5 Tips for creators to monetize their digital presence (*Hint: Don’t stop at Instagram)
Today’s creator economy offers a wide variety of options for creators and influencers to monetize their digital presence, but sometimes it’s hard to know where to begin. Here are 5 key tips to optimize and prepare your platform to land paid brand partnerships.
Tip #1: Audit your Current Platforms
Any creator, influencer or business owner that wants to grow income through their digital presence can start by taking inventory of what they have. Which platforms are you on currently? What type of content are you posting? What’s getting the most engagement from your following?
Tip #2: Expand your Social Footprint
According to Statista, Instagram is ranked as the most-used marketing platform among influencer marketers in the U.S. in 2021. And although IG is used in 68% of all influencer campaigns, each social platform has unique value that is worth exploring.
Let’s say that you’re an influencer with 20K followers on IG. Have you considered TikTok, Twitter, and Facebook? For a platform like Facebook it may be as easy as reposting the same video and caption from IG. For TikTok, you may find it’s more effective to create a different style of video about the same topic, but your platform could also grow much faster than your Instagram following and/or offer a means of connecting with a totally different demographic.
Expanding to new social platforms can diversify your audience, expand your reach, reduce your reliance on one algorithm, reduce risk of hack/loss of your profile, and potentially open up a new lane for yourself. So don’t force all of your eggs into one basket if you don’t have to.
Tip #3: Naturally Integrate Brands
Even if you aren’t getting paid by brands, you’re certainly using them already. Whether it’s the shoes you’re wearing, the pen you’re writing with, the ingredients you’re cooking with… the list of potential brand partners is endless.
One effective way to pitch brands is to create examples of how they can naturally be integrated into your feed. Go ahead and tag REI in your post if you’re wearing their gear on a long hike and share your love of the customer experience. Or shout out the brand of seasoning that is the backbone of that favorite dish in your next cooking tutorial video. Whatever the brands are - start integrating them naturally and exemplify the value in a way that they can’t deny when you pitch them a paid partnership.
Tip #4: Start an Email List
This might be more top of mind for business owners, but all content creators on social media can benefit from a list of email subscribers. Person by person it’s both more reliable and more valuable to potential brand partners.
Why? Largely because people tend to be much more selective with email subscriptions arriving in their inbox versus who they follow on social media. But if you can offer unique value to entice followers to subscribe, this can become an incredibly powerful resource for your business and potential brand partnerships.
Tip #5: Get Outside Advice
Sometimes it’s hard to see the forest for the trees. We can all benefit from getting an outside perspective on what we’re doing, where we can add value, and how we can grow.
That doesn’t always mean hiring a full time management agency. For many creators, especially those that are early in their journey, the most benefit could be found in taking an online course or working with a consultant to tackle the lowest hanging fruit and set a course for success.
JDS Projects offers a Brand Partnerships Starter Bundle that’s designed to help all levels of micro-influencers optimize their digital platform for paid brand partnerships.
