In the digital age, social networks have transcended their traditional role of being spaces for interaction and communication, to become authentic economic engines.
Can you imagine creating content on the networks and generating considerable income, without depending on advertising or sponsorship from third parties? Let me tell you that this is now possible!
In this article, we will explain how these platforms are empowering their community to monetize their content directly and effectively. Let's see how you can turn your career as a digital creator around!
Monetization of Social Media today
It doesn't matter if you are an influencer or micro-influencer, surely your goal when uploading content is to monetize and make a living out of it. The problem is that to achieve this, today you need hundreds of thousands if not millions of followers to achieve this. The funny thing is that even if you achieve it, you will still not see direct money from the networks where you are.
You may be wondering how this is possible, if every day we see the luxurious lives of our favorite influencers and how they show it to us through a screen.
The reality is that a content creator does not make money from the platforms but through the platforms. This is achieved by advertising third parties' products and selling them, using their mass of followers as consumers. In order to scale their income, many content creators, at a certain point, set up their own businesses and replicate these promotions but now with their products.
The ironic thing is that most social networks insert advertisements into influencers' profiles to sell to their audience, with sponsors and networks benefiting, using influencers as a product...
How can an average user make money online?
The reality is that today, although some social networks allow content to be monetized, this is just a disguise, since the amounts are really insignificant.
However, there are platforms that give us freedom when creating and interacting with our audience and being able to monetize our content without any type of restriction. In this article we will see the tools that Lens Protocol, Farcaster and X itself (formerly Twitter) give their users to get the most out of their engagement. Let's get started!
Lens Protocol
Lens Protocol is a decentralized social graph that allows us to build applications on existing data. You can read my previous posts to understand it in depth.
Lens gives us a huge number of tools to monetize our content, among them, the most popular are Collect Modules, tipping, super follows and open actions.
Collect Module
The Collect Module allows users to convert their posts into NFTs (non-fungible tokens) that can be collected by their followers, either for free or for a fee.
The Collect Modules allow us to customize our publications to our liking, from limiting the publication to a number of collectors or a time limit, to choosing the currency for which the publication can be collected.
Collect allows us to interact with our audience in ways never seen before. By using NTFs, we can reward our collectors directly through the blockchain and unlimitedly. Some examples could be:
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Private Groups
A clear example of the use of collect could be to create a private group for all users who have collected a limited edition issued in Lens Protocol. In this way, only those who own the NFT will have access to this group and therefore to the information shared within. -
Exclusive Content
Another great use is to provide content that is exclusive to collectors of some of your works, giving value to the audience that supports them. This technique is very easy to do in Lens Protocol since some clients (dApps) have the option to configure everything when publishing.Exclusive Content -
Airdrops
The easiest way to reward collectors is to airdrop a token or piece of art. Simply access the list of wallets/users that own the NFT in question and send them the reward.
Tipping
Tipping, as its name indicates, is the possibility of tipping content creators, quickly, easily and simply.
Unlike tipping on traditional networks, when Lens Protocol uses blockchain, all we have to do is connect our wallet to the dApp and we can automatically choose the amount and currency in which we want to reward our favorite creators.
Such a simple option but one that many social networks do not have today...
Open Actions
Open actions are ways to integrate calls to smart contracts from a publication in Lens. In other words, we can generate any action that comes to mind and encapsulate it within a post, which can be used by our entire audience. Think about, for example, selling products directly from the social network, without commissions and instantly, all completely integrated from the feed!
This innovation allows us to monetize not only content within Lens but from any type of source we can think of, and all within the same feed.
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$BONSAI: Lens Protocol native token
A novelty in the Lens Protocol ecosystem that caused a lot of stir was the launch of a native token used by its users, $BONSAI.
This token was given as an airdrop to all active users, to reward their commitment and time with the protocol. In my case, I had about 54,000 $BONSAI (equivalent to about $2,500 at the time of writing this article).
Having a native token of the protocol is a way to generate non-directly income, since we can play with speculation and the rise in token prices, added to surprise airdrops for spending time on the platform. Logically, it is not a stable way to monetize but by understanding the crypto ecosystem, you can get a lot out of it.
Today $BONSAI is used within the protocol mostly as a form of tipping to quality content. Obviously the speculative aspect continues to play a big role.
Here are some success stories from different creators in Lens Protocols:
notgonnamakeit.lens
One of the best lens designers is notgonnamakeit. With its edition of collectible NFTs, it managed to raise $2,400 in $BONSAI thanks to the quality of the product and its connection with the audience.
Jessyjeanne.lens
Jessy has more than 104 paid subscribers on her exclusive account, the subscription price being about 1400 $BONSAI ($70). It has generated about $2,500 in subscriptions.
Juampi.lens
My case is different, I focus on creating quality content, and with only 5,000 followers, I managed to generate around $100 in tippings with my videos.
yoginth.lens
Yoginth, the founder of Hey, one of the most popular apps on Lens, managed to raise around $100,000 in community tippings and collects to support the app he is building, which brings a lot of value to the community.
In short, Lens Protocol provides the tools so that all users can create content in new ways and monetize it, regardless of their age, location or number of followers. It is the users' job to create quality content to generate interactions with the audience and take advantage of these tools.
Farcaster
Another decentralized protocol is Farcaster, which in recent times has acquired a number of users and considerable impact, becoming one of the biggest booms so far in 2024 in the crypto ecosystem.
Farcaster proposes a scenario similar to Lens Protocol, with fewer but apparently more effective tools. We talk about frames and $DEGEN.
Frames
Frames were the trigger in the socialFi ecosystem in recent months. These are small native applications within the feed. Similar to Lens open actions, frames are interactions that can be programmed to attach to a publication, although in the case of Farcaster, these interactions can be offchain, providing much more variety when building creative applications.
Frames allow us to create mini-applications within Farcaster clients without any type of limitation, literally! There are users who created a pokemon game and a cookie purchasing system with frames.
Thanks to frames, many users have made money by creating NFT tipping, donation and mining systems, all from the warpcast UI (Farcaster's main client).
However, what has generated the most money for frame creators, and users in general, are tipping with $DEGEN, Farcaster's memecoin.
$DEGEN: Farcaster native token
As mentioned before, although the frames were the trigger for Farcaster, $DEGEN was the one that expanded all that hype.
$DEGEN was born as a memecoin within the Farcaster ecosystem, which began to be used as a laugh, leading to tipping with it. But things evolved in such a way, where some of the top Farcaster users began to give it visibility, and little by little the community turned it into a serious currency, with value and usefulness.
I won't go into detail about how it works, but $DEGEN today is the way in which users are rewarded for their good content, even allowing many creators to make a living off of tips on Farcaster.
By playing with a speculative aspect and the influx of liquidity, $DEGEN has given enormously large airdrops, managing to pay annual salaries in just one month to simple users who generate good content.
Let's wait to see how $DEGEN evolves, who already announced their 3rd airdrop at the end of April.
In my opinion, Farcaster has a lot of potential, we just need more applications built with them. We have to wait and monitor its growth closely.
Some success stories at Farcaster:
Bitfloorsghost
One of the OGs on Farcaster is Bitfloorsghost, who has managed to raise $170,000 just by posting on Farcaster by earning tips on $DEGENhttps://x.com/bitfloorsghost/status/1774094357102223798?s=20
Guty 🎩
Guty is from Latin America and thanks to building quality frames for the community, he has managed to raise huge profits in $DEGEN thanks to his contribution. All with only 400 followers…
Top Creators on Farcaster
Here the top in USD of the biggest winners in the month of March thanks to receiving tips in $DEGEN for their content
X (Ex — Twitter)
Since Elon Musk bought Twitter, more changes were generated on the platform in one year than in its entire history!
Elon aims for a unique and massive social network, where users have complete control and can access new ways to monetize their content.
While Twitter, being a company, will never have the transparency and freedom of Lens Protocol, Farcaster or any decentralized protocol, X (ex-twitter) has done a great job of providing tools to its users. Below we will see some of them:
Monthly Salaries
Monthly Salaries Without a doubt, X greatest innovation when it comes to monetization is the possibility of obtaining profits based on the advertising displayed on your profile.
A few months ago, Elon decided to give part of the profits from advertising to the profiles where these ads are advertised. In this way, if you create good content on Twitter, you can earn a monthly salary that varies based on engagement and the frequency of promotions appearing on the profile.
The feature gained popularity thanks to the countless publications from creators showing off their income from creating content.
Note: It should be noted that in order to access this feature, users must subscribe to X — Premium, obtain at least 5 million impressions on their posts within the last 3 months and have at least 500 followers.
Subscriptions
X was the first platform to innovate with its premium subscription system, where certain users can launch a subscription system in which their audience can pay a fee and access exclusive content from the creator.
Nowadays, X does not have much variety to monetize, but the option to monetize around advertising is getting stronger and stronger, opening the door for millions of average users to obtain a small income for dedicating their time and effort to creating content on Twitter. x.
What is the future that awaits us in this digital age?
As these platforms continue to evolve and gain popularity, more creators are expected to find new opportunities to capitalize on their creativity and efforts on new networks, regardless of their audience size or geographic location. This revolution in content monetization not only benefits creators, but also enriches the user experience by offering more diverse, authentic and relevant content.
The panorama that I imagine in the medium term is of multiple decentralized protocols coexisting in harmony, being interoperable with each other and allowing their users not only to create content with innovative tools, but also facilitating their reach to new audiences.
For my part, I will continue to share my thoughts and create content that I consider interesting to share with my audience, taking advantage of the tools that the platforms provide me to try to obtain remuneration for my efforts, at the same time that I connect with my followers.