Undoubtedly, Facebook is the biggest internet business in 2016. With more than 1.71 billion users worldwide and 16 million local business pages, Facebook, rather than just being a social media, has emerged out as the biggest business platform on the internet. You can see lots of businesses happening day by day through Facebook. The biggest brands are now using their Facebook pages to build their brand. Some people even think like a Facebook page as a replacement for the website.
Presently, Facebook is a good source of income for “many make money online” enthusiasts. Nowadays lots of online businesses are totally dependant on Facebook. Lots of people live full time with the money earned through Facebook.
Let’s have a look at 13 ways through which you can make money using Facebook.
1. Facebook ads as a service
In 2016, social media marketing expenses in the US alone touched more than $ 31 billion. You can see that many big brands do have a well maintained Facebook page.
This form of advertising grew over a time period and is expected to multiply in the upcoming years. A well maintained Facebook page is the identity of any brand.
Let’s have a rough look at some of the well maintained Facebook pages of some bigger brands.
Brands
Oreo (Likes: 42,443,567)
Coca Cola (Likes: 6,543,859)
Celebrities
Tom Cruise (Likes: 11,963,704)
Kim Kardashian (Likes:29,421,075 )
Can you believe the fact that Kim Kardashian has 2.5 times the number of likes of Tom Cruise?
Rihanna(Likes: 81,990,099)
You can see that all these brands/celebrities are very much active on their Facebook page. They post updates regularly, and you can see that their contents are really creative as well.
Many of these companies do have a team(in house or ad agency) to maintain and regularly update the Facebook page with creatives. They do have a monthly budget for the promotion of their brand through their Facebook page.
If you are creative and innovative, you can provide Facebook page marketing as a service. You can take a percentage of the monthly budget as your service charge and the rest for promoting the post. As you may know, everything can be tracked on Facebook (like the post reach, number of likes, etc). This tracking is what attracts big brands into Facebook marketing.
2. Develop a Facebook page with a large fan base
Developing a big Facebook page is a good model to earn money from Facebook. I’ve always felt a Facebook page very much like a blog. Nowadays much online business operates just with a Facebook page(without a website). If you can produce good content through your Facebook page, you can build a good audience and fanship. A Facebook page with a large number of fans is always an asset (Very much like a website with a large number of visitors).
At one point (after getting a good fan base), you can make money from your Facebook page.
Here are some methods through which you can make money from your Facebook page.
- Driving traffic to your blog – You can drive traffic from your Facebook page to your blog. You can convert your blog’s visitors to money through various methods. Like ad networks(AdSense,chitika) and all. Read – 6 ways to make money from your blog.
- Sponsored posts – You can get paid for sponsored posts on your page.
- Promoting affiliate products- Be an affiliate(amazon,shareasale etc) and promote the products to earn a commission.
- Selling your Facebook page – Yes, you can sell your page for money.
3. Building facebook applications
An average user spends 50 minutes on Facebook a day. This means facebook applications also have lots of scopes. Facebook apps help Facebook users to have an enhanced experience. It allows users to have an interactive experience in Facebook.
So, how can you make money with your Facebook application? Let’s have a look.
a. Building your own Facebook application
You might have seen facebook applications like “Which friend is having a crush on you”? Such kind of applications gives a different experience to Facebook users which Facebook doesn’t provide.
How can you monetize your own Facebook application
You can use ad networks like bidvertiser, Chitika, etc. You can also sell banners, advertisements, etc.
In this model, you have to build users(daily active users) to your Facebook app. Once you got to have a good amount of users, you can earn money from your Facebook application.
Candy crush saga, with a DAU(daily active users ) of 57,036,085 is still the most popular application in Facebook.
You don’t need to develop big games or highly application-oriented programs in order to land a successful Facebook application. someecards is a perfect example of a simple facebook application that focus on a creative idea rather than much technical complexity.
Read – How to develop your first facebook application.
b. Facebook app building as a service
Facebook apps can be developed as a service. You can launch your own firm which develops facebook apps. I’ve been working closely with many digital marketing firms for years. 2 years before, I did develop a Facebook app for a digital marketing company which was really a cool idea. They wanted this app for a client in the textile business. They had an estimated target of 10,000 likes and each time a person like a page, the cover photo was supposed to change. If 5 people liked the page, the cover photo will be updated with a new photo(9995 to go) and likewise. I developed this application purely using PHP and its GD library.
This idea was inspired by the Bisleri facebook page wherein which they created a real-time countdown cover photo.
In 2016, Facebook apps play a major role in Facebook marketing. Many Social media marketing companies have the requirement of Facebook apps for the promotion of their client’s Facebook page/brand.
4. Affiliate marketing through Facebook
Affiliate marketing is a billion-dollar industry and is expected to touch $ 4.5 Billion in the US alone. We’ve listed affiliate marketing as the number 1 method in our recent blog post, Top 10 internet businesses to start in 2016.
You can promote affiliate products through your Facebook page/group. There are lots of good affiliate marketing programs that can give you a good percentage as commissions. Amazon affiliates usually give 5-12% as commission, while if you check some digital products(software/ebooks/courses) in commision junction,Shareasale, etc, you can see products offering up to 75% commissions to the promoters.
You can join some affiliate programs in the niche of your page and promote their products. Say, if you have a Facebook page that provide work out /bodybuilding tips, you can promote fitness guides(eBooks) from these mentioned affiliate programs. You can also select fitness products like dumbbells, treadmills, etc to promote. Since we are promoting the right product before the right audience, affiliate marketing has a good conversion rate through Facebook.
5. Promoting your blog through Facebook
Do you own a Facebook page with a large number of likes? Or in other words, are you a Facebook influencer? Then this one is for you. Many Facebook pages promote other products/brands/pages through their Facebook page.
Say, if you have a page about Fitness through which you are promoting workout tips to your fans then you are an influencer in the fitness niche. You can always promote products/brands related to fitness through your page.
Here you can see WittyFeed using their Facebook page to drive traffic to their blog. This is how they make money(driving the audience from Facebook to their website). They do have advertisements, product endorsements/selling, etc in their blog.
You can also see that more than 65 % of the total traffic of WittyFeed is through social media channels(according to similarweb). The majority of social traffic should be from Facebook.
Read –
6. Advertising on your Facebook page
You might have heard of advertising on a blog/website. But, have you ever thought of advertising through Facebook? Yes, it is possible. Even though Facebook doesn’t support and ad networks (like Google Adsense), you can always put advertisements to products/people/brands, etc through your Facebook page. If you are a good influencer, then people will approach you to endorse their brands. You need to keep in mind that this influence can make you money. If your page has a good fan base, people will contact you in order to advertise on your page. Easy money, right?
7. Facebook Video ads as a service
Video ads are the latest trend in Facebook. You can see that all these bigger brands are now updating their page with short and creative videos.
Most of these videos are just 30-second videos giving a boost to their brands. Most of the Facebook / social media management companies don’t have the resources to produce innovative video ads, they still depend on graphics(pictures and images). Facebook video ads are a new niche with lots of opportunities.
8. Writing an ebook and promoting it through Facebook
Have you written an ebook? If not what about writing one and making money through Facebook? Ebook Selling is one of the hottest methods to make money from Facebook. If you have a good page with a nice fan base, you can sell ebooks on behalf of your fans. Well, even if you don’t have a Facebook page or a set of audience, you can write an ebook and promote(boost ) it through Facebook. Facebook ad is the cheapest way to promote any product.
You might love to check How to make money online selling ebooks.
Pick a good niche that can attract the audience(a niche in which the Facebook users might buy an ebook) and promote it using the Facebook ads.
The biggest advantage of using Facebook ad is its targeting potential,
For example, let us assume a target group
- Gender: females
- Age group: 16 – 40
- City: Newyork (or some developed cities)
- Interests: beauty, beauty products, face creams, beauty magazines
What about selling an ebook “101 ways for women to look attractive ” on behalf of this audience? Promising for sure! Many ebook sellers get more than 200 % ROI selling ebooks through Facebook.
Assume another target group,
- Gender: male
- Age group: 23 -40
- Interest: Weight loss, Fitness tips
You can always market an ebook titled “How to lose 25 KG in 5 months”
What you need to do is to prepare a top-notch eBook in a niche in which you have good knowledge, create a target group, and promote it on behalf of the Facebook audience.
I’d also like to share our recent income report of our ebook(27 ways for programmers to make money online) sales.
9. Facebook Groups
Facebook groups are not child-plays anymore. I’ve been part of many organized professional group which have millions of members.
How can you make money from a Facebook group? Let’s have a look.
a.) Build and develop a Facebook group
Many big communities are formed through Facebook groups. Some of the big Facebook pages(now bigger online brands) which we see nowadays were formed initially as Facebook groups. Through these groups, they attract members to crowdsource creative contents and these contents can build a brand to the group owners(and thereby money).
This is the strategy followed by most of these groups, I’ll explain this with the example of a travel Facebook group
- Build a Facebook group in the travel niche.
- Post travelogues and personalized travel tips.
- Invite everyone in your connection to the group.
- Organize the group in a way that motivates the members to share their travel experience
- Genuine and personalized travel stories can attract new members.
- Start a Facebook page/blog to share the best travel stories from the group.
- The admin of the page should communicate and connect with members of the group.
- The admin can request everyone in the group to be a fan of the page. This will work! I’ve seen this many times.
So how can I make money building a Facebook group?
Through this process, you are building your brand or in other words, you are being an influencer. If you are a good influencer, then people will approach you to endorse their brands. You need to keep in mind that this influence can make you money.
Speaker– People may call you for events to share your experience, if you have good speaking skills, you can evolve as a speaker and charge per session.
Bringing visitors to Facebook Page/Blog– Through a Facebook group, you can bring in visitors to your Facebook page and thereby to your blog. You can monetize your blog visitors in multiple ways .
Influencer – Being an influencer in any category can help you to build your brand. It becomes easier for you to launch a product or whatever in the future.
b) Get works and connections being a member of the Facebook group
Be an active member of different Facebook groups. Being a WordPress developer, I’ve been an active member of many WordPress help and share groups. I do help the members to solve their WordPress related problems, because of this, many of the members in the group know me. I’ve been asked by some members to fix some WordPress issues and I have made money through it.
Some times you can directly see group members asking other members directly for paid services. I’ve seen Facebook groups working pretty well as an alternative to freelancer, upwork, etc to an extent.
Have a look at this WordPress job requirement posted in WordPress Jobs and Projects group.
10. Getting sales to your ecommerce store
Nowadays, Facebook is widely used by eCommerce companies to promote their products. You can start an eCommerce store and promote the products on behalf of the targeted audience in Facebook. In Facebook, you can target users and market your product before them, bring sales, and thereby revenue.
Apparels stores and many other eCommerce stores do have good conversion rates through Facebook marketing. Apart from Adsense or any other form of advertising(marketing), you can bring in the right product before the right audience with Facebook. This is why facebook happens to be the most loved platform for eCommerce portals.
You can read the facebook success stories of different eCommerce businesses.
Wisebaby , an online store for babies in America was able to achieve 8X boost in their revenue through Facebook.
11. Getting more sales to your local business through your Facebook page.
Facebook is a good medium for promoting local businesses as well. It can work as a local newspaper ad. I have mentioned in this blog about my artificial flower business. We do sell artificial flowers for wholesale, I did run a Facebook ad targetting my local area (200 KM) radius from our office and I got many enquirers from it. The business did happen and we made money out of it.
12. Promote your paid events(tickets) through facebook
Facebook is best for promoting paid events. Recently, I booked tickets for a party through Facebook. I came to know about this event when I saw a notification that one of my friend is interested in this event. This party was not organized by big names, but a small group in my home town. They were able to bring in some popular DJs and this attracted many facebook users of my home town to this event. Tickets were sold out in no time. Anyhow the party was canceled for some reason and I got my refunds eventually. These people could have never sold these many tickets without the help of Facebook events feature.
13. Selling your Facebook Page
You might have heard of selling websites , ever thought of selling your Facebook page? Yes, it is a good business model now. 2 years before, I had a Facebook page about jobs in my city that had a few likes (around 2000 likes ). I was approached by a career specialist who had an interest in acquiring the page. I sold the page for $500. Not a big amount, it was really a good deal for me as I hardly spent around 4-5 hours for the page(in total).
Update:
14. Be a video publisher in Facebook
Last week, Facebook brought up and update, a revenue sharing program for the video publisher. Facebook will be pushing ads in a video if a user watches it for more than 20 seconds and if the video is of a length of 90 seconds(minimum).
The publisher will be getting 55% of the ad revenue(which is the same as the YouTube revenue sharing policy). Last year, Facebook allowed publishers to create videos sponsored by advertisers. Buzzfeed is a good example following this model generating great revenue. It is said that Facebook started the revenue sharing policy after the regular complaints from BuzzFeed executives that they are not making big money from Facebook videos.
I hope you enjoyed this blogpost about earning money with Facebook. Feel free to comment on your opinion, queries, or whatever.
