WhatsApp has daily active users of a over a billion people. A lot of these people use it every day as a means of communicating with close friends, family and even entertainment from very engaging content from their contact’s status updates, therefore, a great way to earn an income when done right. We use our status every day to post memes, thoughts, jokes, funny videos and all. Did you ever think of it as a means to earn an income? I’ll tell you why you should believe it.
Any means that can generate traffic is a potential means of income. Why do people want to grow blog readership, place ads, or start a business in high traffic environments? Because with traffic comes visibility and visibility plus rock-solid content equals a moneymaking machine.
Making money from your WhatsApp status may not really be an easy task, it sure takes a whole lot of work building a solid fan base and lots of status views. So, the majority of work done is usually in the beginning phases of the business (Yes, you have got to begin to see it as one to profit from it).
This article is going to guide you into details of starting and earning from your WhatsApp status. It is advisable to make use of GBWhatsapp when venturing into this as it comes with some functionalities we’d be exploring in this article. It’s not a must-do but it can save you a lot of stress when I tell you one of its importance.
1. Finding your Niche
This is the very first step to take towards starting your WhatsApp channel (Yeah, let’s call it that). Do you want to engage readers through memes, jokes, motivational talks, educating posts, news? You have got to narrow your focus down. Your readers can then trust you to satisfy that need out of the many in this world.
A big tip to finding your niche is this, what do you love to discuss about? You don’t want to get bored talking about what doesn’t interest you at all. Find a topic that you can spend hours reading up on or discussing and you’ve found your niche.
2. Setting it up
It’s more preferable if you could get another number for the WhatsApp Channel, that way, you can keep your private number safe and free from all the cluster you’d start to experience from all the messages and status updates of your contacts when they start to rely on you for posts in your niche.
Now, you do not need to delete your GBWhatsApp account to create another one. For the Android users, you can get DualSpace from play store and clone your GBWhatsApp with that app. That way, you can operate two GBWhatsApp accounts on a single device, it doesn’t affect the other in any way.
You are soon going to have a lot of contacts on your mobile. Be sure to at least save your new contacts in a folder or group, different from your main contacts so that you don’t go through the stress of trying to sort your contacts when you need to or call a different number with identical names in your phone book.
3. Define your brand
Think of a great name that captures the purpose of the channel perfectly. A very memorable name that isn’t too long but isn’t violating or infringing on anyone’s copyrights. Check your name on www.uspto.gov
You can also create a logo to stamp the identity of the channel. People are visual beings, so more people would respond if your images or videos are as visually appealing as possible. You should also decide which colours you want for your brand identity. The logos should be created with those colours. A logo is important also because it would be used as your profile picture. You want your channel to be easily identified. Possibly at a glance.
A brand is beyond just a name and a logo. It’s most importantly, your promise to your customers. So, get a short description of the channel, write down your vision and goals for the channel with the centre of attention being your viewers.
4. Awareness
You have decided the niche you’re delving into, defined your brand, set up your account. Here’s the never-ending part, getting people to save your contact so that they can see your status updates.
You have got to create awareness so that more people can view your status, which people would be happy to pay to place an ad on the group.
Create a Broadcast message, include your phone number in the format, https://wa.me/234XXXXXXXXXX/ and encourage them to click the link, send you their name so you could save their number. Also encourage them to save your number as your channel name.
You could also personalise the link so that your users don’t forget what to do when they click your link. E.g: https://api.whatsapp.com/send?phone=234XXXXXXXXXX&text=Hello,+I+want+to+be+a+part+of+the+Family
That link sends: Hello, I want to be a part of the Family
Notice that the link contains mainly your channel’s phone number beginning with 234 and the text – “Hello, I want…” The text is normal, as it’s not a big deal to create. Just that you want to substitute any space with the ’+’ sign.
You could tweak that link to say anything you want your viewers to be to see. Play around with your link but be careful as you want to check if it works. Be sure you have a working link before you start to share it. This also helps if you want to use your personal WhatsApp to start your channel. It helps filter messages from viewers from personal messages.
5. Post Regularly
Have the habit of regularly updating fans as that is what they most likely want from you. Content can come in the form of written text, images or even videos. Spice things up and mix it all up a bit. Also, before you post, make it a habit to place a text of your channel name on your images or videos.
WhatsApp already comes with that as you just have to insert the text right before you start to upload either images or your video. They may want to be re-posted or shared by your contact with others. That way, you ensure that other people know that the content came from your channel and they may just add you up to get more of you.
6. Engage
You shouldn’t just create and publish content all the time that you forget to engage and properly relate with your fans. Give out gifts sometimes. If you don’t have, try to come up with activities that your fans can participate in.
The goal is to get your fans emotionally attached to your channel and that’s how you achieve it even if you don’t give out anything.
Some channels I’ve seen organize matchmaking Fridays or Thursdays and people actually record getting into a relationship through that channel. Some fans send in their pictures and basic information and the people behind the channel match couples. Some others welcome questions with specific tags like, “Relationship Wednesday” or “Career Monday.” Come up with engaging activities and get your viewers involved.
7. Monetise
Here comes the very important part, making money from your ‘WhatsApp channel.’ There are three ways I’ll be discussing with you here;
1. Advertise – You could place adverts of other people’s products. Put out a word on your status that room is open for adverts but don’t start this early on as people would request for the number of people who view your statuses and you want to come up with a good figure. You should at least come up with at least 500-1000 views per post and then share a screenshot to your viewers, making them aware of the opening.
2. Sell people’s products – You could also participate in affiliate marketing. Reach out to companies and express your interest in sharing some of their products with your viewers for a commission of the sales and strike a deal.
3. Sell your own product – You could also sell your own product. If you already have a business or not, you could tap into the number of viewers you have and try to sell something. You never can tell as that may be the start of a business venture.
In conclusion, it’s certain that you want to make money with the channel. However, don’t make it 100% about money. Make people understand that you are also interested in fulfilling what the channel is all about. Keep it 20-80. 20% business, 80% your viewers. So, only one in five posts should cover your finances or ad opening alert on your status.
For GBWhatsapp, you could also want to configure it in the tool setting. Enable auto-responder, and set keywords and what you want the app to respond to. I’ll give you an example.
I set keyword as “Hello”. And set reply as “Hello there, I may not be available at the moment, please leave your message as I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.” I save and then enable it.
When next anyone sends “Hello,” it automatically responds with the same response I set. Cool, right? You could play with those keywords and create more of those so that you will not have to reply to all your messages individually. Your viewers may want to know your ad rates, since you may not be making that public, you could place a keyword as “ad” and customize your response.
Then, encourage your viewers interested in placing an ad with you to send ‘ad’ to see the price list for your ads. This runs automatically as you do not need to reply to everyone individually.
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