Instagram is a popular social media platform with many monetization techniques as well as requirements but we will focus on IGTV monetization requirements. This feature on Instagram was launched in 2018 and has since served as a brilliant avenue for content marketing. It allows creators on the platform to interact with their audience via long-form video content.
While this was ongoing, the feature provided little or no monetary rewards directly from Instagram. This changed in 2020 when the platform announced its IGTV ads as well as IGTV monetization. This offered monetization of the feature to creators through in-stream ad placements. This effectively placed the Instagram platform in direct competition with Facebook and YouTube in terms of long-form video content sharing and marketing.
Creators can now get their accounts approved for the program and start using their IGTV content as an additional source of revenue. In this article, I will discuss extensively IGTV monetization requirements.
IGTV Monetization
IGTV monetization feature lets content creators on Instagram earn money by serving short ads along with their IGTV content. This feature is not automatically active and creators will have to agree to follow the Partner Program Monetization Policies to use it.
Instagram in a statement said, “Ads will appear when an audience clicks to watch an IGTV video from the preview button in their feed. They will be mobile-optimized, vertical videos and last up to 15 seconds long”. The IGTV monetization simply provides monetary rewards for Instagram’s vertical long-form video option.
IGTV videos usually run several minutes or up to an hour long and are present on the platform as long as creators want them to be. Creators can also direct the audience to such content from a post in their feed or a Story. Also, the audience can access IGTV videos from within the Instagram app, or they can download the separate IGTV app if they wish. Keep in mind that this feature requires you to meet the IGTV monetization requirement before profiting from it.
Revenue-Sharing Terms
We know the next question on many creators’ lips is “what exactly will the revenue sharing look like”. Instagram gave an insight into this during an interview with The Verge, where it revealed that the platform’s IGTV ads will have a 55/45 revenue-sharing split. This means creators will effectively earn 55% while Instagram gets to keep the remaining 45% to itself. Sound familiar right! Yes, that’s because it’s identical to YouTube’s sharing formula too.
Regardless of the type of content you create, the revenue formula stands for all content creators who wish to monetize their IGTV content. While this is true, it’s important to note that different types of content will attract different levels of views, which will in turn determine how much you exactly earn through this method.
Also, earning is dependent on what advertisers are will to pay for each view. So essential, the niche in which an ad is and how competitive the niche is will determine advertisers’ purchasing power.
IGTV Monetization Requirement
While there has been much awareness of the introduction of the IGTV monetization feature, its eligibility requirements are still not forthcoming. This can be due to the platform’s desire to want to harmonize such requirements. But one thing is certain, if you want to include ads on your IGTV content, then you need to abide by Partner Monetization Policies.
And since Facebook is the parent company of Instagram, it’s easy to presume that its requirement will be similar to Facebook’s policies. So essentially, these policies will require users to follow community standards, share authentic content, monetize authentic engagement, and follow their payment and page terms.
Pending the full disclosure of the eligibility terms, content creators can check if their account is eligible for IGTV monetization. Simply open the Instagram Partner Program dashboard and select IGTV Ads. If an account is eligible, a message on the screen will say, “You’re Eligible to Monetize Your IGTV Videos”. If the message doesn’t appear on the screen that means such an account hasn’t yet met Instagram’s requirements for the program. Here are some of the most popular requirements from Facebook which creators have to satisfy:
- Account must have more than 10,000 followers.
- They need to make videos that are more than three minutes long AND that have over 30,000 one-minute views over the previous two months.
- Meet Facebook’s monetization eligibility standards.
There is a lot of reason creators will want to take advantage of this monetization feature. The growth of Instagram over the years has been astronomical as well as its popularity. This means businesses and influencers can leverage the platform easy to create extra earnings for them.
Also, the rise in long-form video content marketing on other platforms has also contributed to Instagram’s decision to adopt it. And with over 200 million users visiting at least one business profile each day, it is sure to become a success on Instagram. IGTV is one of the newer options on the platform for longer-form video content.
Other IGTV Monetization Requirement
Asides from the aforementioned IGTV monetization requirement, Instagram stipulates other regulations in tandem with its IGTV Ads. Most of these can be found on its help page but we will provide excerpts of these:
- Our use of the IGTV Ads Feature is subject to, and you agree to comply with: (a) Instagram Partner Monetization Policies, and (b) Instagram Content Monetization Policies; and (c) IG Creator Incentive Terms.
- You must successfully set up a payment account and complete our payment enrolment process before we can pay you for your eligible Content.
- We reserve the right, in our sole discretion, to withhold or not issue payment to you if you or your Content fails to comply with any of our terms or policies, including our Terms of Use, Community Guidelines, Partner Monetization Policies, and Content Monetization Policies.
- There are no representations, warranties, or guarantees, express or implied, about whether you will receive payment for your Content or how much payment you may receive if your Content is monetized.
- You will only provide Content for which you own and/or control all rights (or have obtained all necessary licenses/permissions to such rights), globally, including rights in any sound recordings or musical compositions included in the Content and any performers appearing in it, and your Content will not infringe the rights of any third parties.
- In the event that any remittance made by us to you is subject to any Withholding Taxes, the full amount of any such Withholding Taxes shall be solely for your account. We may deduct the full amount of such withholding tax from the gross amount owed to you and will pay the full amount to withhold over to the competent tax authorities.
- You agree to indemnify and hold us harmless from any claims, suits, losses, liabilities, damages, costs, and expenses, including without limitation, reasonable attorney’s fees and costs, arising out of or in any way connected to your breach of the IGTV Ads Terms.
Tips for successful IGTV Monetization
If you intend to make money from Instagram’s IGTV feature, then you will do well to abide by the IGTV monetization requirement. Asides from these, you will also want to implement some actions to further boost your earnings. In this section, we will be sharing few tips to help you earn more from IGTV.
Fan-Base and Influence
For a creator on Instagram to have successful monetization returns, you need to understand why brands will pay you and what exactly they are paying you for. The basis of any partnership on Instagram is for a brand or business to gain exposure and access to your audience. The aim of these is simply to sell their products to your audience.
This means as much as the number of followers isn’t top on the criteria list, it still plays an important role. A business looking to sell its products will have to know that it is getting a sizeable chunk of the target market by partnering with you. Low followers could translate to the inability of the creator to drive sales for a brand’s products. As such, content creators that wish to monetize their Instagram accounts will have to grow their reach. And this should be done organically, to at least a few thousand to be able to have an impact.
Next up is influence. This is simply the amount of control a creator on Instagram has over his or her followers. Since you need the influence to generate sales, creators must be able to design and share compelling content. The contents shared must be powerful enough to sway the decision-making process involved in the purchase. Hence a large portion of your followers should be able to make decisions based on your product recommendations.
It’s important to measure the performance of your Instagram account using a third-party analytics tool. Such tools can help creators improve on their growth process as well as provide information on best practices. Content creators can easily identify top-performing content and use that information to develop future content. In the end, they are able to further increase their followers, reach as well as influence.
Dedicated and Engaged Followers
Creating an appreciable fan base gives content creators an increased chance of appearing in the feeds of more audiences. But that becomes seemingly useless if such an audience doesn’t engage with your content. Therefore asides from an increase in followers, content creators must strive to increase engagement. And the fastest way is to create valuable contents that solve certain needs for the audience.
Thankfully, engagement is easy to measure. A quick glance at the statistics of audience liking, commenting, and sharing posts will be sufficient. Businesses are always on the lookout for creators that engage their audience regularly as this means audiences are active. And an active audience means one that is more likely to purchase or perform a conversion.
Create Quality Content
This is one of the most important decisions you can take as a content creator with monetization on Instagram. As with other social media platforms, you are most likely not the only content creator in your niche. This means competition is high and everyone is jostling for the attention of the same target audience.
One way to edge out this competition is to create quality, useful and unique content. Ensure to always use high-quality images and never repeat product pitches. Originality and authenticity are two attributes that can help your content quality greatly.
Simply offer much more genuine and actual experience-based promotional content. This way audience can relate to your content more and drive up engagements. Most recently, video content in the form of Stories and IGTV can help you stand out. They have also proven useful in attracting an audience and increasing engagement.
Be Consistent
As with all social media earnings, consistency is an important attribute for success. If you intend to make enough money through Instagram monetization, then you have to be regular. Irregularities in posting or interacting with your followers will most likely kill your business before it even starts off.
Studies by Tailwind have shown that there is a positive correlation between the frequency of posting and engagements rates. Not only that, the more fresh content you have on your page, the more likely you are to grow your audience faster.
One way content creators can keep up consistency is to create a fixed posting schedule. Preferable a schedule in synch with the times your audiences are most likely to be online.
Also, it makes little progress for you if you don’t interact with your audience. Take time to respond to comments, questions, and even like audience comments. That helps to build up engagement as well as trust.
It’s a simple process of logic; to nurture any relationship, you need to interact with one another on a regular basis. The same principle applies to your monetization process on Instagram.
Conclusion
No doubt, making money on Instagram would be made easy with IGTV monetization. But the challenge for creators now is how to meet IGTV monetization requirements.
This piece is just about addressing that and serving you all the necessary details you need to know before joining the feature.
