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With more than 2.8 billion active users, Meta’s Facebook has solidified its position as one of the top social media platforms available even today. For creators, it's a platform where they can showcase their work for millions to see. The opportunity to monetize one's skills and creativity make Facebook content creation one of the most viable options to making a living.
This article delves into the earning potential of Facebook content creators and the factors that influence their income.
How Facebook Pays Creators
There are many ways to make money on Facebook. Monetization options offered by Facebook for creators include fan subscriptions, in-stream ads, brand collaborations, and more.
Using in-stream ads
You can display short advertisements in your short videos. Facebook splits its ad revenue with you based on how many views you have in total. However, just like most traditional social platforms, Facebook requires you to be eligible first before you can start using its monetization features. Some of the minimum requirements to use in-stream ads include 10,000 followers and 30,000 one-minute views on videos longer than three minutes (for in-stream ads).
Using fan subscriptions
Through this feature, you can directly ask your viewers to support your work. If you’re eligible, Facebook lets you put a Support Now button on all of your posts which allows fans to donate money to you.
The Vegan Baker offers a paid subscription to its fans in exchange for exclusive content. Just like dedicated monetization platforms like Paysenger, Facebook allows you to sell different tiers of exclusive content and subscription services.
However, fan subscriptions are currently available on an invite only basis. To become eligible, you must have:
- 10,000 followers or 250 return viewers
- In addition to either 180,000 watch minutes or 50,000 post engagements
Brand collaborations
By partnering with brands, you can get paid to produce sponsored content that promotes goods and services. Facebook offers branded content tools in its Brands Collabs Manager to facilitate this. In the example below, StyleNow Feed used branded content tools to partner with Jasper’s Boutique to produce content in collaboration.
However, this style of collaborations only work between creators that both have a loyal following and very similar values. If you would like to collaborate with someone who has a lot more followers and social media presence than you, then you can pay them to post content in support of you.
This is generally hard to achieve on Facebook because most creators tend to be very picky about who they work with for free (Facebook doesn’t facilitate payments between partners). Instead, use a platform like Paysenger to find collaboration partners and ask them to post content for you on any social platform of your choice including Facebook.
The process is quite simple:
- Download Paysenger on iOS or Android (or try the Web version)
- Create an account
- Find a Creator by using the Search function
- Review their profile and portfolio
- Once you find a good match, send a paid request to collaborate
Ads for bloggers
Instant Articles is a feature for bloggers that allows you to place ads in your articles. You can either curate ads yourself or let Facebook automatically personalize ads based on your viewership.
Monetize your live streams
During a live stream, viewers can send Stars to you to express their love and support. Each Star is worth 1 cent. LordKebun, for example, encourages his followers to show some support by sending him stars during live streams. However, your viewers won’t be able to send you stars if they are from any of the countries below:
- Crimea
- Cuba
- Iran
- North Korea
- Russia
- South Korea
- Syria
Factors that Determine Your Earning Potential on Facebook
Your niche, engagement levels, follower count and content type are all factors that affect your earnings on Facebook. Entertainment niches like gaming, beauty or cooking tend to perform better than other ones. However, most importantly, Facebook’s algorithms boost posts that get the most amount of engagement. There’s no fixed rate of earnings you can generate. It all boils down to how engaging your content is and how repeatedly you can produce content that gets high engagement.
Facebook’s algorithm judges the legitimacy of your content based on all of your activity (and not on a per-post basis). Higher likes, comments, and shares overall translate into more income in the long run. As a content creator, the number of followers you have is important but is not the only factor that influences your earnings. According to a Hootsuite research, you can only reach 5.2% of the total number of followers you have in an organic way and the number continues to decline.
So, it is safe to say that your earning potential is not directly tied to the number of followers you have but rather how engaging your content is.
Alternatives to Facebook for content creation
Due to Facebook’s sheer size, competition and strict policies, new creators often find it hard to use it as a primary monetization tool in their arsenal. Your content strategy should combine multiple platforms to maximize your total earnings.
Monetization platforms
Monetization platforms offer creators the chance to bypass extreme competition and to create a reliable source of revenue on the internet. As discussed earlier, the amount of organic impressions you can get on Facebook is constantly declining and since Facebook pays on a per view basis, your earning potential will decline as well.
By moving your audiences to monetization platforms, you can directly get paid by them for providing exclusive content instead of relying solely on ad revenue. Some of the best monetization platforms on the market include:
- Paysenger: Sell exclusive content, fulfill paid requests from followers, reply to paid direct messages from fans and collaborate with sponsors. Every interaction on this social marketplace is paid and every post is a potential digital asset.
- Patreon: Offer paid recurring memberships to your patrons in exchange for exclusive content and multiple tiers of subscription benefits. Patreon is one of the biggest (and oldest) subscription platforms.
- Buy Me a Coffee: As the name implies, this platform lets your supporters “buy you a coffee” in exchange for the great work you do. It offers a very simple interface that allows people to make quick donations to you without signing up.
As you might’ve guessed, monetization platforms are supposed to supplement your growth on social platforms by acting as an additional source of revenue. Although, Paysenger is the only monetization platform that also offers social networking features so you can use it to grow your following and at the same time earn money.
Social platforms
Smart content creators know that they need to be present on all platforms in order to maximize their growth and earnings. However, it’s impractical to make content for each platform separately. Not to mention that if you start using a monetization platform, you’ll be creating exclusive content for premium subscribers on top of free content for social platforms.
In order to manage the workload, you should pick your primary social network that suits your content and niche. For example, a lot of long-form video creators prefer YouTube over Facebook or TikTok. However, you can always repurpose your YouTube videos by turning them into short clips and posting them on Facebook as well. This ensures that you have a consistent flow of content on all channels, at all times.
Frequently Asked Questions by Creators on Facebook
Can content creators earn money on Facebook?
Yes. Facebook offers a number of monetization tools to creators including fan subscriptions, in-stream ads, brand collaborations and so on.
How many followers do you need to earn on Facebook?
To activate most monetization tools on your profile, you need at least 10,000 followers.
How much can I earn on Facebook?
Content creators can earn from $8.75 to $10 per every 1,000 video views. If you’re a short video creator, Facebook announced that it will pay $4,000 a month for “original content”. This was done to reduce the amount of reposts from TikTok.
What factors affect my earnings on Facebook?
Earnings depend on your particular genre, fan base, engagement ratings, and the content you produce. Is it worthwhile to become a creator on Facebook? Facebook is great to reach big audiences but it’s primarily used by brands for doing paid advertisement. If you’re a new content creator, you are likely to find more success on YouTube or Paysenger and then you can later incorporate Facebook into your strategy.
Conclusion and final thoughts
Facebook presents a lot of ways for the creative minds who wish to turn their skills into money. However, it is still a very competitive place and if you don’t already have a loyal audience, you will have a hard time sustaining your business primarily on earnings from Facebook.
To diversify your income sources, combine Facebook with other monetization platforms like Patreon, Paysenger and Buy Me a Coffee as well as social platforms like YouTube and Instagram. It’s never a good idea to put all of your eggs in one basket!
Looking for ways to monetize content? Download Paysenger and get access to all popular monetization tools under one roof. Sell exclusive content, take special video requests (like Cameo), reply to paid direct messages and turn your content into NFTs.