1.5 Social Media Content—Monetizing Media Content Isn’t a New Idea
As we have discussed, publishers make money by providing programming or content that audiences will want to watch enough to allow advertisers to interrupt the programming with commercial messages. The challenge has always been that content that engages and entertains us is expensive. Very expensive. Movies, TV shows, and even good-quality YouTube videos are not cheap to produce. So, the modern mass media channels are constantly thinking to themselves, “If only there were a way to create engaging consumer content that could be created and distributed worldwide, at significantly lower cost.”
Enter the genius of social media platforms—the first mega-businesses to outsource the creation of almost all of their ad-supported content to the audience themselves. This content is known as user-generated content (UGC). But what could possibly drive all of us hard-working humans to provide millions of hours and millions of pages of content to these mega-digital publishers . . . for absolutely free? Pride. And love. But mostly pride.
Why do we do it? I guess one reason is that we like to see things we write or that we create get sent out into the social stream and be recognized as being clever, or interesting, or worthy of sharing. We enjoy seeing notifications tell us that something we did is getting noticed. We look forward to reading the comments on our posts and seeing the emojis and reactions our ideas are inspiring within our communities. Perhaps it is a modern way for us to earn social currency and try to climb the social media ladder through creating and sharing content that our friends (and total strangers) find valuable.
And, of course, it’s not all UGC floating around out there. There is lots of professionally created content as well. As social platforms have gotten more and more powerful, other media companies, like news and entertainment companies, have also found ways to distribute their content on social platforms. News organizations are finally getting into the digital space, not just with their own platforms, but as content providers for Facebook and others as well.
Case in point: In June of 2021, in an effort to keep users on their platform for more minutes every day, Facebook introduced a new service called Bulletin. It is a newsletter subscription service that brings influential writers, bloggers, and reporters onto the Facebook platform directly. “The goal here is to support millions of people doing creative work,” Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Facebook, said in a conference call with reporters. “More and more independent writers are discovering ways to use their voice and make money through other avenues, similar to the ones we’re introducing here.”1
It’s not just platforms that are paying for new and useful content to keep the user base engaged; consumer brands are finding ways to bring not only “ads” online but also content that people might actually choose to watch. Entertainment companies are quick to put “samples,” trailers, and older content out there so viewers will be willing to buy a ticket, or pay a subscription, or tune in and watch a traditional advertising-sponsored program.
Today, there is a diverse mix of custom, recycled, user-generated, and curated content that fills the YouTube hours, the Facebook posts, and the Twitter feeds of hundreds of millions of people every day. And all of this content is carefully cataloged and indexed to be offered with glowing endorsements from our friends and family, bringing all the trust and confidence of their recommendations to our small screens. It’s no wonder we are spending more time on our phones and less time with other more traditional media; our social feeds are doing a better job of taking care of us.