Thanks to COVID lockdowns, more and more people are consuming online content these days, and the competition for content is at an all-time high. As a result, Facebook has recently announced an investment of over $1 billion by the end of 2022 as part of their strategy to attract online content creators to FB and Instagram from rival mobile apps TikTok and YouTube.

The idea is to attract content creators by rewarding everyone, from famous creators to aspiring ones striving hard to produce and publish new content to a global audience regularly.

Instagram Reels, Short Videos on Facebook, and IGTV videos on both FB and Insta are the significant features that compete with rivals - TikTok videos and YouTube Shorts. So, Facebook has declared several new schemes that specifically provide a financial advantage to users who make content via Instagram Reels and IGTV videos.

Facebook takes a step forward.

With more than 3 billion downloads worldwide, TikTok has reached the top 5 most trending and most downloaded non-game apps category. TikTok has spent around $2 billion in the past few years on content creators. Other social media sources like YouTube Shorts and the Spotlight program of Snapchat are also managing to hold on to their content creators by incentivizing them to post trending videos every day. Hence, to keep pace, Facebook has taken a step forward in favour of the content creators and introduced monetization models to encourage them to make creative content on FB and Instagram platforms in large numbers.

The existing plan of action

Creative tools like Live Audio Rooms and Bulletin have already launched on Facebook to encourage creative content. Facebook monetization is also well-implemented through products like Facebook Stars and affiliates.

Facebook provides an ‘In-Stream Bonus’ by playing short in-stream ads in the middle of videos that content creators make. The ‘Stars bonus’ attracts both content creators that post videos as well as gaming content creators. Bonuses are awarded monthly based on specific milestones.

Instagram also has several incentives to help content creators earn bonuses. The ‘IGTV ads bonus’ is achieved through ads playing in between IGTV videos. Like Facebook Stars, Instagram also provides a ‘badges bonus’ upon reaching specific milestones (such as live collabs with other famous creators, etc.).

The new bonus programs

Facebook plans to spend their investment of $1b on rewarding creators through their new bonus programs. Notably, their new bonus programs are simple and easy to understand and relatively attainable for authentic content creators.

The rewards included in these bonus programs are: 

1. Monetary prizes for content creators on Facebook and Instagram who reach specific milestones (like 1 million subscribers, 1 million likes, etc.).

2. Seed funding for content creators to help produce high-quality content.

These new monetization programs are a win-win for both Facebook and content creators as they will serve to attract content creators from rival platforms and reward new content creation on the Facebook and Instagram ecosystems