As someone who has earned a full-time income using their social media platforms for 7 years, and who coaches other business owners, I’ve seen a lot of business ideas that work really well and others that fall flat on their face.

Maybe you’re starting to grow your social media platforms and you’re not sure how to create a business around your social media following.

Here are 12 ideas, or categories, that will spark new ideas for you to create a business around your social media following.

  1. A product. The most obvious way you can begin to monetize your business is by selling a product. This is when you sell something for more than it costs you to create. These could be digital or physical products. 
  2. A service. You can provide some sort of service to your social media following. This is when you offer help or assistance to someone in exchange for a fee. They’re paying for the benefits they are receiving as a result of your service. This is the primary model here at Video Creators.
  3. A shared resource. This is when you have an asset that can be used by many people and you can charge people for access to this asset. (i.e. A co-working space, gym, etc.)
  4. A subscription. This is when you offer a benefit at an ongoing basis and charge a recurring fee for it. (i.e. Amazon, channel memberships, etc.)
  5. Resale. This is when you acquire a product from someone and resell it at a higher price. 
  6. Lease. A lease is when you acquire an asset and you let someone else have or use that asset for an ongoing period of time in exchange for a fee. This could be a rental property or something like lens.com. 
  7. Agency. This is whenever you market and sell an asset or a service you don’t own on behalf of a third party and you collect a percentage of that transaction for a fee. This is exactly what affiliate marketing is.
  8. Audience aggregation. This is when you attract a certain audience that other advertisers and businesses want access to. You have your audience’s attention, advertisers want your audience’s attention, and they will pay you to get your audience’s attention on their product or service. Think about sponsorships, brand deals, etc. here.
  9. Loan. When someone gives you a certain amount of money and you have to pay it back, with interest, over time. This isn’t common among YouTube channels.
  10. Options. When you offer the ability to take a predefined action for a fixed period of time in exchange for a fee. This is what happens when you license a music track. Someone else owns the copyright, but for a fee, they will give you permission to use that for a defined period of time.
  11. Insurance. This is when you take on the risk of a specific bad thing happening to the policy holder in exchange for a predefined series of payments and then you pay out claims only if the bad thing actually happens.
  12. Offering capital. When you purchase an ownership stake in a business and collect a corresponding portion of the profits as a one-time payout or ongoing dividends. 

Most of these might not make any sense for you and your YouTube channel, but I just wanted to open your perspective to see that there’s a lot of different ways you can generate value.

You can give value in various forms and there isn’t just one way people will buy from you.

A lot of creators jump right into one thing (whether that’s a product or service) because they see other creators doing it. (i.e. Patreon, merch, online courses)

Then, they launch it only to have it fall flat on its face after tons and tons of work. 

I have, personally, been there and done that.

I don’t want you to waste your time and money like I did creating a product that doesn’t sell.

That’s why I created this step-by-step process that I used to create Video Creators and grow it to a 7-figure business and it’s the same process I use to coach other businesses through as well. 

Download the free guide here to get started.

Hope this helps!

Keep changing lives,

Tim

Check out Josh Kaufmann’s book, “Personal MBA,” here: https://amzn.to/2ZGCiib (affiliate)