How To Use Social Media For Affiliate Marketing

Social media has long been recognised as a powerful platform for affiliate marketing purposes. Read on to find simple techniques that you can use to sell your products online. 

Due to the very nature of social media, it has long been used as a plaform for successfulaffiliate marketing. Sites such as Facebook and Twitter can give immediate access to thousands of people who could be potential buyers of a product. Here are some simple techniques that you can use to get started in making money from combining the power of social media with affiliate marketing. 

YouTube 

One of the sites that you might like to use, is YouTube. With the internet becoming more video-centric due to the improvement of broadband and faster network speeds, this site currently has the 2nd highest searches online after Google. It has now become an expectation of most consumers that a video camera will be installed on laptops, and this makes it very easy to create videos at home without the use of any special equipment. 

Many online money makers are submitting videos and creating video channels for affiliate marketing purposes. If you select a particular theme or even inject plenty of humour into videos, you may even be in with a chance of creating a production that could be virally shared around the globe. 

To make the most of YouTube, use a URL linking to your affiliate product page in the description of the video that you submit. The URL could be a shortened version by using a site such as bit.ly. You may also want to wear a t-shirt that displays the URL that you are wanting your viewers to visit. Again, it could be helpful if the URL is shortened to make it easier to type into a browser. 

Flickr 

This image and video site offers a professional account for approximately $30 per year. This will enable you to add html for affiliate marketingpurposes to your image and video descriptions. The submissions of Flickr are crawled rapidly by Google and the other search engines, which will make them quickly available to other internet users. 

The best way to use Flickr is to add photos of the product that you would like to sell and link these back to a review of the product or straight to the merchants site. For example, you could write 'blue shirt Gap' as the keywords and display a photo of the shirt, with a link back to the item on the merchants site. 

Twitter 

This micro-blogging site offers immediate access to millions of viewers. It is possible to set up your blog and your Flickr account to post automatically to your Twitter account as new submissions are made. Affiliate marketing is made possible by linking back to your product pages with the link that your merchant has provided. 

To get the most from Twitter, it is essential to take part in the community and build your network and relationships. Don't just market to your 'followers' - spend time chatting and having banter with them.