Many affiliate marketers struggle to get their links noticed on busy social platforms. You might spend hours creating content, only to see zero clicks and no revenue.
Key Takeaways:
• Embed Feeds: Show real-time social proof directly on your site.
• Vanity Coupons: Create personalized codes that are easy to remember.
• Viral Giveaways: Boost engagement and reach new audiences quickly.
• Sidebar Widgets: Keep your social presence visible across your whole site.
• Influencer Partners: Leverage existing audiences to drive sales.
• Visual Content: Use landing pages to showcase photos and videos.
• Active Interaction: Build trust by engaging with your affiliates.
Social media is crowded, but it is also where your potential customers are hanging out right now. To succeed, you need a strategy that builds trust rather than just spamming links.
At Smash Balloon, we have helped thousands of beginners navigate the affiliate space effectively. We also use these exact social strategies across our partner brands to drive consistent sales.
In this guide, we will share essential tips on how to use social media in affiliate marketing to boost your earnings.
- Why Use Social Media in Affiliate Marketing?
- 7 Best Ways to Use Social Media in Affiliate Marketing
- Other Social Media Marketing Tips and Hacks
Why Use Social Media in Affiliate Marketing?
Right now, more than 4.62 billion people use social media, and that number is growing every day.
For affiliate marketers, this is a massive opportunity to reach new customers without breaking the bank.
“Using affiliate marketing, retailers can collaborate with a rising TikTok star or niche YouTube creator to promote a new campaign.
And all of this is achieved with little risk and very high ROI.”
– Adam Ross, CEO of Global Affiliate Marketing Platform AWIN
Unlike traditional advertising, social media allows you to leverage trust. When a creator promotes a product, their audience listens.
Here is a quick look at why social affiliate marketing often beats traditional ads:
| Traditional Ads | Social Affiliate Marketing |
|---|---|
| High upfront cost (pay-per-click) | Low to zero upfront cost |
| Interrupts the user experience | Fits naturally into content feeds |
| Sales stop when ads stop | Content stays live and drives long-term ROI |
| Low trust factor | High trust via influencer/peer recommendations |
At our company, we have found that social channels act as a multiplier. Instead of hunting for customers one by one, we let social algorithms and trusted voices bring them to us.
7 Best Ways to Use Social Media in Affiliate Marketing
In this list, we have compiled our tried-and-tested strategies. These are the exact methods we use to grow our own brands.
1. Embed Social Media Feeds
One of the easiest ways to boost your affiliate sales is by bringing your social content directly onto your website.
Embedded feeds act as instant social proof. When visitors see real people interacting with your brand on Instagram or Facebook, they are more likely to trust your affiliate recommendations.
The best tool for this job is Smash Balloon — the #1 social feed plugin for WordPress, used by over 1.75 million websites.
Smash Balloon makes the process simple. Here is how it works:
- Connect Account: Link your Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or YouTube account with one click.
- Customize Feed: Use the visual editor to match the feed design to your website’s branding.
- Embed Code: Drop the ready-made block onto any page or post to display your content.
Just like that, you can showcase your social media content from the biggest platforms out there — Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, X/Twitter, and YouTube.
The best part? If you ever need any help, you can turn to the fantastic support team that’s full of WordPress experts.
Just get the All Access Bundle, and you can have all the Smash Balloon plugins at a discounted price.
To get started right away, you can check out our guide on how to embed social media feeds.
2. Create Vanity Coupon Codes
Generic coupon codes are easy to forget. If you want to increase conversions, you need codes that stick in people’s minds.
A “vanity” coupon code is simply a custom code that uses the affiliate’s name or brand (e.g., FROMWILLIAMWITHLOVE instead of XJ9-442). This makes the offer feel personalized and exclusive.
Research shows that personalized experiences can drive up to 80% more sales. When an affiliate shares a code that matches their social handle, it builds immediate trust with their followers.
To set this up easily, we recommend using AffiliateWP.
From registering affiliates to setting up referral rates and payouts, AffiliateWP can handle everything so you can focus on growing your business.
On top of that, you get a handy Vanity Coupon Codes add-on. This lets your affiliates request their own custom codes directly from their dashboard.
You can approve or reject these requests with a single click.
You can get your copy of AffiliateWP today, and take your affiliate marketing to another level.
For more details, you can take a look at this simple guide on vanity coupon codes.
3. Run Viral Giveaways
Giveaways are the fastest way to grow your reach on social media. People love free stuff, and they are happy to share your content for a chance to win.
By running a contest, you can incentivize users to follow your accounts, join your email list, or visit your product pages. The key is to choose the right format.
For the easiest way to run giveaways and contests online, we recommend RafflePress.
RafflePress is a drag-and-drop giveaway builder that handles the heavy lifting for you. It includes:
- Viral Sharing: Automatically rewards users with extra entries when they refer a friend.
- Social Integrations: One-click actions to follow you on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.
- Fraud Protection: Ensures your contest remains fair by blocking bots.
Using RafflePress allows you to turn a single giveaway into thousands of new leads and potential affiliate sales.
We recommend trying out the different templates that you get with RafflePress.
For example, you can use Refer-a-Friend to encourage people to share your link and earn more entries.
These formats encourage participants to share your link with others to earn more entries.
All in all, RafflePress is the best WordPress giveaway plugin out there and an amazing tool if you want to grow your business.
Ready to get the most out of affiliate marketing? Give RafflePress a try today.
Expert Tip: For more details, you can take a look at this guide on how to create a viral giveaway for social media.
4. Add Social Media Widgets
While embedding a feed adds content to a specific page, a social media widget ensures your accounts are visible across your entire website.
Widgets typically sit in your sidebar or footer. This means they are always present, regardless of which article a visitor is reading.
This constant visibility is crucial for “passive” growth. A visitor might read a blog post and then notice your active Twitter feed in the sidebar, prompting them to follow you.
You can use Smash Balloon for this as well. It offers dedicated widgets to show content from Instagram, Facebook, X/Twitter, YouTube, and TikTok.
Since these widgets are lightweight, they won’t slow down your site. They simply act as a subtle reminder that your brand is active and approachable.
Want to see how? You can follow this user-friendly guide on how to add social media widget to WordPress.
5. Connect to Social Media Influencers
You don’t always have to build an audience from scratch. Sometimes, the fastest route to sales is to partner with someone who already has one.
With the help of influencer marketing, you can tap into an established community.
When an influencer recommends your product, their followers are much more likely to convert.
To find the right partners, you can use specialized affiliate networks. Here are a few reliable platforms to check out:
- ShareASale: A massive network ideal for retail, software, and physical products.
- Impact: Focuses on deep data tracking and direct partnerships with big brands.
- FlexOffers: Great for beginners with thousands of programs across various niches.
- BuzzSumo: An excellent tool for content research and identifying key influencers in your space.
- Awin: A global network that connects you with international brands and publishers.
Once you find an influencer, you can ask them to review your product or share a unique discount code.
After they post about your brand, you can use the embedding tools mentioned earlier to showcase that shoutout on your own website.
Want even more people to check out these influencer posts?
With the help of Smash Balloon plugins, you can just embed these social media posts on your website.
Just check out this guide where we show you how to add social media reviews to WordPress.
6. Use Visual Content
Did you know that adding photos and videos can boost views on social media by 45%?
Social media posts with visual content can immediately grab people’s attention and keep them engaged.
You can have your affiliates post engaging photos and videos of your products and get tons of views on social media.
Plus, there’s an easy way to reach even more potential customers using visual social media posts.
You can use landing pages to show visual content from social media on your website.
So, your website will have engaging photos and videos to keep your visitors interested. At the same time, you can promote your products and get more sales.
For the easiest way to create landing pages, you can use SeedProd.
SeedProd is a landing page builder that can help you create beautiful pages for your site.
This means you can create a page to showcase Facebook or Twitter content from your brand or your affiliates.
To help you get started, you can choose from 350+ pre-built templates for your landing page.
You’ve got templates for announcement pages, coming soon pages, sales pages, product pages, and much more.
After picking your template, you can simply use the drag-and-drop builder to create landing pages with ease.
Then, you can use content blocks to add lots of different content to this page — all without coding.
Give SeedProd a try today, and you can build effective pages to grow your affiliate marketing.
Want to get started? Check out this step-by-step guide on how to create a landing page.
7. Interact With Affiliates on Social Media
Want another simple way to gain affiliates and customers at the same time?
You can just interact with your affiliates on social media.
Using these interactions, you can show social media users that your brand is run by real people, just like them.
This can help you appear genuine and create a much better impression of your brand on social media. And if people see these interactions, you can get more customers as well.
At the same time, simple interactions can also convince more affiliate marketers to join your network.
After all, it shows that you’ve got a good relationship with your affiliates and people who promote your products.
To get started right away, you can try doing these:
- Follow your affiliates on social media.
- Leave comments on their social media posts
- Share their posts with your followers
- Mention and tag them in your social media posts
- Let popular affiliates host takeovers of your account
And there you go!
This was our list of the best ways to use social media for affiliate marketing. Plus, these social media affiliate marketing tips are all user-friendly, so you can get started right away.
If you’re looking for a way to grow your business and get tons of affiliate marketing sales in no time, the easiest way is to use the AffiliateWP plugin.
Get your copy of AffliateWP, and supercharge your affiliate marketing today.
Want to get more out of social media? We’ve got a simple guide on how to make money on Twitter.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you really make money with affiliate marketing?
Yes, lots of people out there are making money using affiliate marketing. In fact, you can start making money with zero investment. All you need is an audience on social media that you can share affiliate links with.
Is social media a good place for affiliate marketing?
Social media can be a fantastic place for affiliate marketing since it’s easy to reach tons of people Plus, if you’re a business looking for affiliates, there are popular influencers on social media that you can work with.
Which social platform is best for affiliate marketing?
There’s no single platform that’s the best for affiliate marketing since it depends on the type of audience you want to reach. For example, if you’re promoting a makeup brand, TikTok and Instagram can be great places to reach customers. Similarly, you can use Reddit to reach people if you’re promoting a gaming hardware business.
How can I get started with affiliate marketing for beginners?
If you’re just starting out, the best way is to use a tool like AffiliateWP to set up your affiliate marketing program. That way, you can easily manage your marketing campaigns, check how effective your affiliates are, and automatically share payouts or rewards.
Other Social Media Marketing Tips and Hacks
- Compelling Social Media Contest Ideas and Examples
- YouTube Shorts vs TikTok: Which Is the Best for You?
- How to Increase Watch Hours on YouTube Easily
- How to Turn Your Website Visitors Into Brand Ambassadors
If you found this article to be helpful, give us a follow on Twitter and Facebook, and stay tuned for more social media marketing tips and tricks.
