You use Facebook to connect with old friends and family members. It’s a place to showcase your life; to share statuses, pictures, and events.
You can even kill time and play games there, cementing bonds with your other buddies.
On the business side of things, Facebook can actually be a valuable money-making tool. If you use this social media platform the right way, you can bring in some significant bank.
While some of our tips for earning on Facebook require some marketing knowledge and expertise, others are much easier to understand and implement than you might have thought.
Here are 13 handy tactics for making money on Facebook.
1. Sell Physical Items on Your Facebook Page Store
Your Facebook business page, just so you know, is different than your personal page. That means it comes with tons of great perks, like industry news, advertising options, and analytics.
You may have missed it, but you can also sell stuff on your Facebook business page. How handy is that? While we don’t advise foregoing an ecommerce store on your website, you can sell on both.
That said, there are rules about what you can and can’t sell on Facebook. If your company sells services instead of tangible products, you’re out of luck. Facebook only allows for the sale of royalty-free, sub-licensable tangible products.
According to Facebook, the availability to set up these shops varies by location. If your company is based in the United States, you should be able to add a store to your business page.
Okay, so this all sounds good, you’re thinking. There’s just one snag. If customers can find your company on your Facebook page and shop there too, why would they even bother visiting your website?
Facebook thought ahead with that. You have the option to redirect customers to your website during checkout. You can also choose to let customers check out through Facebook if that’s preferable.
2. Make Sponsored Posts
We’ve discussed the concept of sponsored posts in the past, but it bears repeating: sponsored posts can net you some serious cash.
With these posts, another company is paying you to write good things about their products and services. These posts may be subtler or more blatant. You slot these into your editorial calendar and post them on your blog like you would any other time.
The difference is how much money you can make with sponsored posts. One of our Income School founders was able to rake in $1,500 for each sponsored blog post he wrote!
So what does this have to do with Facebook?
You can use the social media tool to promote your posts.
If you’ve ever scrolled through Facebook and noticed a post from a brand you don’t follow, you’ve seen a promoted post in action.
You will have to pay to get your posts promoted. To do so, log on to your Facebook business page. Go to the post you want to sponsor. You should see a “boost post†button.
From there, you can select the audience you want to reach (by city, age, gender, and tags), and how much money you want to spend.
If it’s not in the budget for you to spend money promoting posts right now, you can always count on good old-fashioned shares to circulate your sponsored content.
3. Use Affiliate Links
Affiliate marketing is like sponsored posting. Another company will give you money to sell its products through your site. You must convince your audience to buy these products through reviews and blog posts.
To make the most money, you can share affiliate links on Facebook. This broadens your audience even more.
Hopefully, by combining your Facebook traffic and the traffic from your website, you can turn affiliate marketing into a reliable income stream.
So how do you even find companies that are looking to start affiliations? We recommend going to
CJ.com, which is Conversant’s website (the company was once known as Commission Junction).
There, you can dig deeper into the ins and outs of affiliate marketing and research companies that may be willing to become affiliates with you.
4. Write an eBook and Market it on Facebook
Your knowledge and experience in your field makes you an expert. You’ve decided to share what you know and write an eBook. You’ve put a lot of time and care into this book, as you want it to be an informative resource others in your field can use.
Now comes the trickiest part: promoting it.
You’ve probably devoted a portion of your website to marketing your eBook. Your blog posts include pop-ups and other offers to get customers to buy the book. You subtly link to the book when you can.
Don’t forget to use social media to your advantage, too.
Go on your Facebook business page and sell, sell, sell. Share every blog post you write about the eBook. Post links for customers to buy. Include reviews and testimonials about how useful your book is.
Through steady promotion, your eBook sales should be exceptional. You can then write another eBook and wash, rinse, and repeat.
5. Link to Money-Making Articles on Your Blog
Who doesn’t want more website traffic?
The lengths you go to get that traffic can be expensive.
Why not save your money and use your free Facebook business page as a promotional tool?
The more traffic you get, the more potential sales. These visitors will travel your sales funnel and, if you’re lucky, bite at your core offer. They’ll sign up to your newsletter, too. That completes their conversion from visitors to customers.
The next time you write a huge, money-making blog post, share it on Facebook. Encourage your followers to like and share it. If they do that, then each follower’s social network sees the post. Each of those networks could comprise hundreds of people.
By that logic, you now have a potential audience of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands. That’s all from using a free social media platform.
6. Offer Consulting Services
We already mentioned how you can share your knowledge in an eBook. If you’ve already written an eBook or decided that option’s not for you, why not consult instead?
As a consultant, you’re charging people to answer their questions, offer them guidance, share tips, and maybe even come up with a marketing plan. Through your consulting, they can get the information they need to market themselves successfully.
You don’t have to give up your day job (as a marketer), so to speak, to be a consultant. You can offer your services right on your website in addition to your other products and services.
Again, just like your eBook, promotion is key. As good as you may be, if no one knows you’re offering consulting services, no one can buy these from you.
In addition to promoting your consulting on your blog, let your Facebook followers know. Promote this new service on your business page. Link people to your landing page.
Since consulting isn’t a tangible product, you won’t be able to sell your services on Facebook, but you can redirect traffic from Facebook. That’s just as good.
7. Sell Your Facebook Page
Your Facebook page will continue to
grow over time if you keep up the hard work. You could have thousands, sometimes even millions of followers. Over time, your objectives may change.
For personal or business reasons, you may decide to deactivate your Facebook. It happens. Before you head over to your Facebook settings to get rid of your page, think about its potential.
Specifically, think about your page’s money-making potential.
Although you can’t do it through Facebook, you can personally sell your Facebook page to a willing buyer.
Of course, you shouldn’t sell your page to just anyone. You want to make sure there’s a match between you two. The more similar your industries, the better.
If you’re a marketing company, for example, and there’s an SEO service for lawyers that’s interested in buying, that’s a good fit. If you’re a bakery and a restaurant wants to buy your page, that also works.
So how much should you charge for your page? That’s completely up to you. As a best practice, you should make sure the amount you’re charging is commensurate with your page’s popularity. The more followers you have, the more you can charge. It wouldn’t be unheard of for a page with 80,000 likes to fetch $10,000 or more.
That’s a pretty hefty paycheck for simply selling a page you don’t want anymore.
8. Go on Fiverr and Sell Links There
If you’re not up for selling your whole Facebook page, you can sell links instead.
Yes, link-selling is common, although not as publicized as other marketing tricks and tactics.
These backlinks can be quite valuable for the right buyer. SEO resource
Ahrefs reviewed several thriving industries last year, including the wedding, finance, fitness, fashion, and travel industries. The research found that of the link-selling offers made to 50 sites in the respective industry:
So why so few takers?
There are a few reasons. First, selling links can damage your Google rating. If you can quietly sell links to an interested party, you may incur no penalties, emphasis on the “may.†For some companies though, they’re not willing to take that risk.
Then there’s the cost. Ahrefs found that a basic link-selling offer is between $100-$350 per link.
For smaller businesses, that cost may be too astronomical for them to consider. If you’re in that boat, you can always use the service Fiverr to shop for links. These cost about five dollars, which makes them affordable for businesses at any stage.
While link-selling may not be for everybody, it’s an option worth considering.
9. Sell T-Shirts
You want to know one of the easiest ways to market your company?
It’s relatively inexpensive. It doesn’t require promotional efforts on your part.
What is it?
Selling t-shirts.
All you have to do is make a t-shirt with your name and logo slapped on the front (or back, or front and back!). There are wholesale distribution companies that will design, print, store, and even ship your t-shirts. That takes all the onus off you.
T-shirts are free marketing. When your customers wear your shirt and go out, people see that shirt. They get curious so they grab their phone and look you up. They dig a bit into your company.
Maybe they buy, or maybe they don’t. They may refer a friend who’s a better fit or sign up to your newsletter to learn more.
You can get some pretty solid leads just by making t-shirts.
Why stop there? Try ordering some pens, mousepads, stress balls, hats, hoodies, and other cool swag with your logo on it.
Since these are tangible items, you can promote and sell your t-shirts and other merchandise on your Facebook business page.
10. Use Patreon
Do you make stuff? If you’re a creator or artist, you should strongly consider using Patreon for some extra cash.
What is Patreon?
It’s not quite a donation service. Instead, your customers are charged to see your progress on current and upcoming projects.
Each time you create something, you get paid. Customers can opt to pay for each project or just a flat monthly fee. The more projects you undertake and finish, the more money you can potentially make.
No matter what industry you’re in, we’re sure you can find something to promote on Patreon. Here are the industries that use this service:
Theater and danceDIY and craftsEducationScienceComedyPhotographyVideo gamesPodcastsAnimation, painting, and drawingComicsWritingMusicFilm and videoEven if you’re a marketer, you can still make use of Patreon. Why not start a podcast, do some creative writing, or make some videos for your site? (More on that later!)
11. Advertise Your Skills
That entry about Patreon may have got you brainstorming your own skills and how these can make you money. If your expertise lies slightly outside of Patreon’s limits, no problem.
Your Facebook business page is the perfect place to advertise your skills and availability. You already have a sizeable audience on Facebook. When you post, you can guarantee that many your followers will see your content.
Some of these followers may need services. Who better to go to than you?
Maybe you feel like writing an extra blog post this week. You could be skilled in graphic design and offer website design services. Whatever it is you’re good at, promote it on Facebook.
Don’t just accept the first offer that comes your way, though. Do a bit of digging first. Click the Facebook page of the other party and read about them.
Do they seem legit? Scams exist, even on Facebook. You don’t want to get hoodwinked out of money and do work for free.
12. Facebook Ads
In addition to the ads you run online for your company, you might want to consider buying Facebook Ads, too.
If you have a business page, you can already use Facebook Ads. You get to create your advertising campaign from scratch, choosing the awareness level (local or brand awareness), your consideration (more app installs, better engagement, or more traffic), and your conversion goals (like visitor conversions, product sales, or store visits).
You also get to choose where on Facebook your ad is placed and which audience you’re marketing towards.
If you want your ad to look a certain way, that’s also up to you. You can select the media and the format for your ad.
That said, it does cost money to use Facebook Ads. For the initial cost though, the success of your ads should more than recoup the money you spent.
13. Make Live Videos on Facebook
If you’re on Facebook today, it’s hard to avoid them. It seems like everyone’s trying out making live videos.
While this is a relatively new Facebook feature, the social media giant created a monetization policy in the summer of 2015. If you’ve ever received monetization on YouTube, you’ll find Facebook’s policy isn’t all that different.
Under the policy, the ads that run before a video drive the money-making potential. Facebook gets 45 percent of the revenue from those ads while you, the one who made the video, get 55 percent.
That’s not a raw deal at all, considering you get more than half of the cut.
Videos let you connect with your customers in a new and unique way. You get to show off your personality, which customers appreciate today. Seeing that you’re more than just a product-shilling marketing machine humanizes you. It could also help drive brand loyalty.
While your videos should be professional, have fun with them, too. Since these clips are live, have a plan ahead of time. This isn’t YouTube, where you can shoot and reshoot until you have the perfect take. With Facebook video, you must have the perfect take the first time.
Therefore, the less pressure you put on yourself, the better.
Conclusion
If you’re using Facebook solely to connect with old friends, you’re using it wrong. There are so many ways to make money on this social media platform. If you take the time to create a Facebook business page and keep it active while following these suggestions, the money should start rolling right in.
Income School LLC is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. Income School LLC also participates in affiliate programs with Bluehost, Clickbank, CJ, ShareASale, and other sites. Income School LLC is compensated for referring traffic and business to these companies.
YOUTUBE
ABOUT
INFO
AN ELITE CAFEMEDIA FINANCE
Ac
