London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Wednesday, Jul 23, 2025

Social media platforms are going to war for online talent

Social media platforms are going to war for online talent

When Katerina Horwitz started out as a social media influencer in 2016, she didn't earn much money beyond a handful of sponsored posts.
A few years later, Horwitz and her husband Yinon quit their day jobs, started a joint Instagram account and got creative with monetizing their 400,000 followers, including selling their own photo filters and building an app that offers editing templates for Instagram Stories.

But recently they've found a simpler revenue stream: earning money directly from social media companies. The couple received a nearly $30,000 payout from Snapchat from just one video they posted to the platform's short-form video hub, Spotlight. They've also earned smaller sums from TikTok for being part of its creator fund, which pays social media influencers based on their number of video views.

"We love creating, but of course we're going to go to the platform that pays us the most," Horwitz told CNN Business.

Creators are the lifeblood of any social media platform, driving trends and engagement and building a loyal community. But increasingly, social media companies seem to be waking up to the reality Horwitz described: Creators may join a platform to build an audience, but ultimately the platform has to pay up for them to stick around. In recent months, major tech companies have stepped up to try to do just that, rolling out more and more ways for creators to make money on their platforms, both from ad revenue on their content and direct handouts.

Snapchat is paying out a total of $1 million a day to those users who make the most entertaining videos for its TikTok rival Spotlight. TikTok launched a $200 million creator fund last year, which promises to reach hundreds of thousands of creators with plans for it to grow to $1 billion over the next three years.

Twitter recently announced it's exploring the possibility of users becoming paid subscribers to their favorite Twitter accounts. And on Sunday, the audio-focused app Clubhouse announced an accelerator program aimed at helping aspiring creators build and monetize an audience.

These announcements reflect both the value of top content creators to the platforms and the fact that there have never been more avenues for internet personalities to make money directly.

"Social media is a war right now," said Ben Ricciardi, founder of influencer marketing agency Times10. "Twitter is trying to figure out ways to bring back larger and larger audiences. Snap is really incentivizing creators to try to come back to the platform or spend more time on the platform."

Even the biggest social networks -- Facebook and Facebook-owned Instagram, with more than a billion monthly active users each -- now find themselves competing for users and talent with newer services like TikTok, he said.

Last week, Facebook announced social media stars can now earn revenue from all types of videos, including those as short as one minute long, and that it's testing new monetizeable sticker ads in Stories. In recent years, the company has rolled out other moneymaking abilities for creators, including earning revenue from ads running on their videos, fan subscriptions that offer a monthly reoccurring payment and the ability for followers to send virtual "Stars" to their favorite creators to show support.

From 2019 to 2020, the number of content creators earning the equivalent of $10,000 per month grew 88% and creators earning $1,000 per month grew 94% on Facebook, according to the company. Facebook declined to provide precise figures on how many creators are earning those monthly amounts.

After resisting paying influencers directly for a long time, Instagram announced similar moves to Facebook last year, offering monetizeable ads in its long-form IGTV video feature and digital badges that fans can buy through Instagram Live.

Yoav Arnstein, director of product management at Facebook, told CNN Business that creators are "absolutely critical" to social media platforms. "A lot of the innovation around creativity and creation of content will come from creators," he said.

Collectively, these moves from the big social platforms mark a major shift in how they approach creators. With the exception of YouTube, which has long allowed influencers to earn money from ads, among other revenue streams, creators have had to hustle on their own to make money through independent brand deals, merchandise, podcasts and other outside-the-box methods.

"So many platforms didn't want to open up monetization to creators because they don't want to admit that the creators are the business drivers," said Karyn Spencer, CMO of influencer marketing platform Whalar. "Now in 2021, we're finally at the point where every platform knows, in order to survive, the talent has to be paid."

For influencers, it feels like a shift, too. Horwitz said for years other people have reached out to her and her husband asking how to make money as influencers.

"It was just not very clear, you had to be your own businessman, and create a website or a product or something and be so creative," she said. "But now all the platforms are making it just very clear: make good content, get views and you get paid."
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
US Treasury Secretary Calls for Institutional Review of Federal Reserve Amid AI‑Driven Growth Expectations
UK Government Considers Dropping Demand for Apple Encryption Backdoor
Severe Flooding in South Korea Claims Lives Amid Ongoing Rescue Operations
Japanese Man Discovers Family Connection Through DNA Testing After Decades of Separation
Russia Signals Openness to Ukraine Peace Talks Amid Escalating Drone Warfare
Switzerland Implements Ban on Mammography Screening
Japanese Prime Minister Vows to Stay After Coalition Loses Upper House Majority
Pogacar Extends Dominance with Stage Fifteen Triumph at Tour de France
CEO Resigns Amid Controversy Over Relationship with HR Executive
Man Dies After Being Pulled Into MRI Machine Due to Metal Chain in New York Clinic
NVIDIA Achieves $4 Trillion Valuation Amid AI Demand
US Revokes Visas of Brazilian Corrupted Judges Amid Fake Bolsonaro Investigation
U.S. Congress Approves Rescissions Act Cutting Federal Funding for NPR and PBS
North Korea Restricts Foreign Tourist Access to New Seaside Resort
Brazil's Supreme Court Imposes Radical Restrictions on Former President Bolsonaro
Centrist Criticism of von der Leyen Resurfaces as she Survives EU Confidence Vote
Judge Criticizes DOJ Over Secrecy in Dropping Charges Against Gang Leader
Apple Closes $16.5 Billion Tax Dispute With Ireland
Von der Leyen Faces Setback Over €2 Trillion EU Budget Proposal
UK and Germany Collaborate on Global Military Equipment Sales
Trump Plans Over 10% Tariffs on African and Caribbean Nations
Flying Taxi CEO Reclaims Billionaire Status After Stock Surge
Epstein Files Deepen Republican Party Divide
Zuckerberg Faces $8 Billion Privacy Lawsuit From Meta Shareholders
FIFA Pressured to Rethink World Cup Calendar Due to Climate Change
SpaceX Nears $400 Billion Valuation With New Share Sale
Microsoft, US Lab to Use AI for Faster Nuclear Plant Licensing
Trump Walks Back Talk of Firing Fed Chair Jerome Powell
Zelensky Reshuffles Cabinet to Win Support at Home and in Washington
"Can You Hit Moscow?" Trump Asked Zelensky To Make Putin "Feel The Pain"
Irish Tech Worker Detained 100 days by US Authorities for Overstaying Visa
Dimon Warns on Fed Independence as Trump Administration Eyes Powell’s Succession
Church of England Removes 1991 Sexuality Guidelines from Clergy Selection
Superman Franchise Achieves Success with Latest Release
Hungary's Viktor Orban Rejects Agreements on Illegal Migration
Jeff Bezos Considers Purchasing Condé Nast as a Wedding Gift
Ghislaine Maxwell Says She’s Ready to Testify Before Congress on Epstein’s Criminal Empire
Bal des Pompiers: A Celebration of Community and Firefighter Culture in France
FBI Chief Kash Patel Denies Resignation Speculations Amid Epstein List Controversy
Air India Pilot’s Mental Health Records Under Scrutiny
Google Secures Windsurf AI Coding Team in $2.4 Billion Licence Deal
Jamie Dimon Warns Europe Is Losing Global Competitiveness and Flags Market Complacency
South African Police Minister Suspended Amid Organised Crime Allegations
Nvidia CEO Claims Chinese Military Reluctance to Use US AI Technology
Hong Kong Advances Digital Asset Strategy to Address Economic Challenges
Australia Rules Out Pre‑commitment of Troops, Reinforces Defence Posture Amid US‑China Tensions
Martha Wells Says Humanity Still Far from True Artificial Intelligence
Nvidia Becomes World’s First Four‑Trillion‑Dollar Company Amid AI Boom
U.S. Resumes Deportations to Third Countries After Supreme Court Ruling
Excavation Begins at Site of Mass Grave for Children at Former Irish Institution
×