Starting in June this year, content creators in Kenya will have the opportunity to monetize their content on Meta’s platforms, Facebook and Instagram. This initiative follows successful negotiations between Kenyan President William Ruto and Meta, aimed at enabling Kenyan creators to earn revenue similar to their counterparts on platforms like YouTube and X.
The announcement came from Meta’s President of Global Affairs, Nick Clegg, after a meeting at State House Nairobi with President Ruto. Clegg confirmed, “Kenyan content creators who meet our eligibility criteria will soon be able to generate income from their content on Facebook and Instagram, with monetization beginning in June.”
President Ruto welcomed the development, highlighting its potential to unlock new economic opportunities for Kenya’s youthful demographic. Furthermore, he urged Meta to integrate the monetization feature with M-Pesa, Kenya’s widely used mobile payment system, to streamline the revenue collection process for creators. This move by Meta and the Kenyan government marks a significant step forward in supporting the digital economy and content creation industry in the country.
This move builds on Meta’s February 2022 announcement that content creators could start generating income from Facebook Reels in 20 sub-Saharan African countries. The initial list of participating countries featured South Africa, Seychelles, Senegal, Rwanda, Nigeria, Kenya, Guinea, Ghana, Cape Verde, Cameroon, and Burkina Faso, marking a significant step towards monetizing creative content in the region.
Understanding How Facebook & Instagram Pay Creators in Kenya.
To be eligible for the program, creators must have a minimum of 5,000 followers on their personal Facebook profile or 10,000 followers on a Facebook page. Additionally, they need to have posted at least five live videos on their profile or three on their page.
For video content on a Facebook profile, there must be a minimum of 60,000 total minutes viewed in the last 60 days from organic followers. For a page, the video content must have reached 600,000 viewed minutes within the same timeframe.
Monetization tools available to content creators include in-stream ads, which are advertisements (either image or video format) that appear before, during, or after the creator’s video content. These ads provide an unobtrusive way for advertisers to reach their audience, allowing viewers to engage with content seamlessly. Currently, videos containing multiple languages are ineligible for monetization.
Industry reports indicate that Facebook compensates content creators approximately $8 to $20 for every 1,000 views their content receives. Additionally, the average Cost Per Mile (CPM), which is the cost per 1,000 impressions, tends to be around $10 in most African countries.
It’s noteworthy that Facebook initiated the rollout of Ad Breaks in Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, and South Africa back in 2019, following its introduction in countries like Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, New Zealand, Spain, the UK, and the US the previous year.
