How To Make Money On Social Media: A Guide for Creators in 2025

Social media has come a long way since Facebook photos and meme sharing (although, let’s be honest, meme culture will never die). Today, the social media landscape is a full-blown earning opportunity for anyone with a creative side and an interest in digital business.

Whether your passion lies in fish tanks or crypto, you’ll be amazed at how many ways to make money on social media exist. Over half of Gen Z and Millennials in the USA say that they’re using the internet to make money, and a significant proportion of this is via social media.

If you’re wondering how to make money from social media, this article will give you the inspiration, tips, and earning routes you need to start earning! Let’s go!

Who Wants Ways to Make Money on Social Media?

Whether you’re just looking for some bonus side hustle cash or a serious and viable career option, making money on social media is a profitable option.

There is no ‘one kind’ of person making money on social media, but these are just some of the groups that are exploring the options:

• Students who want flexible earning options alongside study
• Stay-at-home parents keen to be present with their family, whilst building their own income streams.
• People looking to pivot their career and develop a business in the digital economy
• Anyone looking at a long-term play to develop as a side-hustle alongside their day job.
• People with a hobby or niche that they already know and want to share
• Anyone passionate about creative, flexible, virtual, and tech-driven work built around community, creation, and communication.

Which Monetization Strategies Make Money on Social Media?

If you know what you're doing, there are plenty of ways to make money on social media. Most take time to achieve, but it’s important to know that you don’t need a million followers to start earning money!

The different ways to make money on social media are as follows:

• Ad revenue: Paid advertising opportunities grow with your audience and content engagement times.
• Affiliate marketing: allowing you to earn a commission by referring other brands
• Brand partnerships: More formalised partnerships with sponsorship and promotion opportunities, often through collaborative work and co-creation
• Creator funds: where fans send ‘tips’ to creators to show appreciation for work
• Product sales: where creators move into their own course content, coaching, or physical products.

How Much Money Can I Make on Social Media?

Build 100k followers and earn $5,000 a month on your chosen platform over time.

Although it’s hard to anticipate earnings, which vary hugely with audience, time, and successful strategy implementation, these are all realistic figures to aspire to with an audience of up to 100k. As the audience grows on each platform, the monthly earnings grow too.

Which Platforms Should I Use to Make Money on Social Media?

Different platforms offer different opportunities for making money on social media. Let’s look at each of the leading players in turn:

As you see from the table above, there are many ways to make money on social media by building a presence on different platforms and potentially combining platforms to maximize your opportunities for revenue.

But the options for monetizing don’t end there! Wondering how to get paid on social media using emerging techniques? Read on!

Ways To Make Money on Social Media Through Alternative Monetization

Some of the most interesting ways to make money on social media are still in their infancy and expected to grow rapidly in the coming years. With social media, new models for building a business are constantly evolving.

Alternative ways of making money on social media, that go beyond basic content posting are:

1. Affiliate marketing

Earn money by marketing products that align with your values and audience. Creators use tools like Amazon Associates, ShareASale, and LTK to promote affiliated brand content and take a cut of the sale proceeds.

Creators carefully choose brands that align with their own values and audience interests and issue disclaimers for transparency and disclosure to maintain trust with their audience.

2. Digital Product Creation

Create digital downloads to sell to your audience and use automation for passive income. Digital creators are using tools such as Canva and AI to create courses, templates, e-books, and presets for their audience. They then use social platforms to build their authority and communities and drive traffic to them.

3. UGC (User-Generated Content)

Earn by creating paid reviews for other brands. This is a fascinating newer area that allows almost anyone to make money on social media!

Brands are paying creators to make video review content for their own channels, as a form of referral marketing. UGC lets customers “do the marketing” by sharing their views and recommendations with their own network.

Interestingly, UGC creators don’t even need an audience of their own to get paid on social media! They simply need a portfolio and a skill for recording review-type videos that are authentic and not too glossy. The whole idea is that they look and sound like genuine customer reviews.

4. Merchandise and Print-on-Demand

Earn sales income through your own branded merch. Good options here are Teespring, Printful, and Shopify integrations, which creators use to sell their own designs. There’s usually a markup of 10-30% on products, so depending on volumes, these are a profitable adjunct to digital creation earnings.

Making Money on Social Media with Passive Tactics

Make passive income on social media with evergreen content, such as YouTube videos, that continue to earn.

Another route is to create viral Instagram reels that continue to get shared, or benefit from long tail traffic via Pinterest affiliate links.

Other creators make money on social media with passive income tactics like using ‘link in bio’ tools, such as Beacons or Linktree, to sell their own products.

Passive income is the long play once your audience is in place and you’ve gained solid traction, but it’s a valuable end goal!

How to Make Short-Term Cash Between Social Media Business Building

There are some great ways to make money on social media, but they tend to be a long play, requiring time, knowledge, and commitment to build. So smart creators look at other app-based ways to build quick cash during their downtime, or between content creation.

For example, when you’re not making money from social media, give yourself a mental break and:

Earn cash by playing fun games

Earn $200 a month with Scrambly. Download Scrambly to play games, watch ads, complete tasks, and participate in offers. It’s ideal for side hustlers, students, gamers, and at-home parents who want to boost their earnings when they have downtime.

Even better, use your social platforms to share referral codes and earn more!

Other good sites like this include Toluna, Swagbucks, and Inbox Dollars. They’re all fun, free, and app-based.

Earn extra $$$ with surveys & user testing

Earn $300 a month by doing surveys and user testing on Prolific Academic, Respondent.Io, Intellizoom, Pinecone Research, and Research Opinions.

Simply download the app, create your profile, and enable alerts to get notifications of new opportunities as they come along. These are fun, quick, and easy earners to enjoy while you play the long game to make money on social media.

How to Grow Your Following, Legitimately

Some creators buy bot followers, but we’re better than that. These are all ways to grow your following legitimately, authentically, and in a way that won’t see you penalized later down the line.

• Focus on delivering valuable content that offers something useful to your target audience. The more you niche your offer, the higher the value to your followers.
• Post consistently, but don’t overdo it. Try a schedule of 3 posts a week and see what works for you.
• Use trends to guide your creativity, but avoid following them blindly. Add your unique twist whenever possible, as that uniqueness and authenticity are what your followers want.
• Engage with your audience by answering questions, replying to DMs, and responding to comments.

How to Avoid Scams When Making Money on Social Media

When making money on social media, it's vital to avoid scams or money-wasting “offers” of all kinds.

When you see courses, packages, products, or coaching offering overnight success, avoid them. Never pay for “verification” offers and always read platform monetization information carefully.

Protect your accounts carefully with secure passwords and 2FA where available, particularly the more you integrate platforms. If you get banned on a platform because your account is hacked, it could cost your social media business.

Top Tips for Making Money on Social Media

Not sure where to start? These top tips will all help as you work out how to get paid on social media!

1. Choose the right niche

The choice of niche will make all the difference to your potential audience and scope for monetization. Look at Exploding Topics and Google search tools to see what internet users are interested in, and identify underserved niches to fill.

If you pick a niche that naturally drives a purchase or solves a consumer problem, this will typically earn more.

2. Diversify your social media income

Always look to combine different streams of revenue, such as affiliate links, ad income, brand deals, subscriptions, digital courses, and merch, and have more than one platform.

Don’t rely on just one platform either, as things change. Remember that only recently, President Trump was considering a complete ban on TikTok in the USA, potentially decimating creator income streams in the process. Diversify to manage risk.

3. Focus on quality

Forget “get rich quick” ways to make money on social media, as they just don’t exist. Successful creators make it look easy, but in reality, they treat their work like a business and invest in their knowledge, skills, and equipment.

Learn how to create consistent, high-quality content that adds value to your audience. Use rapid hooks and strong captions, and continually invest in your own skills and knowledge.

4. Use affiliate marketing mindfully

Gently introduce selected affiliate brands for additional income. Successful affiliate marketers recommend products that they truly believe in and that they know will provide genuine value to their audience. (You’ll see that the key to all social media income success is to truly care about your audience and want to provide real value.)

Use trackable links to promote the products you genuinely believe are worthwhile. Would you recommend them to your loved ones? If so, promote via ShareASale, LTK, and Amazon. Even small influencers earn a healthy income from their niche audience if they build up strong conversion rates.

5. Know what the algorithm wants

Serve the algorithm to stay visible. Every platform has its own algorithm, and content creators need to stay on top of its demands! Platforms all reward content that is fresh and valuable, and produced in the “go-to” content form, such as Shorts and Reels.

Stay on top of trends too and use the formats, sounds, and viral challenges that your audience will enjoy, but don’t be a slave to fads. Focus on your own twist and authenticity.

6. Remember admin!

Do your taxes! Yes, it’s dull, but once you start making money on social media, you must declare it on your tax return to the IRS. Read up on rules regarding side hustle income and get your paperwork done on time.

7. Don’t wait for brands to come to you

Once you start to build your presence and audience, reach out to brands that you think might align with your offer. Have your media kit ready with your engagement stats, and create tailored pitches that explain how your audience aligns with their own brand objectives.

Be professional, friendly, and flexible, and have figures in mind for what you’re worth in terms of UCG, sponsorships, partnerships, and other forms of paid collabs.

8. Use platform tools for monetization

As you grow intentionally and build your followers and watch hours, tap into platform features that offer automatic monetization, such as the TikTok Creator Fund, YouTube AdSense, and Instagram Subscriptions. These are highly automated, so follow the integration rules carefully and enjoy the earnings as you continue to grow!

9. Track and optimize

Use tools such as YouTube Studio, Instagram Insights, and TikTok Analytics to see what’s working and adjust your approach for maximum reach, engagement, and earnings. To make money on social media, you need to really learn the industry well and respond to its changes, so invest seriously in your education and training to really master this field.

10. Stay one step ahead!

The question of how to make money on social media is one that constantly evolves. Keep abreast of the changes and developments happening in the industry so you are always ready to meet them. For example, AI-driven content is growing, including the use of AI avatars, social commerce is on the up, and livestreaming is gaining huge traction.

But be mindful too that social fatigue is already a thing, and social media users are becoming far more intentional about who they choose to follow and engage with. Micro-influencers are becoming more important as a result, for that authentic, meaningful, and personal ‘low-noise’ connection that users increasingly crave.

How to Make Money off Social Media: Concluding Thoughts

It’s certainly possible to make money from social media, but it’s a long game, not a “get rich quick” scheme, and many would-be social media entrepreneurs become disheartened and give up before they monetize, when they realise how much work is involved.
The key is to treat your social media earnings as a business. Have a great plan that diversifies your income streams and incorporates active and passive earners, with other means of earning cash via your phone.

The other key to success is to stay responsive, adaptable, and ready to learn and pivot where necessary. Social media platforms are constantly evolving, and your strategies will need to as well. Keep learning, growing, and flexing what you do, and listen to your audience to keep guiding your content.

Ready to start making money on social media? Pick your first platform and strategy and take that first step!