How Do You Make Money From Blogging, YouTube and Social Media?

How do you make money from blogging and YouTube has to be up there in the top five questions I get asked on a weekly basis, so I thought it might be handy to do a blog post to answer the question as best I can. I don’t proclaim to be an expert though so don’t take my word as gospel! I didn’t even realise you could make any money from a blog or YouTube channel (other than side bar advertising etc) when I started out. I just started it as a hobby for myself. So naïve, but I do think blogs and YouTube channels which have started as just hobby projects are often the ones that end up doing well in the long run.

I’ll break down how I earn money from blogging and YouTube into categories:

Blog

Blog wise, these are the main ways that bloggers are able to make an income.

1. Sponsored posts – these can either be sponsored in the sense that a brand pays you to write a post based around a content idea or new launch or product or it can be an SEO agency or freelancer of some description wanting you to write a post which will include a link. I don’t tend to do the link posts at all anymore just because they don’t often fit with my organic content.
2. Ambassadorships – brands sometimes approach you for some form of ambassadorship – more like a long term agreement to represent their brand. Usually it would be a package of work across multiple social platforms and you would offer a combined price for all the work. Sometimes exclusivity would be expected as well, which can often result (but not always) in a fee.
3. Guest posts – this is where a person or brand wants to guest post on your blog and because it would be of benefit to them, you may look to charge a fee for this service.
4. Paid reviews – these would blog posts reviewing a product for a fee. I usually weigh up the cost of the product against my usual fee and offset. As in I wouldn’t charge for a full review for a product of high value.
5. Advertising – I have to say, I don’t utilise this at all really on my blog. You can set up banner advertising or advertising at the bottom of blog posts etc but to be perfectly honest, I don’t really know how it works!
6. Affiliate links – you can be set up on different affiliate programs to earn commission off sharing links to certain items and products. I’m only set up with one just now.

YouTube

There is a bit of a crossover on how you can make money on YouTube and how you can make money blogging, but there are a couple different avenues as well.

1. Sponsored videos – a brand will pay you to come up with a video concept for them featuring a product or service they are wanting to promote and you research, film, edit and submit the video. They then either sign off the content and you agree an upload time, description, thumbnail and social media promotion, or they come back with changes for you to carry out.
2. Video mentions – same as above but it’s not a fully dedicated video, it’s just a mention – usually up to 2-3 minutes.
3. Paid reviews – a brand will send you a product (i.e. a pushchair) and will want a full review on the product. To be honest, in these cases, if the product value matches or is above my fee, then I wouldn’t charge for the review.
4. Producing a video for another channel – I’ve worked with Mumsnet, Netmums, LBP and other parenting brands to produce videos for their YouTube channels.

Social Media

I’m mainly talking about Instagram here. I do charge for some tweets and Facebook posts as part of a package of work for a brand sometimes, but my main social media income comes from Instagram.

1. Product placement images – this is where a brand will pay a set fee for you to take photos with one of their products, which will fit well into your ‘theme’ and satisfy all the conditions in the brief they give you.
2. Lifestyle shots with ad captions – this is the same ideas as the above but it will be more of a lifestyle/natural shot and then the caption below will feature an agreed copy which will share the product or service with your followers.
3. Videos – same as above with the images. A brand will pay you to produce a short Instagram video featuring or mentioning their product or service. I charge slightly higher for these than I do for an image as they take longer to produce.
4. Paid Instagram stories with or without links – usually a brand will ask for these alongside an Instagram post. They are used to tell the story behind the post a bit more and reach a larger audience. The Instagram algorithm can be a tricky one to navigate to sometimes posting in conjunction with a story is a good way of reaching as many of your followers as possible. It’s either to show your audience a product, direct them to a piece of your content or to an external website, if they are interested.
5. Affiliate links through Instagram stories – this is sharing a product that your followers want to know about and earning a commission if anyone buys it. Usually through an affiliate platform that you are signed up with. I’m part of two but only one I use regularly and it is one hell of a clunky app – so hard to use!
6. Lives – I’ve not done any of these but I have been offered them in the past – mainly Facebook lives. The thought scares me but maybe one day I’ll venture into it. I’m much better edited!

Miscellaneous

Event attendance – I’ve only had this happen about three or four times so far and it’s never been me that has broached the subject. It has always been the brand. Half the time I’m just grateful to be invited to a fun event (especially if it involves any form of food or alcohol) but I do like the travel cost to be covered. Sometimes though, there is a lot of work involved, and you are expected to ‘represent’ the brand to a certain extent, so it makes sense that a brand would expect to pay you.

Sometimes we will be offered experiences or days out etc where we won’t get paid for going/a review/any coverage and we will pay for travel ourselves but it’s still a nice thing that we would like to do as a family so we do it. This can be a bit of a Grey area but I always disclaim that we’ve been invited along for ‘free’.

I will ALWAYS fully disclaim when something is an ‘AD’, ‘collaboration’, ‘gifted’ – basically any sort of arrangement where an income is involved or something has been gifted. Full transparency is so important for the trust between a ‘creator’ and their audience. It’s so easy to spot the people who don’t follow these rules and for me, it just makes me very unlikely to check out their content again. Is that bitchy? I hope not!! I just like people to be honest. Maybe I’m old fashioned like that haha.

I think some people begin to think that every single thing a blogger or vlogger does is a secret AD but I promise you, in most cases (of us honest ones anyway!), it isn’t. I partner up with brands I use anyway or genuinely want to try, and so end up using the product in question much more than I’m paid to, and giving more coverage for ‘free’ because I like it and want to share it with others.

I also now turn down a lot of things. I’ve been offered paid reviews for all sorts of weird and wonderful things but they just don’t fit with my life or audience (sex toys, ski poles, foot fungus cream, bad breath tablets anyone?) so every AD you see on my website, YouTube or social media has been carefully considered.

I hope this has helped clear some questions up. Please ask any more questions in the comments below if I’ve not made sense anywhere. I’m unlikely to tell you exact figures of what I earn though because I am terribly British and wouldn’t do that with my other job either. I tell friends and family about some jobs but it would just seem a bit odd splashing it across the internet. The past year has been my highest paid yet and I’m hopefully on track to earn more this year. It’s so un-British to talk about what you earn so I feel really strange talking about it, even in this vague sense. My online work is allowing us to save for a house deposit, which we wouldn’t be able to do comfortably without it (hello high childcare bill), go on a nice family holiday each year and generally just not worry about money as much as we would have before.

Lastly, I have to say that although I absolutely love this second job of mine, and am forever grateful to everyone who’s helped to make it happen by watching and reading, it is a pretty relentless way to make money and you have to be prepared to put in a good hard slog if you really want to do it. It’s not as easy as it’s perceived to be and is probably the hardest job I’ve ever done, but also one of the best. I rarely go to bed before midnight but that’s ok because I’ve got you lovely lot to entertain and for that I am forever grateful.

Thank you!