- [Interviewer] How do you make money on social media?
How do you make money with social media?
- I think when it comes to social media,
if you think of social media you have different platforms.
You have YouTube, you have Facebook, you have Instagram,
you have Snapchat, you have Twitter.
I could go on, and on, and on, and on.
And there are new platforms coming up
every single month, every single day.
If you look at social media as a platform I think
it's a very limited way of looking at it.
I simply look at social media as attention, it's eyeball.
It's where people nowadays spend
the majority of their time hanging out.
That's where the attention goes,
that's where the eyeball is.
Long time ago the eyeballs could be
on newspapers, it could be on TV.
But now it's all on social media,
that's what social media is.
So how do you make money?
The question is how to convert that attention into money.
You could make money on selling something.
If you have your own product and service
you're using social media to get eyeballs,
to get attention, to get views.
And then you will convert that attention into a lead.
When you get the lead you may follow-up with them.
You may get them on the phone.
You may drive them to your website.
You may drive them to your webinar.
You're actually selling your products
and services, that's one way to do it.
Another way you could do it is
you actually don't have a product and service,
but you have fame, you have big following.
Now you are doing what we call maybe a brand deal,
right, an endorsement deal, a recommendation.
Now brands and companies are paying you
to access that attention, those eyeballs.
So let's say you have a million subscribers on YouTube.
Well, companies if it's the right audience
they're willing to pay you a pretty large sum of money,
even on Instagram, to do a single post,
or to do a collaboration video, or an endorsement video.
That's what they're paying.
They're paying for that shortcut.
They're paying for that attention span.
They're paying for those views.
So you can do that as well, some kind of brand deal.
Or you can also do some kind of collaboration where you
are promoting maybe other people's products and services.
It could be an affiliate marketing deal
that you have got the attention,
and you're promoting other people's offers.
You can make money that way too.
But when it comes to social media
there are many, many ways to make money.
And it is nowadays the line between social media
and marketing is very blurry.
It's not so much, oh, I do offline marketing,
or I do direct mail, remember direct mail?
Or I do TV marketing, or I do Facebook marketing.
Social media, it's marketing because
all these other channels, it could be offline channels,
their attention is more difficult
to get attention from the customers.
How many hours most people spend on the phone?
People are watching more YouTube videos than watching TV.
People are reading more Facebook posts
and news versus reading newspapers.
And you can't sell to them if
they're not paying attention to you.
Before if they're gonna spend money
with you they need to know you.
And if they don't even know you exist,
they're not even paying attention to you,
it's very difficult to do anything to make a sale.
I think they think of social media is like,
hey, as long as I get attention I'll make money.
Or let me build a following, then I will make money.
It is fucking wrong.
I always ask people, let's say you're building
your Instagram followers, if you're not making money
with 20,000 people, what makes you think you'll make money
with 40,000 people or 60,000 followers?
Because you can not multiply zero.
You don't suddenly get to a point,
hey, I have not been making money for the whole journey.
Suddenly, when I have a 100,000 people you'll make money?
Just think about it, that makes no sense.
So you need to have a solid business model.
You need to have an offer that converts.
You need to have a product and services
that people actually want to spend money
on before you get those attention.
Because if your stuff sucks, more attention to something
that's lousy, that is not gonna make you rich.
That's not gonna make you money.
So assuming you've got something that's really, really good.
Now you get more attention to it.
You get more sales, you get more buyers.
Then you grow, and you scale from there.
Then you can scale your business very quickly
because with social media you can reach billions
of people around the world (snaps fingers) like that.
That's what makes it good.
You're putting that on steroids, right?
You're getting way more people
paying attention to your stuff.
Another mistake I see people make,
especially young people, millennials.
Oh, yeah, I just want to be famous on social media.
Dan, how can I build a social media following like you?
I say for fucking what?
I mean, fucking, you are so young.
You don't have enough experience.
You've got no substance yet, you have no substance.
Building that, getting more attention,
that doesn't do anything, unless you want
to be Justin Bieber or something,
you're in the entertainment industry,
that's a different story.
But for most people, I mean, fuck, you're a young dude.
You're a young guy, a young girl,
that's not how you build a long-term business.
You might make a little bit of money short-term,
but you are not gonna have success long-term.
You need to have depth, you need to have substance.
It's like, oh, Dan, I want to be a personal brand.
You're fucking 19 years old.
A brand of what, you can't even fucking,
you don't know anything yet, build a brand on what?
When you build a brand you let the world know
just how fucking stupid you are,
how naive you are, how incompetent you are.
More eyeballs does not help unless you're a fucking genius.
If you are, good for you, I'm talking about most people.
So fame for the sake of fame is stupid.
I say, so you don't just want to be famous,
you want to be rich and famous.
It's fortune and fame, more fame
should bring you more fortune done properly.
That's my take on it.
I think the downside when it comes to social media
is there is a huge sacrifice you have to make.
I think people don't address that,
and I want to address that.
When it comes to social media, when you're creating content,
when you are an influencer, when you're a thought leader,
when you have so many people watching you
and consuming your content it is not easy.
It is not easy to be prolific
to be creating content all the time.
Just like now besides running all my companies
I'm trying to squeeze in the time
on my way somewhere to make a video
to share what I know with you.
Instagram, Facebook, YouTube,
all these things, that it is not easy
because you need to be creating all the time.
It is very exhausting, and it's not easy.
And for most people you need to put in the time.
You need to put in the effort.
And you may not se results in a while
because social is about eyeballs.
It's all about building trust with
your target market, with your followers.
So it's not overnight, it's not an overnight success.
So that is very, very difficult.
And the second thing about social media
is once it's on social media it is on social media.
Once you have chosen this path,
just like I did, there's no turning back.
Knowing that it would affect my privacy.
Knowing that I would get haters.
Knowing that I would get criticisms.
Knowing that I need to sacrifice
a lot of different areas of my life if you want
to do this because there's no going back.
There's no now I have millions.
What's been seen can not be unseen.
When you have tens of millions
of people watching your videos, consuming your content,
you can't go back and say, hey.
You know, it's not like Men in Black, I can wave
a magic thing where they erase the memory, they can not.
Once you're out there there is
no turning back, you are out there.
Your stuff, it's out there.
Once you're that public figure that's it.
So you have to ask yourself, is that what you want?
Because there are many ways to make money.
This is not the only way to make money.
There are many, many people who make a lot of money
without being a public figure.
This happens to be what I like to do.
I like to teach, I like to share what I know.
I like to use my personal brand.
That happens to be my strength,
and what I don't mind doing, so then I'm okay.
But for most people, if you're more introvert,
and maybe that's not what you want to do.
Maybe you don't want to be recognized on the street.
Maybe you don't want when you're having lunch
or dinner someone walked up to you and say,
hey, can I take a photo with you?
Maybe that's not what you want, I don't mind, I'm okay.
I like meeting with people who consume
my content, my fans, my followers.
I'm okay with that, maybe you're not okay with that.
I would say that's the biggest
downside, there's no going back.
Once you are on the internet you're on the internet.
And this stuff doesn't disappear,
so you have to consider that.
I would say that's it, so if you don't mind that.
And say, you know what, I'm willing to sacrifice,
I'm willing to pay that price.
Then by all means go all in social media.
Have a business model, have some
fucking substance, deliver value to people.
Promote something that's good,
a good product, a good service.
And then you can make a lot of money.