Amazon Reviews, make money and a big question mark
Many of you must have heard a lot of interesting ideas about starting an online business and might even feel a bit left behind when many people on social platforms boast about their own online businesses or want to sell you their strategies.
Some of the services offered online include expressing your opinion after you use the product. In fact, it would be a kind of personal opinion shared with the world as a consumer review. I believe there is this question for the majority of our community is it worth the effort? Will Amazon pay you to leave comments, reviews, or testimonies on the available products?
Later on, when we go through the ways and processes of how it could be done, you can be the judge of whether it is a dream that is sold by influencers in their online/offline packages or whether it works. All in all, I have to admit reviews do matter in the eye of the customer. Since it adds credibility and is believed to have lifted the confidence of potential customers to make the purchase.
Writing Direct Reviews on Amazon Products to Get Paid
There is an ocean of content online like a flashing neon light getting the attention with this title: Write reviews for Amazon and get paid. That would be amazing if it were solid real or that simple, it is sad but true Amazon is not going to pay you directly for just writing reviews under the posts.
Thus, if you are convinced that will be the case, you are barking up the wrong tree since Amazon definitely won’t pay you for that directly. However, writing real, honest, and useful reviews for the products could be fruitful in some ways; apart from sharing your honest opinion on which others can rely, you could benefit from some perks or even money which will be explained in detail accordingly.
I guess normally numerous people are used to buying various stuff from Amazon. Some consider it a daily routine to visit Amazon and check out the new products, looking for a bargain. Every person has a mother, grandmother, auntie, or uncle who does this routine all the time. Now if it was possible to keep doing the same thing but at the same time earn money as well, wouldn’t it be amazing?
For starters let me tell you how to become an Amazon reviewer. Logically, you must have used a product to be able to write a review about its quality, usefulness, or if it is worth the price. Therefore, you have to already be a regular customer. That is my idea of course but you must have had different purchases of the same category of products to be able to compare it with similar rival products and figure out if it is a better one, the same or worse, don’t you agree?
I have marked the phrase “Verified Purchase” which depicts that this customer has already purchased and used the product for sure. There is also another phrase that might be seen next to a review as “Vine Voice” which I will explain fully further in the article.
How can one make money for real by reviewing Amazon products?
Although as mentioned before, you cannot receive any payment for giving reviews to a product, there are two main ways that a loyal customer can pursue to turn leaving reviews into a side hustle or even a business.
- Amazon Vine Program
- Influencer Program
In any of these three ways, your comments will become profitable for the customer in the end although the form could vary. Let’s get to the first one,
Amazon Vine Program.
It is an official platform or a symbol of validity for the customer who is leaving the review and the review itself. Unlike other similar programs you cannot apply for it, Amazon will select you if you meet the required criteria. Hence, active and loyal customers are hand-picked by Amazon, allegedly it is based on their amount of participation, their consistency, and honest reviews.
It goes without saying that in this case there is no application to be sent and Amazon must choose you. Hence, if you’re interested you have to keep writing honest reviews on the products you purchase, and based on your performance Amazon will notice you and invite you to become a Vine Voice. Now the question is, what is the catch? Do I get a commission if I am one of the chosen ones?
Do you get paid in the form of a commission for your reviews as a Vine Voice?
The chosen ones who have received the badge of Vine Voice will not receive any form of paid commission. Nevertheless, they receive FREE PRODUCTS from Amazon to use, test, analyze, and share their honest opinion as reviews for that product.
According to the reviewers themselves, the odds of being selected for the Vine Program could be increased by
- Consistent Participation
- Even once a week could work if it has been frequent for a year. Yet, a six-month gap would ruin your chances.
- Reviews Rating
- Since other people are capable of rating the usefulness of your review similar to being Liked on social platforms, positive feedback from the community could have a colorful impact.
- Including Bullet Points of Images in the Reviews
- Do not Take Time Off
These are merely comments of people and I cannot confirm their reliability since other people have had hundreds or thousands of reviews and they haven’t still been selected by Amazon for the Vine Program. Hence, luck or the odds could differ for every individual.
The Influencer Program
It is an extension of the Amazon Affiliate Program more concretely and tangibly. As an applicant, you have to be approved, and to get approved in the program you need to already have a social media presence as the title of the programs implies, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook are the mainstream of such platforms.
The tricky matter is that Amazon’s website does not clarify the criteria for the candidates to be approved. In some cases, people with thousands of followers were not approved while other people with just 100 or 200 followers were accepted. It just states that the account must have active engaging followers. Although the ambiguity is loud in this case, I am willing to tell you to step by step how to get approved for the influencer program, if you are still willing to do so after finishing this article, simply comment “Approved”. So in the next article, I would go through the steps of approval or I could email them to you.
When you are approved, you get the privilege of having your personalized storefront that is customized based on your strategies or character. What caught my attention was the fact that customers get the chance to see all your other video reviews on different products as well.
Make sure you fill out the bio in the storefront to start a decent connection with the client. You can make money from various features in the storefront such as the Idea List, Images, Videos, and Live Streams.
Some top influencers recommend going for one niche while others disagree and believe all the products could be covered based on the trends of the time, so, it is up to you. You can test both and comment on the result for us. I believe this platform has the most potential to alter one’s reality altogether since it offers more opportunities for the influencer to connect with the viewer leading to the final purchase which results from the video of the influencer being watched.
Moreover, as mentioned before the viewer can see all the other videos you had about other products as well in your storefront. Consequently, the chances of more than one purchase happening are very high. The other upside is you don’t need to pay anything for the storefront given to you while in other platforms such as Shopify, that is not the story.
Discipline and Psychology in Influencer Marketing Success
Can I become a successful influencer? There is no ultimate response to this question since many factors are in play ranging from your mindset that forms your habits, behavioral patterns, and the relevant expert knowledge you tend to grow. Besides the serious solid points the emotional touch and connection, the bond that the audience feels matters equally.
That is why sometimes we see some people who have no expertise or knowledge tend to receive a lot of feedback or excessively high sales rates, that’s owed to the emotional connection they tend to form with their audience.
The Secret Ingredients
Honesty and Ethics
In my perspective, discipline, ethics, and your love and respect for your job and the audience are crystal clear for the viewers. Hence, pick products of your interest, those you regularly consume and are truly satisfied with the quality, a kind of product that you cannot wait to show and recommend to your best friend or family members.
Undoubtedly if you are pretending to enjoy what you do, or the quality of a product is not described honestly meaning that the flaws are overlooked and the usefulness and worth are overstated, viewers will soon figure this out, usually after the first purchase. Therefore, honesty and ethics could lift you and vice versa, lying to your followers could knock you out of the ring.
Self-Discipline
Some people believe becoming an artist, an influencer or an entrepreneur is better than being an employee due to the flexibility of time. As a person who has experienced both, I believe a 9 to 5 job is much easier because someone else is drawing the lines for you to move in between.
Freelancers, writers, artists, and influencers have no choice but to maintain their ethical and professional discipline in their daily lives. Here lies one of the main reasons for failure, lack of ethical responsibility and discipline. Maybe at the beginning, even the working hours of these jobs exceed the normal employment.
Maintaining the rhythm of posts, dates, and orders is not easy since all the time something urgent comes up to prevent you from committing to your responsibilities regarding your potential customers and front store.
The Final Words
Unlike the majority’s assumption, being a successful influencer is a very difficult task and is a process that might take months or even years to pay off or for the results to become satisfying. That is why if you are not a determined, patient, committed person, this job is not yours.
References
- How do you succeed in influencer marketing? (n.d.). Thecirqle.com. https://thecirqle.com/blog-post/how-do-you-succeed-in-influencer-marketing
- Reachinfluedev. (2023, October 2). Find out with Reach Influencers The Psychology of Influence. Reach Influencers. https://reach-influencers.com/the-psychology-of-influence/#:~:text=Influencers%20often%20build%20their%20following
- Mrwhosetheboss. (2023, July 18). NEVER Trust Amazon Reviews! YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SrYkrsBzbOQ&t=624s&pp=ygUPcmV2aWV3cyBhbWF6b24g
- Mr. Money. (2022, September 24). Get Paid To Write Amazon Reviews In 2024 ( BONUS: Get FREE Items ). YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTB5_Vt9GkA&t=384s
