You’ve counted characters, made a game-changing argument in a single sentence, shrunk links, hit “unfollow” a few times, and, for whatever reason, people can’t get enough of it. You’ve built yourself a loyal following on Twitter and, now, you’re ready for the next step: getting paid for the countless hours you put into the platform.
Twitter’s advertising tool is an easy place to start, but, if you’re a thought leader, there are far more lucrative – and less abrasive – ways to monetize your presence on the platform. By collaborating with brands that want to reach the people that look to you for leadership, you can make money while adding value to your personal brand in the process.
As you begin to monetize your presence on the platform, focus on two things: minimizing the abrasiveness of your endorsements and maximizing their value.
Influencer marketing – i.e. collaborations between social media leaders and brands – is a growing and devilishly effective field. By some accounts, influencer marketing is as much as 11 times more effective than other digital marketing. While, in reality, most brands are still struggling to calculate the ROI of their influencer programs, that didn’t stop those same brands from doubling their spending on influencer programs this year.
Top influencers, ones who were already making six figures in 2015, when brands first took notice of social media leaders, now make as much as $100,000 per post. No six-figure promises, but if you’re busting your butt on Twitter, there is no reason you shouldn’t receive some compensation.
There is, however, a good and a bad way to go about making money on Twitter as an influencer. As you begin to monetize your presence on the platform, focus on two things: minimizing the abrasiveness of your endorsements and maximizing their value.
When You Think Influencer Marketing, Think Value, Not Money.
Think about product endorsements as a way to add value, not a way to make money. Every time you consider putting your name behind a product, ask yourself if that product will add value to your follower's lives. If the answer is no, drop it immediately, this is the key to monetizing without alienating your follower base.
If all you cared about was making money, you would just opt into Twitter advertising. As an influencer, though, you get to decide which products get your stamp of approval. This should be based solely on the quality of the product and its ability to solve a real problem your followers face.
Twitter is more interactive than other social media platforms, so get out there and ask your followers about their problems. Do the research so when you do endorse a product and make a ton of money, you’re solving people’s problems, exercising your leadership, and building your credibility at the same time.
In addition to earning you money, successful product endorsements build the value of your personal brand. By putting your name behind a useful and fruitful product, you demonstrate your ability to find solutions and pick winners. This will grow your followers.
By retweeting influencer content, brands share some of their authority with influencers and, at the same time, introduce influencers to their own followers. Below, the outdoor adventure agency Via Dinarica retweeted a post by through hiker Alex Crevar.
Don’t Lose Your Voice When You Endorse a Product
Your followers like how you interact with them on Twitter. Your voice is what makes people listen to you, what makes you a thought leader. Don’t lose it, at any point, to sell something. Doing so will do real damage to your personal brand, and that’s not worth the temporary influx of cash you’ll get from a bad endorsement.
Skip sales talk. There’s no place for that in influencer marketing. When you endorse a product, adapt it to your personal brand, don’t change your personal brand to the product. Present it in an authentic way that you know will speak directly to your followers. And, of course, only choose those products that relate to your niche and the interests of your audience.
Olympian Usain Bolt makes millions through product endorsements, but through partnerships with sportswear brands like Puma, Bolt keeps these endorsements relevant. He’s even been able to inject his personal style into the brand, through the Usain Bolt line.
Commercial actors and models are the ones who pretend, influencers are for real. This is what makes influencer advertising so much more effective so, at all costs, keep your voice. Only endorse those products that you actually like. You don’t have to give up your authenticity to make money on Twitter.
Ideally, only promote those products that you’ve used and would genuinely recommend.
Your followers were initially drawn to you because, likely, you have similar values, lifestyles, and problems. If a product solved a problem for you, then, chances are, it will solve a problem for one of your followers.
Use Your Words to Communicate Value
As a Twitter influencer, you know how to use words. You’ve done a lot with very few words in the past. The brand you partner with will, likely, ask you to tag them in a tweet, use a promotional hashtag, or link to a product landing page as part of your endorsement. The rest of the content is, usually, up to you.
Product mentions don’t have to be subtle, but they have to make sense. Skip those all-too-obvious “casual” mentions and, instead, make every product that you promote a part of your brand story. If you like something enough to recommend it to your followers, there’s a story there.
Tell it.
Photographer Corey Rich tells stories that weave together multiple product mentions. The post below, for example, tells both an engaging climbing story and an engaging photography story, with a nod to the climbing influencers he works with and a shout out to sponsor Nikon.
When you link offsite to a product landing page, which, inevitably, you’ll have to do, be sure to shrink your link without losing its relevancy. If you’re selling something, your followers’ spam radars will already be up. Don’t scare them away with an irrelevant-looking web address.
Own Your Endorsements
Nowadays, people are pretty good at picking up on the fact that you’re selling something. Trying to be sneaky about your product endorsements, then, probably isn’t going to work. Oh, and, also, if you don’t disclose all sponsored content to your followers, that’s
illegal.
Stay on your followers’ (and the FTC’s) good side by acknowledging all of your sponsorships publicly. Be upfront about the products you endorse and, instead of getting defensive about them, spend a minute explaining why you endorse them. Your followers will appreciate your honesty.
Calculate Your Value
Because influencer marketing is relatively new, there isn’t a set industry rates for endorsements or mentions. One brand might tell you your Twitter followers are worth $100; another might say $10,000. It’s on you to understand your value as an influencer accurately and to start that conversation with the brands you endorse.
Brands aren’t always on top of this data, so take the lead!
The best way to quantify and communicate your value is to know your click through rate for every campaign you do. Use Influencer.co to
track your followers’ clicks and to collect other useful data, like the exact demographics of your audience, that you can pass on to brands. Brands aren’t always on top of this data, so take the lead!
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1b) Then click SEARCH PRODUCTS TO LINK and you’ll be taken to the Product Search Page.
2a) From there, you can click the All Categories dropdown to the right of the magenta Search button to Browse by Category.
2b) ... or type a product into the Search field for a General Search.
2c) ... or use Advanced Search for more options, including Country, Merchant, Brand, and Cost.
3a) Clicking on any Product brings up its Create Product Link Modal.
3b) Clicking on the Generate Link button will create a Custom Short Tracking Link for this Product that is specific to YOUR account, and automatically save it for you. You can get to it later by going to PRODUCTS > YOUR LINKS & REPORTS in the Top Navigation…
3c) ... or click the Copy to Clipboard link now before you even close the Modal if you’re ready to use it now. The following popup will appear, letting you know it’s ready for Pasting (Command-V on a Mac, Control-V on a PC) into your next social post:
3d) You can also click Copy Image URL to grab the graphic for posting.
4b) You’ll be taken to the Product URL Search Feature, where you can input the URL for the page where you found the product:
4c) We’ll search our database and tell you if we carry that specific product. If we do have the product, you’ll get a result like this:
If we don’t have it in our product database, you’ll get a notification like this:
Don’t worry if you get a Link Not Monetizable notification, we’ve got thousands and thousands of other products to choose from, so you’re sure to find something that just right for you and your followers.
4d) From here, you can click on Generate Link to create a link for sharing with your followers (**If you’re logged in as a Manager, you need to log yourself into the Influencer account you will be sharing the product on):
4e) From here, you can copy the link to your clipboard (as shown in step 3d), or copy it directly for use on your social channels. You can also copy the image to share. It’s that easy!
Watch the Product Search and Monetize Link screencast for more detailed information.
Finished: Part IV – Linking and Reporting
On to: Part V – Creating and Viewing Reports
1b) Which will take you to your Performance Report, showing each of your Links.
1c) As you create Links for more and more items, you may want to Filter to see things differently
1e) ... or click the Columns dropdown to change the information that’s displayed:
Watch this informative Link Performance Report screencast for more information on Link Reporting.
It's that easy to create and view reports! Go ahead and give it a try for yourself and you'll see how simple it is to track and report your Influencer.co earnings.
Finished: Part V – Creating and Viewing Reports
On to: Part VI – 
Unless you’re Kylie Jenner, posting a photo of a random product on your Instagram isn’t going to make you money. To drive sales, push something that’s useful and relevant to the people that follow you. If you suggest a product that your followers end up loving, it will both make you money and build your credibility.
By posting great, consistent content, you probably already know your niche. By interacting with your followers in the comments section of your posts, you also probably know the basic demographics of your audience.
The yoga teacher Cat Meffan (@catmeffan) wears all the activewear that she endorses in her posts. She is, then uniquely positioned to make authentic recommendations to her followers. Brands that she wears, like L*Space, often return the value by featuring her posts on their websites.
Traveller Jack Morris (@doyoutravel) famously makes six figures promoting products and destinations around the world on Instagram. Below, he takes a pretty obvious bit of product placement for the charitable vendor Lokai and owns it in the caption.
Because influencer marketing is new, there aren’t well-established, industry rates for endorsements. One brand might tell you your Instagram network is worth $100, another might say $10,000. It’s crucial that you understand your value as an influencer and that you can communicate it to brands with as much accuracy as possible. 
Typically, when a follower clicks on the link in your Instagram bio, the source of traffic simply shows up in Google Analytics as direct. Instead, try adding a custom URL parameter to the link in order to tailor the results. You can do so by shortening the link, which Influencer.co enables you to do for free. You'll be able to see more specific traffic details and even create a professional report for prospective or current clients. You’ll then be able to determine exactly just how effective these clicks are by tracking both where, and what time of day, these clicks occur.
Custom Influencer links can then be updated regularly to match with current content across all digital platforms. Watch clicks and engagement rise by changing the link in bio daily to coordinate with and/or highlight changes of a promotion or new content. For example, if promoting updated content or a giveaway, use the phrase “click link in bio” within the photo caption so followers will click through and enter their date. As the bio features the only clickable link on Instagram, this step is essential in driving traffic to your site.
Embracing new ideas and ways of doing things is an important part of life, but it’s imperative online in the digital landscape. Be willing to try new methods of tracking, likes, shares and hashtags. This will give you more flexibility to discover the true impact of engagement.
It’s essential to create relevant, engaging and compelling captions and content. This captures the attention of your audience and allows your community to engage with all of your digital platforms, as well as boosting your business. Set yourself up for success and don’t be afraid to experiment with new things in order to find out what works best for your audience. hone in what your readers want and create content that provides them value. Establishing yourself as an authority will further encourage them to click on your bio link.
Refer your Instagram followers or visitors to your bio link with a call to action, encouraging them to click through for currents details, promotions or access to updated content. Don’t forget to remind readers to visit the link in bio, as well as check your analytics on a regular basis – something 
How will you know if you’re relating to your audience and staying on brand? Likes are a start but they don’t provide the full picture since they don’t reveal any action or lack thereof on the part of your followers. You can (and should) also interact with followers to find out what they are saying about your posts and to gather some anecdotal information but this still doesn’t give you any hard data. To get numerical data about your posts and make sure you keeping them 
Connecting brands and influencers can be a tiring and tedious process, especially for busy agencies or influencers just starting out. Using an influencer marketing tool such as Influencer.co can help simplify this process.
Influencer.co is the first invite-only monetization platform dedicated to social media influencers. It allows thousands of brands to connect with influencers through one intuitive and user friendly dashboard. 
Digital products are another way agencies can help their influencers generate revenue. Products such as e-books, e-guides, checklists, and downloadable infographics have become increasingly popular, especially for influencers looking for an opportunity to build long-term passive income. These items can be sold online for profit or used to attract leads.
While an influencer is a subject matter expert and likely won’t need the help of an agency in creating digital products, you can play a large role in advising your influencer on the best way to promote and market their product.
Agencies can also play a valuable role in connecting influencers with brands to work together on the creation of digital content. This content can be promoted through the influencer’s channels and on advertising or editorial space.
Before any brand sets out to work with an influencer, no matter where they’re engaging them, it is imperative that they first define their goals. Determining and then defining goals can be a long, strenuous process, but you can’t effectively build a campaign if you don’t know what results you hope to obtain. Marketers could easily spend thousands of dollars on influencer marketing and still fail simply because they began a campaign with no true ending in mind.
To help keep spending under control, many brands are now stepping away from hiring influencers based on likes and audience sizes and instead have began to hire influencers on a performance basis, with those metrics determining how successful (or unsuccessful) an influencer campaign is. thus, audience size becomes less important when selecting influencers than views and conversions generated by that audience, incentivizing the influencer to become a more successful marketer. Make sense yet? It will.
For Influencers, monetization and tracking platform gives influencers the opportunity to work with a plethora of different brands without having to deal with the stress and anxiety of having to produce results within a certain time frame.
This new monetization platform also benefits the brands because they no longer have to search the internet to identify influencers. When brands