Earning money from the comfort of your house (read: bed) is no rocket science anymore. Back in the day, making money meant breaking your back as an employee or struggling through intense pressure being a business owner. Thanks to technological advancements, you can now get paid simply for live streaming.
Research suggests that today’s tech-savvy audience prefers spending 3x more time watching a live video. Interestingly, 47% of the people are streaming more live videos today than last year. Most importantly, as 2020 saw the online video boom, 2022 is not expected to be an exception. Hence, live stream monetization is a goldmine! Go live, earn money!
There are countless ways you can monetize your live streams and earn money by live streaming. Here are a few:
In this Article:
#1 In-Video Ads
You must have noticed the short ads that keep popping up (and irritating) while you’re watching your favorite show on YouTube. And you’re only able to skip after a wait of 5 seconds. These short clips are ads that help content creators earn. And it is one of the easiest techniques to monetize your live streams. You can do it in two ways:
- Pre-roll ads – start as soon as the viewer clicks the stream. The viewers have to view the ad before they can actually start watching your content.
- Mid-roll ads – play I in the middle of your stream. The ad takes up most of the screen while your stream continues to play in a small window.
💡Pro-Tip: Play these clips before, during, and after your live stream. The viewers will have no choice but to watch through these to continue watching your stream.
- Banners or companion ads – These appear at the bottom of the stream and excite and encourage your viewers to click. However, they can also be easily removed.
YouTube offers pre-roll and mid-roll ads, Facebook Live offers mid-roll ads if you meet the viewership criteria, and Twitch offers in-stream ads.
💡Pro-Tip: Viewers can use ad-blocking software to prevent some ads from showing. Hence, using ads as the sole method to monetize your live streaming may not be the best idea.
#2 Donations and Tipping
You can ask your viewers to donate while you’re live. This approach works magic for churches and other philanthropic organizations that can collect donations during their live streams. You can set up an external donation link. Once your audience clicks on it, they will be diverted toward a payment page. Moreover, many websites and social media usually have integrated services for tipping and donations, and even virtual goods and currencies that the viewers can use for their transactions.
- YouTube’s Super Chat option allows the viewers to pin their comments by paying for them or purchasing Super Stickers. The viewers can also use tips to pin messages in the channel’s chat window; such comments are more noticeable.
- Twitch’s “cheer” option uses Bits as the platform’s virtual currency. A Twitch affiliate or partner gets around $0.01 for every Bit viewer’s cheer. The viewers can write messages that appear together with a special emote Cheemote.
- Facebook’s tipping service Stars offer virtual goods to the viewers. The viewers can buy and send you $0.01 per Star. However, to avail this you need to be a part of Facebook’s Level Up Program.
💡Pro-Tip: When you receive a tip, don’t forget to give a shoutout to the person who gave it.
#3 Sponsorship
Sponsorships work best when you have a significant following on your socials. So you can collaborate with brands to endorse their products through your live streams and charge for your services. And since there are countless advertisers in the market out there, bagging a few sponsorships shouldn’t be much of a hassle. This is essentially a mutually beneficial arrangement; the brand and the streamer both make good bucks. So you get paid to live stream.
- Sponsorships – a brand will sponsor your entire live stream.
- Banners – you can display banners or other adverts during your streams or on your profile page or channel.
- Sponsored Content – the content owners sponsor you to stream his content. For instance, a game developer may ask you to play their game in a live stream.
💡Pro-Tip: Be careful when you select the content to stream. If your [sponsored] content fails to resonate with your target audience, you might even lose the sponsors.
#4 Partners or Affiliate Program
You can also sign up for an affiliate program to earn money every time your follower purchases a product you endorsed on your live stream. Once an approved partner, you will be given a vanity link to share with your followers during your live videos and encourage them to purchase the products based on your personal experience and recommendation. All you have to do is speak high of the products during your live stream and share your link to your followers to get a commission. Simply make money broadcasting live.
Sometimes you don’t even have to post the link. You can use a coupon code and direct your viewers to shop the product you’re promoting, using this code. this coupon code will be given to you when you join the affiliate program.
💡Pro-Tip: You can earn 55% commission through OneStream Live’s Affiliate program? Learn More.
#5 Pay-Per-View
This has emerged as the most promising revenue-making prospect during the coronavirus pandemic. With the calling off of all conferences and meetings, organizers now arrange virtual summits and conferences, charge for admission and make money on a live stream. Viewers enjoy the same value as they used to during face-to-face events when they paid for tickets physically. Several sites will allow you to do this, such as TicketSpice, which can be integrated with Facebook Live and YouTube Live. And with OneStream Live, you can go live on both these platforms at the same time!
- Create content that people are willing to pay to watch.
- create a sense of exclusivity to compel people to pay to watch your content.
💡Pro-Tip: Sell tickets to live streams and make money.
#6 Live Selling
Although a rather traditional route, live selling is still the most widely practiced way to make money through streaming. You can showcase your products live, interact with your audience to answer their queries and concerns in real-time, conduct product demos, and share how-to tutorials, all through live streams. The ultimate takeaway is a lead converted to a customer.
💡Pro-Tip: Live sell on Amazon Live using OneStream Live.
#7 Regular Viewer Payments
What’s better than getting paid occasionally from your viewers for your regular streams? These periodic payments might only be a couple of bucks, but if you can get enough of them, you can surely make big. For instance, you can sign up for YouTube’s channel membership program that allows users to join channels with monthly payments. Similarly, Twitch has a paid subscription program. Your viewers can pay for watching your streams through PayPal, Amazon Pay, or credit cards.
To Wrap it Up...
The internet is full of opportunities to do interesting things make money while doing what you do best. Live streaming is currently one of the most exciting frontiers offering promising prospects of making money. The catch is to first create content that can successfully grab viewers’ attention and keep them coming back for more. When it comes to monetizing your live streams, your audience is undeniably your biggest asset.
OneStream Live offers you a cloud-based live streaming platform that allows you to multistream to over 40 social networking platforms and the web through custom RTMP settings. Time to go live and make money. After all, who minds a few quick bucks! 😉
Download OneStream Mobile App.
OneStream Live is a cloud-based live streaming solution to create, schedule, and multistream professional-looking live streams across 45+ social media platforms and the web simultaneously. For content-related queries and feedback, write to us at [email protected]. You’re also welcome to Write for Us!
