Social media and blogging are my jam. I have over 300,000 social media followers and get hundreds of thousands of annual blog visitors. I’m also getting a lot better with Facebook ads. In less than a month, my Facebook Page went from 300 likes to over 10,000 likes. And I average $0.01 per like.
But social media and blogging are just two slices of a much larger pie. They are critical pieces of the pie, but if you exclusively rely on blogging and social media, you will be disappointed.
Two years ago, I aspired to surpass 100,000 Twitter followers. I eventually surpassed that milestone, but my income didn’t skyrocket in the same sense. I quickly went from 1,667 Twitter followers to over 100,000, but the changes in my income were minuscule at best.
Getting all of those Twitter followers resulted in a big increase in my blog’s traffic. Social media is the main reason this blog became successful, and seeing that social proof every day boosted my confidence.
So I was successful on social media and getting a ton of blog traffic. Why was my income at the same level?
I didn’t look at the rest of the pie. I was missing out on some great opportunities. And yes, I’ll say it. Many others already have.
I SHOULD HAVE FOCUSED ON MY EMAIL LIST EARLIER!!
I was getting traffic, but I wasn’t getting sticky traffic. I wasn’t building strong enough relationships with my audience. Creating an email list is the best way to strengthen the relationship between you and your visitors. Some email lists are also highly profitable.
When I focused on my email list, I started getting better results. Each of my product launches was more successful than the last because my audience continued to grow. So far, my most profitable months on Udemy were because of email blasts.
But I’m about to turn the tables and flip the world upside down.
Your email list isn’t enough either!
You need to make money. More specifically, you need to make money by creating your own products. Affiliate marketing is an option, but if you rely on affiliate marketing, then your income depends on other people creating products and giving you good rates.
Most of the money I make comes from my books and training courses. The best part is that this is passive income. I create the product, market it, and then people buy it. I make money in my sleep.
Blogging and social media get the ball rolling—you can grow a large audience. Your email list and products allow the ball to roll in the right direction—you build the relationship and promote your products.
The best part with this strategy is that you can scale up. That’s why each of my product launches has been more successful than the last. My audience continues growing each day. Across all of my social networks, I gain over 1,000 new followers per day. This growth leads to more subscribers and more revenue for each of my product launches.
Since we are on the topic of product launches, I want to discuss one important thing about product creation. It is tempting to look at the most recognized entrepreneurs in the world promoting one product for a long period of time. They may go on numerous podcasts promoting this one product for many months before finally launching it.
For these entrepreneurs, it’s a great strategy for getting a massive amount of sales. Some of these entrepreneurs are also authors who use this strategy to turn their books into bestsellers.
However, I don’t recommend that approach (unless you are one of those entrepreneurs with millions of subscribers. Then go for it). The reason is that if you only create one product and focus on it, it either makes or breaks you.
I focused on one product for six months. I didn’t spend any of my time creating other products. That one product broke me. Luckily I didn’t lose money, but I lost a lot of time.
Now I create four Udemy courses each month. Not all of my Udemy courses become successful, but some of them bring in a bulk of my income. I get to learn what works and what doesn’t work.
Creating more products also makes it mathematically easier to reach income goals. Let’s say you want to make $1,000 per month from Udemy training courses. If you have 10 courses, then each course needs to make $100. If you only have one course, then that one course must make the entire $1,000 per month.
I’m not saying to trade quality for quantity. However, you don’t want to gamble your success on one product launch.
In Conclusion
Social media and blogging allow you to grow a large audience. It takes a lot of time and effort to accumulate that large audience. That’s why you want to make sure you pay attention to the other slices of the pie. While having hundreds of thousands of social media followers and blog visitors helps, you must also build your email list and create products.
What is your stance on blogging and social media? What other slices of the pie do you take seriously? Sound off in the comments section below.
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