There are three ways of monetizing your content: selling it to users, advertising, and building your own brand. But before you even start counting how much money you’ll get by merely creating and posting content on your social media accounts, you need to think first if it’s for you. Though virtually anyone can make and share videos online, it’s not guaranteed that you’ll earn from it.

Typically, those who earn from whatever content they post online are experienced and knowledgeable in their chosen niche. They’re also already running a content platform --- whether a social media account, YouTube channel or blog --- that they’re committed to and passionate about. More often than not, these people also received a lot of engagement from their old followers while also growing their new ones. Lastly, these people also typically spend an insane amount of time working on their chosen platform in exchange for the earnings they bag.

If you’re this person, or you’re on your way there, then content curation could be an incredible part-time hustle or full-time gig for you. However, you can only keep moving up if you get a better grasp of the competition and status of the industry you’re in. If you’re ready to learn more, dive in!

How to Earn Through Online Content

One of the most common ways of monetizing content is selling your videos, blogs, or courses to your audience. When you sell content directly to your audience, the monetization of the same also depends on them. You can set your content up within a paywall or through an online course. When your audience likes your product, you also get to monetize it lucratively.

You can also earn by selling a product to your audience. Money comes in the form of sponsorship messages, affiliate links, and ads. Though this is a good way of earning money, you’ll most likely end up sacrificing your content’s quality just to fit your patron’s message. However, this doesn’t mean that PPCs, ads, and other affiliate marketing strategies are inherently evil. When you can strike a balance between content quality and advertisers’ message, it would work to your advantage.

You can also monetize content by creating your own brand. When you’re already successful at monetizing your content, and you’ve already established a solid fanbase, you can monetize your content even more by launching your own brand. The money that’ll come into your account will be coming from your loyal followers who decide to support you as patrons.

You can be an expert in any or all of these content monetization methods but still fail to hit your numbers if you compromise your content. In this industry, you have to stay relevant and engaging. Otherwise, new and rising influencers will eat you alive. Average content creators earn average money. If you want to make the most out of the content you post, you need to aim for the top spot. In social media marketing, only the best takes home the most money.

What’s the Best Platform to Use For Content Monetization?

Towards the end of 2020, digital marketing firms released reports highlighting the trends in influencer marketing this year. One of the questions that they’ve shed light on is which social media platform is best to monetize content. The results of the surveys they’ve conducted were quite telling. Here are some of the highlights.

• Ninety percent (90%) of 2020s influencer marketing campaigns used Instagram.
• Instagram influencers get the best engagement rate, averaging around 1.67% for every post --- Facebook only got 0.15%, while Twitter only showed an engagement rate of 0.043% for every post.
• Tiktok influencers also showed bagging exponentially higher engagement ratings overall established platforms, getting at least a 7.7% engagement rate per post.
• The studies also revealed that influencers spent most of their time on Facebook, averaging around 0.86 posts per day. Next to this is Twitter, where influencers were recorded to post around 0.84 posts per day.
• More than ¼ of active Tiktok influencers said that their posts that gained the most engagement were posted during the pandemic.

From here, you can surmise that Tiktok is currently the leading social media platform that gained significant traction during the pandemic.

What Types of Content are Engaging?

Based on the combined surveys conducted by RivalLQ, SocialPubli, and other reputable digital marketing companies, here are the top content trends for this year.

• For Instagram and Facebook, photos generate the highest influencer engagement.
• Instagram photo interaction rate is almost 2%.
• Plain, unlinked status tweets gain the most engagement on Twitter, but it’s most common for them to post tweets with links.
• Among marketers, video is the most famous content type, with around 31.7% of them saying that video is their most preferred influencer medium.
• The 2019 Instagram hashtag #10yearchallenge increased influencer engagement by 500%.
• Influencers post over 22 posts every week.
• Over 90% of brands prefer to work with influencers who make their own original content based on the product brief.

What is the Best Metric to Use to Track Influencer Performance?

As a content creator, you need to be on top of your performance to hit your numbers. To help you track the execution of your gameplan, you need metrics and KPIs. Here are some of the best tools used by most marketers.

• Sales and conversion are the two most common metrics (39%) used to measure any influencer marketing campaign’s success. Next to it are engagement/clicks (34%) and impressions (27%).
• The most significant influencer marketing benefits are building credibility and reaching the target market.
• Fifty-three percent (53%) of marketers said that audience relationship is the most telling metric to determine whether a specific content is booming.
• Google Analytics could also help in tracking the success of one’s influencer marketing campaigns.

Takeaway

Content monetization may seem like a lucrative venture, but not everyone is cut for it. Successful content creators have an oozing passion for their craft and mostly started curating content out of desire and not money. And because they continued to hone their craft, monetizing it may be incidental, but it was easier.

Looking to grow your business? Read ”5 Social Media Growth Strategies for Your Business” to learn more.