Personal Branding

How Soon Should You Monetize Your Social Media? Sooner Than You Think! Here’s Why

The truth is you don't need that many followers to monetize your online audience.

Aug 2, 2022

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Photo by Piotr Cichosz on Unsplash
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    “I need to get more followers on Instagram.” Dr Lori wrote in her pre-call intake for our first coaching call.

    When we spoke a few days later I asked her, “how many followers do you currently have?”

    “A little over 13 thousand.”

    “How come you feel like you need more?”

    “Because I’m not making any sales from it. I hear you need at least 50 thousand to make money.”

    You don’t need a large following to monetize it.

    “What if I told you that’s not true?” I countered.

    “My social media following is rather small. I have 5,300 followers on LinkedIn, a bit over 600 on Twitter, 493 subscribers to my newsletter, and few more on my (admittedly neglected) email list. Hardly the numbers that would land me in the “influencer” zone.” I continued.

    “Yet these numbers generate enough inquiries for my agency and my coaching practice to keep us in business without having to spend a dollar on ads.

    “So if you had to choose one, do you want to get more followers or monetize your existing ones?”

    It’s all about making offers

    I have an ebook and a course,” she said. “And I post on Instagram every day. But my audience is not growing and nobody is buying.”

    “How many offers did you make this week?” I asked her.

    “Well… The links are in my bio. It’s a linktree and it has the book and the course. And my website and everything else is there.”

    “Yeah but, how many people did you ask to buy?” I replied.

    She sheepishly looked away from the webcam. “Nobody…”

    The mistake is believing you’re not selling products is because you don’t have enough followers.

    I know people with tens of thousands of followers on social media who struggle to pay their bills.

    And I also know people with just a few hundreds making a comfortable living. The difference? The number of offers they make to their audience.

    If you want to make more sales, start by making more offers.

    If you like this post, you’ll love “It’s Not Brain Surgery”, my weekly newsletter for entrepreneurial physicians. Subscribe for free here.

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