If you’ve followed this blog over the years you may know the back story of how I started Army Wife 101 and made it a full-time career. Watch the video where I share about it here.

How Did You Do That?

I plan on sharing that in full one day. But, in short, when business owners and brands see that you have a loyal following on social media, you essentially become valuable to them.

Why is that?

It’s because you have tons of potential customers who will be interested in their product or service. That was the case with Army Wife 101. I write about the military lifestyle anyway. So sometimes you may see a post on Facebook or here on the blog that says sponsored. It allows me to share promotions or products that may be beneficial to military life, earn an income and pay other military spouses to write on the site.

So How Does This Apply To Military Spouses?

These days military spouses spend a lot of their time in Facebook groups. They are more private and you can find so many groups that are specific to your wants or needs. There are Facebook groups for everything and every type of military spouse.

What the owners of these groups have no idea about is that they are letting hundreds and possibly even thousands of dollars slip through their hands. They have thousands of people in these groups, and if your group is centered around the right focus, you most certainly can use your following to advertise for big and small companies. This is true too for other media platforms like IG and Twitter, but today we will focus on IG.

We know that sometimes working outside is not an option with the military lifestyle, so we wanted to share just a few short ways to earn some cash if you own a FB group in which you’re the admin.

Charge For Your Virtual Real Estate

Many groups do threads where they will ask everyone to list their business. Tons of people will flood the comments with links to their business hoping to be noticed. The problem with this is there are so many comments that most of those businesses will go unnoticed. Instead, make it more valuable for your group members by offering to advertise a few businesses per week by posting them yourself. As admin of the group, your posts will get more visibility. Want to make even more? Offer to pin their business to the top of the group for a week and charge a flat rate. People who want to make money with their business will invest money to advertise to the target group they want to reach. You know that FB cover at the top of your group? Offer that prime virtual real estate to someone interested in advertising. Just be sure they place your group’s name on the banner cover. Suggest they use a site like Canva or PicMonkey to make an easy modern banner cover.

Influencer Network

In addition to owning Army Wife 101, I also run SoFluential Media , a milspouse ran digital media agency. We come up with fun ways to share about a product or happening with a brand (that wants to reach the military market) through writing content on blogs and on social media channels. We then hire military/milspouse bloggers from our influencer network to share about it on their blogs and social media channels. Then we pay them. If you have a military based FB group with a following of over 5,000 that is very active ( or a blog), we’d love to have you join our network by clicking here. When we have opportunities for social media posts you will receive an email and can apply for them. They pay anywhere from $25-$50 for (1) post in your group.

Sell Tees

If you have a group centered around something of interest or you guys do meetups, why not sell fun tees around that topic. Did you know you can easily make and sell tees through a website like TeeSpring.com  for free? Simply use a site like Canva or Picmonkey to make a design and then upload to Teespring. They take a small fee plus handle the shipping and you keep the rest. Advertise the shirts in the group or pics of you and friends wearing them. People love tees these days!

Blogging and Affiliates

In the upcoming month, we will be sharing how to start and monetize a blog. However, one of the ways people make money with blogging is by being an affiliate for popular for retailers like Amazon, Walmart, and many more. An affiliate program allows you to use tracking links provided by these stores that generate you a commission anytime someone makes a purchase from their store using your unique link.

Almost anybody with a website can be an affiliate. This is as long as you meet the requirements of the particular company you are applying to be an affiliate for. Currently, Amazon it appears will allow you to be an affiliate without a website which means you can apply using the link of your FB group, Twitter or create a free blog at BlogSpot.com or WordPress.com. If you have a group where you share recipes or crafts or anything that requires someone to make a purchase to create–share your Amazon affiliate link. When they make a purchase you will earn a commission.

Lastly, should you choose to do any of the above options, always be sure to include the wording: AD, Sponsored or Affiliate. The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) requires bloggers and social media influencers to disclose that they have been compensated.

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Krystel is the mom of two and an Army Wife. In addition to Army Wife 101 she is the Co-Founder of SoFluential.com a digital media agency that connects brands with the military market. She has appeared on MSNBC ,FOX LA and formerly was a weekly contributor to HLN's "Raising America". She has written for various outlets including Sheknows and Lifetime and is a big fan of cupcakes and french fries.

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