Earlier this month, Facebook said that it is testing how users can make money through Stories, which is short user-generated photo or video collections.
The platform is testing to place advertisements which will look like stickers in Stories and users will receive a cut from the revenue through placement of the ads.
While the platform is still testing the story sticker feature, experts think that this feature will increase income of Indian creators significantly.
According to Aarushi Sethi, Director, Pollen, influencer, creator and talent agency, adding of stickers in stories will help Indian creators premiumize both organic and paid content which could potentially increase their annual revenue by 20 to 30 percent.
She pointed out that Facebook creators who earned around $10,000 per month saw 88 percent growth in their earnings last year as compared to 2019, according to a recent global survey by Facebook. "A similar trend is also seen in India where more creators are getting paid well for their work. Stickers in Stories will help creators drive engagement a step further in the user journey," she added.
Talking about the creator community on Facebook in India, Sethi said that the platform has over 320 million users in India and nearly a third of its users are either watching or posting Stories every day. "Almost all creators use stories in their daily content to keep their audiences engaged."
This is why she thinks that stickers in Stories will encourage creators to not only create content that strongly resonates with their audience, but also get them to increase the frequency of their content to get audiences to interact more, and build credibility.
Ask Sethi whether ads in the form of stickers in Stories will impact engagement, she said that audiences are aware when they are seeing a paid piece of content.
"Facebook’s own survey attests to the fact that 38 percent of people mentioned talking about a product or a service to someone after viewing them on Stories and 34 percent said that they went to look for it in a store," she added.
While stickers in Stories is still in testing phase, Sethi pointed out ways through which creators on Facebook can make money by creating Stories.
"Currently, there are two routes to monetize stories. One is by doing branded stories either with or without swipe up link for audiences to explore more or buy the product. For the second way, there exists an affiliate model by which a content creator gets assigned a customized referral code, and based on how many of their followers buy the product using this code, the creators earn an affiliate fee."
