Hey there, Associate! We're so glad you've decided to join the Influencer Program. Now that you've gotten set up with the basics, it's time to get to work doing what you do best: creating great content and maximizing your earnings.

The Amazon Associates Program already makes it easy for you to recommend Amazon products and services to your readers and earn commissions on your recommendations. With the Influencer Program, you get additional access to your own linkable storefront on Amazon where users can browse and shop all of your recommendations in one place.

When you're putting together plans for participating in the Influencer Program, you'll want to focus on strategies for publishing content on social that drives traffic to your Amazon storefront, rather than solely on your website or blog itself.

Now that you're a part of the Influencer Program, you have access to your own storefront with a dedicated Amazon.com URL, along with the ability to build Idea Lists on Amazon. When you're talking to your audience through social media, linking directly to your storefront and/or Idea Lists is the way to go.

Of course, this doesn't mean that all your old, familiar Associate tools are totally obsolete. You'll still want to use things like SiteStripe for product linking, website banners, and native ads to drive traffic from your website or blog to Amazon. With the right strategy, you can make the most out of every linking tool Amazon has to offer!

Once you've mastered the basics of setting up Idea Lists, it's time to start thinking creatively about finding products your readers will go crazy for and organizing them into navigable Idea Lists. Your recommendations are valuable to your readers, so even though it's a good idea to add a lot of products to your page, it's also also important to make sure that you choose a curated collection of products that you think your users will really love.

One place to start with Idea Lists is to add all the products you've recommended in the past on your website or blog. After that, you can take a look at your Associate reports to see where your top sales are coming from and build lists that feature those products.

You can also add Amazon promotions and Bounties to your storefront. Just like with products, you'll want to think carefully and select products and services that will appeal specifically to your audience.

Just like with the Associates program, it's important to be transparent with your readers about your participation in the Influencer Program. They will trust you more if you're honest about where you're directing them when you share links.

As a general disclosure, make sure that the following statement appears in the about section of all social profiles that you plan to use for the Influencer program: "As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases."

When it comes to specific posts with Influencer links in them, you still have to make sure that you comply with all applicable laws and regulations. The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) requires that material connections between advertisers and endorsers are disclosed to customers. Though they don't currently mandate specific wording, they have said as a reference that starting a post with "Ad:" or "#ad" would likely be effective.

In short, just make sure that you're always clear and upfront with your readers about your participation in the Influencer program, and about where you are linking them when you post affiliate links. This will keep you within operating guidelines, and it'll also help you build trust with your audience.

Sharing a link to your storefront in your profile description is a great baseline for getting set up on social, but you can take your strategy one step further by using links to your storefront and Idea Lists in your social posts.

You can use your vanity URL to link directly to your storefront in social posts. These posts can be highly effective because they will populate directly in the newsfeeds of users that follow you. You couldn't ask for better exposure than that!

Remember, though, that content is always king on the internet. If you flood your readers with product links without showcasing any quality content, your users will be way more likely to click the unsubscribe button than they will any of your links.

Creating a robust social media strategy doesn't mean you have to spend every waking minute glued to your phone. Just like you probably already do with your blog or website, take advantage of forward planning so you can build your content ahead of time and schedule your posts to publish automatically.

Scheduling your content doesn't just keep you from going crazy, it's also really useful for helping you maximizing your earnings by making it easier to plan for big shopping days and Amazon featured promotions. Plus, planning ahead helps you avoid dry spells between content that will make your page appear inactive to new users.

By now, you are hopefully familiar with the Operating Agreement, so you should already know that sending your users emails with Amazon product links or links to blog posts that contain Amazon product links is explicitly not allowed.

The good news is that the Influencer Program gives you a new way of linking via email that is allowed! Although Associate links of any type cannot be included in emails, linking to your Amazon storefront via email is totally ok. This is a whole new way for you to reach your users directly!

You can also use your Influencer storefront link in your email newsletters! As you already know, affiliate product links or links to blog posts that contain affiliate links are not allowed under the Operating Agreement. But, the influencer storefront URL is an exception to this rule! Now you can point your email subscribers to your Amazon store with one central URL.

The internet moves quickly and social media changes all the time, so a static strategy isn't going to get you very far. To make sure you're always getting the most out of the Influencer program, keep a close eye on your earnings and reports so you can keep refining your tactics and setting new goals for yourself.

Your earnings for the Influencer program can be found on your reports page by selecting the "Fees" tab, scrolling past the graph, and clicking the "Link Type Performance" tab. From here, you can see a list of all items customers have ordered through your storefront. You can use these insights to build new Idea Lists and brainstorm ideas for effective content. Learn more about accessing and interpreting your Influencer earnings.

It's also a good idea to stay up to date with changes and updates to the Associates and Influencer programs to make sure that you are always working within the Operating guidelines and taking advantage of the latest tools and programs. Also, be sure to keep an eye on the Resource Center and the Associates Program YouTube channel for tutorials and ideas.