The most comprehensive disclosure of the monetization methods of self-media platforms (recommended for collection)

Please read this article carefully!

Then you will know how self-media make money?

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Absolutely useful information, no deception!

The ultimate goal of every student in self-media is to make money.

But we don’t know what are the ways for self-media to make money?

Today, let’s take stock of the various ways to monetize self-media .

Take the main self-media platforms as an example:

1. Toutiao

ByteDance's content creation platform!

1. Paid columns

High-quality creators can open personal paid columns, and pictures, texts, videos, and audio can all be used to monetize their knowledge. As of November 2018, 1,000 high-quality creators have opened paid columns. In the coming year, it is expected to help authors earn 200 million yuan.

2. Toutiao Store

The platform provides e-commerce monetization tools for high-quality creators, broadening the content monetization channels for creators. As of November 2018, 2,437 authors have opened stores, with a total transaction volume of 150 million. Among them, the store of Qiaofu 9mei had a turnover of over 10 million.

3. Product Card

When publishing articles, high-quality creators can insert product links in the article and earn commissions. In the past year, Toutiao creators have received a total of 200 million yuan in commissions.

4. Live broadcast

After activating the "live broadcast" function, high-quality creators can unlock advanced functions such as fan rewards and traffic to personal Toutiao stores, enriching their monetization channels. Within half a year, high-quality creators received 50 million yuan in rewards through live streaming.

5. Headline News Circle

High-quality creators can use the "Circle" function to create communities where fans can join for free or for a fee, and obtain more monetization possibilities through refined fan operations.

6. Appreciation function

The "Appreciation" function is one of the tools that the Toutiao platform can use to help high-quality creators increase their income. Creators can use this function to gain recognition and appreciation from readers.

7. Jihe Platform

The Jihe platform connects advertisers and Toutiao's high-quality content creators. After advertisers place orders, creators can accept orders based on their own abilities and increase monetization channels. Since its launch, it has brought income to more than 1,000 high-quality creators, with the highest monthly income of a creator reaching 500,000.

8. Self-operated advertising space

Support high-quality creators to independently operate advertising space, display products, promote brands, etc., and broaden the authors' monetization channels.

9. Advertising revenue

Toutiao advertising is a form of advertising in which the author of a Toutiao account entrusts the advertising space to the Toutiao account platform for operation. The Toutiao platform intelligently matches users and advertising content to achieve precise promotion, and the advertising revenue belongs entirely to the creators.

10. Insert external links

The extended link at the end of the article has been opened to all authors, and the privilege of inserting external links in the article has been opened to high-quality creators. Conversion external links can be inserted at appropriate locations in the article to achieve rapid monetization.

11. Qingyun Project

The "Qingyun Plan" is an incentive plan launched by the Toutiao platform to encourage the creation of high-quality pictures and texts. It focuses on the content itself, so that every high-quality picture and text and every high-quality account can receive rewards.

12. Thousands of people, 10,000 yuan

The "Thousands of People, Ten Thousand Yuan" plan is an incentive plan for high-quality original creators launched by the Toutiao platform in September 2015. The plan will support 1,000 individual Toutiao creators, allowing each of them to receive a guaranteed income of at least 10,000 yuan per month. The program has been running for two years and is still attracting new contracted authors.

2. Sohu Account

As a content creation platform under Sohu, Sohu has fewer monetization models compared to Toutiao!

1. Advertising revenue

Advertising profit sharing is a cash support program in which Sohu and creators share the platform’s own advertising revenue. Through advertising revenue sharing, the Sohu platform will share the revenue generated by advertisements placed on the inner pages of Sohu creators' articles with them based on factors such as article traffic and quality.

2. Mobile promotion

Mobile promotion is an independent advertising management method provided by Sohu.com to platform creators. Through this function, Sohu creators can promote commercial advertisements on the mobile pages of their articles. Mobile promotion content will be displayed at the bottom of the article on Sohu Mobile.

3. PC promotion

PC promotion is an independent advertising management method on the PC side provided by Sohu.com to platform creators. Through this function, Sohu creators can conduct commercial advertising promotion on the PC pages of their articles. PC promotional content will be displayed at the bottom of the article on Sohu.com.

4. Product Card

Product cards are a marketing value-added service provided by Sohu.com to creators. With this feature, Sohu creators can insert customized marketing cards into articles for marketing promotion.

3. Baijiahao

Baidu's content creation platform!

1. Graphics and text product function

The "picture and text product function" is a product promotion function provided by Baijiahao for authors. Products from third-party platforms (such as Taobao, Tmall, and JD.com) can be inserted into articles. Once the user makes an actual purchase and confirms receipt, the author can obtain corresponding commissions to increase income.

2. Video product function

The "video product function" is a product promotion function provided by Baijiahao for authors. Products from third-party platforms (supporting Taobao, Tmall, and JD.com) can be inserted into the video. The products will be displayed in the form of a floating card at the bottom of the video. Once the user makes an actual purchase, the author can obtain the corresponding commission based on the total order amount and the established commission ratio.

3. Advertising revenue

Advertising revenue will be automatically enabled after the novice account is converted to a regular account.

4. Self-recommendation

For a successfully self-recommended article, if the normal advertising income of the article itself is less than 100 yuan 30 days after the successful self-recommendation, Baijiahao will make up the difference of 100 yuan in the form of a subsidy after 30 days. The subsidy amount is 100 yuan minus the income that the successfully self-recommended article has earned in 30 days. If the advertising income of the article itself is higher than or equal to 100 yuan, Baijiahao will no longer provide subsidies.

5. Fans must show up

Original creators with ≥1,000 fans and V certification can enjoy the fan bonus. When the author who obtains this right publishes content on Baijiahao, he can check the "Fans must appear" option at the bottom of the editor, and the content will be displayed in the Baidu APP-Follow channel of all the author's fans, and the author can obtain multiple times the income after the fans read it.

6. Golden Mango Project

The Jinmang Plan is a contract support plan for high-quality authors of Baijiahao. It will invest 2 billion traffic and 300 million subsidies throughout the year to support high-quality original content. Relying on Baidu's AI and big data capabilities, we help authors improve production efficiency and content influence, accumulate millions of fans, and earn millions of dollars in revenue.

4. Penguin

Tencent's content creation platform!

1. Share of income

Penguin accounts that meet the requirements can apply to activate the profit sharing function!

2. High-quality investment promotion

After opening commercial content permissions, Penguin content creators can gain the ability to proactively solicit investment from advertisers, thereby promoting commercial cooperation for their own high-quality content, i.e., high-quality investment. Content creators can use this module to create investment plans. The reviewed investment plans will be shown to advertisers, who will have the opportunity to obtain business opportunities.

5. Big Fish

Alibaba's content creation platform!

1. Big Fish Bonus

The "Big Fish Bonus" consists of the "Big Fish UC Bonus" and the "Big Fish Youku Bonus". If you meet the requirements to participate in the bonus competition of that month, you will automatically participate in the bonus competition of that month! UC and Youku will evaluate your graphic/short video creation ability, content quality, and influence in UC or Youku in the early next month, and provide bonus incentives to some creators with outstanding performance or great progress.

2. U+ Tasks·Product Promotion

This benefit is a sub-benefit of U+ Task·Content E-commerce. You can insert Taobao or Tmall product promotion cards into the content when creating pictures, short videos, and photo albums. When your work brings product transactions to merchants, you will receive product transaction commission income.

3. Tao Piao Piao product promotion (you can earn product transaction commission)

During the process of creating pictures and texts, you can insert Tao Piaopiao product promotion cards in the content. When your work brings product transactions to merchants, you will receive product transaction commission income.

4. UC profit sharing

This item is the benefit on the UC side. You can "join UC profit sharing" when posting pictures, texts or videos. When the content you post is effectively read or played on UC, you can obtain UC profit sharing income (the level of income is positively correlated with factors such as the reading experience, consumption pull, and interactive reach of the content for UC users).

6. WeChat Official Account

1. Advertising monetization

Guangdiantong generally refers to the banner at the end of a WeChat public account. The owners of public accounts who sell advertisements are called traffic owners, and the brand owners are called advertisers. Traffic owners monetization is the most common way for WeChat official accounts to make money. Traffic owners and advertisers open accounts on the official platform of the official account and are charged according to the number of ad clicks.

2. Mutual selection advertising

Public account mutual selection advertising is a delivery model in which advertisers and traffic owners can freely reach advertising cooperation through two-way mutual selection on the WeChat advertising platform. Traffic owners put out quotations and promise to achieve a certain amount of exposure, and it is up to the advertisers to weigh whether they are willing to place the advertisement. The advertising idea will be presented at the end of the official account article and will become part of the article content for a long time.

3. In-text advertising

The specific location of the "in-text ads" is set by the traffic owner when editing the article content. Compared with the bottom ads, not only can the location be set at will, but the presentation form is also richer.

4. Hard advertising

The e-commerce brands that you are familiar with, such as MissFresh, Aixianfeng, TuoTugongshe, etc., basically all release hard advertisements.

5. Soft advertising

For public accounts with content creation capabilities, most of the advertisements they receive are of a soft-article nature, which requires in-depth communication between Party A and Party B before they can be implemented. Compared with hard advertising, soft articles have very high requirements on article quality. The subtlety lies in combining product selling points with informative content, smoothly transitioning to the product while telling a story, without harming users, and with high stickiness, so the promotion effect is good.

6. Paid courses

There are many platforms on the market, such as: Weku, Qianliao, Lizhi Micro Class, Zhihu Live, Himalaya FM, etc. Course monetization is very suitable for public accounts with strong professionalism. Currently there are micro-course models and column charging models.

7. Fans’ appreciation

WeChat public accounts, Jianshu, Weibo headline article rewards, and Zhihu column article appreciation are all platforms where you can get appreciation.

8. Fans pay for social groups and circles

A paid community is a WeChat group that requires payment to enter, which is a concept that everyone is familiar with. The owner of the account selects high-quality fan users to become members through paid communities, and focuses on serving these high-quality users.

9. IP Monetization

The highest level of content creation is to incubate an IP and take the IP expansion route, including but not limited to publishing, adaptation, professional consulting and other forms. The following focuses on book writing.

10. Content e-commerce

If Taobao and JD.com are transaction e-commerce, then another e-commerce model - content e-commerce is also beginning to rise in a blowout manner. More and more people are making purchases while reading posts, public account articles, and watching videos.

11. E-commerce service

Unlike content e-commerce that sells goods, service e-commerce sells a service. Its official account is more of an APP that carries the functions of an app, and most of them are in the form of service accounts, such as Didi Chuxing and Xiaozhu Short-term Rental.

7. Other platforms

The monetization methods of NetEase, Yidianhao, Kuaichuanhao, Weibo, Zhihu, Jianshu, etc., referring to the rights monetization rules in them, are almost the same. Due to limited time, we will only talk about several mainstream platforms today, and we will add more when we have time!

If you want to know more about self-media knowledge, you can check out my other articles!

Author: The Making of a Workplace Master

Source: The Making of a Workplace Master