AFFILIATE MARKETING
5 Ways To Grow Your Affiliate Marketing Side Hustle On Instagram
Side hustles are a great way to boost your income, and sometimes they even turn into something more than a side hustle, making them definitely worth a shot for anyone interested.
But where does one begin on the side hustle journey? And which side hustles are the best to try out?
We’ve got it all laid out here in a helpful guide to side hustles!
Specifically, we’ll talk about how affiliate marketing is one of the best options, especially if you’d like to use Instagram as one of your main tools. Insta can be a great way to reach your audience, especially when undertaking affiliate marketing.
So let’s dive right into how you can do exactly that!
5 ways to win on Instagram with affiliate marketing
Want to win at affiliate marketing?
It can be a valuable undertaking if you know what you’re doing – essentially, you earn commission on products by promoting them to followers on social media.
Here are some of our hot tips for making your affiliate marketing journey a success:
1. Add an affiliate link to your Instagram bio
When using affiliate marketing as a side hustle, it’s important to utilize Instagram’s link in bio feature. Here, you can provide a link to whatever products you’re promoting so your followers will have easy access to purchase them. And this is good for you because the more followers that purchase the products you’re promoting, the more money you’ll earn via commissions!
Although Instagram only allows each account to provide a single link in its bio, there are tools that allow you to turn one link into multiple. Essentially, when a user clicks on the link in your bio, they’ll be taken to a list of links that you have created. That’s where you can link multiple products or websites at one time.
2. Tag affiliate products as paid partnerships
Using the paid partnership feature on Instagram helps to establish you as an affiliate marketer or influencer.
When other users view your posts, they’ll see that you participate in paid partnerships, which gives you credibility as an influencer as well as promotes transparency between you and your audience.
When other brands view your posts and see that you participate in paid partnerships, they’re likely to be more interested in working with you as an affiliate marketer. And, when your followers see that a post is labeled as a paid partnership, they’ll likely be more inclined to check out what you’re promoting in the post, especially if you have a follower base that adheres closely to what you recommend.
3. Create content on product tutorials
Tutorials are all the rage these days – everyone seems to love watching them, especially with the rise in short-form video content. Use this to your advantage when promoting products!
If you’re looking to promote a particular product to your audience, try filming a tutorial on how to use it. This will get people familiar with the product, raise their curiosity, and overall increase their interest and likelihood of purchasing.
Plus, when your followers see you film a tutorial for a product, they’ll be seeing you use the product. This confirms that you actually use the products you promote, rather than just creating content that entices other people to buy the items.
People love to see “real-life” content, so sometimes a video filmed in your own kitchen resonates better than a photoshoot from an idyllic location.
4. Optimize your hashtags
Hashtags are one of the most valuable tools in your arsenal as a social media content creator! Social-media-based side hustles thrive on proper hashtag use, so make sure you’re using this feature to your advantage.
When promoting a product, make sure that you select hashtags related to that product or related to the audience that you are targeting. This will ensure that your post is promoted among the proper market of users.
It’s important that each of your posts has a unique set of hashtags – recycling the same tags over and over won’t get you anywhere. So, ensure that the hashtags you use on each post and story are relevant not only to your own account, but also to the specific product you’re promoting.
5. Track affiliate performance
One of the best parts about using Instagram for side hustles is that the app allows you to track the performance of all of your posts. The insights provided by Instagram are thorough and help you to keep an eye on how well each of your posts is received – so make sure to take advantage of this feature!
Using Instagram’s analytics, you can compare and contrast how successful your affiliate marketing posts are. This allows you to experiment with various techniques and determine which ones work best for you.
How to get started
Sold on the idea of affiliate marketing?
Here’s how you can get started!
1. Switch to creator
The first step you’ll want to take in this process is to switch your account into creator mode. In order to do this, simply navigate to the settings on your personal profile. Then select “account” and then “switch to professional account.” From there, all you need to do is select “creator.”
Now, you’ve got a professional creator account!
This will give you the ability to track the analytics and insights on the performance of your account’s posts, and your account will appear more official to viewers. You’ll also be able to learn more about your followers, create a contact button, and create promotions to reach a wider audience.
2. Focus on growing your followers
When using Instagram for an affiliate marketing side hustle, it’s important to ensure that you are reaching a sizeable audience. Without a significant amount of followers, your product promotions likely won’t be very successful.
In order to grow your audience and boost the success of your account, we recommend using a growth service like Kicksta.
Kicksta is an Instagram growth service that prides itself on providing organic growth to its customers. It’s a good idea to employ a service that promotes natural growth on the app, as this will lead you to reach a wider audience of genuine followers who are interested in your content and, therefore, more likely to purchase the products that you promote.
3. Pick the right affiliate partners
When starting out in affiliate marketing, it can feel exciting and overwhelming, and you may want to jump at every opportunity for a partnership that presents itself. However, it’s a good idea to be selective about the brands that you choose to work with.
As an affiliate marketer, you’ll be developing a social media presence that is a reflection of who you are. Therefore, you should only promote products that fall in line with your personal branding as well as the values that you want to promote on your page.
When determining which brands you’ll partner with, consider what your page stands for. Are you a health and wellness account? Fashion and beauty? Family-based? Travel? Each of these is a unique sort of branding, and certain products will align better with some accounts than with others. So make sure that you carefully craft a list of affiliate partners who work well with the branding you’ve developed for your own page.
4. Share your unique link
As an affiliate marketer, you’ll receive a unique link from your affiliate program. This is the link that your followers will click when looking into the products that you’re promoting. It’s important for you to share this link specifically, as it’ll allow your affiliate program to track your performance as a marketer.
Your affiliate program will be able to track the sales, clicks, and commissions garnered from your unique link, which is important to your success as an affiliate marketer. So, when looking to grow a successful side hustle in this area, it’ll be important to boost this link to make sure that your followers use it as much as possible!
Ready, set, market!
Are you geared up to create a successful affiliate marketing side hustle now?
We hope that this article has been helpful in developing your understanding of the value of using Instagram for affiliate marketing.
Among all the side hustles that you can choose from, affiliate marketing can certainly be a lucrative – and fun – option!
So, why not give it a shot? Keep these tips in mind, and refer back to this article for guidance throughout the process. And, of course…Good luck!
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AFFILIATE MARKETING
The Cities and States Where Side Hustles Could Earn the Most
More than half (54%) of Americans say they’ve started a side hustle to supplement their primary source of income in the last 12 months, according to a survey from MarketWatch Guides.
Although there’s no shortage of potential opportunities — side hustles can span teaching online to cleaning barbecues, creating digital products and so much more — one doesn’t necessarily have the same earning power as the next.
Related: 10 of the Most Profitable Side Hustles You Can Start With Little or No Money
Choosing a side hustle is one crucial piece of the puzzle — but where you decide to start it is another that might make or break your success.
So where in the U.S. do side hustlers have the greatest earning potential?
The team at SideHustles.com conducted a study to find out, analyzing data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ American Community Survey to determine which states and cities have the highest percentage of residents earning self-employment income and their average earnings.
Households in North Dakota, New Jersey and Connecticut earn the most from self-employment income, at $60,221, $55,748 and $55,192, per the data from SideHustle.com.
Lake Charles, Louisiana, has the highest average self-employment earnings at $179,080 per household, followed by San Tan Valley, Arizona ($141,459) and Upland, California ($130,291), the analysis found.
Related: The Top 10 U.S. Cities for Starting a Side Hustle, According to Statistics
Read on to see the top five cities and states where people earn the most, on average, from self-employment income, according to the study:
Top five cities where self-employed earn the most
- Lake Charles, Louisiana: $179,080
- San Tan Valley, Arizona: $141,459
- Upland, California: $130,291
- Newton, Massachusetts: $118,527
- Bethesda, Maryland: $110,573
Related: This 20-Year-Old Student Started a Side Hustle With $400 — and It Earned $150,000 Over the Summer
Top five states where self-employed earn the most
- North Dakota: $60,221
- New Jersey: $55,748
- Connecticut: $55,192
- Massachusetts: $54,712
- California: $53,639
AFFILIATE MARKETING
I Lead a Company Built Through Decades of Acquisitions. Here’s a Key to Making Them Successful
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Despite the fanfare that often accompanies acquisitions, the reality is that about 80% fail to achieve their desired objectives.
After all, there’s a lot that can go wrong. Inadequate due diligence. Overvaluation. Poor integration planning and execution. A failure to retain employees from the new company.
And yet, businesses spend more than $2 trillion on acquisitions annually. Why? It’s often unrealistic for a company to build all that’s needed to reach its strategic goals fast enough to remain competitive. An acquisition, however, presents an opportunity to quickly expand a business’s ecosystem, tapping into new relationships, distribution channels, products and innovations.
I lead an entertainment technology company — composed of iconic brands like TiVo and DTS — that has grown our ecosystem through 15 acquisitions in the last decade alone. What has the experience taught me?
The success of an acquisition is about more than the nuts and bolts of the deal itself; you’re not just buying a technology, product or service to tack onto your company offerings. You’re also gaining institutional knowledge and bringing thought leaders on board who could help steer your business.
I believe one of the most critical aspects of an acquisition’s success is too often overlooked: the people. Here’s what I’ve learned about how they can be the difference-makers in the lead-up to and aftermath of a deal.
Related: 5 Reasons Small Businesses Should Consider Mergers and Acquisitions
The “why” has to include the “who”
Sure, pre-deal due diligence involves evaluating the potential profits and risks of an acquisition. But it also requires searching for leaders, along with the systems and cultures they’ve developed, that are likely to contribute to your company’s growth.
In dynamic industries like tech, companies often need to pivot to remain competitive. That means it’s essential to ask this question when evaluating incoming leaders: Whose strategic thinking, leadership skills and decision-making style do you want on your side, even if you end up shifting them to new areas in the future?
We learned the importance of this consideration from an early acquisition. The technology we’d bought eventually became outdated, but that CEO has remained an instrumental member of our leadership suite for more than a decade, and an acquired team under his leadership has transitioned to form the foundation of one the most exciting arms of our business: our connected car platform.
Once you’ve found a company with the resources and people that will likely benefit your business and conditions enable sensible valuations, developing an integration plan before the deal closes is imperative.
We accomplish this by identifying change champions — committed leaders who are strong communicators, open to feedback, adaptable, resilient and collaborative — from both companies to rally our people. Then, we create detailed checklists for the first year or more, often including thousands of line items from assigning desks to implementing training events, all to move us swiftly toward our goals of a fully integrated team and business asset.
Related: How Leaders Can Build Acquisition-Ready Companies
Use it as an opportunity to reimagine culture
Many people see an acquisition as an opportunity to innovate — adding and evolving products and developing strategies for new markets. One thing they often overlook, though, is the chance to innovate company culture. Specifically, to pick and choose the best of both of what the companies are doing to establish a new normal.
Often, the default assumption is that the acquiring company’s culture will remain dominant. But that can sometimes be a mistake.
Many times, bringing two companies together and fusing their resources and operations creates an entirely new company — one that may benefit from a cultural change.
For example, following a merger, we realized our previous corporate values no longer accurately reflected the new company. So we reset them. It wasn’t always easy: It took a long-term project involving employee input throughout. It also required objectivity at the leadership level to stay open to new ways of working and communicating. However, the initiative resulted in a set of values that more meaningfully illustrated our evolved mission and culture and set us on a path toward greater success.
Related: How to Create a High-Performance Organization Through a Successful Merger
Move as quickly and transparently as possible
A deal closing can feel like crossing the finish line for those overseeing it. But when you look over your shoulder, you see that most employees are just lining up at the start. The real marathon begins after the closing: It takes steady work to get the rest of the company across the finish line to reap the anticipated gains of the deal.
We’ve found that approaching this integration process with a focus on urgency, sensitivity and transparency is key to retaining as many employees as possible, along with the crucial institutional knowledge and skills they hold.
This means we work fast to communicate our plan openly and honestly. For instance, within 45 days of a recent acquisition, we got leaders physically in front of 80% of the team. This approach aims to mitigate uncertainty by laying out plans and providing clarity on roles and opportunities. Research shows that transparency can engender trust, so when the answer to a question is, “We don’t know yet,” leaders should prioritize being upfront about that.
We also expressed empathy. Acknowledging that it’s natural to feel anxious about uncertainty and change is important to build morale during a time of transition.
About a third of employees from an acquired company tend to leave within the first year due to uncertainty or culture clashes. But time and time again, we’ve seen that a deliberate process has helped to improve on this trend. While it’s not always possible for all employees to stay on, voluntary turnover within a year of our last two acquisitions was just 15%.
Defining success
There are many ways to define a successful acquisition: meeting financial goals, expanding relationships or staking a hold in new markets. We’ve seen this firsthand. For example, strategic acquisitions have allowed our business to significantly amplify our global footprint of streaming devices and open up new monetization opportunities.
While these elements are critically important, we view success even more broadly. It also means our team feels they’re continuously working toward a worthy goal. And viewing people as vital to the success of an acquisition has helped us to assemble a team prepared and motivated to do just that: deliver innovative, extraordinary experiences to our customers.
AFFILIATE MARKETING
How to Get the Most Out of Your Link-Building Efforts
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Five years from now, 94% of marketers think that links will continue to be a ranking factor in Google algorithms.
However, many companies offering link-building services engage in questionable practices, such as selling links from manipulated or low-quality websites. These links can not only fail to provide value but may also harm the website receiving them. Therefore, it’s essential to exercise caution when hiring an external partner for link building.
So, here are a few key tips to help SaaS businesses get the maximum from their link-building efforts.
Related: 10 Powerful Link-Building Tactics for Boosting Your Website’s SEO
1. Take metrics with a grain of salt
It’s crucial to approach metrics with skepticism. Website owners often inflate numbers like Domain Rating (DR). You might see a DR of 70, but in reality, the website holds little to no authority in Google’s eyes. Of course, that’s not always the case. In reality, Domain Rating correlates with higher rankings
While metrics can be useful, especially when sorting through large lists of websites, don’t rely on them alone. Always look deeper into the site’s real quality.
2. Organic traffic for real keywords is key
Pay attention to the keywords a website ranks for. Ideally, the site you’re getting backlinks from should have organic traffic, which shows Google values it. More importantly, the traffic should come from relevant, industry-specific keywords. Some sites may rank for irrelevant terms like “celebrity news” despite being in a completely different niche — or worse, they may use fake traffic. Always ensure the keywords are a good fit for your business.
3. Get links from real businesses
The best way to determine if a website is worth getting a backlink from is to see if it’s a real business. Many sites exist solely to sell links and are often just link farms. Focus on acquiring links from legitimate businesses, as these are the ones that offer the most value.
4. Use internal links
Let’s face it — quality link building is hard. And if you find it hard to get backlinks to your service or landing pages, start by linking to your blog posts instead. Then, use internal linking across your site to ensure link equity flows throughout your pages. Without proper internal linking, you won’t fully benefit from the backlinks you’re building.
Related: Top 8 Backlink Strategies to Boost Your Traffic
5. Prioritize links to target pages
When building backlinks, your main focus should be on your money-making pages. Links to these pages are critical. If you’re working with an agency, ensure they are targeting specific commercial pages. Even if you’re only getting a couple of links per page per month, if they’re targeted, it’s highly effective.
6. Optimize anchors
Anchor text optimization is essential. From my experience, optimized anchor texts perform very well. If you’re hiring an agency, send them a list of preferred anchor texts along with your target pages, so they can focus on both elements.
7. Focus on do-follow links
There’s ongoing debate about the impact of no-follow links on rankings. While no-follow links have some influence, it’s hard to quantify. Based on my observations, they seem to be about 30-50% as effective as do-follow links. In a LinkedIn poll I conducted, 43% of participants believed no-follow links were 25% or less effective than do-follow. However, keep in mind that many respondents may not have had enough experience, so their opinions are just that — opinions.
8. Get listed on the top of listicle posts
There are countless “comparison” and “alternatives” pages for popular tools, generating significant search volumes. For instance, searches like “Canva alternatives” are common. If your product is in a competitive niche, you want to be featured as the number one option on these pages created by bloggers and websites. Not only will you gain valuable backlinks, but you’ll also get more clicks and recommendations as the top alternative, greatly boosting your link-building efforts.
This also creates a snowball effect. Future writers and bloggers working on alternatives for that specific tool will often reference existing lists. When they see your product featured prominently, they’re more likely to include it in their own lists, further amplifying your exposure and link-building efforts.
9. Outsource to the right company
According to some research, 56% of SaaS marketing departments utilize a combination of in-house and outsourced staff to reach their marketing objectives.
When selecting a company, make sure they specialize in link building for SaaS and deliver high-quality work, as word of mouth and testimonials can be very effective indicators of their reliability.
Related: How to Shake Up a Stale Link Building Strategy
In summary, while links remain vital for SEO, it’s crucial to prioritize quality over quantity. Focus on securing high-quality backlinks that directly target your key pages, using optimized anchor texts to make a meaningful impact. Your link-building strategy should align with your overall branding strategy to maximize effectiveness. By being selective and strategic in your approach, you can build a robust link profile that genuinely enhances your SaaS business’s online presence.
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