent checking Twitter, Instagram, and other social media channels, not reading long blog posts.
This post is for website owners and content creators to market affiliate products via social media. It shouldn’t be challenging to find your first audience – there is already one! People interested in your content will follow you on social media if they care. How can you make more money with social media marketing?
Social media can significantly impact your affiliate marketing strategy in four key ways.
Prioritize Certain Platforms
Your niche will determine which platforms your audience prefers. It might seem overwhelming to list all the names such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram (forgetting YouTube and Snapchat). You’ll be surprised to learn that most people who read your content and are interested in your passions tend to use two or more of these platforms. A social media listening tool can help you determine which platform is most popular with your audience.
The following general advice would apply to any platform:
- To use any feature that a platform provides you, be genuine and friendly with your followers, but don’t “pitch.”
- Tag brands you market so their followers can see your post.
- Before marketing any products, be sure to read their guidelines.
Let’s now discuss the major platforms and look at their policies regarding affiliate links.
Instagram has become The Place for Affiliate Marketing in recent years. Although you may think Instagram is for visual products such as make-up and clothes, it is a platform that promotes inspirational and motivational content.
It’s not the most visually-rich content, but it is a good start. Even if your website is dedicated to startups, it doesn’t matter what you post as long as the content is related to technology and business. It’s a good idea to post two times per day and upload Instagram Stories between 8-10 times per day.
Instagram doesn’t allow link placement in your posts. This is the problem with the platform. You can’t put a link into your post. You can tell your audience that they can copy and paste the link, but they would have to close Instagram and go to their browser to copy it. It is much simpler to click the link and move on.
You might now be thinking, “If it is so tedious, why would you be interested in Instagram?” I haven’t said that Instagram doesn’t allow for links at all. You can do affiliate marketing with Instagram in two ways:
- The bio link
You can include a link in your profile bio. Although it is not the best way to go, as a person must still visit your profile and click the link, it is a common way to do so. You can also put your website link on the profile to draw more traffic.
- Instagram Stories: Link
Instagram has been improving its “stories” feature since it was introduced. You can now add links to your stories. All you have to do is swipe up. It’s a great way to promote products, especially since more people purchase from their phones.
Instagram’s most significant advantage is the ability to show your affiliate products in action. Wear it and record your screen if it’s an application or tool. Use your imagination. Remember, a product does not have to look great to sell!
Twitter is home to more than 3.1 million unique monthly users. I have some good news for those who are disappointed in Facebook. You can tweet every fifteen minutes on Twitter – this is the average tweet lifespan.
It’s best to tweet five to ten times per day. The general rule is that you cannot expect to make any money from Twitter by posting sales pitches every fifteen minutes. You need to establish a relationship. After establishing a Twitter account, you can link directly to affiliate offers without worrying about being unfollowed.
Twitter is not without its peculiarities. It has a limit on the characters you can use. Right now, it is limited to 280 characters.
Your affiliate link must be authentic, natural, and fitting. URL shorteners are a great tool to help you do this.
Affiliate links can look less trustworthy if they are too long or contain random numbers and letters. URL shorteners can make your links more attractive. Amazon affiliates have an integrated link shortener so that they are good to go.
You need to use #affiliate or #affiliates. It is a good practice to use hashtags on Twitter. If you have a few characters, consider a hashtag that would make your tweets more visible. This also applies to Instagram, which we’ll talk about next.
Facebook is second in popularity among social media platforms. Although it sounds great, it is not the best platform for affiliate marketing. However, you can still promote your links on it. If you don’t already have an official Facebook page, create one.
Facebook allows you to post a lot about your website. Make sure you use it! Let people who stumble upon your page accidentally know who you are and what your work is.
Your Facebook page is your “face.” It is the most famous account. It is essential to share what you have here. You should be more direct with your promotional content.
This doesn’t apply to coupon websites. The 80/20 rule means that two posts can be promoted for every eight.
You should share fewer affiliate links on social media than your other promotional networks.
You shouldn’t post more often than three times per day. This will limit your opportunities to share your affiliate links. You should only invest your time and effort in Facebook marketing if you have a trusted audience who uses Facebook.
Treat Facebook as a platform to share and promote your content and drive more traffic to your site (where you can place as many affiliate links you like, but don’t get too crazy).
Facebook does not place restrictions on affiliate links. However, it is essential to mention that you are an affiliate. You can write it at the end of your post or use #affiliate or #affiliate.
Find out More about Your Audience
You must know your audience to be successful with affiliate marketing. To be a prosperous affiliate marketer, you must aim to help people. Find products that are interesting to them and explain why they are valuable. You need to understand who these people are to do this.
Social media can provide endless information about your audience. It’s shared freely and most often publicly. Although I don’t encourage you to follow your readers, I do it. You can gain insight more efficiently and elegantly than scrolling through someone’s Pinterest.
Awario’s social media listening tool, for example, is a quick and easy way to find out more about your audience. It gathers keywords and analyzes them. It will show how many people have seen these keywords and reacted to them. You also see the top influencers that used them.
Suppose you are looking for a startup product to promote on your website. First, I suggest that you monitor people who mention your website to find out their opinions about it. To do this, you can use the Sentiment metric.
You can then monitor keywords related to startups to get an idea of general trends and preferences in the field. You can also look at who your readers follow and how they interact most often. This will give you an overview of your audience and help you choose the right product.
Keep in Touch with Your Audience
In this post, I used the term “audience” quite often. But I think “community” would be a better choice. A community of like-minded people enjoy your content and gives feedback. Maybe even communicate with one another. That is what a community looks like!
How can you help this community? Talk to people on your blog comments.
You can create threads, Facebook groups and hang out on forums to engage in the relevant discussions. Do not forget to reply to tweets and comments and engage your community in a discussion. Don’t be afraid to repost/retweet other people’s posts. This will increase your visibility and help you gain more followers.
Get New Leads
Affiliate marketing should be about making money. You can increase awareness of products by posting affiliate links to your social media accounts. This is not all. You can also use social media to reach people who may not have heard of your site and convert them into potential customers.
Social media allows you to interact with people that have never met or spoken with you before. It would be rude or inappropriate to interrupt a stranger’s real-life conversation, but it is OK on Twitter and other forums such as Reddit and Quora.
Where do you begin? First, search online for communities related to your topic (or a product or website you want to promote). Join Facebook groups, Twitter chats, and forum boards. Engage with others, but don’t promote yourself or your product.
Be friendly, have fun, and offer genuine advice. If you consider the conversation necessary, add an affiliate link to explain why the product would benefit your situation. This will build credibility and make people more likely to purchase the product.
Social media listening is your best friend if you want to dig deeper. Twitter is an excellent platform to meet new people. You should structure your questions so that you can find the right conversations.
If you promote an app that improves productivity, for example, create queries such as “how do I improve productivity, productivity hacks, or productivity apps?” and any other questions your brain can think of.
You can do the same thing for your blog. Boolean search allows you to personalize your queries to find people looking for suggestions, market research, or complaints about rival products. You can then offer them a solution by linking to your affiliate page once you have found the posts. Again, please be natural.
It is a brilliant idea to link to your product post rather than to promote an affiliate link immediately (unless that is what the interaction requires). This will give the person a chance to know you better before buying.
The Benefits of Using Social Media for Affiliate Marketing
The rise of social media has opened up new doors and opportunities for marketing. It has given marketers a platform that they can use to reach out to as many people as possible. But the major downside of this platform is that it takes time and effort to maintain a presence on social media platforms.
Another benefit that you can enjoy is access to audience insights. This will help you understand what your target audience is looking for and what they are interested in.
Social media is an awesome tool for marketing for two reasons. The first is that it gives the company a large audience, and the second is that you can use it to find leads. The recent rise of social media has helped affiliate marketers and other businesses overgrow.
It has a long way to go in terms of its value for the affiliate marketing industry. However, there are many benefits to using it as a marketing tool.
Affiliate marketing is expected to grow in the next few years. So if you have any plans to join this industry, then social media will be your best option for advertising purposes.
Social media usage has boosted by more than three times from 2009-2021.
Social media can be an excellent platform for marketing your business when it comes to affiliate marketing. It is easy to start an account, and you can spend less on advertising as users are more likely to trust posts from their friends and family than from strangers.
Conclusion – How to Improve Your Affiliate Marketing Strategy Using Social Media
People will click on your link more often if they have a special relationship with you in this age of interconnectedness. This is the modern rule in affiliate marketing: Don’t be a salesperson. Be a friend.
A friend’s recommendation is more likely to be listened to than your own. Choose the right product, test it yourself, write good content explaining why it is valuable, and then market it via social media, engaging and growing a community. This is the key to your success.
If you want to create your own website, to post your articles and blogs from fiverr, then read about Wealthy Affiliate and how you can create a website for free.
Did you find this article useful? Feel free to share your thoughts. We would be happy to hear from you!
Stay tuned for more Work from Home Business ideas.
Any/all links on this site may be affiliate links, and if you make a purchase through one of them, I will earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. Read the full affiliate disclosure here.
Mark
CEO and Founder of The Retired Affiliates
8 responses to “How to Improve Your Affiliate Marketing Strategy Using Social Media”
You have listed some good thoughts on social media marketing strategies. While I have been in the affiliate marketing business for about five years, I have not done too much with social media. Do you find that a mix of platforms is better than to focus on just one? And, if I would choose only one, which is suggested to get the best results? Also, do you use any paid advertising on the platforms you use?
Thank you.
Thanks Dave.
I use two main platforms which are Facebook and just recently a YouTube channel.
I have tried most of the others, Insta, Keen, Pinterest and Quora however have found that I get some pretty good results from Facebook and as of now still haven’t used the paid ads.
I will let you know how the YouTube experiment goes once I have had the channel up and built some content in.
Mark
Social media is actually the only way in which you can be really successful with affiliate marketing. I have noticed that is the only way to make money so this article will just be a reminder to everyone who is in this industry to take social media more seriously.
You know, after reading this I really need to start using social media more. I have kind of neglected adding my posts to Facebook or to Twitter. I do regularly post everything on Pinterest, so I just don’t know why I am stopping there. I do get traffic from Pinterest, so it makes sense I need to get busy and take advantage of my other social media accounts. Thanks for the reminder!
In the digital age that we are living in, more people are spending time on social media platforms and using it to search for products and services. Sharing an affiliate link on social media, can certainly help to increase exposure.
I do not use Facebook enough, basically because I was concerned about being penalized or blocked when posting affiliate links, so it is interesting to see that I can add the hashtags, so I will try it.
I do have a bio link on Instagram to my website, but I was not aware of Instagram stories. Could one use a shortened link on Instagram, like a tinyurl, that one can include in the post? Or is it better to create an Instagram story?
When it comes to affiliate marketing, the sky is the limit. I knew social media played a role, but I didn’t know how much. After reading this article, I’ve realized that I need to use social media more seriously. I usually share my blog posts on social media after they’ve been published. I suppose it just became more of a habit. I, on the other hand, only share my posts. I don’t post affiliate links because it sounds spammy, and I’m a seller. I want to be respected by others. Thank you for writing such an informative article.
This is some great stuff you’ve posted here! I use social media in a number of ways to promote my website. As you point out, joining groups with themes that align with the website subject is gold. Even though the groups I have joined are not “professional” (just regular people talking about their hobby and posting pictures), I have built relationships with them and get quite a bit of traffic from them. Also, be on the lookout for good networking groups. The ideas and advice I have received from other business people have been useful.
Some really great points there Cynthia.