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Content monetisation: 5 ways to leverage your knowledge to make a passive income

“Content is King”, Bill Gates wrote as early as 1996. Today, a good 26 years since, content still reigns supreme. With increased smartphone and mobile data penetration, the demand for content and content creators is compounding around the world.

This is the time to be a creator 

If you are a creator, an expert, an artist or a performer, you have an unprecedented opportunity to reach out to the masses and make money through your work. 

Currently, there are 4.2 billion social media users globally, of which more than 200 million are content creators, according to a report by Linktree, an organisation that helps creators connect with followers. Another report by media company GroupM, the creator economy in India alone is expected to grow at a compounded rate of 25% a year and reach Rs 2,200 crore by 2025.

Social media platforms are cognizant of this growth and are incentivizing creators to create more content. In May this year, TikTok announced its first revenue-share program for creators. More recently, Meta, during its Creator Week, expanded monetization opportunities for creators and is now facilitating creation and sale of NFTs (non-fungible tokens).

‘Experts’ are very much in demand

Knowledge sharing or educational content has become one of the most sought after kinds, be it financial education, academic content, do-it-yourself (DIY), cooking. These ‘experts’ are very much in demand. Anybody with knowledge to share can now earn a living or even have a successful side hustle by creating content. Early birds have been able to leverage this demand in their favour but it’s never too late to enter this market. 

For those of you, who are new to the creator economy, figuring out the details of monetizing content can be overwhelming. At our organisation, we are helping creators bridge this process. We help creators build their content, launch and grow with time. Here’s a peek into how we empower our creators and help them monetize their content. If you are a creator, you can pick a leaf out of our book, too.

Click here to know more about cracking the influencer code 

Helping creators build their content

• Offer courses: Paid courses are the most powerful tool for experts to monetize their content. If you’re an expert at something, you can offer paid courses in your area of expertise. In order to hook your audiences you can impart small nuggets of wisdom for free and tease it with a paid course for more detailed explanations.

• Grow your community: This is one of the simplest yet effective ways of monetizing your content. There are multiple ways of creating free and paid communities of users that allow you to charge a premium for exclusive content. A great way of growing your community is to host free webinars and engage with your audience.

• License your content: You can sell the rights to your content to a buyer. For instance, if you are a financial expert, you can sell the rights to your content to a financial institution. There are two ways of licensing: exclusive rights and non-exclusive rights. If you license exclusive rights to a buyer, you can earn a royalty everytime the content is used. For non-exclusive rights, you can sell the same content to another buyer. 

• Understand your audience: A little research into your audience can go a long way. Once you understand why your audience is engaging with you, you can customise your content and ads to meet their needs. 

Click here to know about the 3 C’s of Content creation

• Consultation: Not only is this a good monetization strategy but also a great opportunity to actually engage with your audience. How this works is you can offer paid consultation to your audiences for your advice or solutions. For instance, you’re good at astrology. You can host your content on social media and offer online consultation to your followers for a fee.

If you are good at something, you can charge a premium for your knowledge. In simple terms, you can leverage your knowledge to create content. In turn this knowledge, when consumed, can provide you with a steady passive income. 

About the author: Vivek Yadav has previously worked at Silk Bridge Partners, an investment holding company based out of Singapore where he was looking after the growth stage of investment banking in India & SEA (primarily focused on consumer and social tech startups). Vivek comes from an investment banking background and was building a thesis on the creator ecosystem in developing the mobile first market. He has also worked in two Edtech startups in Singapore and Australia in the growth vertical. He holds a Masters degree in Management & Finance from National University Of Singapore & HEC Paris.