What is a “content creator”? It’s someone who makes and distributes digital content and earns revenue from their efforts. It’s a growing economy, especially among young people. According to a HubSpot survey, around 200 million people consider themselves creators and 66% of creators consider it a side hustle, rather than a full time job. Here are the different types of content that users create:
· Written: blogs/articles, ebooks and product reviews
· Audio: podcasts, audio blogs and audiobooks
· Video: vlogs (or video blogs), TikTok/YouTube/Instagram posts and livestreams
· Visual: digital art, photos and graphic designs
· Hybrid: social media posts that contain more than one type of content
All of these forms of content can be monetized to generate revenue and income. How do you make income as a content creator? The primary revenue streams come from advertising and affiliate marketing (where you get a commission for promoting third party products). You can also earn income from brand sponsorships/influencing, selling merchandise and a few other means.
How much can you potentially earn? From a survey in 2022, researchers found that 21% of respondents earn annual income of at least $50,000 and 1.4% earn over $1 million a year. Let’s take a deeper look at some specific platforms and earning potentials.
YouTube
The average YouTube creator earns about $55,000 per year, while the top 10 made over $300 million collectively (up 40% from 2020). Only 35,000 channels have more than 1 million subscribers, while over 300,000 channels have 100,000 or more subscribers. YouTube has a variety of ad formats that they offer, including skippable, non-skippable and overlay ads. You can also decide what type of payment model you would like. The options are CPC (Cost Per Click) in which you get paid every time someone clicks on an ad or CPM (Cost Per Thousand) where you get paid for every 1,000 times an ad is shown. You can experiment and determine what works best for your content.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing refers to the promotion of a 3rd party product or service (like Amazon or Etsy) where the most common type of revenue earned is commission when your user purchases something. It can be used in conjunction with display advertising to have multiple income sources. According to the Affiliate Marketing Benchmark Report 2022, 4% of affiliate marketers made more than $150,000 income, 8% between $100,000 – $150,000, 5% between $50,000 – $100,000, 16% between $10,000 – $50,000, and 58% less than $10,000. The key to success is to find products and services that align with your content and user base.
Sponsored Posts
If you have enough followers, you can earn income by sponsoring a brand or product in your social media posts on sites like Instagram and TikTok. You are getting paid to do an endorsement to your followers, which is also referred to as Influencer Marketing. For example, according to influence.co, an Instagram account with about 10,000 followers can expect to make $50-250 for each post, while someone with 10,000 – 25,000 followers can expect up to $250 a post. With over 100,000 followers, you could make $1,000 – 5,000. When accepting a sponsored post offer, make sure you really believe in the product or service you are promoting, otherwise you could lose credibility with your audience and future potential earnings.
Newsletters
Email newsletters are an increasingly popular channel for creators to build a business. A newsletter focuses on specific topics or themes, and is sent regularly to its subscribers. First, you will need an platform to send out your newsletter. Two popular ones are Substack and Beehiv; others include Constant Contact and MailChimp. There are two primary ways of generating income: advertising and subscription fees. Many newsletter creators offer a free version of their newsletter to try to engage subscribers to pay for a subscription. While not as big as some other content sites, significant earnings can still be made. The top newsletter on Substack is estimated to earn $5 million per year, followed by the #2 newsletter at $1.5 million.
Streaming
Streaming refers to the live presentation of content which is also recorded for future viewing. The most popular streaming service is Twitch, which started by featuring live streams of video game players, but has expanded to include music, arts, cooking and even just chatting. As of early 2020, Twitch featured 3 million broadcasters and 15 million daily users. Money can be earned through paid subscribers to your Twitch channel and advertising. As with other content platforms, the more subscribers you have, the more revenue you can generate. With 5-100 average viewers you can expect to earn $50-1,500 per month, with 1,000 – 10,000 viewers you can make $5,000 – 30,000 per month and top tier streamers can earn $100,000 or more per month. For example, the top earner on Twitch, Ninja, has 18.5 million followers and is estimated to make $500,000+ per month.
Merchandise Sales
Many people earn millions of dollars selling merchandise on sites such as Amazon, Etsy and through Shopify ecommerce tool. You don’t even need to make your own product. By buying wholesale (check out sites like Alibaba), you can buy and sell at a profitable rate. Let’st take a look at Amazon, which is the biggest ecommerce platform in America. There are a few ways you can work with Amazon, but the most popular is Fulfillment By Amazon (FBA) which is completely turnkey. It works by you purchasing your products for sale, sending them to Amazon’s warehouse and they take care of the rest (shipping, returns, etc.). You just take care of the listing on Amazon. Another method is where you take care of logistics such as storing products, shipping and returns. In both cases Amazon charges fees and you will pay the most for FBA. According to Jungle Scout, 45% of Amazon sellers make $1,000 – 25,0000 sales monthly, 25% make $25,000-250,000 and 17% make under $500 per month in sales.
