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How to monetize content with NFTs
How to monetize content with NFTs

Creators and influencers on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube and other platforms constantly look for ways to monetize content. As you create an engaged community of active followers, you want to earn an income for your hard work.

There are many ways how to monetize content. Today we want to look at one particular way. Selling photos, digital art, videos, memes, songs and other digital media as Non-Fungible Tokens or NFTs in short.

NFTs have become popular with collections like the Board Ape Yacht Club or NBA Top Shot. You may also have heard of NFT drops by large corporations such as Nike and many more. These NFT drops made the respective companies millions of dollars in extra income.

Celebrities and influencers are likewise active with NFT drops. A few well known examples include Cristiano Ronaldo, Lionel Messi, Nicki Minaj, Katy Perry, Snoop Dogg while numerous others are planning to enter the space. Moreover, many celebrities have sizable NFT portfolios. In this blog post you will learn how you can as well generate revenue with your content via NFT drops.

Example calculation how to monetize content

How much can you earn by monetizing your content? Of course this depends on the size of your community and how active they are.

Below is a table with an illustrative example calculation depending on how many followers you have. We need to make assumptions about your community’s engagement rate and how many of your followers will convert to buying your NFT. The price of your NFTs also has a big impact.

# Followers10,000100,0001,000,000
% Engagement rate5%5%5%
# Active followers5005,00050,000
% Conversion rate30%15%10%
# Interested buyers1507505,000
# NFTs on sale1005003,333
$ Price per NFT100100100
$ NFT revenue estimate10,00050,000333,333

It makes sense to make the sale more exclusive and to create urgency. Therefore the number of NFTs on sale is assumed to be just two thirds of the number of buyers that are likely to be interested.

You can see that the revenue even for an account with 10,000 followers can be substantial. You can also repeat NFT drops two to three times every year. Each drop can have a different angle and twist to it.

This blog post will show you how exactly you can monetize content with NFTs by following 5 simple steps while being completely independent of expensive marketplaces that take a big cut of your revenue:

  1. Prepare your content
  2. Create and set up a wallet
  3. Configure and create your NFT
  4. Promote your NFT drop
  5. Cash out and start over

Step 1: Prepare your content

This part is the key to your successful NFT drop. Through NFTs, everybody can own digital content in their wallet. This means that your community can actually own your content and trade it. Think of collectibles or art collections in the digital world.

It doesn’t make a big difference where your community is as an influencer. Whether it’s on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, blog or a podcast. You may even be active on several of these platforms or some others that may not be listed here. The important point is that your community is interested in your content and interacting with you regularly.

One simple way to start is to create an exclusive piece of content that you haven’t shared before. This could be a

  • Photo in a new location or a new outfit
  • New meme
  • Picture with a new message or tip
  • Short video you haven’t shared before
  • Song that you haven’t released, yet
  • Digital art that you created
  • Airtime for advertising on your YouTube channel / podcast (in this case the NFTs for example are vouchers for 5 minutes of advertising space on your platform or the right to be mentioned in a Instagram / Facebook / TikTok post)
  • Many more variations that you can come up with

Let’s assume that you want to sell 100 NFTs. All of these NFTs can show the same media such as a photo. In that case the 100 NFTs would be similar to a limited print of a physical photo. This is the best way to get started.

As an alternative you can also create 100 unique media files. The advantage is that everybody who buys your NFT receives a unique piece of content. At the same time you will have more work to create the content.

One way to still add uniqueness to one single photo is to combine your NFT drop with a raffle. Each of your 100 NFTs will have its own unique identifier ranging with IDs from #0 to #99 (this is the customary technical numbering pattern of NFTs).

You could say that once the NFT drop is over and all 100 NFTs are sold, you will make a random draw of 10 IDs. Each of these 10 IDs will receive a prize. Here are some example prizes:

  • Zoom call with the creator
  • Dinner with the creator
  • Extra NFT with content that nobody else gets
  • 15% discount on a product that you are selling
  • Exclusive entry to an event that you are a part of

You can get really creative here. You could also say that the first 10 NFT buyers receive the prizes to increase engagement. You can announce the winners on Instagram or TikTok after you have drawn them.

In order for the winners to receive their prize, ask them to comment with their wallet address on a particular post or video. That way you can verify that they are the owner of the NFT with the right ID and are entitled to receive the prize. At the same time this drives engagement on your profile.

Step 2: Create and set up a wallet

Before you can create your NFT you will need a wallet. There are many types of wallets that you can use, most of them are listed in our Web3 wallets blog post. If you already have a wallet, you can skip this step. Just make sure you add Polygon as a network.

In case you don’t have a wallet, we recommend using Metamask. This is a secure and user-friendly wallet that you can set up in just a few minutes. It’s available on both, desktop and mobile. We recommend starting with the desktop version.

Make sure to backup your secret phrase securely. A password manager is a good way to do that for example. If you need further help, you can look at the Metamask FAQ or this blog post on How to Install and Use Metamask on Google Chrome.

Once you installed your wallet, select the right blockchain. We could write pages about the pros and cons of which blockchain to use. To keep it short, we recommend using Polygon.

Polygon is a popular blockchain that is compatible with Ethereum but has much lower transaction fees. At the same time, Polygon is supported by some of the biggest NFT marketplaces like OpenSea and is very common in NFT drops. This is important in case your community wants to trade your NFTs later on.

In order to use the Polygon blockchain, you need to add it to your Metamask wallet. The easiest way to do this is by going to the Polygon block explorer polygonscan – you will need this one later on anyway so you can already make yourself familiar with it.

At the very bottom right of the polygonscan page there is a button that says Add to Polygon Network:

How to add polygon network to your Metamask via polygonscan

When you click this, Metamask opens and asks you “Allow this site to add a new network?” Confirm with Approve and you’re done.

Congratulations, you have successfully set up your wallet!

Step 3: Configure and create your NFT

Before you can start selling your NFT, you first need to create it. To do this, you will need your wallet that you set up in the previous step.

Creating an NFT costs the equivalent of approximately USD 10 plus. You will have to pay some small transaction fees on the Polygon blockchain. The native cryptocurrency on Polygon is MATIC. In total you will approximately need the equivalent of USD 15 in MATIC. This is the only investment that you need to make for your entire NFT drop.

If you have more than 10,000 followers on any social media platform, newsletter or podcast subscribers, reach out to [email protected]. You will get a free 30 minute consultation. We will also provide you with the necessary MATIC for your first campaign for free and will help you with your NFT configuration.

If you already have an account with a cryptocurrency exchange like Coinbase or Kraken you can also buy MATIC there and send it to your Metamask wallet.

If you don’t have an account with a cryptocurrency exchange, you can buy MATIC directly from within Metamask. Depending on which country you are in, the option may be slightly different. This is what you need to do.

Open Metamask and click the Buy button:

Metamask wallet display

Several options will be presented to you:

Buy crypto on Metamask

On most of these options you will be able to buy MATIC with a credit card, PayPal or via direct debit from your bank account. Choose the option that suits you best and buy the equivalent of approximately USD 15 in MATIC. You can find current MATIC prices on CoinGecko including a convenient converter.

Once you have MATIC in your account, start configuring your NFT. In order to do this, go to Token Tool and click the Connect Wallet button in the Top right corner.

Connect wallet to Token Tool

You will be presented with different wallet options. When you use Metamask, click the Metamask button under Available Wallets and confirm that you want to connect to the Token Tool app.

As a next step, go to Create NFT. Here you will see several configuration options. There are plenty of ways you can configure your NFT. We will show you one concrete example here. Once you’ve made yourself familiar with Token Tool, you can of course be creative and use different configurations.

If you have any questions you can contact the Token Tool support via the channels that are listed under the Contact button at the top of the page or look up further details in the Token Tool documentation.

For your first NFT drop we recommend to choose the Single asset minting option. This is what the top of the configuration screen looks like:

Single asset minting page on Token Tool for NFT creation

We will now guide you through each of the configuration options.

Media

Upload media to monetize content with NFTs

Here you can upload your media file. This can be an image file, .png, .gif, or mp4 video. Note that the file size limit is 5MB. If you use the upload function (which we recommend), your media will be uploaded to IPFS where it is stored persistently. There is nothing else you need to take care of. You will also see a preview of the uploaded media as it’s shown in the image above.

If you have your media file already on a server you can simply paste the URL in the respective field (this would be one such example URL). The risk here is however, that the server where your media is stored might go down at a later point in time. Meaning the NFT won’t display the media anymore. We therefore recommend uploading the image using the upload function.

Name

NFT name field on Token Tool

The name of your NFT is important because it will be visible pretty much anywhere the holder views their NFT. When you look at NFTs on marketplaces such as OpenSea the value that you put in this name field will be used as the collection name.

Choose something that describes your NFT well and that is not too long. Here are a few examples:

  • Sporty Joe exclusive Australia 2023 NFT
  • Political election meme by XYZ creator
  • ABC artist wild metaverse party video

Symbol

NFT symbol field

Ideally choose the symbol to be a short but recognizable version of the name. The symbol won’t be visible as prominently as the name. However, it will help you to distinguish the NFT from other NFTs in your wallet when managing your NFTs in Token Tool.

Here are example symbols for the NFT names above:

  • Sporty Joe exclusive Australia 2023 NFT: SJEA23
  • Political election meme by XYZ creator: PolElMemeXYZ
  • ABC artist wild metaverse party video: ABCwildMetaParty

Description

Description of NFT for how to monetize content

We recommend that the description has a length of somewhere between 30 to 100 words.

Describe what can be seen in the media. Send a message or thank you note to your audience. You may also add a discount code or a link to your web presence or social media profile.

You can talk about what you do as a creator, or what inspired you to create the media the way you did it.

If you combine your NFT drop with a raffle, you can include a short summary of the raffle’s terms in the description.

Public minting

Enable public minting for NFT sale to monetize content

By default the Enable public minting setting is deactivated. If you leave it this way, only you as the NFT creator will be able to mint NFTs. However, you will want to let your audience mint their NFT themselves.

Therefore it’s important that you activate public minting.

Start and end time

NFT sale start and end time

Think about how you want to promote your NFT drop. If you want to limit the time during which your audience can buy your NFT, then it makes sense to set a start and end time. This will help you to create urgency and motivate your audience to act faster.

You could for example announce the NFT drop one week before it happens and set the start time accordingly. Then you can also limit the time during which your audience can buy your NFT. 5 days for example is a good reference point. We think that this is one of the best ways how to monetize content with NFTs.

You are not required to set a start and end time though. If you want your audience to be able to mint NFTs anytime, you can leave these fields empty. You and your audience will be able to mint the NFT at any time until the maximum number of NFTs set by you is reached.

Mint price

Specify NFT mint price to monetize content

In order to monetize content with NFTs, your audience will need to pay a price for the NFT at the time when they mint it. This is the revenue that you earn. The funds go straight to your wallet without deduction of any fees.

The price is specified in the cryptocurrency of the blockchain on which you create the NFT. So in our example the price is stated in Polygon MATIC. It makes sense to choose an even MATIC amount like let’s say 100 MATIC (at the time of writing this is approximately 100 USD). You can look up the current MATIC price here.

If you want to give away your NFT for free, which of course is also possible, just enter a 0 in this field.

Max NFT mint amount per user

Max NFT mint per user amount on Token Tool

With this setting you can limit the number of NFTs each user can mint. We recommend setting a limit of say 5 NFTs per user. On the one hand you want everyone to be able to buy your NFT. On the other hand your audience will be disappointed if just a few people bought up all the NFTs.

You as the creator of this NFT can always mint an unlimited amount by the way. However, you cannot exceed the global maximum number which you can set in the field shown below.

Global max mint amount

Global max NFT mint amount on Token Tool

This setting limits the total amount of NFTs that can be minted. When we stick to the example from above where you want to sell 100 NFTs, then this is where you enter this number.

If you want to sell an unlimited amount, just put in 0. If you have a large audience, it does make sense to set a higher number than 100 of course.

Just always remember that you want to create scarcity and urgency to a certain degree. Therefore we do recommend setting some limit both on the number of NFTs that can be minted as well as the end time until when minting is possible.

Create the NFT

Create NFT for how to monetize content with NFTs

This is the final step. Double check that you are happy with the settings and configuration that you have specified in all the fields above. Once you have done that, click on Create NFT. Your Metamask wallet will ask you to confirm.

After the NFT is created successfully, you will see this confirmation message. Note that this can take anywhere from a few seconds to several minutes. Don’t close the browser tab and wait for the success message (although nothing will break if you do close it).

Success modal on Token Tool NFT Creator showing that the user easily and successfully created their NFT

Go to Manage NFT directly from here. Here you will find information that you need for Step 4.

Step 4: Promote your NFT drop

If you want to monetize content with NFTs, you need to make your audience aware of it (more on that below). Once your audience is excited about participating in your NFT drop, you need to send them to the page from where they can mint their NFT.

You will find the link to this page under Manage NFT. It’s called the NFT minting page.

Manage NFT view on Token Tool NFT Creator

Open it to check what it looks like. For the example above it’s this link https://tokentool.bitbond.com/asset/0x32eEb7CB4e075A89d807431320c4cA0c7A354b1f?chainId=80001

NFT minting page via Token Tool

The NFT minting page is a white labeled page, there is no logo on it. You can use this as a standalone page and send your audience there directly by adding the link to the minting page to a post on Instagram or TikTok or by sharing the link in your newsletter or YouTube video description.

As an alternative, you can also embed the NFT minting page into an existing website via an iframe. If you run a WordPress blog then this is really easy to do. You can read more about how to embed an iframe here.

There are plenty of ways you can promote your NFT drop. As a social media expert, you’re aware of many creative ways to do that best. For some inspiration, here is a simple example for a promotional campaign:

Day 1

Announce to your audience that they will have the opportunity to become the owner of a limited edition of exclusive content from you in 5 days.

Day 2

Announce that those who will participate in the NFT drop will also be part of a raffle. 10 winners will be drawn by their token ID. Prizes can be free products / services that you normally sell or promote or discounts for them.

Day 3

Post a link to the NFT minting page and tell your audience that they need to have a Metamask wallet so that they can participate in the NFT drop. Explain how they can add Polygon as a network to their wallet in a similar way like it’s done in Step 2 above.

Day 4

Post about how your audience can get MATIC in order to participate in your NFT drop by buying them directly from within their Metamask wallet or via cryptocurrency exchanges.

Note that each person who participates in the NFT drop will have to pay the NFT price you have set in MATIC tokens, plus a small Token Tool $2 minting fee, and gas fees.

Therefore, recommend your audience to plan in some buffer: e.g. if the price for your NFT is USD 100 then tell your audience to buy MATIC tokens worth approximately USD 103.

As described in the introduction, NFT drops have become more and more common over the past years. Chances are that your audience is already familiar with this process.

Day 5

Kick-off the NFT drop by posting a link to the NFT minting page. Announce until when NFTs can be minted and remind your audience of the raffle.

Day 6-10

Post about the NFT drop every day with a slightly different angle

  • Talk about what inspired you to choose that specific content
  • Explain the prizes of the raffle
  • Offer to answer any questions your audience may have
  • Show them how they will be able to view their NFT in a DeFi portfolio tracker once they have it
  • Remind your audience until when they can mint their own NFT and how to get MATIC

Day 11-20

After the NFT drop is over, select the winners of the raffle. Announce one winner every day by stating which token ID has won.

Explain to your audience that they can look up the token ID of their NFT by going to the Token Tool portfolio tracker, clicking the NFT tab, and scrolling to the NFT they bought from you. The ID number is directly under the image.

Crypto portfolio tracker Token Tool displaying NFTs owned by a specific wallet address

Ask the winners to message you or to comment so that you can give them their prize.

Remember that you can promote your NFT drop across different social media platforms. If you are active on Instagram and TikTok, you can make the same announcements on both platforms. If you run a blog and a YouTube channel, make both of your audiences aware of your NFT drop.

Step 5: Cash out and start over

After someone mints their NFT during the drop, the funds go directly to your wallet without deducting any fees. This is one of the advantageous aspects of doing the NFT drop the way it’s described in this blog post. On other NFT platforms and marketplaces you would have to pay a high percentage of the price to the platform and thereby reduce your revenue.

Please note that Polygon MATIC is a cryptocurrency that fluctuates in price. You can either keep it as an investment or sell it for US dollars or other currencies.

If you want to sell you MATIC you can do that via decentralized exchanges such as Quickswap. You can log in to Quickswap with your wallet the same way you lagged in to Token Tool earlier. There you can exchange MATIC for a USD stable coin such as USDC. Here is a list of shops and services that already accept USDC as a payment method.

Alternatively, you can sell your MATIC via cryptocurrency exchanges and send the funds to your bank account from there.

We recommend keeping some MATIC. When your NFT drop worked, your next one will be even better. You can try different angles and twists.

When you want to get more sophisticated, make yourself familiar with NFT collections. This way each NFT can be a unique content piece. You could only allow whitelisted addresses to participate in your NFT drop making it more exclusive. This way you can also increase engagement of your audience because they will need to post a comment with their address.

There are endless ways to customize the way you interact with your audience and utilize NFTs for that. If you have any questions, reach out to [email protected] – we look forward to hearing from you.

This is all on how to monetize content with NFTs. Good luck with your NFT drop and let us know how it all went for you.

Author: Radko
Published: 2023-01-17

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