9 social media apps paying their content creators

Competition among social media apps is fierce. Every platform is looking to keep their users engaged as long as possible and one way to achieve this is to provide them with the best from content creators. Some social apps began paying their most talented content creators last year, some started this year.

9 social media apps paying their content creators

1. FACEBOOK – in-stream ads, fan subscriptions, branded content and subscription groups

On March 11, 2021, Facebook announced that the platform will help Content Creators Diversify Revenue on Facebook.

From 2019 to 2020, the number of content creators earning the equivalent of $10,000 USD per month grew 88% and content creators earning $1,000 per month grew 94% (Facebook).

Here is how content creators can monetize content on Facebook:

In-stream ads

In-stream ads help content creators earn money by including short ads before, during or after their videos.

Facebook will automatically identify natural breaks in content to place the creator’s ads, or the creator can choose placements.

The creator’s earnings are determined by the number of video views and who the advertisers are.

Fan subscriptions

Fan subscriptions allow the creator’s audience that cares most about their Page to directly fund it through monthly, recurring payments that the creator sets.

The creator can identify supporters by the special badge the platform provides them in comments.

Facebook’s recommendation to keep the fans engaged is to reward them with perks such as exclusive content and discounts.

Branded content

Facebook helps creators generate revenue by publishing content that features or is influenced by a business partner.

Brands want to work with content creators and their audiences.

To make this easier, safer and more impactful for both parties, Facebook created the Brand Collabs Manager, a tool which enables the creator to find and connect with brands.

Subscription Groups

Subscription groups empower group admins to sustain themselves through subscriptions, thus enabling them to further invest in their communities.

We’re especially focused on short-form video monetization. In the coming weeks, we’ll begin testing the ability for content creators to monetize their Facebook Stories with ads that look like stickers and receive a portion of the resulting revenue.

Yoav Arnstein, Director, Facebook App Monetization

2. TWITTER – the Tip Jar

On May 6, 2021, Esther Crawford, Senior Product Manager at Twitter announced a new feature called Tip Jar.

What is Tip Jar?

“Tip Jar is an easy way to support the incredible voices that make up the conversation on Twitter. This is a first step in our work to create new ways for people to receive and show support on Twitter – with money.”

Tip Jar is a new way for people to send and receive tips. The accounts that enabled this feature have a Tip Jar icon next to the Follow button on their profile page.

How does the Tip Jar work?

By tapping the icon, a dropdown of payment services or platforms unfolds and the user selects whichever they prefer. The services available today include Bandcamp, Cash App, Patreon, PayPal and Venmo.

3. INSTAGRAM – Badges in Live and IGTV Ads

Badges in Live

In May 2020, Instagram announced new ways for creators to make money.

To give fans another way to participate and show their love towards a particular content creator, Instagram introduced badges that viewers can purchase during a live video.

With badges, creators can generate income from the content they’re already creating. Badges will appear next to a person’s name throughout the live video.

Fans who have purchased badges in Live will stand out in the comments and unlock additional features, including placement on a creator’s list of badge holders and access to a special heart.

IGTV Ads

IGTV has become a powerful place for creators to connect more deeply with their fans, pilot new projects and share their lives and talents.

With IGTV ads, they have another new way to earn money from the content they work so hard to produce.

4. YOUTUBE – $100M YouTube Shorts Fund

In May 2021, YouTube announced the launch of YouTube Shorts Fund, a $100M fund distributed over the course of 2021-2022.

Anyone is eligible to participate in the fund simply by creating unique Shorts that delight the YouTube community.

Each month, YouTube will reach out to thousands of creators whose Shorts received the most engagement and views to reward them for their contributions.

The video platform said the Shorts Fund is a top priority and the first step in its journey to build a monetization model for Shorts.

We’ve paid more than $30 billion to creators, artists, and media companies over the last three years, and we remain deeply committed to supporting the next generation of mobile creators with Shorts.

YouTube

5. TIKTOK – $1B Creator Fund

The Creator Fund gives TikTok’s best and brightest the opportunity to earn money with their creative talent.

Within 3 years, TikTok is expecting the fund to rise to a total of $1 billion.

The fund will extend to further markets across the globe so that even more creators will be given the opportunity to earn from their hard work and creativity.

Beginning March 25, 2021, creators will need at least 100K authentic video views in the last 30 days to be eligible to join the Creator Fund.

6. Snapchat– $1 million a day in Spotlight

Snapchat is willing to pay $1 million a day for good content from creators on its platform.

Snapchatters are invited to submit their top snaps to Spotlight and if the snaps go viral, the company is paying the creators a lot of money.

Snapchat debuted Spotlight in November 2020 and thousands of creators are already getting paid small fortunes.

Snapchatter Cam Casey, a TikTok star with over seven million followers, has been paid nearly $3 million by the company for content that went viral.

7. Pinterest – $500K Creator Fund

In April 2021, Pinterest hosted an event focused on its creator community. At this event, Pinterest announced the launch of a $500,000 Creator Fund.

The fund is specifically focused on elevating creators from underrepresented communities in the United States. It will offer a combination of creative strategy consulting and compensation for content creation and budget for ad credits.

Creator Inclusion Lead Alexandra Nikolajev said the company worked with “eight emerging creators across fashion, photography, food and travel, and will be identifying 10 more creators in the next few months for the next cohort.” (source)

8. LINKEDIN – Creator Program

In May 2021, Daniel Roth, VP and Editor in Chief at LinkedIn announced a program to support creators around the world, enabling them to have an even bigger impact and better experience on the platform.

No details were further disclosed and also we have no information on whether or not this program will pay LinkedIn Creators.

9. CLUBHOUSE – Clubhouse Payments and The “Creator First” Accelerator Program

In April 2021, Clubhouse began rolling out Payments—the platform’s first monetization feature for creators on Clubhouse. All users will be able to send payments and 100% of the payment will go to the creator, Clubhouse will take nothing.

This will be the first of many features that allow creators to get paid directly on Clubhouse. We are excited to see how people use it, and to continue working hard to help the amazing members of the Clubhouse community grow and thrive.

TikTok

Before the Payments feature, Clubhouse launched the Creator First Accelerator Program.

The program’s goal is to help support and equip emerging creators with the resources they need to bring their ideas and creativity to life.

The platform’s support includes a wide range of services from sending iPhones to the creators to helping them promote their shows.

The program also provides the creators with a monthly stipend and matches them with brands so they can turn their ideas into profitable creative endeavors.

All you need to know about autoplay video in Pinterest ads

Pinterest’s Promoted Video ad units, introduced on August 2016, went on auto-play in 2017. The new type of Promoted Video begins playing as soon as users scroll across it in their feeds, and these ad units will also auto-play in Pinterest’s search results.

“Pinterest has had to make the argument to advertisers that its 175 million users behave differently on Pinterest when compared to Facebook and Google, or even Twitter and Snap. Pinterest users come to the site and dig through products and recipes, among other things, for ideas. They then search deeper into topics, save them, and then eventually in theory acting on them later — either by cooking the dish or buying a product. Pinterest’s pitch is that unlike Facebook and Google, which can offer a compelling ad product for one point of that part of a customer’s buying life, it can offer products across the whole timeline,” wrote TechCrunch.

Moreover, said AdWeek, “Pinterest announced that Nielsen Mobile Digital Ad Ratings will measure audience reach of campaigns using Promoted Video with auto-play, while Moat will provide data on viewability, or how much of the videos were in view. They join existing measurement partners Millward Brown for brand lift and Oracle Data Cloud to measure the impact on offline sales”.

According to Pinterest’s Business page, Promoted Video delivers dramatic results, including lifts in brand awareness and favorability. Plus, using Promoted Video to show your ideas in action produces big gains in intent to act. “With 80% of Pinners using mobile devices to access our platform, it pays to use Promoted Videos, a naturally engaging format that can quickly capture the interest of this on-the-move audience,” concludes the post.

How is the digital changing the retail experience

According to “The new digital divide” report created by Deloitte, digital influence has grown from 14% of all sales in 2012 (USD 0.33 Trillion) to a whopping 49% in 2014. That’s USD 1.70 Trillion worth of sales influenced digitally. And the number is rising steadily. Moreover, in 2016, digital influence continued its rapid growth, although at a slower rate than we’ve historically seen. At the time of the last study, USD 0.56 of every dollar spent in a store is influenced by a digital interaction. And when we include the primary source of growth in retail—online sales—the impact of digital influence is even greater.

This survey was commissioned by Deloitte and conducted online by an independent research company April 25–May 5, 2016. The survey polled a national sample of 5,014 random consumers. Data were collected and weighted to be representative of the U.S. Census for gender, age, income and ethnicity. The national random sample, sample of device owners and sample of smartphone owners have a margin of error of plus or minus 1-2 percentage points. Additionally, subsets of randomly assigned respondents were asked to provide information about how they use a digital device to shop for a product subcategory (such as cosmetics or perishables) with a margin of error of plus or minus 7-8 percent. Specific digital behavior data represent consumers who use digital devices to shop.

But even as digital influence has risen, retailers’ ability to influence the purchase journey has decreased. Why? Because the large e-commerce players, as well as digital platforms such as Pinterest, are operating at such scale now that they are shaping customers’ definitions of what a great customer experience is. Not only that, but they are also simply more connected to the customer’s needs than the typical brick-and-mortar retailer.

How did this happen? It’s quite very simple. A single retailer, doesn’t interact very often with its customer more than several times a year and the amount of information it gathers is not very profound in order to provide a meaningfully personalized experience for the consumer. That creates a big contrast to the kind of relationship, trust, and understanding of preferences and purchase intent that a digital platform like Pinterest can create when they interact with that same customer for several hours a day. Therefore, in most of the situations, the customers’ preferred method of locating, buying, and receiving products in-store has been redefined by their online experiences.

In addition, customers today can go to their Internet browser, have it search the broad, fragmented marketplace, and get exactly what they want. No longer do they have to settle for something that is close to what they want; the browser curates the exact assortment they are seeking, far more quickly and easily than a visit to the mall. According to the Deloitte specialists, this dynamic has led to a significant increase in the shift of market share as nimble small and mid-level players collectively steal share from larger, more traditional, at-scale retailers. This fragmentation and volatility in the market is reflected in Deloitte’s Retail Volatility Index. The competition is no longer coming from the big box across the street, but rather from a numerous newer, smaller competitors, most perhaps too small to capture the attention of the big players, but each eating away at market share.

Despite the impact of digital influence continually increasing, the ability of retailers to influence the purchase journey is decreasing. Digital platforms such as Facebook and Google are already hosting real-time interactions with customers for several hours each day. As a result, they are shaping and redefining the customer’s definition of a great experience through constant real time connection.

“Any retailer who thinks they can build their own personalized experience to interact with customers anywhere near the extent of major digital platforms and find success may be disappointed with their results” said Jeff Simpson, principal, Deloitte Consulting LLP and co-author of the study. “Their limited interaction with customers – about six to eight transactions per year – limits their understanding of the ‘moments that matter’ in a personalized experience such as purchase intent and preference. Instead, retailers should more aggressively embrace integration and the native capabilities of the major digital platforms where their customers have already chosen to interact and transact.”

Deloitte’s main advice for stores: Further integrate with those digital platforms. The report states, “Retailers should embrace the native capabilities of their digital touchpoints and integrate with platforms where their customers are already interacting at scale rather than trying to build such platforms themselves.”

According to the study, more than three-quarters (78 percent) of non-millennials are now using digital devices either two or three times throughout their shopping trip. Mobile device usage is no longer as heavily skewed toward millennials. Data shows that the age gap is shrinking as now – across all age groups – customers are turning to their mobile devices before and during the shopping journey.

“The important thing to remember is that most of today’s buying power still remains with non-millennials,” said Lokesh Ohri, senior manager, Deloitte Consulting LLP and leader of customer engagement, content and commerce offerings in the retail practice. “A better idea is to consider all the verifying types of customers, determine how they use digital differently in the purchasing journey and create a broad range of customized experiences for each.”

“It isn’t just what retailers do, but when they do it.  Research has also revealed that there are limited windows of opportunity to engage shoppers, with men getting bored after just 26 minutes and women after two hours, so engaging with purchasers has never been more important. By offering a variety of in-store engagement opportunities, mobile users open to an enhanced or incentivised visit will start to feel like their in-store experiences are able to offer them a similar one to those they enjoy online,” wrote Amy Keen for Extreme Creations UK. She also expressed the fact that many major high street players are actively seeking out solutions to this challenge. “Marks and Spencer has adopted ‘browse and order hubs’, Nordstrom has included ‘top pinned’ items in store to show retailers what social users are highlighting as key pieces. See more examples of technology being used by retailers,  here. By increasing personalization, retailers are not only nurturing their customers’ interest in their brand, but developing their loyalty. The better the experience, the greater the conversion into purchasing and return custom,” concluded Keen.

Moreover, according to 27% of senior executives, digital transformation is  “a matter of survival”, shows Shayla Price on Session Cam.  Customers are shopping on multiple digital devices. They learn, compare, and purchase products without leaving their homes. An  Altimeter report notes that “digital transformation represents the quest to understand how disruptive technology affects the customer experience.” With increased competition, businesses must differentiate themselves beyond product offerings. And that means mastering how to provide the best  online shopping experience to their customers.