Creators and communities can build a sustainable economy

Each platform broadcasting content (videos, pictures, podcasts, music,…) offers a different type of remuneration to creators: advertising, paywall, unit purchase, sponsoring, product placements, donations, revenue sharing, etc… Unfortunately, those different incomes sources are not enough for many creators who need new ways to monetize their content.

As we are entering a new era of deep interactivity, the community itself might be the key to the creator economy’s issue.

Communities VS Audiences

First, the communities we are referring to differ from the audiences.

A group discussing and sharing values is considered a community. Everyone in this group participates and exchanges, not only with each other but with the creator too! (Of course, there are other types of interactive communities outside the creator economy: leaderless, Peer to Peer, such as family groups or work groups). A creator’s community needs more than consuming content, it needs connexion as it is emotionally linked to the creator.

On the contrary, an audience is passive. It’s a group of people who are listening or viewing, like followers. It’s often a one-way relationship between the creator and the audience. But a part of an audience can be converted into a community.

So the community is much more committed to the creator than the audience.

1000 true fans can be worth a million followers

We already know that communities are powerful in the creator industry today.

First, it’s precious because it can be difficult to gather. Once gathered, creators must regularly share fresh content to preserve their community.

Also, as a creator, once you succeed to keep around a strong group of faithful people, you don’t need to invest in marketing at all. All you need is to preserve it and try to make it grow through your content.

Incomes are often directly linked to the number of fans (as the referral). The bigger your fanbase is, the more you earn. Of course, this will always be a monetizing principle.

But soon, there will be new ways to monetize. More flexible and decentralized ways, not only depending on the number of fans but linked to their engagement.

It’s already true that you can earn more with a small engaged group than with a larger group of less committed people. Kevin Kelly was already talking about it in his essay in 2008, saying you only need 1000 true fans to be successful.

However, the web3 technologies will enable deeper interactions between creators and their communities, and allow the development of much more sustainable, stronger and rewarding communities.

For now, communities are directly rewarding creators with attention rather than money. Thanks to web3, attention will become money. Creators will then monetize easily and earn even more.

Communities are the future of the creator economy

How can we build a sustainable economy with creators and communities?

The word and the concept of “community” are not new. People sharing the same values have always gathered into communities. But since the Internet exists, people don’t need to be physically together! That was a real revolution.

Today, creating a community might be the same process for creators in web2 or web3. But in web3, the power of communities is taking a deeper dimension. Today, creators are more set into a dynamic of publishing on platforms rather than sharing their work directly with their community. Indeed, aggregators are not often structured to interact.

In web2:

• you can still succeed with a big marketing campaign if you don’t own a community, you can still buy a reputation.
• platforms own the contents, and communities are controlled by administrators. We don’t possess anything, we have no control over our data and we can’t transfer it. For instance, when a creator is leaving someplace, they risk losing their whole community.

Tomorrow in web3:

• you will earn your reputation depending on what you offer to your fans. The communities will be actively responsible for the content’s success. They will be able to own, invest, and be rewarded. There will be no problem of “profit only” because people will not only create opportunities together and all contribute to the same success, they will still share passions and insights.
• creators will own their content and the communities will own the ecosystems. We will own our data, we will be able to monetize it and we won’t have to trust any third parties. As everything is decentralized, communities will not be contained and will be able to move anywhere.

Web3 is a better version of web2, relying on trust and property, owned by people.

“Web3 is slowly but surely becoming a bigger dot on the horizon, paving the way for an internet era that’s governed by the collective”

Media Monks.

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