Affiliate Marketing on Social Media: A 2022 Quickstart Guide

Affiliate marketing may be an excellent strategy to make money if you’re a blogger or content creator with an audience and consistent traffic.

With affiliate marketing, you promote other companies’ goods in exchange for a certain percentage of the revenue that comes from your advertising efforts. The logic is straightforward: you receive an individual link to a product from a promoted company. You share the link on your social media accounts. Each month you receive a reward for all the purchases made by your link.

Whether you write professional articles about ecommerce navigation best practices, create lifestyle content, or shoot playthrough videos, you can generate a steady income from sharing affiliate links.

Read on to find the best practices for affiliate marketing on social media to make the most of it!

Why Affiliate Marketing on Social Media?

With so many different types of affiliates out there, why go with organic social media to grow your affiliate business?

For one thing, that’s where a LOT of people are online. As I talk about in my post on TikTok, it’s a platform with more than 1 billion active users!

The other main factor to consider is what type of audience you’re targeting. If you want to reach a younger demographic, something like TikTok or Instagram is perfect. For women, look at Pinterest. For older audiences (or pretty much everyone), Facebook is still a good bet too!

If you want more info on these different social platforms, we have in-depth guides on each of the following:

We’ll go into more detail about how to get started on a social site, but first, here are 3 steps you should know about for building out the “affiliate” side of your affiliate business!

1) Research Your Affiliate Network Options

When you’re first starting out, you’ll want to pick an affiliate network to act as a connecting thread between you as the content creator and the affiliate products and brands you’re promoting.

We highly recommend ClickBank, due to the quality of thousands of top affiliate products on our marketplace, plus our reliable payments and personalized support for affiliates. ClickBank is a top destination for affiliates and sellers around the globe.

NOTE: In order to actually promote offers as an affiliate (or sell your own product), you’ll need your own ClickBank account. Sign up for a free ClickBank account here!

Aside from ClickBank, some of the most popular networks in our space include ShareASale, Amazon Associates, CJ Affiliates, and Peerfly. (See the full list of ClickBank alternatives for more affiliate network options.)

For newcomers, programs from large general merchants may be a simple entry point into affiliate marketing, as you have access to a vast selection of items to promote.

Alternatively, there’s the option of connecting with brands directly. This way, you can choose to promote the products that are most relevant to your audience. Besides, direct communication may facilitate your relations with sellers and result in more close cooperation and better income.

2) Analyze Your Audience’s Interests

To provide the most relevant products to promote, you need to understand what kind of offers your followers and subscribers are interested in. In other words, you should analyze your audience thoroughly. 

First, check your social media page’s insights or statistics tab. Almost all of these platforms provide detailed information on audience demographics, including their location, gender, and age. This information should give you a hint about who they are and what they like.

If you need more detailed information, turn to a dedicated analytical tool. The most popular ones are Hootsuite, Google Analytics, Brandwatch, Talkwalker, and others. Engaging these tools, you’ll receive a ready-made report on your audience’s interests and pains.

3) Promote Only Trustworthy Products

When affiliate marketing appears authentic and genuine, it performs best. Use your pages to get paid for recommending high-quality goods and services. Try the products you promote by yourself. Make sure they are of good quality and coincide with the descriptions given by the seller or producer.

Make valuable content for your audience by maintaining a high standard. Money earned on promoting low-quality products is not worth jeopardizing your relationship with the followers.

Set Up Your Social Media Pages for Affiliate Marketing

Mind that all social media work differently, offer various possibilities, and should be set up accordingly. Here are some quick tips for getting started on different social platforms for your affiliate marketing business!

Instagram

For Instagram affiliate marketing, your first step is switching to a professional account. Otherwise, you won’t have access to the information vital for deciding what content to post, like insights about your audience and content statistics.

The most crucial thing to understand about promoting products on Instagram is that you can’t put your tracking links directly into the post. Instead, you’ll need to post them in the Stories and/or profile bio.

Consider creating a LinkTree to place in the bio and promote several products at once.

Screenshots taken on the official Alexis Stanghellini Instagram account

Facebook

On Facebook, adding links to the post is allowed. But to make the post more effective, you need to add relevant hashtags and preferably shorten the links. You can significantly benefit from reposting to other thematic groups.

Screenshot taken on the official Nethustler website

TikTok

Like on Instagram, TikTok affiliate marketing requires you to put links in your bio, so a LinkTree will be helpful. In addition, a professional account is required to receive insights about the audience demographics and activity.

Keep in mind that TikTok algorithms promote popular sounds and hashtags. So monitor the trends, and don’t forget to add relevant tags. 

Screenshots taken on the official hallejordan TikTok account

YouTube

YouTube affiliate marketing usually implies posting videos to advertise a seller’s goods or services. Bloggers provide their tracking link in the video description. The combination of what you say in the video and write in its description can provide better conversion results.

Think about shortening or masking the links for a better appearance. Also, don’t forget to write that the link is affiliate.

Screenshots taken on the official Allie Glines YouTube channel

Twitter

Although the tweets have a limit of 280 characters, you can use the thread to give a comprehensive product description or tell a story. Use the right hashtags and shorten the links to make the post more attractive.

Using a tweet pinning option, you can attract even more attention to the affiliate posts. Features like Livestream and Spaces have expanded user interaction possibilities and given it a more personal touch.

Similar to Instagram and Facebook Live, Livestream enables you to have video chats. The same option is available in audio format through Spaces, which permits these chats to go longer than one hour. The finest places for long-form material are Livestream and Spaces, where you can go into great detail.

Screenshots taken on the official Affilimate website

Pinterest

To get detailed analytics in Pinterest, create a business account. As Pinterest is a social media with pictures, visuals play a vital role. Make sure the links are attached to beautiful images of good quality. 

Always add alt text and relevant hashtags. It helps pictures appear in searches more often. You can also enhance the reach and promote affiliate links on Pinterest more effectively by creating thematic boards.

Screenshots taken on the official Pinterest website

Quora

Users often overlook Quora as a source of income. But since it contains questions and answers on absolutely different topics, the affiliate links suit perfectly. It’s quite easy to find a relevant question and give an answer containing a link.

To gain lots of clicks, give comprehensive answers and explain how the link or product can be helpful. Quora doesn’t allow direct affiliate links, so you’ll need to redirect users to the posts or articles that contain the necessary links instead.

Screenshots taken on the official Nikola Roza website

Create Relevant Content

The links won’t work without proper context. The link should fit nicely into the post and be accompanied by a CTA. Here are some tips on creating affiliate marketing content:

• Stay natural. Strive to create content that doesn’t seem too commercial, adhering to the style you use in other posts.
• Use storytelling. Show a tiny piece of your life to the readers. Write a text that describes how to use the product or service. Making the affiliate material personal will aid in establishing an emotional connection with your viewers. As a result, your audience will grow to trust you.
• Employ different formats. To keep the content engaging, combine different types of content, long and short texts, posts and stories, cheerful and more formal reviews.
• Create captivating visuals. The picture or cover of the content is the first thing your followers see. That is why creating a beautiful image capable of grabbing one’s attention is vital.

Among the formats that work well for promoting products are product comparisons, reviews, tutorials, and unboxings (for videos).

Affiliate Marketing on Social Media: Final Word

Now you can see that there are multiple platforms where you can make a profit, including affiliate links to your publications. However easy this way of making money may seem, you need to set up your social media properly to make a stable income.

Apart from that, it’s vital to stay honest with your followers, notifying them that the links provided are affiliate links through proper affiliate link disclosure and promoting only trustworthy brands. With that in mind, you have all the tools you need to become a successful social media affiliate!

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About the Author: Kate Parish

Kate Parish, chief marketing officer at progressive web apps agency Onilab with 8+ years of experience in digital marketing and website promotion. Kate always strives to keep pace with the ever-advancing online world and the sphere of Magento PWA development. Her expertise includes in-depth knowledge of SEO, branding, PPC, SMM, and the field of online sales in general.