How to do Affiliate Marketing via Social Media using Cuelinks

Have you ever thought about calculating the time you or the people around you spend on various social media channels in a day? If you did, you won’t need a study or report to convince you that people are spending more time on some or the other social media by the day.

While social media penetration around the globe is 53%, in India, the number is as high as 37%. In the world of affiliate marketing this creates a great opportunity for marketers to make money without going the whole hog of creating a blog or website.

And to be sure, lately, we had started getting a lot of questions around affiliate marketing on social media and how to use Cuelinks for it.

So, we thought we’d put together this FAQ-cum-guide on how to do affiliate marketing via social media using Cuelinks, and here it is.

  1. I don’t have a website at the moment, but is it possible to use social media to generate revenue?
  2. Which is the best social media platform for affiliate marketing?
  3. How to do affiliate marketing via Facebook?
  4. How to do affiliate marketing via Twitter
  5. How to do affiliate marketing via WhatsApp?
  6. How to do affiliate marketing via Telegram?
  7. How to do affiliate marketing on Instagram?
  8. How to shorten affiliate URLs for promotion on WhatsApp groups, Telegram channels and other social media channels?
  9. Can I install the Cuelinks JavaScript code on Facebook or YouTube or any other social media channel?
  10. I am a YouTuber; can I still work with Cuelinks if I don’t have a website? Or How to do affiliate marketing via YouTube?
  11. Does Quora support Affiliate Marketing?
  12. Does Pinterest support Affiliate Marketing?
  13. Benefits of using Cuelinks for affiliate marketing on social media.
  14. Few useful tips for affiliate marketing on social media
  15. Which is the best way to get deals?

I don’t have a website at the moment, but is it possible to use social media to generate revenue?

YES! Welcome to the world of affiliate marketing! You no longer need a full-fledged website/ blog to generate revenue. You can earn money even through an amazing social media channel with good content and decent number of followers/ subscribers.

And by social media channel, we mean any channel that allows affiliate marketing, which includes Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Quora, Twitter, Telegram groups, WhatsApp groups.

Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to create affiliate links and share on social media using Cuelinks to generate revenue from any social media channel:

Sign up on Cuelinks with your social media page link.

Once your account is approved on Cuelinks, you are automatically approved for over one thousand Indian and international affiliate campaigns currently live with Cuelinks.

Now you start creating affiliate links using Cuelinks Link Kit.

Just log in to your Cuelinks account and on the left-hand panel of your dashboard go to Resource Center > Link Kit.

Copy the merchant URL (link) in the box given here and click ‘Generate Link’. Your merchant link now gets converted into Cuelinks affiliate link.

You can add a Sub Id to it and you can even shorten it by checking the small box given at the left-hand corner of the panel.

You can use this shortened Cuelinks affiliate link on your any and all of your social media pages be it Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram or even WhatsApp groups.

Note: You can only generate revenue-making affiliate links of merchants that are running active campaigns with Cuelinks.

Your job of converting merchant links into affiliate links is made simpler by the Cuelinks Google Chrome extension. Once you download and install this extension on your browser and log in to it with your Cuelinks account, it will pop up every time you visit a partner merchant of Cuelinks.

Then you just have to click ‘Generate’, shorten it and copy it to use the affiliate link on your social media pages and/ or your affiliate website. With the Cuelinks Google Chrome extension you are not likely to forget converting your links and using it is also a lot more convenient.

Which is the best social media platform for affiliate marketing?

The answer to this question is not very straight-forward. Instead, one should ask the question which social media platform my target audience is most active and reactive on. E.g. Instagram and Pinterest are currently the best when you’re promoting visually appealing products and services like beauty products, clothes, shoes, fashion accessories, travel bookings, etc.

According to the October 2018 report of Statista, around 71 million Indians are currently active on Instagram per month. [Source]

Also, if you want to reach out to women, then Pinterest seems to be the best place because 70% of Pinterest users are women.

Yet, one social media channel you cannot miss to have is Facebook because that is where majority of Indians are. Facebook still commands around 86.56% of the online public in India.

As of October 2018, Facebook had 294 million monthly active users. The highest number of users on Facebook are from India. [Source]

This is followed closely by YouTube, which had around 245 million monthly active users as of August 2018, thanks to the steep fall in mobile data prices and YouTube prioritising local language content. It has been predicted that in the next 2 years YouTube will have around 500 million Indian users. [Source]

However, you don’t have to be limited to India when it comes to affiliate marketing with Cuelinks; you can tap the entire world to earn revenue from your social media channels and/ or online properties.

Cuelinks partners with not only Indian merchants but also merchants from all over world including the USA, UK, UAE, Southeast Asian countries and more. Once your account is approved on Cuelinks, you are eligible to promote affiliate campaigns offered by any of these merchants and earn commission in foreign currency as well.

Coming back to the original question, what is more important is which social media platform suits best for your type of content, target audience and/ or the product/ service you are promoting. No one can answer that question better than you; all you need to do is some in-depth research and observation.

How to do affiliate marketing via Facebook?

While you can easily use your personal account to get started with affiliate marketing via Facebook, it is better to take a more professional route and create a Facebook Page or a Facebook Group.

You can also create both if you want, but then you must know you will have to maintain both separately.

While deciding between creating a Facebook Page or a Group, you may consider the following points:

Facebook PageFacebook Group
You come across as a business or a brand.You come across as a community run by an individual.
You get a customizable, pretty-looking, memorable URL, which is easier to promote. (E.g.: https://www.facebook.com/desidime )You don’t get to customise the URL of your Facebook Group. (E.g.: https://www.facebook.com/groups/401153256951098/ )
Facebook Insights is available, so you can keep a track of what’s working for your Page and what is not.Facebook Insights is not available, so it is difficult to keep track of your activities in a Group.
Anyone can easily discover your Page and like and follow it.The audience is narrower. It’s difficult for people to join your Group, unless you keep it open.
Looks similar to a personal profile, and thus connects better with all users.Looks and feels more like a forum and thus connects better with people who are members of the Group only or who are interested in your niche.
A Page offers a lot more options of posting. Also, you can run paid ads via a Page to reach a larger audience.The posting options for a Group are limited and you cannot run paid promotions in a Group.
A Page is more likely to attract all kinds of people who may or may not interact with your page much.Since it is more like a community, it is easier to attract people who are interested in your niche (or in what you have to offer) and thus the chances of engagement are higher.

There are three kinds of Facebook Groups: Public Group, Closed Group and Secret Group. As the name suggests, a Public Group is open to all to find and explore. If you are just starting out, then having a Public Group is advisable to build initial traction.

However, if you want to be more in control of what kind of people are part of your Group and what kind of things are discussed and shared on your Group, then you may go for a Closed or a Secret Group. E.g. If you will be promoting products and services only for women, then you may choose to start a Closed Group for women only.

While people can still find and see who runs a Closed Group, only members can see what is posted on it. On the other hand, a Secret Group can only be found and explored by members.

Once you have created a Page or a Group, personalised it and started getting followers or members, you can start posting and promoting your affiliate links to your audience. To help you create affiliate links of various products/ services and stores, there’s the Cuelinks Link Kit and the Cuelinks Google Chrome extension. To know how you can use them click here.

Cuelinks also manages all the other aspects of affiliate marketing which include managing links, tracking them, reporting and payment. So, all you need to do is focus on how to manage, engage and grow your Facebook Page or Group.

You can also reach a wider audience and hope to earn more by investing some money in running ads on Facebook or boosting some of your posts. One question that often arises is that does Facebook allow affiliate links in ads and paid posts.

There’s sufficient evidence in various online forums and even in the Facebook Help Center that Facebook allows you to add affiliate links in ads and boost posts.

What you need to worry about is making sure that your images, videos and text comply with Facebook’s ad policies to successfully run the paid promotions.

How to do affiliate marketing on Twitter?

A Twitter timeline is one of the fastest moving in the world of social media.

Trending hashtags often change within hours; on average, every second around 6000 tweets are tweeted which corresponds to over 350000 tweets sent in one minute. You only have 140 characters to say what you want to say in one tweet and a plain text tweet takes up just about one third or one fourth of a mobile phone screen. [Source]

Thus, the challenge in affiliate marketing via Twitter is to keep yourself visible on people’s timeline as often as possible throughout the day. Thus, here quantity is as important as quality.

You will have to tweet good stuff and tweet it a lot, at least initially, to gain visibility and followers for your account.  

However, you still need to maintain a decent gap between your tweets to ensure that you don’t end up annoying people by clogging up their feed.

Once you set up your Twitter account, you can start tweeting to promote your affiliate links among your followers.

Sign up on Cuelinks and use the Link Kit and/ or the Cuelinks Google Chrome extension to make shortened affiliate links of various merchants and brands listed with Cuelinks.

In addition to making the link creation job easier for you, Cuelinks also takes care of managing, tracking, reporting and payment part of affiliate marketing for you.

Some tips to follow to gain followers as a beginner:

  • It would be better if you direct your followers to a page where they get more information about the product or service rather than just sending them to an online store. Twitter is more of a social media channel to attract traffic to your affiliate site. Using it for direct affiliate marketing is not highly recommended but there’s no harm in trying.
  • Use one or two relevant hashtags in all your tweets.
  • Tag people (influencers/ celebrities) or brands wherever possible, using the ‘at’ symbol.
  • Keep an eye on the day’s trending hashtags and try to build your tweets around them while still keeping them relevant to your niche.
  • Follow other accounts that are relevant to your niche and DM them requesting them to follow you back. This will help greatly in increasing your visibility. However, use this trick in moderation.
  • Reply to the comments and DMs from your followers as efficiently and as quickly as possible.

How to do affiliate marketing via WhatsApp?

Compared to selling or pay per download, affiliate marketing is the easiest and best way to make money on WhatsApp. All you need to do is promote a link of a product/ service by a brand or store and earn commission on the sale/ install/ lead, while the hassle of shipping, returns, refunds, maintaining a website et al is done by the brand/ store.

With Cuelinks, affiliate marketing via WhatsApp becomes easier still thanks to the Cuelinks Link Kit and the Cuelinks Google Chrome extension. It takes just a few clicks to create affiliate links of various stores and brands, here, and shorten them to share on WhatsApp.

While Cuelinks takes care of all the tracking, reporting, link managing and payments, you simply have to manage the WhatsApp Group/s and the content on it. Also, when you sign up on Cuelinks, you are approved to promote affiliate campaigns of thousands of Indian as well as international brands.

Currently, WhatsApp only allows 256 members in one group. So, if you want to reach more than 256 people on WhatsApp, you will have to create multiple Groups and maintain them separately.

Another way to do affiliate marketing on WhatsApp is to join various big and happening WhatsApp groups where you can share your affiliate links. E.g. if you are part of a group that is interested in fashion you can promote affiliate links of various fashion apparels and accessories that you think the Group members will be interested in.

A few tips to remember while affiliate marketing on WhatsApp:

  • Create a group with a specific niche and target audience in mind.
  • Stay relevant i.e. share links of products or services in a group (your or other) according to the niche and audience of the Group. If you are marketing to a WhatsApp group of men interested in travel, you can promote affiliate links of hostel booking, travel deals, travel bags for men, etc.
  • Keep it conversational. Rather than simply giving straight-forward information and links, try to build some conversation around the affiliate links that you are sharing to keep your audience engaged.
  • Make sure the product or service you are promoting is available in the geographical location of your Group members.

How to do affiliate marketing via Telegram?

Another way to reach thousands of people at a time and promote your affiliate programs/ links among them is to create a Telegram group or channel.

You can send messages, pictures, videos and all kinds of file types like doc, zip, mp3 etc to your subscribers on Telegram.

It is much easier to run a group or channel on Telegram than on WhatsApp because Telegram allows you to create groups for up to 100,000 people and channels for an unlimited number of users for broadcasting messages.

Another benefit of Telegram over WhatsApp is that on Telegram the messages are saved on cloud, so there’s no storage issue and you can access it all from any device (mobile phone, tablet, desktop) seamlessly.

Creating a group or channel on Telegram is a simple one-click process and you can find and add people to your group or channel using their usernames.

Then using the Cuelinks Link Kit or Cuelinks Google Chrome extension, you can easily create affiliate links of products and stores, shorten them and promote them on your Telegram channel or group.

How to do affiliate marketing on Instagram?

The same way you do it on Facebook, YouTube or any other social media channel i.e. using the Cuelinks Link Kit or the Cuelinks Google Chrome extension.

Here’s how you can do affiliate marketing on Instagram using Cuelinks click here.

However, affiliate marketing is a little more challenging on Instagram than on other social media platforms because of the lack of link sharing opportunities on Instagram.

Until you reach 10K followers on Instagram, you will not be allowed to add links to your posts and your profile is the only place where you will be able to add a clickable link for your followers.

Thus, every time you want to promote a product or service on your Instagram account, you have to go to your profile and change the link in your bio.

So, how to solve the one link problem of Instagram? Or how to promote multiple affiliate links via Instagram?

There are ways in which you can tackle this one link problem of Instagram. Here are some ideas:

Put the link on the images: You can make affiliate links as well as shorten them using the Cuelinks Link Kit and the Cuelinks Google Chrome extension. One way of promoting these shortened affiliate URLs on Instagram is to put them on the images you post.

Add call to action in captions: If you are changing the link in your Instagram bio every time you publish a new post on Instagram, you must add a call to action (e.g. Visit link in bio to get this product) in the caption of the post. You can also add the shortened affiliate URL in the caption.

Promote a post: If you promote a post on Instagram, it allows you to add a link to it. Thus, your post becomes clickable and the chances of people clicking on it and making a purchase are higher.

Simply click on the ‘Promote’ button given below the post, log in using your Facebook credentials, choose a budget and other details and you’re all set!

However, this will be profitable only when a good amount of sales is made using your affiliate link or you are getting a good amount of commission on each sale.

  • Use tools like Lnk.bio: If you don’t want to keep changing the link in your Instagram bio, you can use Lnk.bio. It is a service that allows you to indirectly promote multiple affiliate links on Instagram for free.

You can sign up on Lnk.bio using your Instagram account or email ID. It will give you one unique URL which you need to add in your Instagram bio.

Now whenever you want to promote new affiliate links via Instagram, go to Lnk.bio account, add the new affiliate links there.

Whenever someone clicks on the LNK URL given in your Instagram bio, they will be taken to a page where all your affiliate links are displayed together.

So, find ones that are in your niche. If you are popular on Instagram for fashion, then you should opt for fashion affiliate programs.

How to shorten affiliate URLs for promotion on WhatsApp groups, Telegram channels and other social media channels?

The Cuelinks Link Kit and the Google Chrome Extension, both these tools of Cuelinks, help you shorten URL’s by simply by checking a box.

You can share these shortened affiliate links on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp, Telegram, or any other social media platform.

In fact, Cuelinks Google Chrome Extension also has Facebook and Twitter share buttons with which you can directly share your affiliate links on Facebook and Twitter.

Can I install the Cuelinks JavaScript code on Facebook or YouTube or any other social media channel?

No. However, if you have a rocking Facebook page or YouTube channel or any other social media channel and if you want to start earning money from it then you can use Cuelinks Link Kit or Cuelinks Google Chrome extension.

Once your account with your social media channel is approved on Cuelinks, you are automatically approved for over one thousand Indian and international affiliate campaigns currently live with Cuelinks.

Now you start creating affiliate links using Cuelinks Link Kit or Cuelinks Google Chrome extension. The process is explained above.

I am a YouTuber; can I still work with Cuelinks if I don’t have a website?

Yes, definitely. All you need is good content and Cuelinks will recognise you as a content publisher and take care of the monetisation part for you. How you can use Cuelinks to earn money from your YouTube or any other social media channel is explained in the answer given above.

In fact, if you prefer Vlogging over blogging, we have this guide on how to make money on YouTube for you.

Does Quora support Affiliate Marketing?

Yes, it does. You can create affiliate links of the products you want to promote and include them in your answers on Quora. Any click, sale, download or sign up happening via your affiliate links are attributed to you and you get the pre-decided commission for them.

When you answer questions relating to your niche on Quora, you are marketing to people who have already shown some interest in your product/ service, thus the chances of making a sale and earning money are higher on this question and answer forum.

E.g. If someone has asked “Which laptop should I buy’ on Quora, and your niche is technology and gadgets, this is a great opportunity for you to recommend the best laptops to buy currently along with affiliate links to buying those laptops.

Does Pinterest support Affiliate Marketing?

Yes, Pinterest supports affiliate marketing. You can create affiliate links of the products you want to promote and include them in your Pinterest posts. Any click, sale, download or sign up happening via your affiliate links are attributed to you and you get the pre-decided commission for them.

Benefits of using Cuelinks for affiliate marketing via Social Media

  1. Signing up on Cuelinks and using its tools and services is absolutely free.
  2. You don’t have to sign up for different affiliate campaigns separately. Cuelinks brings you over one thousand merchants from India and all over the world in one place. When you sign up with Cuelinks, you are automatically approved for promoting the affiliate campaigns of all Cuelinks partner merchants.
  3. The Cuelinks Link Kit and Cuelinks Google Chrome extension help you create affiliate links quickly and even shorten them for social media use. You can even add sub id’s to your links. In fact, the Cuelinks Google Chrome extension has a one-click option to share your affiliate links on Facebook and Twitter.
  4. With the Cuelinks campaign explorer (found in your dashboard) you can easily browse through and find relevant campaigns to promote on your channel.
  5. When you sign up on Cuelinks, you are assigned an account manager, whom you can reach out for help whenever needed.
  6. You get detailed reports about the transactions, clicks, earnings, earning per click, campaigns, products and much more on a single dashboard panel.
  7. You don’t have to follow up with individual merchants to get your payments. Once your validated earnings reach Rs 500 you simply need to raise an invoice and you will receive your payment on the 5th of the same month or the next month, depending on when you raise the invoice. To know when you will receive your payment from Cuelinks click here.
  8. Have more questions about Cuelinks? You might find all your answers in the FAQs section. If not, do reach out to us in the comments section or at [email protected].
  9. When you come of age as an affiliate marketer and decide to have a full-fledged website or blog instead of just a social media channel, Cuelinks has a JavaScript code, CueWidgets, CueWords and a WordPress plugin to make your life easier.

Tips to Follow while doing affiliate marketing on Social Media

  • Choose A Niche

Just like when you start a blog, you must choose a category that your social media channel will focus on. You can choose your niche based on the affiliate products/ services you plan to promote or vice versa. This helps you decide your target audience and consequently the theme and type of your posts and your future growth strategies.

  • Choosing A Name

Be it any social media platform the thumb rule while choosing a name/ username/ handle is to pick something that is simple and easy to remember. Do not pick a name that has numbers or hyphen or underscore or any other special character in it.

  • Choosing a Social Media platform

Choose a social media platform, depending on your niche, target audience and the affiliate products/ services you wish to promote. If your target audience are women interested in cooking or home décor or cooking, then Pinterest would be the best platform to choose. If you want to promote travel services, beauty products, or other visually appealing services or products, then Instagram and Facebook seem more suitable.

  • Choosing affiliate campaigns

Various brands and online stores have their own list of media where they allow or disallow you to promote their affiliate campaigns. So before creating affiliate links of products and services from any brand or store, make sure you know all their terms and conditions.

You will find all the information of any affiliate campaign on Cuelinks. Just log in and go to Campaign Explorer on the left-hand side of your dashboard. Now search for any brand or store you are planning to promote and click on it to read all its affiliate marketing terms and conditions.

  • Promote your channel

To grow your audience and your revenue, look for social media groups or pages or channels that are similar to yours or that have an audience similar to yours and promote your social media channel there. Join other Facebook Groups similar to yours, follow other Instagram accounts that offer the same kind of things that you do, follow other Pinterest boards that look like yours. You can also try to strike up a barter where in you promote their social media page/ channel on yours and they promote yours on their page.

Which is the best way to get deals?

As a user of Cuelinks, you keep getting daily emails that update you about the deals and campaigns of the day. Cuelinks also sends timely emails about upcoming online sales and the best offers to watch out for during those sales. So, you can keep yourself updated on the best deals. There’s another way to get the best deals in one place.

Log in to Cuelinks, go to Resource Center >> Offers

Here you can search for offers, filter them according to their category and validity and export them in CSV or XLSX format.

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