As would-be moguls of 21st century entertainment, content creators are tapping into new ways of monetizing their work — once a nearly impossible task that’s getting easier by the month.
News that Stripe is teaming with Spotify to help podcasters generate an income broke Tuesday (Jan. 25), with Spotify using a suite of Stripe tools, including Stripe Connect payments integration, along with its invoicing and fraud prevention tools.
Read more: Stripe Teams With Spotify to Drive Subscription Monetization for Creators
Lily Q. Jolly, product lead for Stripe Express, told PYMNTS that a focus on monetizing independent creators to grow into bona fide businesses will increase the “GDP of the internet,” adding “Spotify has leaned in really hard when it comes to enabling their creators to monetize.”
“Stripe’s own analysis shows that creators on just 50 Stripe-powered platforms have earned nearly $10 billion in revenue,” the company said.
Meanwhile, over at YouTube on the same day, CEO Susan Wojcicki set out the platform’s 2022 priorities in a video blog, in which she said “the number of channels around the world making more than $10,000 a year is up 40% year-on-year,” adding that in 2021, “YouTube channel memberships and paid digital goods were purchased or renewed more than 110 million times.”
As creator economy efforts went full bore in 2021, the platform published the blog post, “10 ways to monetize on YouTube” and established its $100 million Shorts Fund in the second quarter, saying “The Shorts Fund is the first step in our journey to build a monetization model for Shorts on YouTube.”
YouTube said it’s paid out over $30 billion to various creators in the past three years. In her blog, Wojcicki said 40% of creators that received payment from the Shorts Fund were not previously YouTube Partner Program members, showing the draw of access to monetization.
TikTok unveiled its Creator Next service in December, which includes the Tips and Video Gifts monetization methods.
“With Video Gifts, creators can be rewarded by TikTok on a video-by-video basis,” the company said. “This can inspire creators to spend more time crafting quality videos and drive viewers to show their appreciation to creators for doing so.”
TikTok Creator Fund is a big part of the platform’s monetization push, with $200 million allocated to pay creators based on metrics that encourage creators to grow their presence.
To be eligible, TikTok said “users must be 18 years or older, be a legal resident of one of the 50 states, District of Columbia, or the territories and possessions, of the United States, meet a minimum following threshold of 10,000 authentic followers, have accrued at least 100,000 authentic video views in the last 30 days, and post original videos in line with our Community Guidelines.”
See also: YouTube Could Add NFTs for Creators
Not to be left out among the majors, Meta’s Instagram platform is piloting a new subscription offering for creators.
In a Jan. 19 blog post, Instagram said, “Starting today, we’re beginning to test subscriptions with a handful of creators who will be able to set a monthly price of their choice, unlock a ‘subscribe’ button on their profile,” and access benefits and features, including Subscriber Lives that enables creators and fans “to engage more deeply,” as well as Subscriber Stories made by creators for specific subscribers, and Subscriber Badges for recognition.
See also: Instagram Launching Paid Subscription Pilot for Creators
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