Five Ways to Generate Revenue from Social Media

Announce new products and ser­vices. Roll out new products and services on social media and forum boards and include a link for people to respond directly to a page on your website. You can always keep the web page hidden from your site nav­igation to keep it “exclusive” to social media users and their referrals. Spe­cially worded contact forms on that page can help you to discern cus­tomers who email you as a result of your Facebook or Twitter announcement. If you have a good analytics program in place, you can gauge how much traffic you gener­ated from the announcement.

Experiment with ads. LinkedIn offers the ability to advertise—to other profes­sionals. You can create up to ten ads which will rotate and fine-tune de­mographics (including by industry and management position). Select the maximum daily amount you wish to spend, minimum bid per click or view, and end date. You can view reports to determine the success of any given ad, as well as cancel the ad at any time.  See which ads were the most effective, and pull unsuccessful ads from rota­tion. If you have a Facebook business page, advertise your company to other Facebook us­ers. Pay for impressions or for click throughs. Fine-tune the social de­mographic you are seeking to solicit, and select a specific dollar amount you want to spend daily on the ad. You can select specific days, or a range of days for the ad to display. If you opt to pay for click-throughs, even if nobody follows through to your Facebook page or your website, thousands of impressions will help make you more visible to users.

Reward referrals. Ask your follow­ers to refer others to your business. If you have a small or manageable following, it may be easy to reward a follower for a referral with a discount or small free item if the referral be­comes a customer. (A more complex response mechanism will likely be re­quired for those with a larger follow­ing.) At the least, you can give a pub­lic “pat on the back” by writing a post or tweet directed to your follower thanking him or her for the referral. This acknowledgement will also spur others to direct referrals your way

Post or tweet a promotion. Offer a discount or a freebie to your fans and followers. Offer anything that you think will be of interest and will en­tice users to act. Use a specific promo code to track and measure the effec­tiveness of the promotion.

Create a contest. Advertise a contest to win a gift certificate or discounted service. Provide users with a link to register at your website or email an entry. Clear­ly spell out the terms of the contest and how the winner will be selected. Be creative.  To make it easy on yourself, specify that submissions be­come the property of your business and are not returnable. Make sure to post the winner(s) on your website so the participants know the contest is legit.