Content creators in Kenya will earn money from postings on Meta platforms Facebook and Instagram from June this year. This follows a deal between the President of the country, William Ruto and the social media firm.
According to a report by BusinessDaily Kenya, a dispatch following a meeting between the President and representatives of Meta at State House Nairobi indicated that the development is a culmination of a year-long push by the government to have creators earn from their online content, as it happens on other platforms such as YouTube and X.
Meta’s President of Global Affairs Nick Clegg was quoted to have said: “Kenyan content creators who meet the eligibility criteria will now earn from their Facebook and Instagram spaces as we start monetisation by June this year”.
On his part, President Ruto hailed the move noting that it will open up new income streams for Kenya’s young population while calling upon Meta to make the monetisation available on M-Pesa.
“Now content creators can begin earning from their imagination and creativity. I have kept my word to negotiate and get them fresh opportunities. We are banking on the digital space to create jobs for the millions of jobless youths in our country,” President Ruto said.
The development comes at a time when fresh data from the Communications Authority of Kenya shows that Facebook has overtaken the instant messaging platform WhatsApp to become the most used social media application in the country, pointing to vast earning potential for creators in the country.
Recall that a similar announcement was made in December 2023. At that time, President Willia Ruto claimed that the decision followed a trial programme involving qualified national creators. He mentioned then that Meta will expand the monetisation options to more creators so they can make a living from doing what they love.
Payment for Facebook and Instagram content creators in Kenya: How will it work?
This follows an announcement in February 2022 by Meta that content creators can now create and earn money from Facebook Reels across 20 sub-Saharan Africa. The countries listed for participation at that time included South Africa, Seychelles, Senegal, Rwanda, Nigeria, Kenya, Guinea, Ghana, Cape Verde, Cameroon, and Burkina Faso.
Read more: African content creators can now create and earn money from Facebook Reels
Today, Kenya is the third country in Africa to participate in the Facebook Creator programme. The other 2 African countries participating in the programme are South Africa and Egypt.
To qualify for the programme, creators are required to have at least 5,000 followers on their private Facebook profile or 10,000 followers on a Facebook page and a minimum of five live videos on a profile or three on a page.
Video content posted on a Facebook profile must have a minimum of 60,000 total minutes viewed in the last 60 days from organic followers while for a page, the requirement is 600,000 viewed minutes within the same duration.
Monetisation tools include in-stream ads which are image or video advertisements that appear before, during, or after a content creator’s video, offering a non-disruptive way for advertisers to reach their target audience while viewers engage with content. Videos that include several languages do not qualify for monetisation at the moment.
According to industry reports, Facebook pays content creators about $8 to $20 per 1,000 views. Similarly, the average CPM (Cost Per Mile) in most African countries ranges around $10.
Recall that Facebook announced a rollout of Ad Breaks in Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, and South Africa in 2019. The feature was introduced in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, New Zealand, Spain, the UK, and the US a year before.
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