We’ve known about NFTs and the popularity of these digital items on the platforms of social media, which is the monetizing resource for the creator economy. Hence, we are here to explore the potential of leveraging NFTs integration into content creation and boosting monetization. 

Key Takeaway: 

• The trends of social media platforms developing and integrating NFTs and Web3 applications.  
• The total size of the creator economy is over $104 billion dollars — with $800 million in venture capital invested in these creator ventures year over year. The market value is predicted to continually explode with the integration of NTFs. 
• NFTs are becoming increasingly popular, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that some creators and influencers are already embracing the opportunity of a brand-new revenue generator and coming up with innovative ways to use NFTs to engage with their fans in new digital environments.

NFTs on social media platforms.

The world of NFTs is fast-moving and rapidly changing. In just a few short years, NFTs have gone from merely a concept of what can be achieved with blockchain technology to a multi-billion-dollar industry that has captured the imagination of tech enthusiasts across the globe. NFTs may be one of the most talked-about trends happening on social media, although until now, NFTs haven’t featured much on social media. But that might change.

Early this year, Twitter launched its NFT profile display option. Twitter users that participated in Twitter Blue, would be able to show off their NFTs in a more certifiable capacity, with the images directly linked back to the ownership data on OpenSea. At the beginning of Q2 this year, Meta unveiled its NFT trading and display plans.

“According to one memo shared internally last week, Meta plans to launch a pilot for posting and sharing NFTs on Facebook in mid-May. This will be “quickly followed” by testing of a feature that will allow members of Facebook groups based on NFT ownership and another for minting – a term for creating – NFTs. NFTs may be monetized via “fees and/or ads” in the future”

All feeding into Meta’s grand vision of an all-encompassing metaverse space, which allows you to buy, sell, and trade NFTs, Mark Zuckerberg and the team were heading to expand into the metaverse faster than most expected. Instagram head Adam Mosseri shared that the photo-sharing platform is rolling out the “ability for creators, and people, to share NFTs, that they’ve made or that they’ve bought, either in Feed or in Stories, or in messaging.”

Youtube is also getting in on the act. The firm had already announced in February that it would launch new creator tools, enabling video makers to convert their digital content into NFTs, and sell them. Last but not least, to catch up with the trend, Spotify was hiring Web3 experts, to develop a new streaming platform on the third generation of web technologies.

We do believe that it is not just the value of being able to use NFTs only as a profile picture. “We are seeing that creators are selling their videos and memes as NFTs,” Susan Wojcicki, CEO of Youtube, told livestreamer Ludwig Ahgren on a recent podcast episode of The Yard. “If creators are selling their videos as NFTs, then that’s an important form of monetization. I don’t think it would be good if that all happened on another platform.” Similarly, it is perhaps the purpose that Meta rapidly developed their platform establishment, to the potential benefits of including NFTs – creators’ monetization.

Boosting the creator economy.

Creator economy is defined as the class of businesses of independent content creators, curators, and community builders including social media influencers, bloggers, and videographers, plus the software and finance tools designed to help them with growth and online monetization. In 2022, Influencer Marketing Hub estimates the total size of the creator economy to be over $104 billion dollars — with $800 million in venture capital invested in these creator ventures year over year.

Following market growth, the creator economy’s middle class is also growing. According to the State of the Creator Economy (SOTCE) Report 2022, most full-time creators, around 58% out of 2,704 respondents, earned $25,000 or more from their creator business. Moreover, 76% of the creators said their revenue increased in 2021 from the previous year, and a staggering 88% expect to grow their income yet again in 2022.

So, where are the revenues from? Brand sponsorship had been considered the main revenue source of creators, besides a small percentage of others relied on ad revenues, affiliate marketing, selling courses, and tips from fans, as additional revenue streams. However, the situation has changed. Recent data shows that offering multiple products and services boosts earnings and smooths out the financial rollercoaster creators can find themselves on. Since depending on any given platform can be a venerability, brand sponsorship has been replaced and relocated to the bottom of the income streams ranking.

Gilad Bonjack, SVP of creator services at Lightricks, the company behind Facetune and Videoleap, apps designed especially for digital content creators, believes that the application of NFTs in the creator economy gives creators easier access to monetization opportunities. “The integration of NFTs into content creation is a huge step for creators,” he said. “The monetization opportunities are certainly significant and will undoubtedly level up the value of the creator economy as a whole. However, I believe there are bigger opportunities for creators to leverage NFTs as a means of owning their brands and communities, so they can become less dependent on the big platforms.”

It’s a well-known adage among influencers that an audience is their most important asset. Without an audience, being a creator is a bit like talking into a digital void. An engaged and excited audience is the difference between making it and walking away, but it takes time to build relationships. SOTCE Report found that full-time creators prefer email marketing for building an audience, and the top performers work smarter to automatically grow an audience. In this sense, Bonjack adds, “NFTs are a brand-new way of reaching and engaging an audience directly, giving unprecedented control to creators.”

Now that NFTs are becoming increasingly popular, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that some creators and influencers are already embracing the opportunity of a brand-new revenue generator and coming up with innovative ways to use NFTs to engage with their fans in new digital environments.

January this year, Irene Zhao, the Singaporean Instagram crypto influencer, released her NFT collection under the banner of IreneDAO, which, then, was sold in the amount of over $5 million. After the success of her NFT collection, Zhao now has been working full-time on her own decentralized social media platform, the So-co, which aims to empower other creators to follow in her footsteps.

In conclusion:

We believe that creators are having the opportunity to promote themselves and access the multitude of monetization if they do know how to integrate NFTs in building their relationships and community. To all the creators and creator platform builders, do not miss out on the opportunity to leverage yourself with NTFs and Web3 applications. Contact us at hello@satom.vc, to reserve a place in the new era of the creator economy.