Monetizing My Video Archive

I love making great videos, but I also love providing for my family. So I thought I'd give some insight into my latest revenue experiments.

In the world of social media, so much attention gets put on how your next video performs. Going viral, gaining followers, better thumbnails, etc.

What gets less attention, and what I've been focusing on for the past few months, is monetizing my existing archive of work.

Over the past 8 years I've made 300+ videos. Shouldn't all that work generate revenue?

Yes, it should. But I've learned that it doesn't happen passively. You need to be a little obsessed with understanding how each platform monetizes and a slight ruthlessness with reposting old content.

Here's what I've learned about each platform and the revenue I've been able to generate over the past 60 days (note: as a Canadian, I can't earn revenue on Instagram or TikTok).

Facebook ($10,120)

To me, Facebook is different from the other major platforms in that it doesn't feel like a portfolio. I care about my Instagram grid, but as long as Facebook is paying me for views, I'll endlessly repost my content.

And that's what I've been doing on Facebook: once or twice a day, I repost an old video. I usually do this during my morning coffee or use their built-in bulk scheduling tool to set up the next week.

With 300+ videos to choose from, I can go 3-4 months before looping back to the start and posting everything all over again.

💰 Results: maintaining ~$100/day with the rare exceptional spike from a hit post ($1,600 in a single day on July 9th)

YouTube ($2,873)

Like my Instagram grid, I'm still precious with posting on YouTube. I never repost, and the current monetization strategy is to set-and-forget my existing posts while adding new videos. With 300+ videos, there's a constant stream of views that generates revenue.

💰 Results: maintaining ~$50/day

However! YouTube just announced it'll be harder to qualify to earn revenue, so maybe it's time I revisit my posting strategy by adding occasional reposts into the mix.

Twitter/X ($610)

I recently added this platform to the experiment by simply reposting an old video every day. So far, no one seems to mind me dipping back into the archive well.

Once in a while, a video hits and gets enough views to qualify for the revenue sharing program.

💰 Results: $610, largely from one hit post in June

Snapchat (not yet qualified)

As a man approaching 40-years-old, I despise Snapchat. I've never really used it outside of cashing in on their generous revenue program during 2020-2021.

But! I'd really like to know how much money I can earn once I qualify for their new monetization program.

Unfortunately it requires, a LOT of watch hours (15,000 within 28 days).

💰 Results: I've been using repurpose.io to automatically post 5 old Instagram posts per day to Snapchat in an attempt to qualify for monetization (numbers are tracking well)

🌐 On the Web

If you've been looking creative inspiration, check out Patreon founder Jack Conte's SXSW talk about the intersection of creativity and AI:

"If we're going to task people with figuring out how to build data centers in space, then we ought to task people with figuring out how to pay creators for their work."