How to Generate Passive Income From Social Media in 2023 | Make Money While You Sleep

If you want to know how to generate passive income using your social media – look no further than this video! Growing an audience on social media gives you the power to turn that audience into income. Watch now for 4 strategies to help you make money while you sleep!

Why Use Social Media to Generate Passive Income

Here’s the thing about social media… when you attract the right audience through your platforms, it gives you the power to turn that audience into income. Social media is a sea of potential buyers. Likely, you’re already using your content to attract your ideal customers to your business and offers.

I know firsthand how powerful making passive income using social media is, as I leverage my connection with my ideal customers in my own business to bring in those extra dollars. I don’t like to gate-keep what’s working for me (we’re all friends here!). In this post, I’m sharing my 4 proven strategies to generate passive income from social media with you so you can start doing it too!

You hear the term passive income all the time from entrepreneurs and gurus online, but is it actually legit, or is it just a sexy buzzword? Can you really generate passive income and make money while you sleep? The answer is…YES! You can and it is 100% legit! In fact, I have several ways of generating passive income in my own business. Let’s dig in together and break down exactly how to generate income from social media.

4 Strategies to Generate Passive Income From Social Media

There are so many ways of generating passive income online. Let’s be real though, you just can’t do them all. As a business owner, you have to decide what works with your current business model and what fits your energy and schedule. These 4 strategies for generating passive income allow you to make more money by basically doing what you’re already doing on social media… creating content, sharing what you love, and helping people with your products and services.

Ok friend, here’s the strategies!

#1: Get Monetized

The first way to generate passive income from social media is to get monetized. While there are a ton of social media platforms that you can get monetized on, I recommend finding a couple that you love and going all in.

If you know me, you know that I truly believe that Instagram and YouTube are the MAGIC combination. Therefore, those are the 2 platforms I’m monetized on.

To get monetized on YouTube, you need 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours. When you are eligible, YouTube will send you a notification. Then, you have to enable monetization on your account. For more tips on how to grow your YouTube channel and get your first 1,000 subscribers, check out this video.

I would HIGHLY recommend that you use royalty-free music on your YouTube videos. This will prevent you from facing a copyright claim on your videos (which can’t be monetized). Even if you’re not monetized now and you have a small channel, it’s a good habit to get into using royalty-free music. I 10/10 recommend Epidemic Sound for finding royalty-free music.

On Instagram, you can generate passive income using Instagram’s Reels bonuses program. You must be approved by Instagram to have access to these bonuses. You can check on this inside of your business or creator account’s professional dashboard to activate bonuses.

I truly believe that YouTube is the most lucrative platform for creators to get monetized on. The shelf life of YouTube videos is far longer than that of Instagram Reels. Therefore, the opportunity to generate passive income on YouTube is huge!

Here’s the caveat to getting monetized on these platforms (and any platform, really). You have to post content CONSISTENTLY and understand the strategy behind attracting an audience.

#2: Affiliate Income

The second way to generate passive income using social media is with affiliate income. People love to hear what you are using, loving, and recommend. Sharing about it on social media is a natural way to bring in extra money without doing a bunch more work. In my business, I have a few different streams of affiliate income.

Softwares, Programs, and Memberships

The first is for softwares, programs, and memberships that I like and would recommend to my audience. For example, when I recommended Epidemic Sound just a second ago, that is an affiliate link! I’m also an affiliate for ConvertKit, TubeBuddy, Canva, Honeybook, and Styled Stock Society. All it takes to become an affiliate for a software company is getting set up with the individual affiliate programs. You can usually find this on their website or by doing a quick search on Google.

Product Affiliate Links

The second is for physical product affiliate links, which I do through Amazon! You can also do this through companies such as LTK (Like To Know It). Simply set up your Amazon Affiliate account once, and after being approved, you’re good to go. Then, every time you do a product review on YouTube or mention something you love in an Instagram Reel, you can provide your affiliate links. Then you can make a commission on every purchase generated from your links. Just make sure to disclose that it is an affiliate link. Honesty is the best policy on social media, friends!

If you’re a blogger, this is a BIG opportunity, because people LOVE easy access to the things they discover online.

Other Course Creators and Digital Products

The third stream of affiliate income is for other course creators and digital products. If you have other creators who have products that your audience would like, that aren’t directly in competition with you, ask them to become an affiliate! Since I have a course, I also have an affiliate program that I can offer other course creators. You can both help each other and everybody wins!

In this case, it helps to find people with similar audiences, but different offers.

For a more in-depth look at exactly how affiliate marketing works and how to get started, check out this blog post from ahrefs.com.

#3: Selling Courses and Digital Products

The third way to generate passive income from social media is by selling your courses and digital products. These products are available for people to purchase on my website at all times.

By showing up on social media and sharing what you do and what you know, you can attract an audience that knows, likes, and trusts you. This makes it much more likely for them to buy from you.

Now here’s where it can be tricky. Course sales that come from social media are NOT all completely passive income. There’s a lot of planning and marketing strategy around promotions and launches for different programs.

High-ticket offers that are more than a couple hundred dollars, like my Social Video Academy, require a more sophisticated strategy to sell passively. On the other hand, low-ticket offers, like my Instagram Video Kit, can be promoted in your content consistently. This leads to passive income.

Key Systems For Generating Passive Income From Products and Courses

If you choose to go the digital products and courses route for generating passive income, keep in mind that you need SYSTEMS that work behind the scenes on autopilot. Remember, we’re not trying to add a bunch more work and stress to your plate here. We’re supposed to be making money in our sleep and while we’re sipping mimosas on vacay!

The 3 systems you need to be successful with making passive income from your digital products and courses are:

👉To make it EASY for people to buy from you.

👉To warm your audience up to you and your offers.

👉For people to learn more about you.

#4: Email Automations

The fourth strategy to generate passive income is by setting up email automations that sell your products or services for you. If you’re wondering how this ties into social media, hang tight… it totally does!

When you post on social media, you create content that attracts people into your audience. Sometimes, it invites them to your email list. Once they join your email list, it triggers email automations that puts them in a welcome sequence.

A great way to invite people onto your email list through social media is by creating a killer lead magnet that your ideal customers want! This can be a free guide, mini-course, video series, checklist, or an e-book! The main goal of your lead magnet is to give your audience a WIN and prove that you can help them!

Creating a killer freebie is (IMO) the best way to get people onto your email list and into your automated email sequences. Then you can ensure that they are your ideal customers. And if they’re not, no worries. They’ll likely unsubscribe or you can clear them out when you do your next email scrub of cold subscribers.

Promote your lead magnet on social media and let your email automations do the rest. They can introduce you and your business, share your mission and how you can help, and promote your products, services, or programs. All of this without lifting a finger!

You put in the work once and then it sells for you on autopilot. Hello passive income baby!

Start Generating Passive Income on Social Media

ATTRACT LEADS ON REPEAT WITH VIDEOS THAT STAND OUT.

You can watch my free class The Video Growth method to learn how to 10X your traffic with Instagram and YouTube and start generating that passive income ASAP!

Would you like to learn more about video marketing strategy or social media marketing? Check out my other blogs on topics like video strategy, tips and techniques, confidence on-camera, YouTube marketing, Instagram marketing, entrepreneurship and more.