Over the past decade, one of the most prevalent changes we've seen within the world of daily tech is the complete integration of social media into our lives. Over the past 10 years, social media platforms have grown from having a total user base of 970 million in 2010 to over 4.5 billion in 2021. This period has been an ongoing moment of progress for social media, and those that use it.

Of course, as a new form of connecting and sharing with others has become the mainstream, marketing campaign managers have long been seeking methods of utilizing social media for the good of their companies. While platforms like Facebook offer comprehensive advertising streams, where users can directly advertise their products on the global stage, this is not the only form of marketing going on within social media.

Influencer marketing, where a company pays an influencer to use, review, or simply promote their products, is now a leading form of marketing. The term itself, 'influencer marketing', grew over 5000% each month on search engines throughout 2021, demonstrating the huge public recognition of this marketing stream. 

Companies are now paying individuals with large followings huge amounts of money through influencer marketing, this being one of the most lucrative forms of earning for social media influencers. However, how else do influencers make their money?

In this article, we'll be outlining the different outlets that online content creators are using, different monetization schemes that reward them, and the most promising platforms that people are turning to. 

How Do Influencers Make Money?

Influencers mainly make money by either selling to their audience or advertising to them, with some content creators generating money due to their videos, photos, or writing being viewed by lots of people on a platform. The exact deals and monetary amounts that each influencer makes vary, but even smaller influencers can make upwards of $100,000 a year. The top paid influencers make many, many times more than this, often pushing upwards into the millions.

These income streams can be split into a few key sources:

• Paid Promotions – Some companies will get in touch with content creators and ask them to create content around one of their products. This is normally in exchange for a fixed amount of money, with the business exchanging the public visibility for their capital. With larger content creators, this is one of the most lucrative forms of income.

• Platform Pay – Certain social media platforms will reward content creators with a fixed amount of money for every X amount of views that they get. The specific figure often depends on factors like what the content is about, how big their follower count is, and other potential differences. This is one of the first payment structures content creators will unlock, as they can start reaping the rewards the first day they get a view on the content they've made.

• Affiliates – Many influencers will recommend products that they enjoy using. Within this, there are two ways that they can generate an income. The first is to work as a brand ambassador, getting a small compensation anytime a user buys a product or signs up to a platform that they represent. Alternatively, they can use affiliate marketing programs, like those available through Amazon, in order to generate a small number of total sales for products they recommend on their social media accounts.

While these are the general three categories that users will make money from, it definitely doesn't stop there. Other influencers might create courses, run webinars, or even create their own eCommerce stores. If they have a devout following, influencers can pretty much turn their hand to any number of monetized income streams.

Especially considering that users can start creating content without giving up their day jobs, many people create an audience over months or years while still working full-time, only converting to full-time content creator when their pay outweighs their regular working salary. 

What Are the Most Popular Social Media Platforms That Pay Their Influencers?

While many social media platforms are now introducing payment methods, there are a few which have been doing it since the beginning. The social media platform that made many content creators famous in the early 2010s was YouTube, with this still being one of the most lucrative platforms for creators to publish content on.

Considering that around 5 billion videos are watched on YouTube every single day, it's not hard to imagine where they get their huge budget for paying content creators from. 

Let's quickly go through how a few central platforms in this space reward their content creators financially:

• Youtube – YouTube has something known as the Partner Program, which is where anyone that has over 1,000 subscribers can begin to earn an income from the videos that they create. This is one of the most profitable systems, with YouTube still being a favored format of income generator for creators.

• Snapchat – Every single day, Snapchat spends roughly $1 million on paying people to post on their platform. By paying influential people to post, they pull in views to their platform, allowing any ads they place to generate an income. Anyone that has a big following on this platform is able to start to apply for this program and get onto the scheme. 

• TikTok – TikTok has had an incredible few years, quickly rising to become one of the most successful social media platforms. With its success, TikTok has started to pay its users for their videos that receive lots of views. Considering there are 1 billion active users on this platform, there are a lot of views to go around, with the best videos being nicely compensated to creators. 

Although these are some of the most lucrative platforms to create on, as we suggested earlier, not all of the money that a creator makes is through platform pay. On other sites, like Instagram, there is much more demand for influencer marketing, meaning that influencers on these spaces are able to focus on paid product placement and affiliates to a greater extent.

Is This Industry Here to Stay?

Influencer marketing and content creation are incredibly rewarding fields when you reach the higher end of the spectrum. While many people start accounts in the hope of becoming famous on that platform, only a few ever do, meaning the biggest numbers in this industry are closed off to those that reach the top. 

Alongside this harsh reality is the fact that due to how lucrative these deals can be, social media platforms have started to morph their content into an advertisement space. This is especially the case with platforms like Instagram, which have seen the potential for eCommerce engagement and have created shopping tabs that are flooding over all other content streams.

Due to these reasons, many content creators are gravitating away from these stagnant platforms and searching for new ways to support their income. This movement has coincided with the rise of blockchain, with web 3.0 solutions – a new era of the internet where users have much more control and ownership over what they post – becoming a valuable line of inquiry.

For example, the social network Taki is built on Solana, offering users the ability to create content that they own on the platform. As this is a decentralized platform, users have all of the power and governance of the platform itself, allowing their voices to be heard to a greater degree.

How does Taki Support Creators?

Alongside the actual ownership of content, Taki also uses other faucets of blockchain to further reward users for using their service. Anyone that interacts with the community within Taki can earn $TAKI, the platform's native cryptocurrency which can be exchanged for fiat currency of a user's choosing. 

By interacting with the community on this platform, anyone – no matter the size of their following – can begin to earn on social media. Equally, as a decentralized application, $TAKI is also used as a governance token, which allows users to vote on changes or new features within the platform.

This user-centric ownership system also gives users full control over their own content. On web 2 social media platforms, like Facebook and Instagram, any content you post on their site is legally the digital property of that company, not the creator. However, with web 3, creators are put first.

Both financially and in terms of usability and ownership, web 3 social networks like Taki are rapidly catching the attention of content creators around the globe. 

Final Thoughts

With the unstoppable popularity and interconnectivity of social media, it's no wonder that this has grown into a bustling industry where users can make a fantastic living. While social media has afforded many people around the globe the opportunity to make a living, it is far from a perfect system. The financial incentive is now apparent, with many of the largest social media platforms being open about the paid opportunities they provide.

However, more and more people are shifting away from the overt capitalism of social media, with platforms that are forcing sales quickly losing their favor amongst users. Rising to fill these spaces are web 3.0 social networks, with their focus on user-ownership and fair compensation through cryptocurrency outlining a new way for users to interact with the social networks that they create.

Over the next 10 years, the shift from web 2.0 to web 3.0 will come with a change in how we use, consume, and commodify social media.