Sponsored Posts: How To Make Money & Where To Sign Up

Wow!  We have come a Looooong way:

In our How To Blog Series, we have:

• decided to start a blog
• found our niche
• bought a domain
• chose the blogging platform
• set up your blog and made it all pretty 🙂
• signed up for and installed Google Analytics
• added copyright to the website footer
• added a Privacy Policy and Disclosure page
• added an About Page
• set up our email newsletter
• learned how to choose and install a new plugin
• checked out my list of must have plugins
• discussed ways to grow a blog fast
• come up with an SEO checklist
• how to start vlogging

Sponsored Posts: How To Make Money & Where To Sign Up

By now you might be asking “How in the world do people make money with their blog?”  You heard people could make a full-time income and even some people make enough to have their spouses come home and work in their business with them.

There are probably as many ways to make money with a blog as their are things to blog about.  We’re going to talk about the main ones that most bloggers use today.

Ads

Sidebar ads, sponsored ads, and in post ads through ad networks are a good way to make income on your blog.  There are plenty of networks you can go through yourself and post their ads to your site.  Or you can choose an ad network to handle all of that for you and they take a “slice of the pie”.  You can also work directly with brands and get ads through them, as well.

Affiliates

You can sign up on multiple platforms to become an affiliate for brands you might want to post about on your blog.  If you post about their products or events, you can sign up to make money from linking to their products or events when someone purchases a product.

Product Creation

You can make your own products and sell them through your blog, social media, and your email list.  Many bloggers create ebooks, classes, webinars, paid communities, courses, t-shirts. mugs, and way more.  There are many ways out there to create your own product and sell it.

But, in this post we’re going to discuss how to make money with sponsored posts and where to sign up for them.

Sponsored Posts

There are many networks and platforms out there you can sign up for that offer sponsored blog posts.  Basically a sponsored post Is one that you are paid to write usually about a product or an event.  You will normally either apply through a network and vie for the opportunity amongst other bloggers, or a company or PR rep reaches out to you (or you reach out to them) and you work more directly.  You can make anywhere from $15 (when you first start out) all the way up to multiple thousands if you have the following on your blog, email, and social media, so be sure to concentrate on building those numbers.

A sponsored post opportunity means a content marketing agency is looking to you for social media marketing, often called influencer marketing – you are the influencer and they are using your reach through social media to do the marketing for their product or event.  You are the conduit they use to get their sponsored content advertising, and branded content marketing done!

A sponsored post will come with a list of things the client expects from you.  You’ll need to read them thoroughly before you agree to apply for or accept the terms.  It should tell you what they want you to promote, and where – such as your blog and which social media outlets they want you to post to and how many times.  It should also cover any guidelines or suggestions they have, it will cover your compensation and if any stipend, as well as the date any drafts are due, the date the post and socials are due, and the expected pay date.  You might need to purchase a products(s), or take pictures in store of them item or the store, they may send you the item to become more familiar with it to enhance your post.  It will tell you to make sure you disclose your partnership with them and/or give you the actual wording they want for the disclosure and where they require you place it.  All of that will be in the offer and instructions.

If for some reason you are unable to comply with any of their requests or the time frame, please have the courtesy to let your rep know as soon as possible. If you are unsure about anything or have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to your rep – it will save you time trying to figure it out on your own, or time re-doing it because you weren’t clear on it.

If you follow all of the instructions completely and on time you should receive your compensation as promised.  Be careful when working with unfamiliar companies that approach you, and I ALWAYS get paid BEFORE I type one word if I am working with a company I have never worked with before.

There are many people vying for these sponsored posts but, they often need many people to fill the need, so, fill out as many as you feel you are qualified for and are a good fit.

There are many more than I have listed here, but, these are networks I have worked with and trust, that you can join:

• Clever Girls
• iconnect
• Blogher
• Activate/Bloglovin
• Mom Central
• Mom it Forward
• Sits Girls / Massive Sway
• Tap Influence
• Influence Central
• Acorn
• Pollinate Media
• Social Fabric

Next time we’ll discuss another of the ways above including the ones I use and trust.

Be sure to read all of the posts in this How To Start Your Own Blog series.  Don’t miss any of them or you could be setting yourself up for failure.  Each one is as important as the next. Remember, you’re skipping all of the mistakes I have made over the years.