Who doesn’t have a social media account nowadays? All of us have at least one account, whether it’s on Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, etc. We spend most of our free time and weekends scrolling through social media platforms, especially Instagram and Facebook. We use both for similar yet different usages. YEAH! That’s the topic today, which about how to make money on Instagram and Facebook in Malaysia.
Instagram is a platform where pictures and videos speak the most to the audience. It started off as only a photo and video sharing platform back in 2010. Now, it is used as a way to gain followers, become influencers, earn money, promote businesses and more.
Facebook on the other hand started off as a friend-finder platform in 2004. From a small beginning of only amongst the founder’s friends, it has now become one of the largest social networking platforms in the world. Users can connect with anyone from anywhere, send messages, share anything, make money, promote their brand, etc.
As much as new social media platforms are rising every now and then, Facebook and Instagram still remain at the top as everyone’s preferred apps and accounts to have. Users, brands, business and top companies realised that these apps have a massive impact on a wide range of audience. So, making use of these platforms to make money, whether for the users of businesses, is a good marketing strategy.
Before diving into how to earn money online via Instagram and Facebook, let’s look at what criteria do you need first beforehand.
What do you need to do to make money from Instagram and Facebook?
It sounds very easy to make money from Instagram and Facebook, right? After all, we spend hours scrolling, posting, liking, commenting and sharing on these platforms so imagine if you get paid for doing those activities!
However, before you can do so, there are several criteria you should meet to make it easier for you.
- Find your niche – Niche refers to one topic that you’re interested in and good at. Choosing a topic doesn’t have to mean that you will be limited. When comparing influencers that talk about everything to the ones that have a niche, most people prefer the latter. So, if you’re really into makeup, then be creative to cover topics that come under this niche. It makes it easier for the audience to trust your ability in this niche and visit your page for makeup related content.
- Grow your followers – 10k followers, 100k followers and some even have 1.5 million followers; do these really matter? Well, it’s a yes and no answer. Firstly, yes, a number of followers are important to gauge your reach. If you have 100 or 200 followers, no brands or business are going to pay for your content for your friends. Also, the payment is usually depending on the number of followers you have. The no answer means that you don’t need thousands or millions of followers to be able to make money. You can start with 1k or 2k followers also. This is because of the quality over quantity feature. You can have 10k or 20k followers but if your likes and comments are not even 1% of it, then you do not have engagement. Imagine if you have a close-knitted community of 3k followers and every content you post gets 500 to 1000 likes and comments. That is way more valuable to invest in.
- Increase engagement – Remember in the previous point where quality over quantity was mentioned? That is called engagement and it is very important when it comes to Facebook and Instagram. Engagement is mainly about how you interact with your followers and vice versa that keeps them interested in you and your content. So, as you grow your followers, pay attention to increasing engagement too.
- Post quality content – If all you know is posting selfies with random captions, then you need to take a step back and start re-evaluating your content type. In the beginning, maybe people would like to see your face. However, unless you’re Johnny Depp or Angelina Jolie, no one wants to keep seeing your face and copied captions with no meaning. Your content is based on your niche so take the effort to research the topics you can post about and be creative on new topics you can create under that niche. For example, taking the makeup niche mentioned earlier, you can post selfies with your makeup but make sure they are high-quality so the details are there. In the captions, make sure you tag and mention the products you use.
- Pay attention to the analytics/algorithms – There is a reason that Facebook and Instagram have tools for analytics and algorithms. If your Instagram account is a business one and you have a Business Page on Facebook, you will have access to this tool. They are there to help you with your content posting and engagement. You can see how many views your content has gotten, whether it increased or decreased, if there were any interactions, whether you gained followers, etc. By using this tool, you can try new content or create similar content to the ones that obtained the most engagement.
7 ways how to make money on Instagram and Facebook
Now, let’s look at 7 ways you can make money online on Instagram and Facebook.
Do Paid Advertising Posts
If you have a specific number of followers with the right ratio of engagement, you can approach brands and business to do paid advertising posts for them. This is what influencers are usually doing and to earn money. As we all know, influencers are the ones that have a huge following and engagement. They are adored by their audience and are being sought for any advice related to their niche, like fashion, food, sports, etc. They are also the ones responsible for trend settings and are trusted for their opinions on a product. So, businesses and brands realise the ‘power’ that these users have, hence they collaborate with them on sponsored posts. This helps to spread the word about their products and the audience will trust the reviews. Sometimes, if you’re good enough and well-known, the brands will seek after you. Just remember to keep in mind that you need to stay true to your niche most of the time. If you only do paid advertising posts, your followers might lose interest since you are not focused on your niche.
Make Use of Affiliate Links
You can also signup to become an affiliate on retail or e-commerce sites if your Facebook and/or the Instagram page has a large following. This means marketing things relating to your specialised space from such shopping sites. If you have a business account on Instagram, you can add affiliate links. When their followers buy things after clicking on affiliate marketing links in their social media postings, content producers get paid. There are many affiliate programmes to choose from like Lazada for fashion, Shopee for various products and even Amazon.
Sell your Photos Online
At one point in your life, whether for assignments, meetings or blog posts, you would have used stock images. On Facebook and Instagram, photos play a very important role to capture the audience’s attention. They will be attracted visually first before even knowing your content or caption. That is what you need for your Instagram and Facebook, and probably many others who need it too. All you need to do is showcase on your pages that you take excellent, high-quality photos and you accept commissions too. You can reuse old photos, provided they are not taken by anyone else or take new photos according to clients’ request.
Shout Out
Apart from celebrities, most of the pages with huge followers usually offer this option. Since they have about 10k or even 70k followers, they occasionally do shout outs for users or pages with lesser followers. This helps that particular page to reach a wider audience and increase the follower count. It not a guaranteed immediate increase but people would definitely check out the page since it was promoted by this high-following page. For example, if Kylie Jenner shares content from anywhere, her followers would definitely check out the page she shared from. Same thing here, just that this is a paid shout out. In exchange for a small fee, you promote these small-time pages on your account to help them gain followers quickly.
Facebook Marketplace and Instagram Online Shop
This service, which was added in 2017, allows users to purchase and sell products in their local area. Marketplace, like Shopee and Lazada, lists things from a variety of categories, including clothing, electronics, autos, furniture, and more. Buyers may refine their searches in that city by utilising filters such as price and distance, and the greatest thing is that it’s a free feature. This does not require any follower list but more on reviews. However, if you have both a huge following and good reviews, your products would appear frequently to users. All you need to do is post a good picture of your products and the details, then just share it around for more exposure.
Sell Coaching Services
Have you ever wondered how to make money on Instagram and Facebook? You see all these people getting paid via sponsored ads, they get to travel everywhere and all they do is post stories and content every day with much engagement. If you know how the algorithms work on Instagram and Facebook, what ticks the system and what makes you reach engagement, you can earn money! Just like how you were, there are people out there who want to grow big with their pages but don’t know how to. With reasonable packages and fees, you can sell your coaching services to them and help them grow. With further testimonies from them, you can easily become an Instagram and Facebook Coach.
Manage Social Media Posts
Did you know that some Instagram and Facebook pages, especially famous brands, are not run by the original owners? They have a team of social media specialists that search and create content, post it out and handle the engagement. Now, not everyone can afford to have a team unless you are huge. A small-town baker, for instance, might want to grow her followers but he/she is too busy baking the orders to bother about this. This is where you can come in. With your knowledge and skills about social media, you can help people like these at a fee. You can guide them in terms of content type, captions, posting time, etc. for increased traffic. In fact, you can even handle their social media accounts for a while and coach them.
Conclusion
Instead of scrolling through social media mindlessly, you can consider these options to make money. After all, you only need about an hour a day to go through your social media, plan out the content and then post it. Do these consistently with perseverance and you will see results by earning some extra cash.