#edutech #college #work #NFT #education #remotework #onlinelearning #stem #talent #diversity #highered #STEM #blog

It is the era of side hustles where the likes of Tim Ferriss and Chris Guillebeau have gained superstardom because people are increasingly becoming aware that one cannot ‘thrive’ without an extra source of income. This is the reason why Tim’s book ‘The 4-hour Workweek’ has gained a cult status and Chris is the proud owner of Side Hustle School, a podcast that interviews people have created a new source of income for themselves without quitting their day jobs.

Many are discovering ways to earn money on social media platforms with a suite of business ideas. One platform that has become a money spinner for thousands around the world is Facebook, the world’s largest social media platform. This article is going to teach you many ways in which you can earn money using a Facebook page.



The decline of organic reach on Facebook:



Page owners on Facebook have noticed that there has been a sharp decline in organic reach. If you are a brand on Facebook, then you would have to spend more money from your pocket to reach the number of people that you were getting organically. Facebook had also announced in December 2017 that it was finding ways to battle “clickbait posts” and wanted its users to see more content from their friends and family while restricting content from brands and publishers.

Brands that create kick-ass content that people want to see will be able to sustain their viewership although they might need to shell out more than usual. By the looks of it, Facebook is trying to look more like what it was earlier, a social network rather than a news organization. You can’t blame the social media behemoth for restricting content from advertisers either as a lot of content is being generated these days.

Well, Zuckerberg even said this-“Recently we’ve gotten feedback from our community that public content — posts from businesses, brands, and media — is crowding out the personal moments that lead us to connect more with each other.” It is not as if it was a clandestine operation that was set to shock the industry. In January 11, 2018 when Facebook announced this, they even lost $3.3 billion when their shares tanked by 4.5 percent.



Monetization restrictions on Facebook:



YouTube recently clamped down with its own set of restrictions for users to monetize on the platform. There are restrictions on Facebook as well to make sure that there is relevant content posted on the platform. Facebook wants its more than 5 million advertisers to be comfortable with spending money on the content that is available on the platform.

Here are some of the regulations/restrictions to monetize on the platform:

Those who are violating intellectual property, authenticity, and user safety policies, or conducting fraudulent activities, will be ineligible to monetize their content.
Creators and Publishers must have an authentic presence on Facebook.
They should have a page on Facebook for at least 30 days
Publishers are not supposed to share clickbait, sensationalistic news, post false news or spread misinformation that will create unrest
Content that shows family characters engaging in inappropriate behavior
Inflammatory content that disparages people
Depictions of people in explicit or sexually suggestive positions
Content that promotes the excessive consumption of alcohol, smoking and drug abuse
Content that promotes the use of illegal or illicit products or services.
They also should not post sensitive content (there are guidelines for what is considered sensitive) Link: https://www.facebook.com/help/publisher/1348682518563619
These standards apply to ad placements including in-stream ads and Instant Articles. Facebook is also planning to provide brands with post-campaign reporting which will identify the publishers that their ads ran on. Brands also have the leverage to use ‘Brand Safety Controls’ to customize where their ads are run.



Ways to monetize your Facebook Page:

Facebook is an extremely attractive place for those with an entrepreneurial streak and one can see hundreds of entrepreneurs who are making a killing by selling product, creating a following and much more. Here are some of the ways you can monetize on the platform.





Sell Digital content on Facebook:

With the advent of Internet and the fact that there is instant access through downloads, digital products have become a rage. There are different kinds of materials that you can create, including articles, white papers, e-books, photos, music, videos or audios that people would be interested to buy from you based on your expertise. Create a Shopify store if you want to sell directly on Facebook, or you can use Instamojo, a link using which people can make payments (if you don’t want to invest in a payment gateway).

Selling digital products is not the same as selling physical products. You need to offer at least a part of the content for free or should have helped people in advance so that they know that you are an expert in the area you profess to be an expert. Once the followers of your Facebook page are confident about your abilities and trust in you, they would be more than happy to open their purse strings.

Offer exclusive discounts for your Facebook page followers so that they are enthused enough to buy your products on this platform. There are a variety of tools that you can use to track the right audience and track results. Facebook also has a lot of tools using which you can automate your posts, interact with your followers and send relevant messages.



Market Affiliate products:

To be successful at being an affiliate no matter which platform you are using, you need to have a lot of visitors to your Facebook page so that at least a small portion of them will click on the affiliate link and make a purchase. Do not ever bombard your visitors with affiliate links. If your users find that all you post are affiliate links, not only would you lose your credibility, but you would also be at the danger of losing followers on your page. .

Here are some of the methods that you can use to spread the word about your affiliate product:

Post the links on your personal feed; ask your friends and family to share it.
Post your affiliate links on Facebook pages which are for ‘deals’.
Post the affiliate links on relevant Facebook groups. If your affiliate product is a pressure cooker, then post it on groups where food lovers congregate
Another method to bring in a lot of people is to create video reviews of your product along with a link to buy the product in the description
Offer incentives to people buying from your affiliate link. You could add small incentives like an e-book, 30 minute free discussion relevant to the product that you are selling- just to name a few.
Tie up with other affiliate marketers who are related to your niche and get into a quid pro quo partnership with them
Write detailed articles about the affiliate product on your blog, FB page, FB feed and other places
Create user manuals, how-to guides, reviews and other such paraphernalia that will help the visitors making a buying decision


Host Contests and Giveaways:

Contests and Giveaways offers you a plethora of benefits including helping you with more exposure and opening up a revenue stream. You can also give the opportunity for brands to giveaway their products which will open up your audience to them. You can get more traffic to your page when the audience shares links to the contest on their profiles which will also help you with more sales.

Companies will be willing to offer you good money if you have a huge following in your page. Get on a call with the brand to see the different kinds of offering that you can give to your audience for the contest. Even the brands will share about the contest and each entry for the contest is more exposure for you.

There are many Facebook apps that help with running contests, it is a waste of time and the opportunity cost is too high if you want to develop the app yourself. Many contest apps come with a host of features like count down for the contest and others which makes the contest itself look sleeker.



Sell products through a Facebook app store:

Once you set up your Facebook business Page, you can start selling on Facebook by creating a tab for your store on the page. All that people need to do to buy your products is to click on the store button and complete the purchase inside the Facebook page itself. As with all other organic techniques, you need to create a community of people who follow your updates and would be ready to buy products that you recommend or create.

Uploading all the products, including information about the product and connecting all of that to the shopping cart to process your payments requires a separate app for that. If you are not technically sound, building an app might seem like a huge ask, even discouraging you from setting up your business entirely. Thankfully, there are online store builders that you can use like Shopify, BigCommerce, Wix- to name a few. All of these have free options for you to start from.

Using these online store builders, the following can be done: 1. You can add banners and change the number of products like you wish, 2. Automatically import the products that you want to sell on Facebook, 3. Any product that is updated on the online store builder will automatically reflect on the Facebook store as well, 4. The app is really quick, intuitive and easy to add products.

With a Facebook store, you can tap into new audience and gain more customers. Promote your Facebook page if you want to increase your sales or keep posting a lot of updates on your page with information that will convince your targeted audience.



Promote other small Facebook pages:

When you have a big following in your Facebook page, you are at a special position where you can help smaller Facebook pages by giving a shout-out on your Facebook page. Although this might not amount to a large amount of money because if you keep giving shout-outs to every other page, your followers might feel left out because of the lack of good content. Charge a premium for this and give shout-outs to only 2-3 pages per week. It might be tempting to send a post every single day introducing a new page because it improves your bottom-line, but do not dilute your brand value by doing so.



Promote events for brands:

Many event marketers will attest to the fact that promoting on Facebook is one of the best ways to generate a lot of interest in an event. Relevant brands that are in the same niche as you can tie up with you to promote your event. You can either charge for each sign-ups that happen from your page or charge per promotional post. The higher the number of followers in your page, the more the money you can charge.

Make sure you input all the appropriate information about the event so that the algorithm can pick it up based on the event. If you have an email list of followers or any other social media platform where you can promote the event as well then leverage that. Get into a discussion with the brand and inform them about the other avenues using which you can help them gain more followers.

Facebook wants more users to engage with the platform, and events play a big role for them. They are building tools to create successful events. The event organizers should create a well-optimized Facebook page and incorporate the event into an existing event page.



Sell your services with the FB page:

If you are a professional who can leverage your expertise by helping people who follow your page, there is no bigger place than Facebook for it to make it happen. FB does a fantastic job of promoting your brand if you keep posting valuable content to your followers. FB ads help you with targeting your audience based on various demographic factors like age, sex, occupation, location and other interests based on data coagulated from FB accounts.

Let me give you an example as to how you can go about going big by selling your services on your Facebook page. If your expertise is in teaching people how to create an income stream through online marketing, then you should be do the following.

Give free value to your page followers. It would also act as an incentive for more people to follow you.
Answer the questions they ask you immediately. Give them detailed answers that has a lot of value to anyone new to the game.
Give them tips on the basics of money creation through online marketing.
Conduct small challenges where you help people to earn some money.
Once they start consuming your content, they would be more than happy to pay to get your full suite of services because they trust in your expertise after seeing the free content that you floated.
You can replicate the same steps for any services that you offer. As long as you provide value, there will be more and more people interested in paying for your offerings.



Conclusion:

Even though Facebook has stifled organic reach, there is still a lot of money to be made if you apply yourselves well. The fact that there are more than 2.2 billion active users per month is a testament of the kind of power Facebook wields. No matter which niche you are looking to make an impact in with your Facebook page, you would invariably find them on Facebook. There is no limit on the amount of money you can earn with a Facebook page, we have shown you many ways to monetize with it.