Have you ever thought about how you could monetize your social media? It’s probably crossed your mind here and there, but it’s likely that you don’t know how easy it can be. ?You see other people doing it and you probably think to yourself that you’ll eventually do the same. Now, your #1 priority should be to use your social media to grow your practice, but by the end of this blog post, you’ll realize that you can start to monetize your social media accounts faster than you think!
Here’s the thing, you put a lot of work into building up a presence online and while you can grow your practice tremendously and consistently get new patients into your office using social media, you can also use your social influence to create more of a passive income. All the hard work that you are putting into building up an online community can have more benefits for you than you anticipated!?
So that’s why in this blog, I wanted to share how you can use the following that you have on social media to make money in addition to attracting new patients. I know that it may be a bit scary to think how you can monetize your social media, it may even seem like a foreign language but it?s really not that complicated…I promise! To keep things as simple as possible, I?m going to share the top three ways that I think you, as a healthcare professional, can monetize your social media.
BY THE WAY: I want you to remember that no matter what, you should never endorse products or services that you don’t know about, or that you don’t like/wouldn’t use just to make a buck here and there. ?You are putting all of your energy into building a community that trusts you and knows you are authentic. ?So DO NOT promote products/service that you wouldn’t use yourself, or that you don’t think are absolutely amazing.
Now that I got that out of the way, let’s talk about how you can monetize your social media.
Affiliate Programs
The easiest way to monetize your social media accounts is to become an affiliate for different products that you already use and love. Being an affiliate looks like this: (1) you sign up for the program, (2) you tell people aka your following about the product and why you love it, and (3) if someone purchases through your link you?re able to earn a percentage of that sale. You don?t have to worry about delivering anything, handling customer service, or anything else besides sharing your link. It?s a great way to make money on the things that you?re already using and by sharing them with your audience.
Brand Collaborations
One of the most lucrative but also time-consuming ways to monetize your social media is to work with brands directly. So, this is a bit different from affiliate programs because they are (1) usually going to be offering a lot more money, (2) you?re working directly with the brand or a brand agent, and (3) the promotional guidelines will be set for you. Typically once you reach a certain level on your social media accounts you will have brands reaching out to you. But, you will also have to do some work to reach out to brands that you want to work with as well.
Sell Your Own Products
This one might be the scariest one for you. I am pretty sure that you have never thought of yourself as a product creator (or maybe you have. . .). But, the truth is that you have so much knowledge that you can share with your audience. Think about all of the tips that you share with your patients. You could create a product that’s in line with what you do and share it with your followers. ?Now I know that this can take a lot of work, and you probably don’t have the time for it now, but it’s something to keep in the back of your mind as you are growing your social media and growing your practice. The sky is really the limit.?
So which of these are you the most excited about implementing into your overall social media strategy? One of the easiest way to get started is to become an affiliate for the programs that you already know and love. Amazon makes this super easy for us because we can easily become an affiliate for the largest retailer in the world. In fact, I have created a cheat sheet for you to help you get started! It’s going to walk you through the steps of becoming an affiliate partner! You can download it below! Have fun!