facebook money – Alan Spicer – YouTube Certified Expert

Like most social media platforms, Facebook is increasingly looking for ways to provide you with everything you might need from social media on their website. This isn’t an altruistic goal, of course; Facebook wants people to stay on their site as much as possible because it means more money for them! Still, that doesn’t mean you can’t take advantage of the incentives they are dangling to keep you there.

Facebook Live is one such incentive; a live streaming option that broadcasts straight out to Facebook, and can be used for anything from casual chats with friends, to live performances and even business talks. But, as useful as it can be, can you make money on Facebook Live?

The answer is, of course, yes. You can make money on Facebook Live, and in this article, we’re going to take a close look at how you can make money on Facebook Live.

What is Facebook Live?

As mentioned above, Facebook Live is Facebook’s in-platform video streaming function. It allows users to start streaming video to their friends, followers, subscribers, and even total strangers on the platform with, in many cases, a single click. Indeed, if you are just streaming yourself in selfie mode, there would be no more setup required than it takes to get ready for a video call, and it’s as simple as that everyday task, as well.

While users have found a myriad of ways to use Facebook Live, it is designed for a personal, almost intimate experience. Consider a person of note—a celebrity or world-leading expert in a particular field, even just a regular person with a lot of friends. The sort of experience Facebook seems to have in mind is a person like that getting on video, live, and casually chatting to their fans, followers, and interested parties, answering questions from the chat, and generally “holding court”.

The video created during a Facebook Live—including the real-time chat—remains visible on that person’s Facebook page (unless they decide to take it down) and is eligible to show up in other people’s feeds when relevant.

Still unsure why you might want to use Facebook Live? Here are some common reasons;

Holding Q&As

One of the most common ways to use Facebook Live for interactive purposes is to hold a questions and answers session with your followers. These live streams typically just consist of the person in the video answering questions from fans. Sometimes they will get those questions directly from the chat in real-time, sometimes they will have polled their followers beforehand. It could even be a mix of the two.

Depending on the type of person doing the stream, the questions could be of a personal nature, such as would be the case for a celebrity whom fans just want to know more about, or they could be more professional, like asking a technology journalist about upcoming stories.

Giving Insight and/or Insider Information

On a related note to the hypothetical journalist above, a professional giving interested viewers an inside look at something they would not normally get to see is another good use for Facebook Live.

Some examples of this include an actor giving their viewers a glimpse behind the scenes of the set they’re working on, or a sound technician showing the chaos backstage at a gig they are setting up. Things like this will nearly always have an audience because there will always be someone interested, and it’s not something they can easily just go off and experience themselves.

Connecting With Your Audience

Facebook Lives don’t have to be offering any specific information to their viewers to have value to them. Personal blogs and vlogs have always been popular for the right people for a reason, and the same applies here. If you are popular enough that people want to know about you, they will welcome any insight into your life.

What makes this different from a Q&A Facebook Live is you don’t necessarily have to be interacting with the audience (though you certainly can). You could just be giving a bit of an update on your life, having a rant, or dropping stream-of-consciousness chatter on your viewers.

It’s worth noting that just turning the camera on with no plan and no real substance to offer is something that only really works for people with an existing fanbase. And we stress fanbase here because fans are not necessarily the same as followers. Fans will be happy to get a glimpse into your life, but people who follow you because you share industry-specific news aren’t likely to care what you’re having for dinner.

Sharing Industry-Related News

If you are a journalist (or something similar like a YouTuber who covers industry news), or a business, you could also use Facebook Live to break news, give updates, talk about new developments, and generally anything related to your field of expertise.

One example of this might be a sci-fi YouTuber going live from Comic-Con, giving a glimpse of proceedings to the thousands of people who wanted to go but couldn’t make it for whatever reason.

Making Money With Facebook Live

Now that we know what Facebook Live is and what you might use it for, how do we make money from it? Fortunately, Facebook has systems in place to help you do that very thing. And, as we’ll touch on shortly, there are always other ways to monetise your content, even if it means not using the official Facebook channels for monetisation.

In-Stream Ads

Perhaps the most familiar form of monetising video content, Facebook’s in-stream ads allows streamers to run ads during their video content, earning money based on the number of views and interactions those ads get.

Facebook gives you a good degree of control (if you want it) over how these ads are displayed. For example, you can run pre-roll ads that show an ad between 5 and 15 seconds long before showing the stream. You can also opt for mid-roll ads, which temporarily take over the main feed but keeps your live stream playing in a floating window. It is also possible to choose banner ads, which show up below your video (on mobile) and above chat.

In each case, Facebook aims to serve ads with as little disruption to the viewing experience as possible.

Stars

Facebook offers a way for viewers to tip live streamers using “Stars”, which are comparable to “bits” on Twitch. Viewers buy stars and can then send them to the live streamer. As the streamer, you earn one cent for every star you receive. Viewers can send a custom amount of stars, but they are encouraged to choose from a preset selection including 50, 100, 200, all the way up to 2,000.

Stars allow Facebook to make money also, in a very similar way to how currency exchange companies make money. While live streamers will earn one cent per star received, it costs viewers more than that to buy the stars, and that is where Facebook’s profit margin comes from.

Promotional Content

Making money through Facebook Live does not necessarily mean you have to use Facebook’s built-in systems. If you have things to promote—products, courses, live appearances (such as concerts)—you can use Facebook Live as a way to build interest, drive traffic, and generally raise awareness.

Granted, this is a much less direct way of making money with Facebook Live, and one that can be hard to track the success of, but it’s certainly an effective use of the service.

Brand Deals and Sponsorship

Another method of making money with Facebook Live that doesn’t involve Facebook itself is by striking up deals with brands. Essentially, you will get paid directly from a person or company to include certain content in your live streams. This content could be a straight-up ad, a review of a product, a how-to session, or anything really that raises awareness of the thing you’re being paid to talk about.

Of course, you will need to get into a position to make these kinds of deals before being able to take advantage of them. Having a large audience is usually enough, but content creators with smaller audiences can still get brand deals if they have a focused niche with an engaged audience.

Final Thoughts

These days, it’s possible to make money using just about any content creation platform on the Internet, regardless of whether that platform has any systems in place to make it easier for you. As it turns out, Facebook Live does have systems in place that allow you to make money.

But, like anything else, you need to get into a position to take advantage of these systems (or any other method of generating revenue) before you can benefit. You will need to grow an audience, build a reputation, and become someone who people are willing to watch when they go live. What that means for you specifically will depend on what your business is, but it will almost certainly require a bit of patience.

The prevalence of social media in our lives has opened many doors to success that would scarcely have been dreamed of in the past. And, by “the past”, we could be talking as recently as fifteen years ago. But, while there is an abundance of success stories from platforms like YouTube and Instagram, Facebook rarely is rarely brought up in this regard.

Sure, Facebook is an important tool in getting success on other platforms—you have to promote those YouTube videos somewhere, after all—but what about a more direct approach? Can you make money on Facebook?

The short answer is yes. There are several ways to make money through Facebook, ranging from “a little extra cash” to “this is my job now!”. In this post, we’re going to outline a number of ways in which you can start earning cash through Facebook. So let’s dive in!

How to Make Money on Facebook

With well over two billion users and a well-established advertising platform, there is certainly plenty of money floating around Facebook to be shared. Here are nine ways for you to get your hands on some of it.

Become an Influencer

We’re starting here because this is probably one of the most common ways in which people want to start making money online these days—the influencer route. Making content for an army of fans and making money from that content is the present-day version of being a celebrity, though much more attainable than being the next Tom Cruise or Lady Gaga.

It’s not nearly as well advertised as things like Facebook’s advertising platform, but Facebook does have a system in place for content creators to make money directly, and it comes in three parts.

Brand Collaborations

Brand Collabs Manager is Facebook’s system for bringing together popular content creators and brands in a managed environment where everyone can feel safe from… well, safe from being ripped off.

Essentially, Facebook ensures the brand is getting a legitimate content creator with an active audience while making sure the content creator gets paid for their collaboration efforts.

In order to qualify for this, you need to have at least 1,000 fans on your page and at least one of the following; 15,000 post engagements or 180,000 minutes watch time over the last sixty days.

That being said, even if you don’t qualify for Facebook’s system, you can always make brand deals directly with brands if you have the audience and negotiation skills.

In-Stream Ads

Much like YouTube, if you are creating video content on Facebook and you are seeing high enough levels of engagement, you can benefit from in-stream ads, earning you a small amount of cash per impression or click.

The criteria for monetising your content in this way is to have a fan or business page with at least 10,000 followers, at least 600,000 watch-minutes across live, on-demand, and replayed videos, five on-demand or previously videos published, and you must meet their policy guidelines.

Fan Subscriptions

Fan subscriptions are essentially Facebook’s answer to services like Patreon, and other platform’s solutions like YouTube Memberships. The criteria for this is a little simpler than the other options; you need to have at least 10,000 followers and at least 250 returning weekly viewers.

Once you meet those criteria, your fans can choose to pay your a regular fee for exclusive content.

Promote Your Services or Business on Facebook

Moving on to more indirect ways of making money through Facebook, if you have a service to offer or a business you are running, Facebook is an excellent platform for advertising your wares.

Like any good advertising platform, Facebook puts a lot of effort into making it so you can get your ads in front of exactly the right kind of people because paying to show an ad to someone who is not interested in what you are offering is a waste of money. Their rates are competitive compared to alternatives like Google Adsense, and you can generate a lot of traffic using this method.

Crowdsource Your Blog

If you run a blog—or you are thinking of starting one—Facebook can be an invaluable resource for researching your posts. Now, we’re not suggesting you start ripping posts directly off of Facebook and claiming them as your own. That would be wrong.

Facebook is full of groups put together with specific purposes in mind, and those groups are populated by people who are ready and willing to give their opinions and advice. If you are a little stumped for ideas, you can always ask questions in a relevant Facebook group. As long as the group is active and has plenty of members, you’re practically guaranteed to get answers.

Sell Things on Facebook Market

If you’re more interested in selling goods—or even if you just want to have a clearout of some of your old stuff—Facebook Marketplace is an effective way to do so.

Facebook Marketplace is heavily location-based, making it easier to find things that are local to you. This lends itself well to sellers who are perhaps looking to move on something like furniture they no longer need, or electronics they have outgrown. If you are running a business, it can also be a good way to build a local customers-base.

Become a Facebook Marketplace Re-Seller

Facebook Marketplace works both ways, of course, and you can buy just as easily as you can sell. You will often find things cheaper on this platform because of the local nature. Sellers have more of a “garage sale” (or car boot sale if you’re in the UK) attitude towards their items.

This presents an opportunity for someone interested in selling items because you can often find things on Facebook cheaper than those same items would be on something like eBay, or Amazon. You can then buy those cheaper items from Facebook Marketplace and sell them on platforms like eBay and net yourself a little profit!

Find Bugs

The technology behind Facebook is obviously critical to the success of the platform. And, with so many people’s data being at stake, Facebook knows how bad something like a data breach or fatal error could be for business. For this reason, Facebook has a “bug bounty”, where they essentially offer a reward for users who can find problems with the platform.

You will need some technical expertise for this—we’re talking security flaws and other vulnerabilities in Facebook’s systems, not simply reporting a link not working. The above link contains all the details about what Facebook considers a legitimate vulnerability, but if you find one, the minimum reward is $500!

Become a Social Media Manager

If you have a flair for social media—and, of course, your talents extend to Facebook—you could market yourself as a social media manager. Companies, and even individuals, are increasingly willing to pay people to take care of their social media presence for them, growing audiences and keeping them out of trouble. If this is something you would be good at, Facebook presents a huge opportunity to make money. And you wouldn’t be limited to just one client in this line of work.

Create a Popular Facebook Group

If you have an area of expertise—whether it be a professional thing or an area of deep interest on an enthusiast level—you could start a Facebook group centred around that subject matter.

This will require plenty of active participation from you, sharing your expertise and encouraging others to do the same. Once the group has reached substantial numbers, it can be a powerful tool for promoting things. And you, as the founder and established expert of the group, will be in a prime position to take advantage of that.

Become an Expert

Of course, you don’t need to create a group to establish yourself as an expert in something on Facebook. Posting helpful content on your area of expertise will likely garner interest from those people who seek that knowledge, and that can be parlayed into something more profitable.

It could simply be a way to funnel traffic from Facebook to your website or business, but it could also be the start of something. For example, you could start out answering questions on Facebook, and then move onto a podcast or YouTube channel with your already-established user-base.

Final Thoughts

Like all platforms on the Internet, Facebook is an invaluable tool for making money. And, like most platforms, there are several ways to go about making that money. The trick is finding the method that suits you the most.

For example, if you do not like dealing with people directly—and especially if you are not a fan of negotiation—you should probably steer clear of selling things through Facebook Marketplace. Similarly, if you do not have expertise in developing online systems like Facebook, you probably shouldn’t put much hope in the Facebook Bounty program.

And, most importantly, remember that nothing happens overnight. With a few very lucky exceptions, Facebook success takes time and effort, so don’t be discouraged if you’re not rolling in money by the end of your first month!