How To Make Money From Social Media in 2025: Best Revenue Streams

The Secret Sauce Behind Instagram Success and Beyond

Creators have unlocked a treasure chest of opportunities to turn their passion into profit. Whether you're snapping photos, creating viral Reels on Instagram, or sharing tips on TikTok, there are more ways than ever to make money doing what you love. From affiliate marketing to launching digital products, it's an exciting time to be a creator. In today’s post, we’ll dive into the top revenue streams for content creators and influencers in 2024, and show you exactly how to cash in on your social media presence.

1. Brand Partnerships: The Big Money Maker

When it comes to making money on social media, brand partnerships are still king. According to a survey of 350+ US-based creators, 94% of influencers and creators are cashing in through collaborations with brands. Whether you're a micro-influencer or a mega star, brand partnerships can bring in serious revenue, especially if you have a niche, loyal following.

But here’s the thing: you don’t need to be an Instagram celebrity to work with brands. If you have a strong and engaged community, even with a modest following, you can land brand deals. Smaller creators can apply for brand partnerships through websites like BrandsMeetsCreators, where you can access opportunities with smaller and emerging brands. As you grow, your opportunities expand — but never forget, brand deals aren’t the only way to make money on social media.

Pro Tip: If you’re just getting started, don’t stress about landing those big brand deals right away. There’s a ton of potential in building a brand of your own and monetizing through other revenue streams.

2. Affiliate Marketing: Turn Your Followers Into Cash

If you’ve ever seen a creator recommend a product and drop a link in their bio, you’ve witnessed the power of affiliate marketing. The affiliate marketing industry is booming and expected to reach $36.9 billion by 2030 — that’s a huge opportunity for creators. But how does affiliate marketing work?

When you join an affiliate program, you receive a unique link that tracks purchases made by people who clicked through your recommendation. You earn a commission on each sale, which can range anywhere from 1% to 20%, depending on the brand and the product. Popular platforms like Amazon, ShareASale, and Rakuten provide easy ways to join affiliate programs, and many smaller brands offer their own affiliate opportunities, too.

The best part? Affiliate marketing is easy to get started with and can work for virtually any niche. For example, a social media coach like Katelyn Rhoades can promote tools like video editors, social media growth apps, or even phone accessories — all while tapping into her audience of aspiring creators.

Pro Tip: Don’t rely on just one affiliate partnership. Diversify your affiliate revenue by recommending a variety of products that align with your audience’s interests. This helps you earn in multiple areas and increases your chances of conversion.

3. Consulting, Coaching, and Freelancing: Sell Your Expertise

If you’ve built a solid social media presence and gained some valuable experience, one of the best ways to monetize is by offering 1:1 consulting, coaching, or freelance services. Whether you’re a seasoned social media expert, a personal trainer, or a child therapist like MyTherapistKelly (shoutout to you!), offering personalized advice can turn your social media presence into a profitable business.

Let’s say you’re an Instagram pro. You could offer strategy sessions to help small businesses or creators grow their social presence. Or, if you’re into fitness, you could host virtual training sessions. The beauty of this revenue stream is that you’re trading your time and expertise for money — and people will pay for access to your knowledge.

Pro Tip: Start small by offering hourly sessions or packages. As your reputation grows, so will your rates. And platforms like Stan make it easy to offer and sell these services directly to your audience with just a few clicks.

4. Selling Digital Products: Turn Your Knowledge Into Passive Income

Many creators are finding big success in selling their own digital products. From eBooks and courses to guides and templates, digital products are a powerful way to monetize your expertise. In fact, 26% of surveyed creators report generating income by selling their own products.

For example, Katelyn Rhoades made her first $10,000 by selling a Reels Guide — a digital product that teaches others how to master Instagram’s short-form video content. The beauty of digital products is that they offer passive income once created. You make the product once, and every time someone purchases it, you earn revenue without putting in additional effort.

Whether it’s a downloadable PDF, an online course, or a pre-recorded workshop, the options are endless. And the best part? You don’t need to worry about inventory, shipping, or overhead costs like traditional products.

Pro Tip: Keep your audience in mind when creating digital products. What challenges do they face? What knowledge can you offer that will help them solve their problems? This will make your products irresistible.

Bonus Tip: Diversify, Diversify, Diversify!

Now that you’re aware of the major revenue streams, let’s talk about diversification. When you’re first starting out on social media, focusing on building a presence on one platform is a great way to get your feet wet. But as you grow, branching out is key to scaling your income. While Instagram might be your main platform, consider adding YouTube, TikTok, or even a blog to the mix.

More platforms mean more opportunities to generate income. Plus, if one platform’s algorithm changes or a new trend emerges, you’ll have other channels to fall back on.

Pro Tip: Don’t put all your eggs in one basket! Expanding your reach across multiple platforms can make your revenue streams more resilient.

Make Money, Stay Authentic

In 2025, creators have endless opportunities to turn their passions into revenue streams on social media. From brand partnerships to selling digital products, there’s no shortage of ways to monetize your influence. The key to success is finding the methods that work best for you and staying authentic to your audience. Remember, the more you diversify your income sources and remain consistent, the more money you’ll make doing what you love. 

Ready to make money on social media? I can teach you how to do it all!

Grab my FREE Launch Playbook, which teaches you how to create your own digital offer and sell it on instagram: HERE 

Listen to  my podcast on Apple 👈:)

Listen on Spotify 👈 :)

How We Grew Our Pinterest Account by 232% in 60 Days

We all know Facebook and Instagram usually take the cake for businesses' top platforms for divulging their marketing budget, BUT that does not mean you should slack on Pinterest! Our social media agency has always had a Pinterest account, but we can’t lie… Our posting strategy was erratic, inconsistent, and non-targeted for our key audience's wants and needs. We heard from other SMMa that a key part of their digital downloads and leads were all coming from Pinterest. 🤯 This was a HUGE eye-opener for our agency and we realized we were slacking on amazing opportunities by sleeping on this platform. 

We decided to roll up our sleeves and start consistently and strategically posting on our Pinterest for a consecutive 60 days to see if we could gain any traffic… Safe to say the results were amazing with over 232% total audience growth. The best part - Our strategy we implemented was easy to adapt to and achievable for ANY biz out there to grasp. Keep reading for our biggest takeaways to GROW your business on Pinterest!

Utilizing Pinterest to Our Advantage

Pinterest is a visual discovery engine that offers a unique space for its users to discover, share, and save ideas for ultimately ANY topic or niche out there! In our experience, we correlated Pinterest with more product-based businesses for fashion, home, decor, gift ideas, etc. OR we felt it was more personal based for inspo with relatable quotes, meal prep ideas, etc. We didn’t feel the need as a social media agency to market our services there, but we could not be more wrong with this misconception of the platform. 

Pinterest is an AMAZING platform for quite literally any type of business. Even for social media agencies that only sell services or digital products, Pinterest has proven to increase our digital downloads, website traffic, email subscribers, and social media profile views. So let’s get into the strategy of how we did it! 

Account Setup

For our social media agency, we already had a Pinterest account in place but it was scattered with the organization of content. We sifted through our account and deleted or made boards private that did not apply to our audience's interest so that when users clicked on our profile, our business was accurately represented on the platform.

Next, we had to create new boards. We made sure to utilize keywords and trending topics for our target audience so that they aligned with our content pillars and how we help with our products and services. 

We went through all the recommended steps on Pinterest Business Hub to make sure that our account was optimized and hooked up fully to our website so that traffic was seamless and easy for our audience to use. 

Content Strategy 

Now to the actual content! One thing we LOVE to do with our smma is repurpose all of our content across every applicable platform so that we are working smarter, not harder. Our highest traffic social media page is our founder's Instagram account @socialmarketingqueen We researched and found that video content is currently performing super well on Pinterest. So the first step for our content creation was repurposing all of our highest-performing Instagram Reels and publishing them to Pinterest. We made sure to adapt the Reels to Pinterest’s best practices with optimized keyword searches which you can find in your business hub on the platform under analytics. Every morning for 60 days we posted one of our top-performing Reels. 

Content Repurposing not only maintained our brand consistency but also leveraged the success of our proven content on a new platform. This was a HUGE timesaver and beneficial tactic for our agency to grow our analytics on Pinterest. 

Aside from Reels, we also honed into graphics that promoted our freebies. After some research, we saw that in our industry, content that had “FREE 30 DAYS OF CONTENT” or “FREE MONTH OF CAPTIONS” performed well. We had several freebies already created that offer our audience content that they can easily download and plug and play to use with their business. We used Canva to create various styles of graphics that were Pinterest-optimized to promote the freebies to see what would perform best for each deliverable. After a few weeks, we noticed a certain format performed higher than the others and we kept making various versions of that template to promote our freebies. NOTE - we also promoted our other paid services and offerings, but we did find that once users clicked off the platform and it took them to a landing page where they had to pay for the deliverable we would lose the transaction and they would not convert over. 

Although we continue to advertise our paid offerings on Pinterest, we do put our main focus into our FREE digital downloads and blogs since they tend to perform better in capturing our audience's email once they download the freebie. Over the 60 days, we posted the graphic content at night making it two posts a day going out. 

Account Engagement

Aside from publishing twice a day on the app, we researched and found that actively repinning was recommended for optimal growth on the platform. Since Pinterest is a community-driven platform where collaboration is key, we went in 4-5 times each week to repin our pins to our profile and pin other users' pins (that applied) to our boards. This fostered a sense of community and expanded our reach on the platform to give our profile visibility and establishment in our niche. 

Our engagement was 15-20 minutes minimum each day we were engaging on the platform to make sure it was actively being a consistent part of our niche community. We prioritized responding to comments, participating in group boards, and initiating convos on other boards that were based on trending topics. We noticed the more engagement we gave to other users in our niche AND on our pins, the more our engagement and reach analytics grew.  

Analytics & Keyword Optimization

A big part of our strategy over the 60 days was continuously analyzing our account's top-performing posts, keyword searches, and trends so that we could refine our strategy accordingly. Closely monitoring the performance of our pins, we could then identify what resonated most with our audience and adjust our content strategy in real-time. For us, we saw that Reels were trumping the static posts tremendously so we did switch to posting 2 Reels a day morning and night 3 times a week in place of the static graphics. 

End Results 

Pinterest has proven to be a goldmine for our social media agency, and the 232% organic growth in just 60 days is a testament to the platform's potential. By optimizing our profile, strategically repurposing content, actively repinning, and engaging with the Pinterest community, we not only grew our account within the platform but were also able to grow our email list, website traffic, and other social media profile views. 

If your biz is not utilizing Pinterest in your marketing strategy, let this be your sign to START in 2024! Still need help implementing a proven strategy for GROWTH on social media?

We are the girls to call! Let us help you shine online with our social media management services - https://enfluencestudio.com/services

What Your Instagram Analytics Mean

Ever wanted to find out which posts perform the best or what your follower demographics look like? If you have a business or creator account on Instagram, you get access to key insights that can help you understand your target audience. Read more to understand everything your analytics can tell you.

Gain Access to Insights

First, to gain access to insights you must switch your account from Personal to Professional in your account settings. For more information on professional accounts, read Difference Between Creator and Business Accounts on Instagram. Then, you should be able to access all your insights.

Insights Overview

On the insights overview page, you’ll see an overall report of analytics based on the selected time period. You can change the date range from the last 7 days to 90 days or choose custom dates by tapping the drop-down at the top right.

Accounts reached tells you how many unique accounts have seen your content (posts, Stories, Reels, live videos).

Accounts engaged is the number of accounts that have interacted with your content. Interactions include likes, saves, comments, shares or replies.

Total followers simply tells you how many followers you currently have and recent trends in follower count within the date range.

Content You Shared shows you how much content you’ve posted in the chosen time period.

Tapping on each of these metrics will give you even more valuable information.

Accounts Reached

If you look more at accounts reached, you’ll get more details about the demographic of these accounts. Keep in mind that these stats are gathered from the time period you selected, so changing it will greatly affect the output. Here you’ll see where these accounts are located, their age range, and gender. You’ll also see how many of your views are from followers versus non-followers. Content reach is a super helpful measure that will tell you what type of content gets you the most reach. So if you’re looking to expand your reach, these insights will tell you just what audience you appeal to and what kind of content gets you seen. For example, if Reels provides great reach for your account, consider posting more with your target audience in mind.

Accounts Engaged

We love talking about engagement here, so here’s how to check your own engagement levels! Similar to accounts reached, you’ll get an overview of your engaged audience’s location, age range, and gender as well as how many of them are followers. But what we want to highlight here is content interactions. This breaks down all interactions on posts, Stories, and Reels in the selected time period. By seeing what kind of content gets you the most engagement, you can use that to tailor content for the future.

Total Followers

Getting a closer look at your followers not only shows you their basic demographics but also provides trends in follows and unfollows as well as when they’re most active. Your follower growth is provided on a line chart within your chosen date range and you can tap around to see specific dates where you had noticeable spikes. Most Active Times will answer the famous question, “What is the best time to post on Instagram?” Here you can see what days and hours per each day your followers are the most active and when you should post so your content is more likely to be seen. Knowing more about your followers will help you understand them better and make content that they WANT to consume.

Content You Shared

By taking a look at the content you’ve shared, you can get an overall ranking of posts, Stories, and Reels based on a chosen metric. Under posts, you can filter based on whether they’re photos, carousels, or videos (not Reels) and choose from a number of metrics as well as a custom time period. Reels are categorized separately, and let you filter based on only 7 different metrics: comments, likes, saves, reach, plays, shares, and Reels interactions. Under Stories, you can choose from metrics unique to Stories such as link clicks, replies, and so much more. The opportunities are endless when you are given this much knowledge!

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enfluence Marketing Studio is a full-service social media marketing agency offering social media management and 1:1 coaching.