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How much money do meme pages make on instagram


How Do Meme Pages Make Money In 2022

David Woutersen

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If you’ve ventured onto the internet, it’s likely that you’ve seen a meme. Meme pages are growing more and more today.

The question is, how do meme pages make money?

And, if you own a meme page, is it possible to monetize this hobby?

In this article, we’re going to be answering these questions and more, so let’s jump straight in.

Table of Contents

  • What is a meme page? 
  • How do meme pages make money?
  • How much money do meme pages make?
  • Do meme pages on Facebook and Instagram make money?
  • Where do meme pages find memes? 
  • Here are 7 of the best meme websites:
  • Final thoughts on making money with a meme page

What is a meme page? 

A meme page is a type of online forum or community. These pages are typically found on Instagram or Facebook.

The posts in this community are usually “memes,” or funny images/ videos. These photos usually tell an “inside joke” for that specific community or play on current trends. 

To create your own meme page, you just need an account with one of these platforms. You pick a niche, or category, of memes to post.

This will be easiest to do if it’s a topic you’re relatively knowledgeable about; an example would be an engineer creating an engineer meme page. 

How do meme pages make money?

Meme pages mostly make money by selling posts on their account as a way of advertising for other businesses.

These pages sell shout-outs to other accounts, sponsored posts, affiliate marketing, meme merchandise (such as graphic tees, hoodies, keychains, etc.), or directing traffic to other income-generating sources. 

To get started with selling merchandise for a meme page, many page owners will use a print-on-demand service.

A print-on-demand service is just that: a t-shirt, hoodie, or other forms of apparel/accessory is printed at the time of order.

How much money do meme pages make?

Realistically, it’s unlikely to make a full-time income just from running a meme page.

There are a few different routes of income, but they won’t add up to dependable and substantial income. These pages are a great way to have a little bit of side income, though! 

Meme pages with large followings of about 1 million followers can make $2,000-$3,000 per sponsored post.

Usually, these pages can create other income sources if they direct traffic to other income-generating platforms. This may include their own website!

Do meme pages on Facebook and Instagram make money?

Meme pages on Facebook and Instagram can make money, but it is not just from posting memes.

This income is generated typically through sponsors, affiliate marketing, or selling their own products. It’s basically like becoming an influencer but as a meme page.  

All of this requires having a popular account with a pretty substantial follower base. This takes time to grow, but once established, you get paid more for each of the forms of revenue.

To grow the fastest, meme pages typically stick to one type or topic of niche. This attracts people who are all like-minded and have the same general interests.

You can also network with other similar account types to try and get your name out there and maybe gain some of their followers as well.  

The last tip for growth on these pages is being consistent.

Meme pages typically post 2-3 times per day and utilize their analytics to see what is the best time to post.

Posting frequently is usually required because algorithms don’t show every post to every person’s news feed. They’re generally customized to what individuals interact the most with.

Where do meme pages find memes? 

Most meme pages create memes. The people who run these accounts typically are very witty and have some basic graphic design skills.

The jokes, or memes, are based on real-life experiences or current trends going around the internet. 

These memes are often made with free online software or websites. These are the most common website used for finding memes and meme creation: 

  1. GIPHY: This is basically the way you can search for GIFs. It’s literally nicknamed the “Google for GIFs!” It’s a free location where you can get GIFs to put on your blog or social media pages. 
  2. Imgur: This is your meme page for your super-specific niches. It has a tool that helps you narrow down exactly what you’re searching for. 
  3. Tumblr: Tumblr is a rabbit hole of funny memes and stories. 
  4. IMGflip: Make your own GIF with this tool! All you do is upload a photo, type in your text, and download it. 
  5. Gfycat: This site allows you to use GIFs, memes, and short videos. Upload your own video to create your own GIF to use on your page. 
  6. Free GIF Maker: On Free GIF Maker, you can turn any type of video into a GIF. Whether you want a scene from a YouTube video or a Movie to a video of your kid dancing, just put it into this website and you have a GIF. You can also use the “reverse GIF” feature, so you can take your GIF and play it backward.

Though some accounts don’t make their memes, they do have go-to websites to find the best ones.

Here are 7 of the best meme websites:

  1. College Humor: This is the best place for college-age memes. This website has a team of content creators that post, and people also can contribute to the page. 
  2. 9Gag: This is one of the most popular meme websites in the world. You can also contribute to this website. The team is based in Hong Kong. 
  3. KnowYourMeme: You can also share your own memes here too. It’s a whole storage place for all of the memes on the internet. Good luck deep-diving here.
  4. Cheezburger: This is one of the most popular US-based meme websites. This one also allows you to submit your own memes. 
  5. HumorNama: This is one of the most popular meme websites in India. There are many different memes about trending topics in India on this website. 
  6. Reddit: Reddit alone is a website full of a bunch of forums (or subreddits). Each subreddit has a different category of people who enjoy that content. You can find memes in just about any group here.
  7. Me.Me: This website also is a host of worldwide memes.

Final thoughts on making money with a meme page

Many people start meme pages as something for fun, but when they become popular, they can turn into very lucrative moneymakers.

While you’re not going to make much until you reach at least 10,000+ engaged followers, if you’re doing it for fun, and have witty humor, you should be able to gain followers quite quickly.

If you’re already posting to a meme page, now is the time to look into monetizing this fun part-time hobby. And it may even become a full-time side hustle eventually.

Don’t limit yourself to only Facebook or Instagram either. Beluga is one of the fastest-growing YouTube channels, and he’s a great example of a meme channel growing rapidly on YouTube.

This teenager was making $4,000 a month reposting memes on Instagram — until he got purged

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‘I don’t have another job as Instagram paid in one week what I would get in one month of an actual job’

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Instagram is going after meme accounts — which post pictures with slogans — often created by other social-media fanatics and, on many occasions, reposted without giving credit.

On July 26, 15-year-old Ben was surprised to find he couldn’t log into five of his eight Instagram US:FB  accounts. The meme curator, who goes by the pseudonym “spicymp4” and chose not to give his last name to MarketWatch, owned multiple popular comedy accounts.

One such account, @spicy.mp4, had more than 500,000 followers. Others, like @bnjee and @memeextraordinaire, each had over 20,000. “I made sure to credit everything as I used to be a content creator myself and I know the frustration of not being credited,” Ben said.

“Instagram banned more than 30 highly popular pages. The accounts, some of which have millions of followers, repost funny memes and videos.”

Ben wasn’t the only victim of Instagram’s latest meme-page purge. Late last month, Instagram banned more than 30 highly popular pages. The accounts, some of which have millions of followers, repost funny memes and videos.

Some meme accounts are both original and wildly popular. Grumpy Cat, who died earlier this year, was named meme of the year at the 2013 Webby awards, beating out “Gangnam Style” and “Harlem Shake.” Some social-media trackers consider Grumpy Cat to be the first viral meme. (Grumpy Cat’s account has 2.7 million followers.)

But Instagram is targeting other sites that it regards as poaching other people’s content. Meme accounts are often accused of stealing content from creators without giving proper credit. Elliot Trebele, the creator of a still-active meme page, was forced to apologize last year

Read MarketWatch’s Moneyist advice column on the etiquette and ethics of your financial affairs. This week: ‘I earn twice what my husband makes and pay all the bills, but have no idea how much money he’s saved?’

“These accounts were disabled following multiple violations of our policies, including attempted abuse of our internal processes,” an Instagram spokeswoman told MarketWatch. The alleged violations included attempts to buy and sell accounts and attempts to improperly obtain usernames.

The purge has cost some users thousands of dollars. Ben told MarketWatch his pages earned him $4,000 a month and were his only salary. He made the money through selling shoutouts: Users looking to grow their pages paid Ben to promote those pages on his account.

“I don’t have another job as Instagram paid in one week what I would get in one month of an actual job,” Ben said. He did not think it would last forever, however. Ben saved most of the money he earned from his page, but is now looking for another source of income.

“If you’re as popular as reality TV star Kylie Jenner, who has 142 million followers on Instagram, you can bring in $1,000,000 with just one post.”

“It is becoming increasingly challenging to build a business where your sole revenue comes in from third-party social-media platforms,” social media expert and commentator Kris Ruby. Compared to some, Ben was small potatoes. Ruby said some of these frivolous meme accounts could earn up to hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

Five years ago, the idea that Instagram could be your job was unheard of. Now, it’s becoming increasingly common. Influencers and page admins like Ben can bring in thousands of dollars from ads and promotions on their pages. And if you’re as popular as reality TV star Kylie Jenner, who has 142 million followers on Instagram, you can bring in more than $1,000,000 with just one post.

The July meme page purge isn’t the first time Instagram has deleted dozens of popular comedy accounts. On Christmas day 2018, Instagram deleted some of its most popular meme pages, including @God, @SocietyFeelings, @Deep, and @ComedySlam. The founder of @ComedySlam, 17-year-old Declan Mortimer, said he made $200,000 each year with his 11-million-follower page before it was disabled.

Instagram did comment on those bans, claiming that some of the usernames were “stolen or traded.” “We do not allow people to buy, sell, or trade aspects of their account, including user names. We are consistently taking steps to disincentivize and stop this behavior, including removing accounts that violate our policies,” an Instagram spokesperson said at the time.

Like Ben, multiple banned users disputed the charge, saying they never violated Instagram’s terms. The recently deleted meme accounts are incredibly popular with their followers and drive significant traffic to Instagram’s platform.

But some people on Twitter TWTR, -4.86%  are bidding a not-so-fond farewell to these pages:

Ben says these critics are simply jealous. They “would 100% take the opportunity to make thousands a month, or even a week,” he said. He and others have started a petition to get their accounts back, but Instagram has called such purges “final.”

Ben hasn’t yet decided if he will start another meme on Instagram. First, he wants to hear what he did wrong from the company. “I’ve had no explanation from Instagram at all,” he said. “I’ve reached out multiple times and not heard back from an actual person, just a bot.”

In the meantime, he’s looking looking for a new job.

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How to make $85 million from Instagram memes

In August 2020, Warner Music Group acquired Israeli digital media company IMGN Media for $85 million. IMGN creates videos and memes for advertisers and then distributes them on its social networks. Her main asset is @daquan, one of the biggest Instagram meme accounts with 15.7 million followers. What is interesting about this account and what conclusions can novice influencers draw from this story? Let's take a closer look.

Daria Sidorova

The @daquan account was created in 2014. The identity of its author is not revealed, it is only known that then he was 16 years old, he was at school and he was bored. He created Daquan memes about a fictional white woman dating a black man and quickly gained popularity. Soon he began to publish jokes on various topics. In 2017, @daquan joined IMGN, and over the past three years, the account has grown into a cultural phenomenon that led to a multi-million dollar deal with Warner Music Group.

It is now one of the largest meme accounts on Instagram, with 15. 7 million followers and growing. Many celebrities follow @daquan, including Justin Bieber, Kendall Jenner and Kevin Hart. Justin Bieber and Demi Lovato even sent in their requests for publication.

There are three useful lessons from this story about how to make the most of social media today.

Be original

Despite the fact that many of @daquan's posts now are simple reposts of popular Twitter posts and Tiktok videos, he attracted most of the subscribers with his original captions to popular memes. He collected the first 150 thousand followers by creating Daquan memes, which were popular in 2014.

The conclusion here is extremely simple. To stand out on social media, you need to create original content. Whether it's an account dedicated to memes, dogs, or sports reviews, the main thing is to stand out among the thousands of identical profiles in the feed.

Follow your passions

Before creating your own meme account inspired by someone else's success, ask yourself if you are really interested in this topic. Otherwise, the idea will lead to failure.

The truth is that people who are passionate about their niche notice details that others ignore, thus gaining a competitive advantage. Founder @daquan's sincere interest in memes helped him create original jokes and stand out from the huge number of accounts with reposts.

To attract and retain subscribers, you do not need to copy posts from other accounts with similar topics. Try to figure out what your audience is interested in. Regularly analyze what content is gaining the most interactions. Perhaps subscribers are attracted by the light composition of photos or the music used in the video. This way you can keep your profile relevant and popular.

Explore memes and trends

Warner Music Group agreed to the $85 million deal for two reasons.

  • @daquan is a powerful tool to spread their music.
  • IMGN provides advanced data on the behavior of Millennials and Generation Z.

Memes occupy an important place in modern culture. Like viral videos from TikTok, they influence what is popular among young people. The song that sounds in the popular meme will be known to the entire Internet in a few days. And it’s not just about music—a well-placed product can provide unparalleled brand awareness. This is why memes are so important for companies that are looking to reach out to the next generation.

To interact effectively in social networks, it is worth studying this direction. Find out why and how content goes viral and start creating your own. To stay up to date with popular trends, follow us on Twitter, TikTok, Instagram and Reddit.

Conclusion

This acquisition is interesting not only because of its high cost. The fact is that at the moment there are no specific standards for the sale of social media accounts. The market is completely unpredictable. A profile with 15 million subscribers can be bought for both $85,000 and $85 million.

So the main conclusion here is that you need to act. The media industry is entering a new era where everyone can profit.

If you have an idea for an account in a niche that interests you, implement it. Bored 16 year old created @daquan and succeeded. It is possible that the next multi-million dollar account will belong to you.

Source.

Cover photo: Mauro Rodrigues / Shutterstock

The life of a meme: who and how makes money on funny pictures from the Internet

  • Career and business
Photo by REUTERS / Danny Moloshok

The creators of successful Internet memes earn millions of dollars. To use the rights to own a meme, you need to patent it. How to do it?

Sketch for $1 million

At the beginning of July 2013, Daria Barsuk opened the Kate Mobile application on her smartphone, went to the page of her friend Vkontakte, and literally in half a minute drew a strange creature on her wall with arms raised and the inscription “Nichosi ". The friends laughed, one of them added the picture to one of the folders on her page, and they forgot about the sketch. But in 2014, the sketch began to go viral throughout the social network. Now, if not everyone, then very many people know this meme: it popped up from the pages of Vkontakte on April 1, later appeared in the network store in the form of a set of stickers, managed to be the symbol of the Vkontakte festival and became part of the corporate identity of the Mail Internet company ice rink. ru at the beginning of 2016.

Badger did not make money on the popularity of the meme, by her own admission, she even became ashamed of the authorship. But people who have nothing to do with its creation have earned on the existence of the Nichosi meme. For example, a set of Nichosi stickers is sold on Vkontakte, where it is included in the Popular category, distributed for free in the Telegram messenger and is fully exploited by sellers of all kinds of souvenirs - from badges and T-shirts to pillows and lollipops. Daria Barsuk, owning exclusive rights to her work in the form of a trademark (or several marks), would be able to conclude agreements with interested parties on the commercial use of her work. The author of "Nichosi" could earn from $1 to $5 million on the meme.

The most successful meme in the world

Registering it as a trademark brought the owners of the famous Grumpy Cat meme over $100 million. Grumpy Cat is the most commercially successful meme in the history of mankind. A pet named Tarda gained popularity thanks to the Reddit resource, where one of the owners posted a photo of a cat. Users of the resource suspected the author of cheating. In response to skeptics, the owner of the cat made a video that went viral. The appearance of Tarda delighted everyone. Noticing the increased interest in their pet, the owners of the animal started an official website and a Facebook page for the cat. Just a year after the first appearance of photography and video on the Internet, Tarde received the annual Internet award Webby Awards 2013 in the nomination "Meme of the Year". Then the cat became a special guest of the Oscars and the MTV Movie Awards. The colossal media exposure of the pet prompted her owner Tabatha Bandesen and her brother Brian to register the grumpy cat combination as a trademark. Tabata quit her job as a waitress just days after a picture of the cat went viral on social media. Her phone was constantly ringing - she was constantly called with offers to use the image of an animal for marketing purposes.

Now "Grumpy cat" is a popular American brand, which is used to produce a lot of souvenirs - calendars, T-shirts, toys, key chains, pillows and more. The owners also successfully sold three books about Tarde, released a feature film in 2014, but the pet business career triumph was the launch of the Grumppuccino beverage line, which has three flavors - black coffee, coffee with vanilla flavor and mocha. The product, like the meme, is in great demand and is released under the slogan "It's awfully good!" Tarda also successfully tried herself as a model: her owners signed a successful contract with the Friskies brand, and she became the face of cat food. Money flows like water: for example, in 2014, according to Forbes magazine, the owners of Tarda earned about $ 100 million, ahead of many athletes and Hollywood stars.

Grim Cat's owners do not hesitate to use tough American intellectual property rights as a weapon against those who use Tarda's photo without their consent. Even partner companies that cross the boundaries in using the cat image fall under the distribution. For example, just two years after entering into a contract with Grenade Beverage, which produces iced coffee under the Grumppuccino brand, Tabata Bandesen sued the beverage manufacturer for intellectual property infringement and demanded more than $600,000 for the illegal use of the Grumppuccino trademark, under which Grenade Beverage produced its own coffee and t-shirts. While the results of the trial are unknown, but Bandesen's lawyers say that the owner of the cat has every chance to win this case.

How to patent a meme in three steps

Theoretically, anyone can create a successful meme and make money from it, but the most important factors here are luck and luck. There are different platforms, constructors and incubators of memes (on the Russian-speaking Internet, Leprosorium.ru, a sister site dirty.ru, and also having a specific reputation Dvach - 2ch.hk, must be recognized as the forge of such content), but these sites have not yet produced world-famous memes. The most striking memes - Grumpy cat, Doge (a dog of the Japanese Shiba Inu breed), the hero of Robert Downey Jr. in the rays of spotlights on stage - these are not planned actions, but an accidental stuffing on the Internet, which later spread like a virus. The main thing is to seize the moment of popularity, as the mistress of Tarda did, register the meme as a trademark and start earning, for example, from the production of souvenirs.

The meme can be patented as a trademark. This is done in several steps. First, you need to think about how you will make money on your meme - for example, produce souvenirs, transfer the rights to use it to the creators of films and video games. Classes for registering your meme as a trademark depend on this. Secondly, it is necessary to check for identity and similarity with previously registered trademarks and applications for their registration, and in addition, to make sure that it is in principle protectable and does not violate the requirements of Article 1483 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation - for example, does not contradict public interests, principles humanity and morality.

If everything is in order, you can proceed to the third step - fill out and submit a formal application for registration of a trademark to the patent office. After submitting the application, it is expected within 10-12 months for its fate in the form of a decision of the state examination.

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