On many social media platforms, content creators mainly monetise through live commerce or brand partnerships. They typically get commissions out of selling specific products or get paid to endorse brands as well as post sponsored content.
In recent years, however, platform developers have increasingly recognised the significance of compensating creators who attract attention to their platforms. Platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and even LinkedIn have initiated creator funds to financially support creators to incentivise them to maintain audience engagement.
For pure-play live-streaming platform 17LIVE, the focus has always been on grooming talents and ensuring that they have everything they need to create high engagement with their audiences, co-founder and CTO Ng Jing Shen tells The Edge Singapore. In fact, unlike other platforms which usually engage a third-party firm to access talent pools, 17LIVE has its own in-house talent management agency.
“The content on our platform is quite diversified — ranging from fashion, crafting, cooking, music and even fortune telling. Our goal is to provide something for everyone. That said, it is crucial the content is interactive. When you sing, you have to talk between songs. When you draw, you must pause to react to the audience’s responses. This is key for us,” says Ng.
17LIVE mainly generates revenue from its virtual gifting function. Users purchase virtual points called “Baby Coins”, which can be exchanged into virtual gifts to be sent to the live-streamers they would like to support. These virtual gifts mimic real-life goods and luxuries ranging from flowers to yachts to differentiate their rarity and value, floating across the screen with special visual and sound effects.
Live streamers receive a portion of the corresponding economic value of the virtual gifts that they have received through their revenue-sharing arrangements with 17LIVE.
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Currently, the lowest amount of Baby Coins that a user can purchase is 230, which is equal to $1.48 (0.64 cents each). They get more value if they buy in a larger bundle, as 25,500 Baby Coins can be bought for $148.98 (0.58 cents each). On 17LIVE’s leaderboard, Naoking, the top live streamer In Japan, has generated over 9.7 million Baby Coins this week, equal to over $56,260.
17LIVE is actively seeking new creators to contract, taking more time to assess potential creators as the platform focuses on quality over quantity. It currently has contracted over 87,000 live streamers to create exclusive content on the platform. These contracts span anywhere from one to seven years, with most given one to three-year contracts.
Ng describes 17LIVE as a fully-integrated platform, heavily investing in talent management. This management team can guide the live streamers, teach them how to use the different tools available and become the middleman between the live streamers and 17LIVE engineers. Additionally, as a market leader in markets such as Japan and Taiwan, 17LIVE can provide creators with deals or opportunities that they may not be able to access in their own capacity.
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17LIVE’s monetisation model is preferred by its contracted live streamers as the take rate for live commerce is very low, typically between 3% and 5%, says Ng. Although he is unable to share details on 17LIVE’s revenue-sharing arrangements with the live streamers, Ng says the creators can monetise “a lot better” via the virtual gifts on the app, eliminating the need for sponsorships and other external monetisation platforms (such as Patreon).
Ensuring sustainability
As creators monetise via virtual gifts, they would realistically only earn a lucrative income if they can establish a sizeable fanbase as well as maintain the level of engagement. This was the challenge that Khloe, a Singapore-based live streamer on 17LIVE had to face when first starting out with the platform.
Khloe was scouted to stream on 17LIVE back in 2019 when she was a university student. As live streaming is a flexible gig, Khloe was keen to give it a shot. Being new to live streaming, she received a lot of helpful tips from the 17LIVE team to build a fanbase consisting mainly of fellow Singaporean, Malaysian and Taiwanese audiences.
Bound to a contract, Khloe was able to monetise from day one. There are, however, certain targets that she had to hit, such as live-streaming hours and Baby Coins generated per month. Her highest was 12 million Baby Coins generated in a month, equal to $69,600 (excluding 17LIVE’s revenue sharing cut).
Though it may sound lucrative, Khloe acknowledges that live streaming could not be her only source of income. In fact, live streaming is currently her side gig, as she has a full-time job as a software engineer.
“To clarify, I do like to live-stream. However, it is not as easy as it sounds, especially for people like me who create ‘chatting content’. Anyone can talk to the camera, but if you don’t have passion, you cannot do it for long — eventually, you will just run out of stuff to talk about. For me, I will continue to stream as long as my circumstances allow for it,” says Khloe.
Moving forward, Khloe is excited to see more platforms penetrating the market as well as greater appeal among audiences in the region for interactive video content. Although this may result in larger numbers of live streamers and hence intensified competition, Khloe is comforted with the fact that most of the live streamers in the region focus on live commerce.
17LIVE will not lean on this trend and is choosing to stand out by focusing on engagement, says Ng. While this may mean that some creators would find it hard to move towards providing more engaging content versus publishing trendy short-form videos or sponsored live stream, Ng says it would be a more “natural” transition. “All they need is a phone and the ability to interact with the audience. The bar is so much lower compared to having to learn post-production and needing to strike brand deals,” he adds.
