Image Source: Shannon Smith
When the pandemic struck, it hit Americans like Shannon Smith hard. She lost her job as a waitress and found herself in need of a source of income to support herself.
In her first job, Shannon was making around $1-2k a month as an online fitness coach. However, this required her to work 10 hours every day which became too much for her, so she decided to find another one.
In July 2021, the 24-year-old dreamer decided to take on a bigger but more effective strategy in order to earn money. She used her TikTok and Instagram accounts for marketing wealth-generating tools as well as online programs.
In just three months, Shannon was able to grow her social media followings and income by working only 2 hours per day. Her posts are now generating passive revenue of $8,000 monthly, and her following has grown to 40,000.
Building a business or investing is tough work, but it’s worth the effort. Here are some of Shannon’s favorite tips to help you get started on the journey to success:
1. Automate your business
To make passive income, set up automatic systems at the start of your business. This will save you so much time because your most essential tasks will run on autopilot.
2. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel
I see a lot of people try too hard to reinvent the wheel completely with social media posts to get their business into the spotlight.
But after acquiring 109,100 TikTok followers, I’ve learned that the key to going viral and growing your audience is to study what’s working for others. Sure, you want to be original, but you should be posting content people already find interesting.
3. Focus on solving a problem
The main goal of any business is to sell a product or service. But at the end of the day, no one cares about what you sell — people care about their own goals, their own dreams, and their own problems.
You want to indirectly market your product in a way that highlights how it can help meet your audience’s needs or help them achieve a goal.
4. To sell to your audience, engage with them directly
Individual posts on Instagram or TikTok are great for providing value and entertaining your audience, but it’s almost impossible for your audience to get to know you through these curated posts.
Having a connection with your audience is important. As people get to know who you are, they begin to trust what you are saying and what you are selling, which will lead to more sales.
I engage directly with my audience by responding to their comments and messages, or by going live on Instagram and TikTok. This gives me a chance to build a personal connection with them through genuine back-and-forth conversation.
5. Be selective about what you promote
If you’re planning to start an affiliate marketing business, these are the main things I recommend looking for:
- High gravity: Gravity means the number of people who are actively promoting the product. If this number is high, you know the product is good.
- Low refund rate: If a product has a high refund rate, it means that a lot of people have been unsatisfied with it, so you want to avoid these. Promoting products with high refund rates can decrease your audience’s trust in you.
- Recurring subscriptions: These are the best types of products to promote because you will receive a commission payout every month each time the subscriber renews their subscription.
- Positive reviews: I always Google reviews for the affiliate programs I’m looking into before deciding to promote them. I want to make sure its a widely-liked product.
Opinions expressed by US Insider contributors are their own.
