Being a social-media celebrity can be a lucrative business.
Some top bloggers can rake in an income of $100,000 a year from advertising that appears on their blog. On Twitter, an influential name can command $100 for writing a tweet mentioning a sponsor’s product, while a YouTube sensation can get $25,000 for making a video that talks about an advertiser.
But getting to that level isn’t easy. Attracting a lasting audience and eager advertisers takes planning and constant adjustment along the way.
“It’s short-form content, but it’s a long game,” says Rob Fishman, co-founder of Niche, a service that matches social-media personalities with advertisers.
Here’s what the pros have to say about the best techniques for turning online celebrity into a well-paying career.
It’s not just about the numbers. A gaudy number of followers isn’t enough to attract revenue. Advertisers want people with a passionate following. “We’re looking to see if they are retweeted, being favorited, liked,” says Tricia Melton, senior vice president of entertainment marketing and branding for Turner Broadcasting System, Turner Network Television and Turner Classic Movies.
Engaging with the audience through venues like chat rooms can help get followers excited and help a would-be social-media star figure out what topics to focus on or avoid. “Social media is designed to be social, but a lot of people forget that,” says Ted Murphy, chief executive of Izea, an agency that has helped organize social-media campaigns for Unilever, Walmart, ConAgra Foods and other big brands.
Just the facts? No way. Presenting information isn’t enough. To break into the upper ranks of social-media stars and capture the attention of advertisers, personality is key. “People connect with people,” says Chris Pirillo, founder of Lockergnome, a site dedicated to commenting on new technologies through lively and funny videos. “They don’t connect with information.”
Indeed, some of the biggest social stars don’t present any information at all. Jerome Jarre built a million-person following on Vine—the service that lets people post six-second videos—by filming friendly encounters with strangers on the street.
Video is king. If there is one trend that stands out in the industry, it’s the move to video. “The big money is in blog posts and long-form YouTube videos,” says Mr. Murphy of Izea. “Advertisers will pay a premium for long form.”
Video has several advantages for advertisers. Clips are easily shared and played over and over. Advertisements associated with videos draw more attention, and the audience is more engaged.
© Provided by The Wall Street Journal.And, of course, video is another chance to showcase personality. “People get to see you as a person,” says Mr. Pirillo, the gadget reviewer. “Videos connect in a way photos can’t.”
Flexibility is crucial. Would-be stars shouldn’t be afraid of switching gears to avoid getting stale and potentially losing the audience’s interest, experts say. In the mid-2000s, former marketing executive Wendy Piersall was struggling to generate revenue with her blogs on mother-related issues, until a post on children’s activities in 2007 made the home page of Digg and sent her traffic soaring. “I thought, really, kids’ activities?” she says.
She took the cue and launched a children’s activities-focused blog, WooJr.Com, which at its peak in 2012 attracted 5.5 million page views and more than 1 million unique visitors in one month, which made her popular with advertising networks. That year, Ms. Piersall pulled in $82,000, primarily from advertising from kid’s activities sites related to WooJr.com.
Similarly, back in 2013, Chris Ashbach’s family-run site, LiveDan330, was generating thousands of hits a month for its gardening tips. But there was a problem. “Gardening season was great until the gardening season was over,” Mr. Ashbach says.
To compensate, Mr. Ashbach decided to add food and home-improvement tips to the site, using family members and guest bloggers. The result? The site attracted more than 1.5 million page views a month and won over such advertisers as J.C. Penney and Hammer Stahl Cutlery. LiveDan330 earned $15,000 in its first year, and pulled in about $85,000 in 2014, primarily through sponsored content, says Mr. Ashbach, who works on the site full-time.
Find new ways to get paid. Find new ways to get paid.Too many social-media startups rely on one or two sources of revenue, when they should be developing as many streams as possible. Ms. Piersall expanded from blogging to writing how-to books. Mr. Pirillo’s users can pay for extra content, such as exclusive reviews. Fewer than 1,000 people have offered money, “but those people are supporting the endeavor in a way that 135,000 are not,” he says.
Don’t wait for sponsors to come to you. Pounding the pavement is crucial for would-be stars, experts say. Advertisers may take a long time to get wind of an online success—during which time money isn’t coming in.
To raise the profile of LiveDan330, Mr. Ashbach started attending gardening-industry trade shows, where he could meet potential advertisers. And Zach Glassman, who traded commodities in Hong Kong before launching a travel site for articles and his photos, cold-called tourism agencies and public-relations firms that worked with travel companies. “A lot of it has to do with hustling,” he says. “For me it was all about finding like-minded brands and brands I want to be associated with.”
His recent clients for PassionPassport.com have included Ford, which hired Mr. Glassman to take pictures of its new Mustang and post them on his Instagram account, and the New Orleans tourism agency, which paid for him to travel to the city and post about his experiences.
Don’t be a shill. The fastest-growing revenue source in social media is native advertising, the practice of advertisers paying content creators to write, tweet or provide media around their products. But this can be a trap. Creators who promote advertisers too much will drive away their audience and risk losing credibility. Ms. Piersall says she limits her advertising to about 3% of her posts. “You can’t just go out and blast sales messages,” she says. “People will tune you out.”
Many successful entrepreneurs clearly label sponsored posts. And they are careful to avoid anything that sounds like a sales pitch. Mr. Ashbach includes a disclaimer on sponsored blog posts noting, “All opinions are 100 percent mine.”
Professionalism pays off. A wacky, anarchist persona may help generate a following, but it may scare away advertisers, experts say. Likewise, it’s important to keep your site looking professional. “It’s not to say don’t take risks,” says Mr. Fishman of Niche. “But if you’re going to do it full time, you need to recognize that brands will look through your history.”
Finally, if you’re committed to creating a business through social media, a part-time effort won’t work. When Ms. Piersall cut back on her online activity to focus on other projects, her revenue plummeted to about $25,000 a year from $80,000. “I got lazy with it,” she says.
