YouTubers sell options via Royalty Exchange
Royalty Exchange, a marketplace where music artists can offer shares of future royalties in exchange for immediate funding from investors, has opened its business to YouTube creators. YouTuber CJ So Cool is the first influencer to make an offering on the platform.
Aussies win news scrap with big tech
Australia’s competition regulator has won its three-year battle to make Facebook and Google pay for news. The Australian Competition & Consumer Commission has negotiated for the duo-poly to sign deals with Aussie publishers that could be worth about A$200m a year.
Instagram rolls out Drops, a new ecommerce tool
Instagram has launched a new ecommerce tool called Drops. The app’s Shop section features a new Drops tab that opens a catalogue of viral products. The tab will enable consumers to browse and shop soon-to-release and just-released products that will be available in limited quantities or for a limited time.
Listeners of the Influencer Marketing Lab podcast will have heard me talk with Facebook’s head of branded content, Becky Owen, and with Gymshark’s Calum Watson, about the allure of Instagram drops within scarcity marketing.
Fanhouse raises $1.3m
Fanhouse, the subscription-based social platform, has raised $1.3m. Formed in Q4 2020, Fanhouse likens itself to a finsta account that fans can subscribe to, accessing exclusive content via tipping, and even requesting custom content for a fee. The platform also offers various forums where fans can interact with one another. No adult content, nudity, or pornagraphy is allowed. Fanhouse keeps a 10% cut of all transactions. OnlyFans takes a 20% cut, whilst many subscription-based platforms take a 50%+ portion of subscription revenue.
How 1.8m YouTube subscribers will earn you just $8k pcm
Tiffany Ma has 1.8 million subscribers on YouTube. Several of her videos have over a million views. One has 7.6m views currently. Her channel earned around $8,000 a month from Google-placed ads in 2021 through the YouTube Partner Program. However Ma earns double this amount from brand sponsorship deals.
How platforms are wooing creators
To keep creators engaged and active, tech platforms have dedicated funds to pay users who produce the most engaging content. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok have all released new features, funds and subscription or tipping tools so that creators can earn money from fans. Snapchat says it has spent $130 million since November financing contributors on its short-form video sharing feature, Spotlight.
Link-in-bio platform, Beacons, raises $6m
Led by Andreessen Horowitz, and also comprising Li Jin’s Atelier Ventures, The Chainsmokers’ Mantis Fund, Night Ventures, Brazilian esports organization LOUD, and Crush Music, $6m has been raised for the ‘link-in-bio’ offering. Beacons' tool allows creators to build and customise a dedicated mobile landing page to include in profiles across social platforms, including TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter.
Its simple user interface and automated, personalised page setup offer both customisable theme generation and integration with existing content, so creators and brands can quickly and easily direct followers to a single URL across multiple social platforms.