Category: Hank D Wu

Description

The chief purpose of MediaMoney ties in directly with a relatively new phenomenon: the monetization of social media. Despite rapid changes in the social media landscape, such monetization has remained rather opaque to content consumers. While many consumers now understand that social media can be a real business that drives very real profits, there remains quite a bit of misinformation regarding the quantity of such payments. Some consumers tend to underestimate the revenue generated by social media influencers (likely because few formal transactions ever take place directly between the consumer and the influencer). However, others also validly overestimate revenue, especially after viewing content depicting the lavish lifestyles of such influencers. The reality is much more nuanced. Consuming “free” media on platforms such as YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter is a large part of an important value creation process. Thus, the primary objective of this project is to cut through the opaqueness and shed light on what truly happens.