For some content creators, building an audience and gaining engagement starts off as a hobby. But when affiliate deals, partnerships, and ad revenue start to be an option for them to earn, they suddenly view content creation like a business. But it doesn’t have to be all active work. Earning beginner passive income can change a creator’s life.
Natasha Puente, a 35-year-old content creator from Mexico, has over a million followers on TikTok.
She’s been growing her social media channels for five years while traveling the world. While she has a Bachelor’s degree in Digital Communication and freelances as a UX designer, she relies on that passive income from being a content creator to help her pay her bills and continue to travel.
Puente puts in 30 hours a month on her content creation, including 14 hours a month on her passive income streams. She earns around $2,500 a month in passive income through different streams. Passionfruit was given a behind-the-scenes look at how Puente has leveraged her social media platform and brand to help her bring in cash while she’s living life on-the-go.
Beginner Passive Income 101 with Natasha Puente
While Puente started creating content just for her audience to enjoy, her focus has shifted over the years. She now uses her social media platforms to generate passive income. Here are the ways she does that.
1) She Keeps Her Monthly Expenses Low
Right now, Puente lives in a van with her partner and pays $250 a month to stay in different caravan parks. Other than the $115 she spends on groceries and gas, the rest of her expenses power her content creation and add up to $131 a month.
Monthly expenses:
Adobe: $41
Chat GPT: $21
Google Storage: $9.75
Google Email: $6.27
Internet: $45
Car insurance: $8.30
When you’re earning beginner passive income, these small gains by being frugal add up.
2) Repurposing Content Across Your Platforms
Five years ago, Puente started casually posting on Facebook. She didn’t invest time in creating content for the platform until last year. Since TikTok was her main social media channel, she downloaded videos from that platform and uploaded them to Facebook as Reels. When Facebook sent her a notification that she was eligible to monetize her Facebook Reels, she joined the program.
Every day, she uploads videos to Facebook and receives money based on how many views the videos get and the ads that Facebook will run with the videos. Puente keeps in mind that the more entertaining the video is, the longer people will watch it and the more money she will make.
She earns around $600 to $900 monthly from this passive income stream and said it’s because she consistently posts content daily. Puente admitted that consistency is more important than quality. She believes people want to see stories and videos of others having fun and valuable content, but it doesn’t have to be polished or perfect.
3) Different Affiliate Marketing Opportunities
Puente stays active on TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook. She creates daily content and will mention different courses or platforms as recommendations to her followers a couple of times a week. If they use her link, she earns affiliate revenue.
For example, she promotes a course in her videos and her blog. When someone buys the course, she earns $45. She also promotes a travel accommodation platform called Worldpackers and receives $30 every time someone registers for the website.
Puente is strategic about making sure she leaves her referral codes in the link she displays in her bio on each platform. She also works hard to create content around these different affiliate opportunities, and when they go viral, she notices an uptick in passive income from these streams.
She makes around $800 a month from this passive income stream.
4) Run Ads On Your Website
One passive income source Puente implemented was ads on her website. She works with Mediavine, an ad company that puts ads on her website. Puente receives passive income whenever someone views or clicks on the ad. She also took an SEO course so she could improve her blog post’s rankings on Google and drive more traffic to her website.
To put out more blog posts, she relies heavily on artificial intelligence (ChatGPT) and puts out around three posts a week
Because Puente just launched these ads, she hasn’t generated income yet but hopes to bring in a few hundred dollars a month.
5) Create a Course Based On Your Expertise
If you’re a content creator looking into new streams of passive income, Puente said to figure out what interests you the most. If you like to write, she recommended taking an SEO course and working on a blog so you can eventually put up ads. But if you enjoy making videos, Puente said try uploading them to Facebook and monetize them using their Reels incentive program.
As for Puente, she’s hoping to make 2023 the year she earns more as a content creator than ever before. She’s planning on increasing her passive income streams by selling her own course and letting others be an affiliate.
While content creators are always looking for ways to make money, Puente said her passive income streams have helped her be able to do the two things she loves the most: travel and create content along the way.
