By Olamide Lapite
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In the past five years, there's been a shift in the balance of power, and social media companies have come to recognize the power of the creators who are using their platforms. At the same time, the gradual rise in the number of social media platforms available on the internet has forced these companies to innovate and offer more than virality and entertainment to their users. The combined effect of these two factors birthed social media creator compensation programs.
Social media creator compensation programs are projects and functionalities developed by social media platforms to reward their users. This reward usually comes in the form of money. They became popular with the advent of Tiktok and other social media platforms have joined in with the most recent being X. Here is an overview of some of these social media platforms and what they have to offer their users:
Instagram: Instagram’s creator compensation program is called IGTV ads. It allows content creators to earn 55% of the revenue generated from the ads added to their reels.
Snapchat: Creatives can earn money on Snapchat by submitting their content to Snapchat Spotlight. If the content meets Snapchat’s requirements the creator will receive monetary compensation.
YouTube: Content creators can earn money on YouTube by applying to its Partner’s program.
TikTok: The TikTok creator fund is the platform’s avenue for rewarding its users with money. Amongst other requirements, people with 100,000 views within 30 days are eligible to join the fund.
While these programs vary from one social media platform to another, certain elements are usually consistent in all. For instance, there are set eligibility requirements such as the number of followers, number of posts, and views. Users are also generally compensated based on the performance of their content. For creatives such as artists and videographers, this is a great avenue to not only showcase talent but also make some money. On the other hand, the owners of these social media platforms can enjoy the growth and popularity of their platforms.
Are social media creator compensation programs worth it?
The answer to this question can be tricky because it depends on the context within which the question is asked. However, a few things are certain, one of which is that people legitimately make money from social media platforms and the amount you make is dependent on your number of followers as well as the quality and quantity of your content. For instance, on TikTok, user reports suggest that you will get paid 3 or 4 cents per 1000 views on the platform. The effect of this is that in order to make a tangible amount of money, you will have to put out a lot of good content. Also on Instagram, users that have between 1,000 to 10,000 followers earn around $1000.
From the examples above, it is obvious that it takes hard work to make a tangible amount of money from social media compensation programs. Now, let’s look at the pros and cons of social media creator compensation programs for artists below.
Pros of creator compensation programs
Social media creator compensation programs help to give creatives the funds required to launch their careers. For instance, artists are able to earn money from doing what they enjoy without being signed to a label or having to pay heavily for promotions. They can also use these compensations to further improve their craft by getting new business tools.
Similarly, compensation programs can be a motivating factor for creatives. A lot of times, beginner creatives struggle with identifying a “why” and they often lack a reason to keep grinding. The incentives from social media compensation programs can solve this problem and encourage them to keep working while waiting for a breakthrough.
In addition to this, most social media platforms such as TikTok structure their compensation programs in such a way that it rewards more original and user-beneficial content. The effect that this has on creatives is that it inspires them to reach into the depths of their creative juice boxes and come up with the best possible content. This sort of motivation will be beneficial to the artiste in the long run as it forces them to consistently come up with new ideas.
Cons of social media creator compensation programs
One of the disadvantages of social media compensation programs is that they are mostly designed to restrict the creator to the region where you are posting from. This is so because these social media platforms want to make the most from the engagements on your content and the best way to do this is to consistently push it to a specific demographic. While this might sound harmless on the face of it, it is not an ideal situation for the creator. This is because as a creator, especially one with big dreams, it simply means your reach might be restricted, which may slow down your growth.
Another downside to social media creator compensation programs is that it might take away the “soul” in the creator’s art. It is easy for creatives to get carried away by chasing incentives, and make art for the algorithm. This could have adverse effects on your work and career in the long run.
Think it over
As you consider the advantages and disadvantages of creator compensation, it is important to reflect on where you are in your career and decide if you want to register for them or not. Are you prepared to work hard to create some online content for extra money? Can you stay authentic and true to your craft? If your answer is yes, then you should absolutely consider social media creator compensation programs.