How Can You Implement Social Media Into Affiliate Marketing? (2021)

Find out How You Can Do Affiliate Marketing With Social Media Below!

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Social media is one of the main communication channels for most people today. We rarely need to call our friends to know how they’re doing since everything reaches us through our news feed.

With billions using social media every day, it’s only logical that it’s also one of the main marketing channels for businesses. If you’re an affiliate marketer – promoting other people’s products for commissions – then finding new advertising approaches should always be a priority.

With that in mind, if you’re not using social media already, then you definitely should. Effective marketing is what makes or breaks people in this industry; if you don’t drive people to your content, all your hard work will go to waste.

With that in mind, let’s take a look into what you need to consider when venturing into social media marketing.

What do you have at your disposal?

When people think about social media, it’s usually 3 websites that come to mind: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter. Maybe Pinterest and LinkedIn fall into that category, if you’re really into social media as a tool, but that’s not everyone.

Most people use these channels – or at least one – on a daily basis, and they’re mostly to communicate with other people, catch any important news, and of course, memes. However, if you know how to use these sites with a marketing-centered approach, you can build quite the following to promote your products.

Sure, the websites I just mentioned gather the largest social media user base right now. However, you have a lot more options like Snapchat, Tumblr, groups inside Facebook, and even obscure platforms like Qzone and WeChat.

Sure, they’re smaller channels, but they’re great for targeting depending on your business’ niche. Some might be more popular with certain audiences than others as well, so make sure you research properly and find what works best for you.

On one hand, we have LinkedIn for industries like finances – more professional sectors – while Instagram is the favorite social platform for millennials; we also have Pinterest for people who prefer a visual-oriented approach.

Find which channels work better with your products, methods, and audience you want to reach.

Find your niche

You might think that marketing to everyone you can is the best approach, but it’s actually quite the opposite – especially when investing money into marketing. It’s easy to think that larger audiences mean more chances to make a sale; here’s when “quality over quantity” becomes paramount.

You dilute your efforts by appealing to wider audiences, and the best approach it’s to focus on specific areas. When finding products for affiliate marketing, this is what we mean by “narrowing down your niche”.

You don’t want to sell “diet supplements”; you want to sell “supplements for burning fat around your abdomen and thighs”. Find sub-categories within your products to appeal to the most precise audiences you can.

Figure out your content

Posting means nothing if you’re not doing it properly; always consider whether or not your content is actually what your target audience wants or enjoys. Ask yourself about the message you want to convey: is it easy to understand? Does it offer any valuable information to your followers?

Content quality should be your priority before hitting your posting button. You’re building a business, and anything you publish on any social media will be a reflection of your brand. Don’t rush anything, and review your posts before committing; you want to keep a standard.

Get good images

Speaking of quality, the same principle goes to the images you use to promote your offers on social media. Review them before sending them out to your public: is the quality good? Does it look too pixelated? Poor quality images will tarnish how your business looks to your customers.

Be harsh with your pictures if you have to. If the image is as good as you could take it, then what can you do to improve it? Is there a filter that could make it look better? Can you crop it or add some effects? If haven’t worked this way before, you should try Canva. Its free version is more than enough to learn the tropes, and even for a bit more than that.

Get good products

To finish the “quality” checklist, we have the products themselves. If you’re promoting cheap and low-quality products, then you might get a few sales until people start complaining on your own comments section.

You need trust to become profitable, and you need quality to gain that trust. Assess your products before promoting them; you should even consider getting a sample for yourself and test them thoroughly. 

Figure out the best schedule

Now that your content is relevant, your audience is the right one, and your images look great, it’s time to know when people are more likely to see it. There are many factors at play here: what you’re promoting, which industry it is, and which platform you’re using; they all play a role in which times of the day are better for posting.

That’s one of the secrets to create engagement. Some hours of the day work better than others if you want to maximize your exposure.

Research has been ongoing for years now, and you can easily find the relevant information on the internet. Remember: not all social media platforms work in the same way, so make sure you know the optimal schedule for each one you’re using.

Be consistent

People and habits go hand-in-hand, even if they not realize it. If you keep posting at the same time every time, people will inevitably start expecting to see posts from you around the usual times.

Consistency is the key to promote anything on social media, and it goes a really long way placing you on people’s news feed and ultimately boost your sales.

Sure, there are different times each day when it’s best to post on social media. However, which times you choose will do little if you can’t be consistent with your schedule. As you can see, each principle builds on the next one. Social media marketing is all about engagement, and there can’t be any if there aren’t posts to interact with.

Use special offers

A great way to boost your engagement with your audience is to promote special deals now and then. Everyone wants to save money and score bargains; that’s why it’s such a good approach to create interest around your products.

You have the standards: get two for the price of one, gift giveaways, and limited discounts. However, you can get creative, especially with social media. Think about special giveaways in which your followers have to upload a video about your product or share your content to increase their chances of winning.

There’s a lot you can do on social media with special promotions, so don’t be afraid to use your imagination.

Compare

Some affiliate marketers build their entire business by comparing their products to others; think about how many bloggers review products only to offer theirs as a better alternative. There’s a purpose for this: you need to show others why your offer is better than others available.

You can do this with side-to-side pictures, your captions, or even use articles on platforms like LinkedIn. The idea here is that you make it clear to your audience why yours is a better deal than others they can find.

Provide value

This is another approach you can use to increase the appeal of your offer – quite similar to the previous two recommendations.

You want your posts to provide value, not just say “hey, buy this because it’s good”. You want to reach out to people looking for solutions to make their lives more comfortable. If you can connect with what they want, your sales will increase.

Identify your audience and what they want. Once you have an idea of how they think, tailor your posts so that they address their needs directly. Remember that you can also gain loyalty by offering value to your customers right from the start.

Shorten links

It’s easy to receive long affiliate links, and these end up taking space on your posts that you could use for better purposes. Besides, they simply don’t look really good, and some people might dislike being directed to a sales page.

Shortening or “cloaking” links can help you make it look better and even prevent commission hijacks. They work just like the original link but shorter, and depending on how much you know about redirecting, you have numerous methods to do this. Luckily, even if you don’t really know how it works, you can use platforms like Pretty Links to do it quickly.

Contact influencers

There’s little reason to shy away from other marketers. In fact, if they’re not selling the exact same product or directly competing with you in some way, they can even be helpful.

You can network with other marketers to promote each other’s content and posts, and it’s a great way to increase your reach. You can find forums and social media groups that connect affiliate marketers with each other around certain niches.

While it might sound counter intuitive to collaborate with who’s supposed to be your competition, it’s often the opposite. It’s definitely a strategy worth testing.

Study your analytics

As I said, social media is now one of the leading marketing channels out there. This created an added benefit: in-depth analytics.

You usually have to turn your account into a business one, but it’s not as difficult as it sounds. Most of the time, it just requires a few clicks to verify you actually want to go through with the process, and that’s it. You now have access to a wealth of information that can help you decide where you want to go next.

You can learn virtually everything you need: engagement rating, post-performance, and even who’s your audience, depending on the platform.

You can then use this information to decide which ones are are your most successful posts and develop a unique style you can follow for all your posts and optimize your content.