

I own some very well-followed social accounts. How can I make this a business? - londonstartup

I run a number of Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, and Instagram accounts which hundreds of thousands of followers in large niches (fashion, technology, film, music, student, etc) and through these can grow these and other accounts at a rate of 10,000 per day if I work on this full time (currently am a consultant with a background in content sites hence social&#x2F;traffic driving background. Not necessarily looking to do a startup (i.e. a lifestyle or e-commerce business would work for now) but open to all ideas. As content is very hard to make money from (sadly) I&#x27;m thinking to sell a product through the site, i.e. clothes, possibly with a local focus. Am I thinking too small? I have a lot of experience in community management so can grow lots of accounts of engaged people and have sent millions of clicks to sites, but would like to use this for myself rather than clients so I have a fanatical startup focus. Any ideas really appreciated, thank you!
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austenallred
There's way more money in this than you think. I pulled in 2-4k/month from
adsense from a little Pinterest traffic back in the day, and I wasn't even
trying (proof - [http://austen-
screenshots.s3.amazonaws.com/Home_Google_AdSen...](http://austen-
screenshots.s3.amazonaws.com/Home_Google_AdSense_23_09-22-49.png)). If you can
bump those numbers into the millions, you're really going to cash in. There
are little kids selling promotions on Vine that make more than their parents.

Interestingly enough, I find you can either get spammy and low-quality and
cash out a lot now, or build a legitimate audience and following, and create
revenue that lasts for a long time. The spammier you are, the faster you make
money, but the faster it disappears.

There are four obvious ways you can make money from this:

1\. Find a good affiliate program, hawk their goods every now and then, and
make a small percentage. This is surprisingly hard, but when done right makes
a bunch.

2\. Drive traffic to a site with adsense. You have to drive more traffic than
you would ever believe, but it's relatively secure.

3\. Sell tweets/promotion to other folks. This is pretty easy, but obviously
you won't have much control over what people are using your accounts for.

4\. Create/license what blackhatters call a "panel," and write an automated
way anyone can come and use your accounts for a fee. This usually requires a
lot of really small accounts, not a few big ones, but even blackhat noobs can
make $100/day with a couple thousand accounts doing this (you can buy accounts
for cheap). This gives you even less control, and basically turns you into a
giant spam bot.

Contact me off-list and I can explain a little bit more in depth how it's done
and put you in contact with some good folks (email in bio).

Be sure to check out sites like instafluence.com and sponsoredtweets.com (even
celebrities). Legit companies pay a lot of money for promotion from big
accounts. I know candycrush was paying over $1/download, and a few people
pulled in $10K+/month. There are even people making a few thousand dollars a
month selling cheap tweets/posts to places like fiverr.com or seoclerks.com -
generally lower quality, higher volume accounts. It sounds like you've figured
out how to grow them though, and if you can scale that out you've got a money
making machine.

~~~
londonstartup
Amazing reply, thank you (Grasswire looks amazing, I'd love to hear more!) I
somehow don't feel like I should be running an affiliates for other people
business, and wonder how much my heart would be in it. I'd prefer to do
something more transparent, pointing traffic to my own site (but not competing
with those companies that pull in thousands of shops and have data scientists
working around the clock, like Lyst) There's a company called the social chain
doing this really well (influencer marketing as an agency) they have mulit-
mutli millions of UK people in their network. Then there's the audience, who
claim a billion people can be influenced by them every month. Woah.

~~~
sgold515
How are you growing the accounts so fast? I started an account last week after
reading Austen's awesome book ([http://austenallred.com/user-
acquisition/book/chapter/instag...](http://austenallred.com/user-
acquisition/book/chapter/instagram/)),but only grow my following around 30 per
day as opposed to 10k. Also I haven't tested out any bots yet.

~~~
sgold515
Also would love to get your quick feedback on my niche account. I have some
great ideas to monetize it once it gets to some scale that I can share too.
Email is gold.sethj@gmail.com

~~~
londonstartup
Sent!

------
barnacs
ITT: everything that is wrong with the world

~~~
londonstartup
I get what you're saying, but I don't want to be spammy is why I don;t just
want to (aimlessly send traffic to pages) would like to create real value for
someone. When my favourite clothing brand releases new clothes, it's genuinely
exciting to buy and wear it when it arrives, it's a really good feeling.

------
pkfrank
Sponsored posts and affiliate offers seem like no-brainers if lifestyle /
e-commerce is your goal. Depending on your ability to convert clicks > sales,
you can formulate strategy around developing your own set of sites to benefit
from the traffic.

There are definitely opportunities to think bigger (really, ANY idea can
benefit from substantial / targeted eyeballs), but starting with sponsored
posts / affiliate would give you an easy and instant monetization opportunity.

Just sign up to a few advertisers at CJ that align well with your niche to
test it out.

~~~
londonstartup
Thanks, I've been considering this. It may be more work but I'd love to work
directly with makers within a niche and set a 10% or so affiliate price, on a
set of products e.g. a style of clothes, drones, IoT, wearables etc and create
a long-term focus rather than trying to grab pennies/cents. Whoever's left
that can still game the Facebook algorithm for millions of instant clicks
(something I've never done/tried to do) would probably do great with these
affiliates, like the kid who does dose.com

------
davemel37
In your shoes I would use your success as social proof to sell info products
about replicating your success.

However, if you really want to monetize... You need to think long and hard
about exactly WHY these people are following you. You need to understand what
they are getting out of the relationship and than you need to think of
products and companies that are native to that experience.

For example with fashion, you can simply put a link to an e-commerce site in
your profile and drive hundreds of not thousands a day in sales (there is case
study out there of someone selling thousands of dollars worth of ties on
instagram but I can't find it from my phone)

If people are following you because they like your content...you can try to
charge them a buck or two to get exclusive access to more of your content.

Just remember, social media is not meant for advertising and unless you can
find a native monetization you will not be capturing most of the value you
can.

Feel free to email me if you want to brainstorm this with me. Check my profile
for contact info.

~~~
londonstartup
Thanks for commenting. So: \- Replicating success: It's quite niche and not
entirely one-size fits all my successes (e.g. wouldn't work with fintech or
more "serious" "deep tech" products) and marketing is only one slice of what
I'm passionate about, others being startups, tech, music etc, so wouldn't call
myself a master marketer like Nir or Neil Patel) \- Why following: great
point. Someone said this to me at a community management conference in San
Francisco in November. The accounts I have are great but I could have amazing
accounts if I put more effort into building/maintaing them

May email you also, thank you!

------
SmallBets
I just listened to this James Altucher podcast on the subject, about
monetizing high followed accounts via sponsored posts:

[http://www.stansberryradio.com/Frank-Curzio/Latest-
Episodes/...](http://www.stansberryradio.com/Frank-Curzio/Latest-
Episodes/Episode/873/AA-Ep-191-How-to-Make-Seven-Figures-a-Year-on-Social-
Media)

I thought it was pretty eye opening and seems relevant to your situation.
Talks about streamlining the content creation process, getting advertisers to
pay for sponsored posts, and he is now developing his own products to sell
that would otherwise be pitched by advertisers in his sponsored posts.

~~~
londonstartup
Thank you so much! I love James Altucher's writing, will definitely listen.

~~~
SmallBets
No prob - I'm also a huge fan. Should've mentioned it is an interview with
Brendan Hampton who is the one playing in the space.

------
dakrisht
You need a great product and once you have this you build out a product page
(preferably physical product) and finally you drive your organic targeted
traffic to said product page and capitalize on the sales. Ultimately you build
a company from this and keep making more products. Depends of course on many
factors. Much simpler to do affiliate marketing but like others have said fast
money, no sustainability. You want to build something long term, lucrative and
grow your follower base(s) to millions. You have a following, direct this
following to your product now. Email me I have some ideas for you. Email in
profile.

------
beagle90
Please don't. If I follow one of those groups it's because I have an interest
in that particular movie/film/book/sport/whatever. If your posts are no longer
relevant I will unfollow you.

~~~
londonstartup
One of which groups sorry? Not sure which post you were replying to.

~~~
jedberg
OP is saying "please don't go into the business of shoving ads at me when the
reason I'm following you is because you have interesting things to say."

OP is channeling the average user telling you that if you do this you will be
unfollowed.

I'm not sure I agree with OP, it depends on the topic. The HN crowd is not
indicative of the general public.

For example, the fashion people would probably be happy to see curated ads.

~~~
londonstartup
Buzzfeed's sponsored ads are pretty good for the Buzzfeed audience. I agree on
the point yes, content links can be posted over and over as people get
enojyment from them, posting products will soon lead to unfollowing, is why
I'd like to find a good niche and something people want and build a community.

------
brianjester
You need either an e-product (e-book, course, membership site with private
forums, etc.) or a real product (your consulting time $400/h, a quality
product you buy wholesale (from distributer here or from factory via Alibaba)
and sell via FBA (Fulfilled By Amazon) through a sales page on your site. (no
inventory at your home). You can also generate affiliate sales revenue through
product demos, videos, recommendations and a "resources" page on your site,
which are affiliate links.

~~~
londonstartup
Heard about FDA this week, really exciting. This all makes sense. I'd like to
do something with quite broad appeal (possibly e-books then, but I have doubts
about whether I could create a great community, and as mentioned above I don;t
necassarily want to run through someone elses affiliate program, would prefer
to creat emy own by going direct, though maybe this would be possible with
authors..)

------
normloman
People will pay you to post something about their business on twitter.

[https://www.fiverr.com/search/gigs?utf8=%E2%9C%93&search_in=...](https://www.fiverr.com/search/gigs?utf8=%E2%9C%93&search_in=everywhere&query=twitter+mentions&page=1&layout=auto)

~~~
londonstartup
Thanks, but I'd really like a major product I can build with community
management, brand building, nurturing people to love a site/product/app. It's
a personal passion of mine and makes me really excited thinking about it :)

------
explicate
Have you thought about creating an information product? I really like the
podcast I Love Marketing by Dean Jackson and Joe Polish. Some other names
worth checking out might be Eben Pagan and Jeff Walker who focus on the
information product niche. I've had success with their material.

------
eastsideatx
Very interesting - I have a friend who works at www.viglink.com, and I think
you could utilize their affiliate relations to drive some good commerce
earnouts for yourself.

Feel free to email me at jfracht@gmail.com and I'll connect you.

~~~
londonstartup
Sent!

------
pclstyle
We've built a product that's highly community-centric and is about getting
users into interest groups that they care about. Sounds right up your alley.
Down to chat? Send me an email at pclget (at) gmail

~~~
londonstartup
This email didn't work? bounced back

------
londonstartup
I run accounts _with_ hundreds of followers. Apologies!

~~~
smoyer
With _hundreds of thousands_ of followers?

~~~
londonstartup
hundreds of thousands of followers across all networks, yes. Sorry for bizarre
grammar.

------
tachion
Could you please mail me at spankthespam {at} gmail {dot} com? I've few small
projects where I think we could cooperate.

~~~
londonstartup
Great, sent!

------
ckluis
Can you message me at {myusername}@gmail.com? I want to gather your info for a
potential upcoming project.

~~~
londonstartup
Sent!

------
tachion
Are you open to cooperation with small scale projects? If so, message me and
we can get in to the details!

~~~
londonstartup
I don't think I can Direct Message on here. What's your Twitter or email?

~~~
tachion
Did you get a chance to mail me? Or is there a way I could reach you?

------
bhaumik
What kind of technology accounts? We might be interested in affiliation. Can
you DM me?

------
drpgq
Maybe look at Pat Flynn's blog and podcast. He has a lot of info about
monetizing.

~~~
londonstartup
Thank you, I will. Much appreciated. Anyone else I should read let me know.

------
avinassh
related - [http://www.fastcompany.com/3036880/how-to-
make-500000-a-year...](http://www.fastcompany.com/3036880/how-to-
make-500000-a-year-on-twitter) (article about uber facts)

------
michaelmcmillan
I feel this belongs in /r/startups or /r/entrepreneur.

------
rakeshmandava
Please email me at {myusername}@gmail.com I have a question for you!

------
ideazz
Depends on your fanbase. Are the majority American/European?

~~~
londonstartup
Right now, slight majority american, lots of english. Generally, there are a
lot more american people on social networks then Brits so that's what I have
and am likely to have in the future, about the same ratio.

------
itschuckybaby
Hell, I'll pay you to get me some more followers

~~~
londonstartup
Message me if you want. I can normally help, depending on what niche you
operate in?

~~~
dyeje
I don't think there is a message function on HN. Do you have an email?

~~~
londonstartup
Yes, where should I email you? Or Twitter for DM?

~~~
cabs
cabsrun at gmail.com

------
jaggs
email me at jack at snapunit dot com please, as I may have something
interesting.

------
joeyspn
I'm interested in exploring synergies. Ping me if you want (email on my
profile)

------
known
Ebay?

~~~
londonstartup
Thanks, but I feel like if I do affiliate I should be the only one taking a %,
both unfair on the creator and less margin for me most likely, though I could
well be wrong.

