03/17/2023
Meta has announced the end of Reels Play Bonus.
The program was introduced last year to incentivize users to create content for Reels on Instagram, offering monetary rewards for achieving engagement metrics. Creators were earning up to $35,000 per month.
Monetizing content directly from social media platforms has proven to be a challenge for content creators, with some reporting low earnings, even for viral videos. This issue is compounded by the fact that social media platforms are controlled by 3rd-party companies, resulting in algorithm, policy, and feature changes without user consent or control.
The first creator fund was implemented by TikTok in 2020 as a way to reward users who have attracted sizable audiences on the platform with self-produced content. To keep a competitive edge, all main social media platforms followed with similar programs: YouTube Shorts Bonus, Snapchat Payouts and Meta Reels Play Bonus.
In the past few months, all creator funds have ended, with Meta being the last to close their doors.
These monetization programs for creators were set up with an end date in mind. In 2020, TikTok announced their creator fund was set up to pay $1B over a three-year period. When YouTube Shorts announced their fund, they specified that $100M would be distributed over the course of 2021-2022.
Rather than pay being based on views and engagement, social platforms are shifting towards ad revenue payouts, with no end date mentioned. Ad revenue payouts are new and still being tested.
Creator veteran, Zach King, shared on Twitter his payout from the first month of YouTube Shorts ads. After receiving 196.4 million Shorts views during February, Zach received $2,918. While many creators are disappointed by the earnings, Zach is optimistic that monetization for creators will go up in the coming years, “when I started making short form content in 2007, monetization was pretty much non-existent.”
Outside of social media platforms, creator marketplaces have been growing in popularity over the past year. Companies like Billo connect brands to creators - brands send a product to the creator along with an outline or script, and depending on the quality, type and length of video, a creator can receive up to $110 per video.
Taking a different approach, Bounty doesn’t pre-approve creators, but rather says anyone can be a creator. When anyone buys or receives a product on Bounty’s product list, all they have to do is create an account and post a product video on their TikTok; paying creators up to $10 per every 1,000 views their TikTok video receives.
Bounty reported that their top creators earn over $3,000 per month, which is more than what YouTube star Zach King made from YouTube Shorts ads.
Moving forward, it's essential for creators to adapt and embrace these new opportunities in a rapidly evolving world of video content. The future of content monetization may appear uncertain, but one thing is clear: the era of the creator is here to stay.
