I've actually done this, signup to monetize your youtube videos, signup for Google Adsense, become a member of the Amazon Affiliate program and find products to push. Find affiliate programs for gyms (yes they exist). I went as far as to create a weekly podcast to talk about my struggles, answer questions from my user base (first month I faked the questions but the end result was achieved) Its a great way to build engagement and thats where most of your efforts needs to go towards. The more personal, or connected they feel to you the higher the reward.

Those are just as few things I started out with, I'd be happy to go over how I created my vlog and sold it with you anytime.

I've been working on a similar project related to my health, wellness and healing journey, over the past 18 months. The idea is that as I'm learning what works for me, I'm sharing those discoveries with others, hoping the discoveries may help them too.

I truly believe this can be an entrepreneurial business, especially if it's something you're passionate about, which I'm guessing it is. Can you monetize it? Sure, just not right away.

My suggestion would be to start from a place of sincerely wanting to help people. Share helpful resources, answer questions in relevant forums. Start helping people first, the monetization opportunities will follow. To me, this is a business that you'll be successful in over the long-haul, not in the short-term.

I've read a couple of great books by Gary Vanyerchuk that you may want to read as well, "Crush It" and "Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook". The first talks about how to build a business by following your passion. The second talks about effective use of social media tools. Two quick takeaways for you -

1 - Choose your first platform, e.g. blog if you write well, podcast if you speak well, video podcast if you're good on camera.

2 - Choose a couple of social media platforms and master them first, before expanding into others. You may be surprised at just how much work goes into managing just a single platform well.

Hope that's helpful and good luck! Happy to discuss further with you on a call...

In short, yes, you can monetize it. Bloggers make a majority of their money from affiliate marketing, which is basically referring a product or service through your blog. You will be assigned a specific link to the product that you're blogging about, say Redbull. Once a reader clicks on that link and purchases the Redbull, you would get a % of the sale.

OR if you already have a good online following, (1000s of followers) you could negotiate being paid to blog about certain products. For example, say you took the supplement L-Carnitine while on your weight loss journey and noticed great results. You could include the brand of L-Carnitine you took for a pre-negotiated fee with the company, or exclude the company and just talk about the nutritional supplement.

I'd love to hop on a call and talk about how we can give this online journey some traction, or just answer some general questions you have. Regardless of your decision, I hope this helped. Good luck! :)