Want the short answer? HECK YES! Now I’m sure you’re wondering how small is small? How? Let’s take these one at a time.
The secret to monetizing a small following is creating relationships and one-on-one connections with those who do follow you. If you have a small following, you won’t be able to post about a product and expect people to be lining up to buy. The real money making happens in private messages and personal conversations. Something to keep in mind, it’s always a “no” if you don’t ask! But the problem is that so many of us, especially those who feel small, don’t have the confidence to ask for the sale in a personal conversation.
I’ll never forget my first 5-figure month. I was in a week long affiliate marketing sales competition among veteran business owners, millionaires, and people with 100k+ followers….yet between my two accounts, I had less than 2k followers. I knew I couldn’t post and ghost to succeed. So I focused on educating on my feed and talking to people in my DMs: text, voice memos, and sometimes video messages too. I grew existing relationships, created new ones, and worked like my life depended on it. Frankly, I thought I didn’t stand a chance when I saw the people I was up against and my BIG goal was to hit $5k. But I stayed focused and knew that I could work just as hard as my competition even if I was at a significant disadvantage with my following.
I ended up in third place and far exceeded that $5k goal. You better believe I cried when the leaderboard was posted and I was right behind two of my business heroes. It taught me so much about sales strategies, but more importantly, what I was capable of. SMALL FOLLOWINGS DON’T MATTER!
I know some of you are going to respond to this and tell me that 2k followers is a lot and you are starting with more like 200. First of all, you can grow that number with my free IG growth guide. Second of all, that’s still 200 people you can talk to! Imagine you’re in a room with 200 other people. That’s a lot of people.
Here’s a few other things to keep in mind about monetizing your following (of any size).
1- You can’t sell too much. If you’re posting about a new product every other day, your followers will get confused or it comes off as spammy.
2- The product or service you promote has to be something that aligns with your brand and what your followers know you for. Most of my followers know me for social media tips and health and fitness coaching. If they’ve been around long enough, they probably know little things about me too. For example, I don’t really drink. So if I post about a workout sale one day and the next I’m promoting a wine delivery service, something about that doesn’t mesh.
3- You have to like and believe in the product or service before you can sell it. Promote things you love before you have an affiliate link for them so when the day comes that you do have that discount code, people will want to use it.
4- Rejection is going to happen. Expect it and don’t be offended by it. Accept the “no” and work until you find a “yes.”
This is a great topic to bring up in a one-on-one coaching session with me. Maybe you’re brand new to monetizing social media, you have some questions, and need help getting started. For example, what should you be looking for when taking on affiliate work? How do you even go about starting a conversation in the DMs that leads to a sale? How do you answer difficult questions? Make a list and book a call with me so we can talk about this and more!