There are many easy side hustles out there, especially in the social media space. You can make money on Instagram or Twitter, but what about Facebook? It’s no surprise, you can make money on Facebook too!
So you’re looking for a side hustle, and you heard Facebook was an excellent way to make money. Or maybe you’re the owner of a business looking to explore the avenues with which you can sell your products/services. Now, you’re just wondering how to make money on Facebook, if it’s even possible.
Well, it’s possible. There are many ways to get paid through Facebook. Whether that be selling products/services, becoming an affiliate marketer, or participating in the Facebook bug bounty program, you’ve got options. Here are 9 of the most effective ways to earn money from Facebook.
1. Make Money On Facebook By Buying/Selling Products And Services
When it comes to buying and selling your services and/or products, there are a few different avenues you can look at to achieve success.
Post On Your News Feed
Post on your newsfeed your offering in terms of product/service and price. Some of your friends or family might be interested in what you have to sell. For instance, if you’re into health and fitness, you could offer to consult people to help them with their weight loss goals or provide a meal plan. If your friends/family see that you are offering a good deal, and they think that kind of product/service would be of value to them, you can make money!
Facebook Marketplace
One place you might not have realized exists, or if you did, you might have forgotten about is the Facebook Marketplace. Facebook Marketplace is a great place to sell new and used products. There are several different categories that Facebook uses to help you target your buying audience more effectively.
The categories in the Facebook Marketplace are:
- Family
- Home & Garden
- Electronics
- Rentals
- Clothing & Accessories
- Hobbies
- Vehicles
- Classifieds
- Home Sales
- Entertainment
- Deals
Within each category, there are sub-categories. For instance, under “classifieds,” there is a sub-category called “Garage Sale.” This sub-category would be great for someone trying to sell some old stuff they no longer need and who doesn’t want to hassle with putting on an actual garage sale.
People are even using Facebook Marketplace to rent out homes and apartments! If you’re in real estate, you can use Facebook Marketplace to advertise further.
In terms of the logistics, if you are just starting to use Marketplace, buyers will be able to message you, and you can arrange for you both to meet somewhere for item pick- up. While yes, you could have the person come to your home, it’s probably safer not to have them go directly to your home. Try to choose somewhere close, but not too close.
Additionally, Marketplace does give sellers the option to offer shipping and checkout through Marketplace. It only works for the Facebook app for iPhone and Android, though, and you must be eligible. To be eligible, you can’t be new to Facebook or Marketplace and must not have frequently gone against Facebook’s Community Standards or Commerce Policies.
Once you’ve been using Marketplace a little longer, you can check from time-to-time to see if you are allowed to set up shipping. For more details on how to set it up, click here. If you do decide to use Facebook’s shipping option, they do charge a selling fee of 5% or a minimum of $0.40 for each item that is purchased with shipping and checkout. Using this might be worth it if you want this stream of income to be more passive. Using their shipping and checkout means you don’t have to take the time to go and meet up with someone.
Another way to make money on Facebook Marketplace is to get creative. Instead of just selling on Facebook, you can buy cheap products from Facebook Marketplace and resell them on other platforms like OfferUp.
Join Buy And Sell Groups To Make Money On Facebook
Another way to make money on Facebook is to join buy and sell groups. If you have a specific type of product(s) that you are selling, you can join a buy and sell group for that type of item. Joining specific “buy and sell” groups will help you hone in on selling to your target buyers. For example, there is a “buy and sell breast milk USA only” group on Facebook. If you are trying to sell breastmilk, it makes sense to join this niche group because your buyers in this group are going to be looking for breastmilk, specifically.
You can either sell new products or old ones you are no longer using. Once again, you can also buy other people’s cheap merchandise and resell it to somewhere else, like on OfferUp, to make a profit.
Join A Niche Group
Maybe you don’t have any specific products to sell, but you are trying to work in a particular niche or sell a service. Try joining a group in your niche or field. For instance, if you are trying to become a freelance content writer, join a Facebook “content writing” group, or even a “content writing jobs” group. There will be tons of people there looking to hire freelance writers, and you can also post about your services/prices.
You can also use this with something like finance consulting. Join groups with people looking for advice regarding personal or business finances. Become the group expert, offering free advice and answers to people’s questions. When people want more help on more complicated topics, they will go to you for help. Then, you can sell them on your consulting services.
Make Your Own Niche Group
Having your own group gives you more control over what content is being posted. If you have your own group, you can develop a fan base that will trust you, and that is more willing to buy from you. For instance, if you start a health and fitness group and provide a lot of free, informative content, eventually, when you do try to sell your products and services, your fan-base/followers will be more receptive.
2. Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing requires you to join online programs/websites that give you links to promote products/services to others. When someone clicks on your link and makes a purchase, you get a percentage of that purchase. There are tons of affiliate marketing programs for various brands out there. If you are passionate about one specific brand, go check out their website to see if they have an affiliate marketing program. Even Amazon has one. If you get good at getting people to make purchases through your links, you can make a lot of money through Facebook. Some other affiliate programs to join that sell various types of products and services are:
- ShareASale
- ClickFunnels
- The Six Figure Mentors (they also teach you how to do affiliate marketing along the way)
- The Super Affiliate Network (you can earn up to $5,400 from a single sale as well as some training)
- ClickBank
Noteworthy, though, is that the links given to you by affiliate programs are usually quite long. I recommend that after you copy the link, you use bitly to shorten it. Just paste the long link into where it says “shorten your link” and press the “shorten” button. Reducing the link is also necessary because, when you join an affiliate program like Click Bank, in the link, the word “click bank” will appear. You don’t necessarily want it to be super obvious that you are selling something, and shortening the link is the best option for that.
Post On Your News Feed
One way to get people to click on your links is to post about the products/services you are promoting on your Facebook newsfeed. If you just have friends and family following you, your success might be limited, but it’s worth a shot. Someone might genuinely be interested if the product/service is good.
If you are an influencer with a large following or fan base, you are likely going to get more clicks and profit from this method than a person promoting to only their friends and family.
Even if you are an influencer, sometimes people are going to be less receptive to you selling your products than you promoting someone else’s great product that you have used and liked. Therefore, you can also make money by promoting other people’s products/services that are in your niche.
With all of this said, though, you first need to check if Facebook allows you to post affiliate links for that specific affiliate program so that you don’t potentially get banned. If you aren’t able to post direct links, you can post a link to a landing page of sorts in a Word document that has your affiliate link embedded. Or you can direct people to your blog that has affiliate links embedded.
Join Facebook Groups
Another way to promote your affiliate links is to join niche Facebook groups and become the group “expert” by being helpful to members and answering their questions. When people start to reach out to you asking you questions, you can direct them to your blog posts with answers to their questions (that will have affiliate links placed).
For example, if you have a travel blog, join groups related to travel. Join brands that have affiliate programs related to travel; for example, Agoda. Become active in the travel groups, and eventually, when people reach out to you, you can send them useful content on your blog. Within your blog, you would have written a paragraph or two about how Agoda is an excellent resource for saving money on accommodation. You would also place your affiliate link on the word “Agoda” to drive traffic to Agoda and encourage a purchase.
Another way to utilize Facebook groups effectively is to reach out individually to members. For example, if you join a “work from home” group, you can reach out to individual members, asking them how their experience has been trying to get “work from home” jobs. If they say they have been having a tough time, you can send them a link to a landing page that has an affiliate link embedded for a program designed to help him/her succeed in the “work from home” niche. You can even ask them for their feedback if they decide to purchase the program.
The reason you need the landing page is that, once again, Facebook could ban you. If you are directly sending affiliate links for a particular “no-go” affiliate program or if they think you are spamming, you can get in trouble. This “landing page” doesn’t need to be a traditional landing page you create on a website; you can just create a google document and send the link for that.
For example, create something like this for the brand you are promoting and where it says, “start your internet business today,” you can embed your affiliate link. It can be for anything you want. You could even do it for something like a keto diet cookbook. Create the landing page word document, have a graphic that says, “click here to get access to the keto cookbook that will change your life” and embed your affiliate link.
Remember, when you are reaching out to individual members, talk to them like an average human. Do not sound like a salesperson. You can type to them like you would any other normal human (e.g., “hey how has this whole work from home thing been going for you? had any luck?…yeah actually my buddy sent me this and told me it helped him, what do you think? *send link* let me know if it works for you!)
If you don’t usually spell correctly, don’t. Just be natural. The best marketers don’t make it obvious that they are marketing.
Create Your Own Niche Group For Affiliate Marketing
By creating your own niche group, you can promote affiliate links without worrying about moderators of a group flagging it. Unfortunately, many groups will flag any self-promotion and won’t let you post affiliate links. If it’s your group, you can post whatever you want as long as it follows Facebook’s policies. Once again, if you create a niche group where people value your content and look up to you as an expert, they are more likely to click on your affiliate links and make a purchase.
Make A Facebook Page
Similar to a group, you can easily make a Facebook page, especially if you are a business. You can place affiliate links there that your followers can click on. Just make sure to post content other than affiliate links, so your followers don’t end up getting annoyed. You can post funny memes, inspirational videos, motivational quotes, relevant niche content, etc.
3. Promote Your Blog/Website
Although you can drive people to your blog/website to click on affiliate links, you can also use your blog/website to place ads or get people to sign up for a newsletter or a free trial. You can also use it to get their information so you can hit them with an email marketing campaign later. Facebook is a great way to drive people to your blog by either posting on your newsfeed or in groups you join.
4. Promote Other Websites
Promoting other websites is another way to make a good chunk of change. You can have people/companies pay you to drive traffic to their site. You would get paid for every 1,000 clicks. This strategy is excellent for people who have a page that has over 50,000 followers. You can charge $5-$8 per 1,000 clicks. What you would be posting is highly engaging content that these individuals/companies want you to post. They would need to send you their highest performance Facebook posts along with a tracking link.
You should try to post three posts per partner per day. It takes about 30 minutes of work a day, but if you don’t want to post yourself, you can outsource it to someone else or set up your posts using a social media marketing tool like Viraltag. Using a social media marketing tool can help you set up posts in advance that will post automatically. If you use a tool like this or outsource the work, it will probably cost you about $30-$50 a month, but the amount you can make can significantly outweigh that.
Also, while this will work for many niches, it will work better for some than others. The point is to post highly engaging, accessible content. Content that is humorous or about health or politics is more likely to get more clicks than content about something in some super-specific niche like testing scuba tanks. If it’s a niche that isn’t too specific, it could work. You are also safe with sticking to posts that appeal to a more general audience.
5. Make Money On Facebook Through The Bug Bounty Program
If you are good at picking up on security flaws that would allow a hacker to hack Facebook, Facebook’s Bug Bounty program will pay you to report coding flaws. Facebook determines the amount you are paid based on factors such as impact, ease of exploitation, and quality of the report. The minimum payout, though, is $500.
6. Become A Social Media Manager
Some companies will pay you to manage their social media accounts. You can make a steady income this way, but you are likely going to be operating multiple social media accounts, not just the Facebook account. Expect to create social media images, create posts and content, respond to comments, and schedule content.
7. Make Money Using Facebook Ads
You might be wondering how it’s possible to make money on Facebook ads. After all, purchasing Facebook ads might seem counterintuitive since you have to spend money on ads. However, if you are a business trying to increase your sales, this is one way to do it.
Facebook is an extremely targeted ad platform with 2.45 billion active users! If you are a business owner, you can place an ad targeting people in your town or people who have specific interests and get clicks that lead to your website so you can book appointments or make sales. The best part is you can do it in just a couple of minutes!
With that said, make sure that Facebook ads are the best way to go for your niche. There are specific niches in which using Facebook ads wouldn’t necessarily be the most effective. For instance, if you are targeting university administrators for a new university software you are trying to sell, Facebook might not be the best option. Doing an emailing campaign might work better. Do your research on this.
If you do decide to go with Facebook ads for your business, the results can be tremendous. Just make sure you create the type of ad that is going to grab people’s attention. If you don’t know how to do this, either take a course that will help you or outsource it to an expert.
8. Crowdfunding
You can also try to get your friends and family to crowdfund you if you need help with some specific cause or problem. You aren’t likely to make a steady stream of income from this, but if you need money quickly and for a particular purpose, this can be an effective way to do it.
9. Facebook Jobs
Although this might not be a direct way of making money on Facebook, it is still worth checking out. Chances are, you didn’t even know it existed. So many people talk about LinkedIn and Indeed for getting jobs, but how often do people talk about Facebook? On the left side of your Facebook, under the “Explore” section, there is a category for “Jobs.” If you click on “Jobs,” there are a ton of companies that post job ads in numerous industries. So next time you are looking for a job, if you’re not having luck on Indeed or LinkedIn, give Facebook a try. You can apply directly from your Facebook page.
10. Make Money With Facebook Video Advertisements
One of the best ways to make money on Facebook is through advertisements that play during videos you post. Like most traditional advertising, you get paid according to how many views your advertisements get. So, the more followers you have on Facebook, the more your ads will get seen and the more money you will make.
There are three types of ads you can have in your videos: pre-roll ads, which play before your video plays, mid-roll ads, which play during your video, and image ads, which are static images that display under your video. Facebook recommends that you choose your ad type carefully to make sure you don’t create a negative customer experience. After all, people will quickly stop watching your videos if they get too annoyed with ads.
Another important aspect of making money from ads in your videos is that you must be eligible before getting started. There are several eligibility requirements:
- You must publish videos from a Facebook page, not a personal profile.
- Have 30,000+ 1-minute views in the last 60 days.
- Have 10,000 followers on your page.
- Live in a country which has the option for video ads.
- Any video you want to monetize must be at least 3 minutes long.
11. Facebook Video Game Streaming To Make Money
Another option for making money on Facebook is streaming yourself playing video games. Facebook introduced a video game streaming platform in January 2018, and it has been growing quickly since then, though it is still much smaller than platforms like Twitch.
Facebook has two status levels for video game streamers: Level Up and Partner. It is important to note that both of these statuses require that you apply to them.
The first status – Level Up – has a few minimum requirements to apply for it. You must have at least 100 followers, have had an active account for at least 30 days, and stream videos for at least four hours over two separate days in a 14 days period. Even after meeting these requirements, you must then apply to the Level Up program, and there are many streamers who are also applying along with you. Facebook has not said exactly what it looks for in streamers who it accepts into the Level Up program, it has said there is a ‘long queue’ of people who have applied to the program and are still waiting for approval. So, it may take you a while to reach even this first level.
As a Level Up program streamer, you can earn money from Facebook video game streaming by receiving ‘stars’ – worth one penny each – from watchers or by having people pay to subscribe to your streaming channel.
After being accepted into the Level Up program, you can then start working toward the Partner program. This status is significantly harder to achieve, as Facebook only wants to accept top-level streamers. There is no specific set of requirements to reach Partner status, but there are many benefits if you do reach it. You get reliable financial support from Facebook, and even get a manager who will help support you continued streaming. However, you also have to agree to requirements like a minimum streaming quota.
12. Make Money By Finding Security Flaws In Facebook’s Website
A final way to make money on Facebook is probably the hardest and least likely – you can try and find security flaws in Facebook’s website and report them to the company for a ‘bounty’. This is known as the ‘bug bounty’ program, which many major companies offer to help improve their cybersecurity. How much you will get paid for each flaw found varies, but Facebook says the minimum reward is $500.
This path is a great option for anyone with a cybersecurity background and might even be a great way to improve your coding skills while still making money. Of course, most people don’t have the coding skills for this method of money-making.
How Much Money Can You Really Make On Facebook?
So, there are several options for making money on Facebook, but how much money will you actually make? Well, that varies hugely depending on what methods you use to make money and how much time and effort you put into each. Many people who really devote themselves make very good money through Facebook, but many people are fine using it to just make a few extra dollars on the side. So, it’s really up to you how much you can and will make with Facebook.
Wrapping Up: How To Make Money On Facebook
Now you know how to get paid on Facebook. You probably hadn’t even realized all the ways you can cash in on your Facebook use. It’s truly incredible. As you can see, a lot of the ways you can make money on Facebook also feed into each other. If you start by creating a group or page, you can build a fan-base and slowly increase your revenue by attacking it from different angles (i.e., affiliate marketing, selling your own products/services, promoting your blog).
It might take some time to build, but if you start now, not only can you start bringing in a more steady source of revenue, but some of it might even end up being passive income! Get to it and make some money on Facebook!
