With Instagram, more users are making money with fan badges

Last May, Instagram Live Fan Badges were introduced to allow users to donate money directly to their favorite creators.

For a fee, users are given a badge that appears next to their name when they comment on a creator’s live stream.

Users can contribute either $ 0.99, $ 1.99, or $ 4.99.

The different prices represent different levels. Each tier has its own badge so users can specify exactly how much they have contributed to their favorite intagrammer.

The following example shows what the level 1, 2, and 3 badges look like (watch out for the little hearts):

Instagram Live fan badge example.

Fan badges for Instagram Live were first rolled out to a limited number of developers last spring.

Now the ability to offer fan badges is expanding to 50,000 additional Instagram creators.

While that’s still a small number of people compared to Instagram’s overall user base, it’s a positive sign that fan badges will eventually become available to even more developers.

In November, Instagram announced that creators’ earnings from badge purchases on live video will match.

In order to get the developers with fan badges even further on board, Instagram is not taking a share of the sales of badge purchases for the time being.

That could change at any time in the future, but for now the developers keep all of the money they get from buying badges.

Instagram COO Justin Osofsky said in a statement:

“Creators drive culture. Many of them dedicate their lives to this topic and it is so important to us that they can easily make money from their content.

These are additional steps in our work to make Instagram the best place for creators to tell their story, grow their audience, and make a living. ”

Sounds like a lot to developers – but what’s the point of buying a fan badge for users?

Let’s look at some of the benefits of being a paid fan.

Instagram Live Fan Badges: What’s the Point?

Fan badges in particular are something additional users get as a thank you for paying the creators to do their job.

There is no obligation to pay Instagramers to view their content. So whoever makes a contribution will be rewarded with a fan badge.

There are a number of benefits with a fan badge. The main benefit of a fan badge is improved visibility.

Getting an influencer’s attention during a live stream can be a challenge, especially if they have an active chat room.

A fan badge is a way for users to stand out from the crowd and increase the likelihood that their comments will be noticed.

Instagram informs TechCrunch that purchasing a fan badge also unlocks other features, such as: B. the placement on a creator list of badge holders.

With the list of badges and badge holders, developers can quickly see who their biggest fans are.

Asking the user to pay for the flair that makes them stand out as a top supporter is not a novel idea.

In fact, a key component of Twitch’s monetization model is based on viewers paying real money for digital flair.

Similar to Instagram fan badges, Twitch allows users to pay a fee for a special icon next to their name and access exclusive emojis.

The icon and emojis allow users to stand out in a streamer’s chat room. The revenue is split 50% between Twitch and the streamer.

This system apparently works well for Twitch. A report earlier this year shows that Twitch’s fan submission revenue dwarfs advertising revenue.

Time will tell if Instagram has similar success with implementing fan badges.

This could be the answer to Instagram’s lack of developer monetization options.

Source: TechCrunch