Understand How Difficult It Is to Be a Content Creator in Africa

Lateral Movements are Defining More Careers in this Digital Age

It was inevitable that we would not go through what we are going through today. Technology has advanced so much in the last 21 years, that today to be successful in various areas or even your entire career, lateral moves need to be implemented in your life, to change course otherwise it can cost you a lot, but a lot.

I have been creating content since 2011 over the internet, but it wasn’t until 2017 that I started seeing my first digits as a creator; it wasn’t that much, but it wasn’t $0.48 either. It was motivating to see for the first time in my life as a creator, making my first money by my efforts. It was like flying in an airplane for the first time.

If I lived in America or Europe, the situation would be different, I would start making money as a creator in 2011 and maybe quit my job a long time ago. But we are in Africa! Not that Africa is hell, the biggest problem is availability. Most Social Media companies have a partner program, for Africa, their PP is blocked, they restrict the geographical location (like for example MPP), with this restriction, most creators have difficulty making money through the internet based only on content.

“Thank God, even though I came late in this digital world, I have already made money and live on it without any problems today.”

From January 2017 to today, I have earned $10,395.90 from Google Adsense alone.

It’s an honor to earn all that since 2017, but if I were a resident of America, Europe, or Asia, that amount would probably be the monthly digits I earned from 2017 to here. From there to here I’ve made money from blogging and Youtube, all of them together make that mix. Today I decided to leave all of them here for you to see and calculate month by month.

Check below all the images with details of my earnings from January 2017 until today.

Because of this failure of mine as a creator, I decided to look for side moves that could make me more money. That is why for the last few years I have been creating content as a writer on Medium and elsewhere as a freelancer and all this income together, collected and invested in an investment portfolio that I have held since November 2020.

The price of living in Africa can cost a lot for creators because of geographic restrictions. One of the ways I found to not run out of income, was through investments in the stock and cryptocurrency markets; this way I can maintain myself, even though I can’t get what I need such as traffic and a consistent audience. Traffic in Africa may even be well defined, but it won’t make you have that gigantic effectiveness. In Africa, the platforms that decided to allow some African countries to have access to content creation and to be part of their partner programs implemented a restriction not only in the distribution capacity but also in the earnings calculations of African creators. For us Africans, for a video with 30K views, while in America they pay the creator $1 to $5 per thousand views, in Africa it is $0.60 per thousand views. The American can make $30 to $150 per 30K views, in Africa we made only $18.

There is a big difference in earnings calculations between creators living in Africa, with respect to creators living on other continents. But while it is difficult to be a breeder in Africa in all aspects, it is not impossible to be a breeder and make money, and lots of it.