How to monetize your content

I’ve had some amazing experiences connecting to young students and entrepreneurs over the past weeks and several of them asked me this question: How do you monetize your content?

The very short answer is: You probably can’t.

At least not directly.

But lots of valuable revenue can come from content indirectly and I’m living proof of that. Let’s have a content monetization throw-down today.

The challenge of direct

Here are all the ways I can think of that you can directly monetize online content — meaning that you create something in writing, video, audio, or visually (like Instagram), and you are paid directly for that content.

• Paid subscription
• Advertising impressions
• Affiliate links
• Gated content community
• Patreon donations
• Earning a share of creator fund contributions through a platform like Substack, Medium, or TikTok

Monetizing in these ways is possible, especially if your name is Malcolm Gladwell or Brené Brown. Generally speaking, you have to be a wildly successful celebrity with hundreds of thousands, or even millions, of followers to make serious money directly from your content.