This post is sponsored by ShopStyle Collective.
Last month, I celebrated my 7-year blog anniversary. It still sounds so surreal that I have been doing this for as long as I have. I decided to write a blog post about what I’ve learned over the years and received a flurry of questions. I was asked for insight about various things from best practices on getting started to how bloggers make a living. This post, with the help of my friends over at ShopStyle Collective is all about how you can make money from your platform.
Income Breakdown
If you watched my latest Instagram Reel, you know that there are two ways I earn income as a blogger. One is through sponsorships, which is when a brand or retailer pays me to promote their products or services. I always ensure that sponsored posts are authentic & genuine because that is critically important to how receptive your audience will be. Also, it allows your audience to truly trust your opinion and recommendations, which will only make them more engaged with your content.
The second is through affiliate links, which is what I want to talk about in this post. Although sponsorships are great, they come much later down the line because you have to have a good amount of followers, engagement, and experience to capture the attention of brands. This can sometimes be discouraging for smaller influencers or those starting out. Luckily, affiliate links offer you another way to make money immediately, no matter what your audience size is.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing works like this. I wear a dress on my social media. Someone says, “hey, I love that dress! Can you share where you got it from?”. I provide them with a link that I have generated from ShopStyle Collective that leads them to the product they are asking for. This is called an affiliate link. Instead of copying and pasting a link directly from the retailer, you create an affiliate link that tracks how many people click on said link, as well as what they buy. You then earn a percentage commission based off of someone making a purchase through your link.
ShopStyle Standard Program
ShopStyle Collective is making it easy for anyone to become an influencer and earn affiliate commission with their new Standard Program. This program is specifically designed for micro and nano-influencers with under 10,000 followers. It offers a straightforward tool set consisting of Text Links and simplified analytics to cater to new influencers. And let me just tell you as a seasoned blogger, this is unheard of! There has not been a program like this that caters to newer influencers in an effort to really help them make money from the start.
The best part about it is, building your business with affiliate links can help you score sponsored campaigns and start to work with brands down the line. Standard Program users can graduate to the Advanced Program, where they have access to more tools, analytics, and retailers. You gain actual data of your influence through affiliate links, and ShopStyle Collective can help connect you to those brands.
Sign up today!
Sign up for ShopStyle’s Standard Program today, not tomorrow! Do it right now and jumpstart your blogger journey. Do what you love and make money doing it!
Outfit Details:
Blazer | Pants | Cardigan (old) | Skinny Jeans
Photographer: Steve Suavemente
What’s next after you Sign up and everything. Will someone reach out to me?
After you sign up, you should be able to start generating your affiliate links.
@Kristin you did not answer the above question?
Is the program available for people in the African continent? 😒
It is a global program so yes it is open to you as well
Thank you! I have been doin a lot of research lately on how to get started with blogging and this really helped. I think I am going to sign up!
I’m so happy that this was helpful to you!
I want to learn more about how to get started, I just started doing this.
You said that The best part about this is, building your business with affiliate links to help you score sponsored campaigns and start to work with brands down the line. How does affiliate links help you grow your brand? And thank you for this article it was very helpful.
The affiliate links will give you analytics which is critical to working with brands, especially when you are smaller. When using affiliate links, you will be able to see not only how many people clicked on your link, but how many people purchased from your link. So when you are reaching out to a brand, you can say “hey I would love to work with you, and here is what I can bring to the table. X amount of people clicked on this product I featured from your brand and X amount of people went through with a purchase.” That’s much more effective and will help you to stand out. Hope that answers your question.
Hi I would like to know some more info and how much does it cost? I also have a YouTube channel.
It doesn’t cost anything to sign up. You can use the affiliate links on your YouTube channel as well as any social media that you have
This sounds good 😊.
Does this apply to people in Africa,am in Kenya?
I would also like to know if this applies for those of us out in Africa
Yes, it is a global program
This is a great program, thank you for sharing and thank you to Shopstyle collective for catering to smaller bloggers and influencers also.
Happy to help!