Phil Ranta, a veteran executive in the creator industry, says he made $1.21 from 507 impressions on a Facebook ad that ran alongside his post about his son’s birthday.
That figure may be teeny tiny next to the millions raked in by top creators—but it’s still important because it shows that “Facebook micro-creator monetization has begun,” Ranta said in a LinkedIn post.
Facebook has been paying content creators through various monetization channels since 2017, and those channels have had equally various eligibility requirements. Some of them, like the gaming-focused Level Up program, are pure numbers: to join that, creators must have at least 100 followers and have streamed at least four hours of gaming content in the two weeks before applying. But many, like Facebook’s performance bonuses and Ads on Facebook Reels, are invite-only, so creators are unable to DIY their way into those programs.
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Facebook is in the middle of merging all its monetization channels into one unified initiative called Facebook Content Monetization. The beta of that, which is also invite-only right now, allows creators to profit from things like in-stream ad spots on Facebook, Reels ads, and performance-based payouts without needing to qualify separately for each revenue stream.
What Ranta referred to as “micro-creator monetization” is actually in-stream ads being expanded to users who have turned on ProMode for Profile on their accounts, a Facebook spokesperson tells Tubefilter.
Any Facebook user can turn on ProMode for Profile, but turning it on doesn’t guarantee they qualify for monetization the way Ranta does. A Facebook spokesperson tells Tubefilter ProMode for Profile is “for creators and public figures,” and that people who toggle it on get “access to insights on how their content is performing, tools for managing their presence, distribution beyond their immediate network, and monetization if eligible.”
For now, the eligibility requirements for monetization are not being made public, she added.
ProMode does seem aimed at smaller creators, as Ranta said, because Facebook’s goal is to allow people who haven’t set up separate fan Pages to get additional analytics from and monetize their existing Facebook family-and-friends accounts. (A post on Facebook’s Business Help Center confirms ProMode contains features that were previously only available on Pages.) But, again, it’s not exactly clear what Facebook’s line here is. When do people who’ve turned on ProMode cross the threshold and go from regular person to “micro-creator” who’s eligible to earn money by posting?
In Ranta’s case, he’s well-known from his work in the creator economy at Fullscreen, Studio71, and now Fixated. But perhaps crucially, considering the topic at hand, he spent two years as Facebook’s Head of Gaming Creators. His Facebook account has 2,800 followers.
In his LinkedIn post, he shows a popup he got from Facebook telling him “You’re eligible! Sign up for creator monetization.”
“Two clicks later (confirming payout account and an acceptance) and I was in,” he wrote. Once he accepted, ads ran alongside his content, with the top earner by engagement being that text + photo post he wrote about his son’s birthday party.
“This is huge. I mean, not for me. I’m not monetizing my kid’s pics at a dollar a pop for a living. But imagine if this rolls out widely and everyone on the platform got a few bucks per day for posting. That’s a new level of dopamine hit that was previously only reserved for social stars.”
“Now the bad part: there are few details on how this works posted,” he went on. “Are my Stories monetized? My pages? Does this still run through Business Manager? Lots I don’t know. But this is promising.”
There’s lots we don’t know, too. But Facebook’s spokesperson says over 100 million people are currently using ProMode, which means there are a lot of potential “micro-creators” out there making money by running ads against regular Facebook posts about their lives. (It’s also worth noting LinkedIn has a similar “creator mode,” so people are monetizing over there, too–including Ranta.)
While it seems like ProMode monetization still requires some level of renown to join, Facebook potentially making monetization available for smaller and/or starting creators is right in line with what we’re seeing from other platforms. TikTok in particular is dishing out affiliate marketing earnings to creators with as few as 1,000 followers, turning everyday people into TikTok Shop tycoons.
