How to Make Money with Social Media: 4 Ways to Start Earning Today!

People are making a lot of money as influencers. For instance, Rosanna Pansino turned her YouTube baking channel into a massive business, earning seven figures annually through sponsorships and advertisements. Similarly, Olivia Dunne, an NCAA gymnast, leveraged her TikTok and Instagram followings to secure endorsement deals totaling seven figures.

But you don’t need to be a famous professional to use social media to earn a living or to make some extra cash.

All you need is a little time and willingness to work hard to promote yourself.

Best Ways to Make Money on Social Media

Here are some of the best ways you can leverage social media to make money:

1. Make Money as a Brand Sponsor & Affiliate Marketer

One of the best ways to make money on social media is through brand sponsorships and affiliate marketing.

Companies of all kinds pay you to promote their brands to your followers. The good news is that you don’t need millions of followers to make this work for you. Sure, the more followers and engagement you have on your social media accounts, the more you can charge, but even with a few thousand followers, you can make decent money.

What if you are just starting out and don’t even have a few thousand followers?

No worries, you can still use affiliate links to promote brands and make money. Simply share your affiliate links in your content, and every time someone clicks on the link and buys something from that company, you get a cut!

Websites like Amazon Associates and ShareASale are great affiliate marketing programs to start with.

2. Sell Your Own Products or Services

Another great way to turn your social media presence into money is by using it to sell your own stuff.

Whether it’s digital products (like eBooks and courses), merchandise, or coaching services, you can use platforms like Instagram Shops and Etsy to sell to your followers.

3. Monetize Your Content with Ads

One of the easiest and most popular ways to make money with social media sites is through ads that are displayed within or alongside your content.

YouTube’s Partner Program, TikTok Creator Fund, and Facebook Reels bonuses pay you (content creators) based on views and engagement. The more engaging your content, the more you earn.

4. Offer Freelancing & Social Media Consulting

If you are particularly good at creating content that drives engagement on social media, you can actually use that skill to make money by working as a social media freelancer or consultant.

Companies pay people to do things like social media management, content creation, or video editing.

So, if you have any of these skills, you are already halfway there!

Best Social Media Sites for Making Money

Not all social media platforms pay the same, so choosing the right one depends on your skills and audience.

Instagram & TikTok

If you are going for influencer marketing or product sales, it can’t get any better than Instagram and TikTok. These two social media sites are practically built for influencers to make money by promoting brands and selling stuff.

Obviously, you will need some followers and engagement to make this work. You can either work directly with brands or use platforms like TikTok’s Creator Fund and Instagram’s Reels Bonuses to make money.

YouTube

What I love about making money with YouTube is that you make the video once and upload it to YouTube, but it continues to get views and make you money month after month, year after year. It becomes passive after the initial work is done.

And the beauty of using YouTube is that all you have to do is sign up for the YouTube Ad program. YouTube will then automatically display ads in your videos, earning you money along the way.

You can also use sponsorships and channel memberships to make even more money.

Needless to say, the more views and subscribers you get, the more you earn.

Facebook & Twitter (X)

To make money with Facebook, you have a few options for making money, including:

• Facebook Reels monetization
• Fan subscriptions
• In-stream ads

As for X (formerly Twitter), you can use their paid subscriptions (Super Follows) and tipping features to monetize your tweets.

Pinterest

Affiliate marketing is one of the biggest ways most websites make their money, including us here at MoneyPantry.

As an affiliate marketer, you promote brands by adding their links to your content (obviously, the product you are promoting has to be relevant and related to your content). Then, anytime someone clicks the link and buys that product or service, you get a cut as your commission.

And no other social media site is better suited for making money as an affiliate marketer than Pinterest.

Now, you don’t make money directly on Pinterest but you can use it to drive traffic to your own site or other social media accounts. Because of the way Pinterest works, it’s a great tool for driving massive amounts of visitors to your content where you are promoting products as an affiliate marketer.

Update

This post was originally written a few years back. Back then, you could buy and sell social media likes and followers. Although people still do it these days, social media sites don’t really like it and will ban you if they find out you are using such tactics.

So, back then, you could use these sites to make money by simply following, liking, and tweeting stuff on social media sites. However since the policy changes of social media sites, most sites that acted as the middlemen between social media activity buyers and sellers have shut down or changed direction.

We are keeping this content here for archival reasons.

1. MicroWorkers.com

On MicroWorkers, you get paid $1 just for signing up, so you’re already on your way to receiving some cash by just providing your name and email address.

Once you are registered, you can view a list of available tasks that you get paid to complete.

Just as an example, this could be anything from subscribing to YouTube videos for 14 cents or liking a company on Facebook for 30 cents.

You need to have accumulated a minimum of $9 in order to withdraw your earnings, which can be done through PayPal, Moneybookers, or AlertPay.

This site keeps 6% of your earnings as their fee to cover the cost of transferring the money.

2. ClickChores.com

Similar to MicroWorkers, on ClickChores, you get paid for completing tasks.

However, this site has a wider variety of tasks, such as writing product reviews or leaving a comment on a blog.

You can withdraw your earnings at any time; however, they process payments only twice a month. Pay is via PayPal or Payza.

3. SponsoredTweets.com

With Sponsored Tweets, you get paid for re-tweeting an advertisement using your Twitter account.

Celebrities like Kim Kardashian and Lindsay Lohan are among the 40,000 people who offer to re-tweet an advertiser’s message.

You get to set your price per tweet, and the more followers you have, the better your chances of getting paid a higher amount from advertisers.

While you can earn a few bucks with a hundred or so followers if your Twitter following is comparable to that of a celebrity’s, you could easily pocket something close to the $8,000 that Khloe Kardashian gets for each tweet.

Making Money on Social Media: Final Thoughts

As you can see, making money with social media isn’t just a dream. It’s completely possible with the right strategy.

Whether you’re growing an audience, selling products, or working with brands, there are plenty of ways to turn your social media presence into a steady income.

To increase your chances of success, make sure to pick a platform and strategy that best fits your skills and the number of followers you have right now. As you grow your audience, you can change your monetization strategies and make even more money.

The beauty of using social media to make money is that while it can start as a side hustle for making some extra cash, it can be turned into a huge income-generating business that becomes your main way of making a living!

And I hope you get to that level!