One of the advantages of the internet today is that it has given us several means of making money online. From affiliate marketing to e-commerce and even the use of social media, the internet is teeming with opportunities.
However, one of the most popular in this long list of options is the use of social networks.
They allow people to meet others online, connect with old friends, and make new friends. There are many of them on the net today, with some specifically targeted at certain niches.
However, some of the biggest names when it comes to social media are Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Pinterest, etc.
These social media are like gargantuan pools of people, each having several millions of registered users worldwide. In this guide, we’ll be focusing on Snapchat and how to make money on Snapchat.
Building a Snapchat Audience
On Snapchat, like most other social media platforms, numbers are everything. The more followers you have, the more people see your content.
The more people see your content, the more people you have as potential customers. The more potential customers you have, the more money you can make, and so on.
To have a thriving business and make money on Snapchat, you cannot downplay the importance of a well-established audience. Now, if you’ve already done pretty well for yourself with many people checking out what you have to say online, that’s great.
You don’t necessarily need this part. However, if you still feel you can pump those numbers up, here are a few audience-building techniques to follow before you learn how to make money on Snapchat:
1. Add your contacts and friends
This is one of the most rudimentary ways you can build an audience on the platform. It follows the basic principle of starting small/starting with what you have. So, look through those contacts.
The chances are that you have more than a hundred of them. Considering that about 46 million people in the United States use Snapchat, you’re likely to have a lot of contacts who use the platform.
Add them up. If you’re a beginner and they don’t help you get to your first hundred, they’ll help you come relatively close to it.
2. Promote yourself across multiple social media accounts
Considering that Snapchat is relatively new, the chances are that your other social network pages are older than it. As such, you just might have more followers there.
In that case, what you want to do is to ask them to add you on Snapchat. It is not particularly hard, but it is crucial if you want to learn how to make money through Snapchat.
To get them interested, tease the kind of content you post on Snapchat. Ensure that they know that they can only get it by following you on the platform.
Now, while Snapchat has very impressive amounts of business potential, it is not like LinkedIn, where you are constantly professional. So, don’t forget to be fun and engaging in your promotions.
3. Promote others
This method is a bit dicey, but it still works. You could say it relies on the goodness in the hearts of people. Anyway, a good way to get more people on your list is by promoting others.
When you do so, the chances are that they’ll follow you back for it. However, you must not do this excessively. If you do, you’ll end up expending a lot of effort on people who might not return the favor in kind.
4. Content marketing
This is particularly useful if you are a blogger. Considering that you’re trying to learn how to make money online, we think it’s safe to assume that you have an online presence outside social media.
If you do, a great way to get people to follow you is through content marketing. When you upload a blog post or something of that sort, embed your Snapcode wherever appropriate.
Then, get people to click on it to follow you without being overly persuasive or obnoxious.
5. Post regularly
This is more of an effort to keep your current audience than to get new ones. Regardless, it is incredibly crucial to your success. So, try to upload content on your Snapchat story regularly.
A good number would be about 20 times per day. However, you need to exercise caution so that you do not overdo it. The last thing you want is to get so obsessed with selfies and uploads that you start failing in your business.
6. Network
In this regard, you can join groups on other social media. Ensure that they are networking groups where you can build connections and share personal info. When you join these groups, make a few online friends.
At some point, you’ll exchange details, like your Snapchat handles. When that happens, you can follow yourselves and help grow your numbers.
On a related note, you can make friends with influential people. It is also a means of networking. Talk to them, and build a connection if you can. When appropriate, ask for a shout-out.
This can be particularly helpful because promotions from influential people can often go a long way in helping you get a larger audience.
7. Send a message
This is another method of gaining followers. It is quite simple, but it does not have the potential to get you hundreds or thousands like some others. Regardless, you can try to get the attention of other accounts by sending them a direct message.
Remember to be friendly and offer value to them in the process. An alternate means of getting their attention is by mentioning them in a Snap. From there, you can ask for a follow.
How to Make Money on Snapchat
Now that you’ve learned how you can grow your audience, it’s time to move on to the next. If you want to make money on Snapchat, you need to understand that it isn’t particularly difficult.
All you need is the right information to help you go about it the right way. For that reason, we’ll be giving you seven of the best ways for you to make money on Snapchat.
1. Create content of excellent quality
This is coming at the very top because it serves as the umbrella for all other steps to make money on Snapchat.
It’s still important if you want to learn monetization strategies on other social media platforms. Examples are strategies on how to make money on Instagram, and how to make money on Tiktok.
This is so because Snapchat, alongside every other social media, is very content-driven.
Without content, you have nothing to act as a tunnel for your promotion. Without content, you have nothing to keep your customers and potential customers engaged.
Without content, you’re practically a ghost on the internet, and no business ever survived by being a ghost.
So, if you must make money on the app, create great content. Since you’ll be posting on Snapchat, remember to keep things fun and lighthearted. This is particularly important because your audience is mostly the younger generation.
Additionally, be concise and interesting. The average person can hardly concentrate for more than fifteen seconds on the internet. Get their attention as much as possible in that time with your content.
2. Use your numbers to advertise for other brands/companies
Remember how we spoke earlier about numbers being everything on social media? Well, this point goes further to buttress it. If you already have a lot of followers, the best advice for you will be to use your numbers.
Anything from 10k is fine.
With that amount of people, you can reach out to companies. Sell yourself and the value you can offer. Explain to them that you have just enough people for them to reach out to on your follower list.
If things go well, you should be able to get brands to advertise on your page.
Alternatively, you can wait for them to reach out to you. It’s not quite as effective as the first option. However, when a brand comes to you themselves, it means that they can still see your value.
Under those circumstances, you’d have a lot of power, and you can easily determine the cost of the advert.
So, again, if you want to make money on Snapchat, use your numbers.
3. Sell pictures on Snapchat
For this particular method, you have to understand how to make money selling pics on Snapchat. However, once you get the hang of it, you’re good to go.
Most of the pieces of content we have these days are considered intellectual property. Things like articles, images, videos, etc. are treated with the utmost respect.
As such, it is a crime for someone just to take it and turn it into theirs. An action like that is sure to fetch a few legal consequences.
You can make a business for yourself by selling your pictures. As a professional photographer, you probably have a few people dying to own one of your art pieces.
Reach out to them with well-crafted content. Let them know you have images for sale. If you leave your contact details, people are sure to ring you, and you’ll be making good money.
4. Use Snap Ads to advertise your business
Now, one of the best ways to make money on Snapchat is by advertising your business.
As I said earlier, Snapchat has a dizzying user base of more than 200 million people. In the United States of America alone, a lot of the total internet population is active on the medium.
This gives you a ridiculously large pool of potential clients.
Snap Ads allow you to reach out to all these people in different ways or formats.
- The first is an advert format that can either be heard or watched by your target audience. It usually pops up inside the snaps.
- Additionally, you can advertise your product or service as a story on the Discover page. This is very effective as you can use it to reach vast amounts of potential customers at a time.
- The final method takes the creative form of a Snapchat filter. Here, adverts are displayed by overlapping images on the carousel.
Like most other social media networks, Snapchat does not leave you with your troubles. Snap Ads has an analytic feature that helps you track the results of your advert.
With it, you can determine how well your advert is doing. You’ll be able to see what you did wrong and what you did right. This will give room for improvement and/or consistency in future advertising efforts.
Keep in mind that one of the best ways to utilize Snap Ads is by creating fun, attention-grabbing videos. As a coach, fitness trainer, Yogi, or even dance instructor, you can make a quick 12-second video to get your potential client’s attention. It’s proven to be effective on Snapchat.
5. Try out affiliate marketing
If you’re not very familiar with the term, allow us to give a brief explanation.
Affiliate marketing is simply another method of making money online. It involves promoting the services and products of other companies. More often than not, you’ll have to promote e-commerce companies. However, you don’t do it in vain.
When you become an affiliate marketer for a company on the web, you’ll get commissions for every sale you make.
This reward can range from 1% to 100% commission on products and services you promote. All you have to do is to find the right brand to work with.
Unlike some other social media, Snapchat does not have much of a problem with users posting affiliate links for the promotion of affiliate products and services.
This makes affiliate marketing a viable method of making money on Snapchat.
A few brands that offer affiliate marketing programs include Amazon, Shopify, Adobe, eBay, Nike, Puma, etc. However, you must get more information about the intricacies of how they function.
Keep in mind, however, that the amount of money you can make directly equals the number of followers you have. So, if you’d like to make the most out of this method of earning, you’d have to boost your follower count.
6. Promote your events with custom-made Geofilters
You might be planning to organize an event within your niche that requires tickets to get in. In that case, the event is making you money, but it’ll only be profitable if you can get enough people to attend.
A great way Snapchat can be useful to you in earning income is by allowing you to design geofilters to promote your events.
With this innovative feature, you can make a personal or business promotion that will be shown only to people within your preferred geographic location.
So, anyone interested in attending the event can easily contact you and pay their entry fees.
7. Sell your shout-outs
This method is a bit unorthodox, but it will get the job done. If you have a significant number of followers on Snapchat, you can easily spell out that you’d be willing to provide shout-outs for a stipend.
For this to work, you must ensure that you don’t overcharge so that you’ll be able to give people value for their money.
8. Get Snapchat lenses for your business or promote one
Many Snapchat users struggle to find the perfect filter that matches their lifestyle. So, another cool way to make money on the app without breaking a sweat is to get creative with lenses.
Lenses are the tell-tale sign that a user’s pictures are taken with Snapchat. So, you’ll find them immediately after you open the app. Like business referrals, a lens that contains your logo or product design is sure to catch the attention of users and make them want to find out more about your business.
Michael Kors, Sony Pictures, and Starbucks’ creative lenses are great examples of how these augmented filters have played out well for businesses and helped to increase their sales. So, they are a handy feature to use if you are looking to make money on Snapchat.
The thing about Snapchat lenses is that you might not be able to create one yourself if you aren’t tech-savvy. Luckily there’s a community of Snapchat content creators that can get this done for you.
Nevertheless, if you don’t own a business, you can still go home with a paycheck by promoting a business’s lens.
How to Make Money on Snapchat Premium
First off, it is worthy of note that there isn’t exactly a Snapchat premium application. The Snapchat app you’ll find on the App Store and Play Store is entirely free of charge.
When people say “Snapchat premium,” they often refer to accounts that require fees for you to view their content. There are a lot of heads turning in this direction. A lot of people believe that this innovation started with people who upload adult content.
In a way, it makes sense as it can make money and filter out the underage users of Snapchat. However, in reality, there are different kinds of content you can request a fee for.
So, if you’d like to make money, you can employ the Snapchat premium method. Charge people to view your content. Just ensure that your content is worth viewing and ensure that you don’t charge outlandishly. Standard rates are usually around $25.
Things to Keep in Mind While Monetizing Snapchat
If you’ve decided to monetize your Snapchat, it means that you’ve decided to do a bit more with the app than just have fun. As such, like most businesses, you cannot afford to be slack. So, if you must make money on Snapchat, you must keep some things in mind:
1. Consistency is key
This is true in virtually every regard. However, we need to stress it a bit more if you must monetize your Snapchat account.
With Snapchat, you cannot go from making nothing to counting several thousand in a few days. It probably won’t happen in a few weeks either.
This is because social media monetization is not a Ponzi scheme or any other method of getting rich quickly. You need to put in the effort and be consistent about it.
2. Be creative
There are a lot of young people on Snapchat. This could either be a dream come true or a nightmare depending on how you choose to see it. The reason behind that statement is that young people often have very short attention spans.
In addition to that, they are sometimes attracted to the most creative, most mind-blowing things. So, if you must appeal to them to earn on the app, you have to think outside the box.
Apart from the need to appeal to youngsters, you should stay on your toes because we’re in a digital world. Things are constantly changing, and you cannot afford to keep to your old methods of doing things.
As such, however, often you can do research. Find out new and more innovative ways to get yourself out there.
3. Always work on improving your potential clientele
It is very advisable to set goals, and achieving those goals is a particularly admirable feat. However, you cannot stop there.
Even if you do get your dream 10k followers, do not stop there. Work on getting more people. That way, you’ll have large amounts of people you can market to.
Mistakes to Avoid When Monetizing Your Snapchat Account
You can make a substantial amount on Snapchat if you play your cards right. But here are a couple of errors you should also be wary of making:
Mistake 1: Using all methods at once
The methods we’ve highlighted above can surely bring you cool cash. However, that’s not a permit to use all of them at the get-go. You’ve got to pick a few that you can handle well and focus entirely on them.
Shuffling between affiliate marketing, sponsoring posts, selling pictures, and creating content will likely wear you out. You’ll also not be great at all of them. So, identify your strengths.
If you wish to use affiliate marketing or brand partnership as your monetization method, joining a training program like Wealthy Affiliate is a great way to learn how to use these methods effectively, and the program is free to join.
Also, consider that you have to improve your client base irrespective of how you want to make money on Snapchat. That also will require some effort from you.
Mistake 2: Focusing entirely on product showcasing
Most times, you’ll need to showcase or promote products and businesses on Snapchat to get paid. But if your followers feel that that’s all your account is about (even if you portray it creatively) then many of them won’t follow your call to action.
You need to mix your posts and stories with trendy topics and content. This will show that you’re also on the app to have fun and not just make money, even if that is your primary reason for opening a Snapchat account.
Mistake 3: Making many posts and snaps in a day
Another thing you should avoid when learning how to make money on Snapchat is releasing too many snaps in a day. As you know, recent snaps are placed higher on the ‘Recent Updates’ list.
If you post all your snaps at once, you will have nothing to post the next day. Using the same snaps every day breaks the first rule of using Snapchat: be creative.
For example, let’s assume you want to make money on Snapchat through affiliate marketing. Making 15 or fewer snaps on your profile should do the trick. Anything more might be a pain in the neck to watch and cause people to avoid your profile altogether.
Mistake 4: Not using Snapchat metrics
Tracking your progress is key to making money online, and several social media platforms have top-notch ways to go about this. Snapchat is not left out of the mix. Its analytics will reveal the things you doing right and areas you need to improve on.
For example, picture that you want to make money on Snapchat from advertising other brands and companies. You can use the ‘story clickthrough rate’ and ‘story views’ to find out the percentage of followers that watch your snaps from start to finish.
Overall, don’t get so absorbed with knowing how to make money on Snapchat that you forget to check if you’re making the bucks. Let the stats lead you.
Mistake 5: Not having a strategy or not sticking to your strategy
To make the most out of the methods above, you need to have a working strategy and stick to it. This means understanding, to the letter, how you are going to use the methods to make money on Snapchat.
For example, if you want to sell pictures on Snapchat, you have two broad options: to take the pictures yourself or to outsource them.
Like any other online activity, you need to invest your time in planning, scheduling, and many other strategic activities that will make this venture successful.
It’s best to have only one strategy at a time and stick to it. Your plan B should be as good as the first strategy.
FAQs on How to Make Money on Snapchat
Q1. How much can I charge my followers to view my Snapchat Premium account?
There’s no hard and fast rule to how much you can charge your Snapchat Premium followers. However, most people fix their prices between $10 and $30.
Irrespective of the rate you decide to go for, ensure that there’s a clear-cut difference between the different services you provide.
Q2. Can I make money from creating lenses?
Yes.
You can make money from promoting sponsored augmented filters. Outsourcing the creation of a lens for your business can also be a great way to increase your business’s popularity, which points towards more sales.
However, if you know your way around augmented reality, you can also join the community of official lens creators. This way, you’ll earn when someone downloads the lens you created.
Q3. Will Snapchat pay me for the number of views I get on a snap?
No.
Snapchat is a fun way to share memories with your friends, followers, and family. So, you’ll not get paid when loads of people view your snaps unless there’s an action that’ll bring you money when users follow it.
Nevertheless, all the methods we’ve highlighted above are heavily dependent on the number of followers and views you get.
Q4. How do I know if my target audience is on Snapchat?
There’s no golden rule that explicitly states whether your target audience uses Snapchat or not. However, you can master how to target them while learning how to make money on Snapchat.
First, you can simply run a poll on other social media platforms and ask your followers if they use Snapchat. Then, you can compare the data from these responses with that of your Snapchat followers.
Also, Snapchat Ad Manager allows you to reach your customers by their interests, lifestyle, age, gender, and even the type of device they have. Snapchat will then align your customer list to your accounts.
Final Note on How to Make Money on Snapchat
To make money on Snapchat, like everywhere else, you must be patient, consistent, and hard-working. However, above all, you need to stay informed.
This guide covers everything you need to know about monetizing Snapchat. If you read through it all, you’re well on your way to properly monetizing your Snapchat.
