We make the case that WordPress is the best option for those wanting to capitalize on a growing creator economy.
In the ever-evolving landscape of the digital age, the digital creator economy is emerging as one of the most rapidly growing sectors, shaping the way we consume and engage with content. According to Joe Pulizzi, a leading expert in the field, the creator economy is a vibrant ecosystem where collectively received a staggering $10 billion in payouts in 2021. These numbers are nothing short of awe-inspiring.
Dive deeper into these statistics from payments company Stripe, and you’ll find that the creator economy continues to gain momentum. By 2023, the same 50 creator platforms had embraced over 1 million creators, who went on to earn a remarkable $25 billion in aggregate payouts. The magnitude of these figures emphasizes the transformative power of the creator economy.
In today’s society, a shift from traditional jobs to online entrepreneurship is gaining momentum. Bloggers, newsletter writers, YouTubers, and podcasters are passionately pursuing their dreams as content creators.
As the creator economy continues to flourish, it’s important to understand the role technology plays in fueling this phenomenon. Let’s explore the ways WordPress empowers digital creators to unlock their potential.
Why WordPress Is A Great Option For Digital Creators
When choosing a platform to build your audience and establish your online presence, the options may seem endless. However, one platform stands out as a game-changer for content creators – WordPress.The success stories of renowned educators like Imran Sadiq and Darrel Wilson (found on YouTube) and experts like Dave Foy and WP101 (found on their own websites) highlight the undeniable benefits of leveraging WordPress.
You get to own your data and code
One of the critical reasons to consider using WordPress to build your platform is the ownership of your data. While platforms like YouTube provide a vast audience, they also have the power to just shut you down, causing you to lose access to your channel and audience. Just recently, a journalist from Forbes investigated the revenue trend of five Youtubers, and it surprisingly showed a downward dip of 50% to 90%.
With WordPress, you maintain full control over your content, safeguarding yourself from unexpected shifts that may jeopardize your revenue potential.
Create anything you want
The platform’s versatility enables you to build virtually any kind of website, whether a Learning Management System (LMS) to sell courses, a video streaming site, a blog, a newsletter, or even a social network. With WordPress, the power lies in your hands to shape your online presence according to your vision without limitations or constraints.
WordPress’s popularity has translated into a vast library of plugins and themes, offering solutions for every need. Whether you require analytics, CRMs, live chat functionality, advertising management, or automation tools, WordPress has you covered. You can seamlessly integrate and customize your website with many third-party services, enabling you to meet your specific requirements and enhance the user experience.
Expand, diversity and grow
Start with a blog and grow into a multi-faceted media offering. This is the story of Salesforce Ben, who’s blog has become a point of reference in the Salesforce ecosystem. You can read news, take courses, get certified and find jobs.
You don’t have to start with WordPress either. If you already have an established YouTube or Twitch channel, for example, creating a website and integrating your content is a breeze, allowing you to centralize your online presence and drive traffic from various channels.
Additionally, if you want to offer exclusive content or create a member-only LMS, WordPress provides the tools to easily implement these features, expanding your revenue streams and audience engagement.
Beginning your journey as a content creator and establishing a solid foundation for your online presence is paramount. WordPress empowers you with its user-friendly setup, scalability, cost-effectiveness, seamless integration capabilities, and the advantage of full ownership and control. By embracing WordPress, you are setting yourself up for success in the dynamic and ever-growing creator economy.
What types of content can digital creators publish with WordPress?
Here are just a few examples of how you can leverage WordPress plugins to bring each of these content types to life.
Publications
When it comes to online publications, WordPress is the obvious choice for many to create websites for any niche, topic, or category.
Big names in the publishing industry, such as the New York Post, TechCrunch, and 9to5 Mac, have harnessed the scalability and versatility of WordPress to attract millions of visitors monthly.
Teams working on large publication sites built with WordPress also enjoy access to a whole set of plugins that make it easy for them to manage and add more features to their sites. Take a look at PublishPress, which offers plugins like adding multiple authors, unpublish posts on a set date, adding a checklist, and more.
A home for podcasts
If you’re passionate about podcasting, WordPress can serve as the perfect platform to host and showcase your podcasting content, and develop content and monetization opportunities around what you publish.
There are many plugins that help you create a podcasting WordPress website, like Seriously Simple Podcasting and PowerPress Plugin. With these plugins, you can build a podcasting site, complete with advanced features for managing podcast episodes, customizing audio and video players, and tracking listener engagement.
Even if you already have an established presence on popular podcast platforms such as Spotify or Apple Podcasts, you can leverage WordPress to showcase your podcast. By embedding links to your episodes from these external platforms directly on your WordPress website, you provide a seamless browsing experience for your visitors.
A successful example of this approach is the “DoTheWoo” podcast, which operates its own WordPress site.
Monetize premium content using paywalls
Publication websites employ various monetization strategies, and one popular method is offering exclusive reports, news, and research to subscribers. With this approach, free users can access the initial summary of the content, but to delve into the full articles or reports, they must subscribe to a monthly subscription plan or pay to view the full content.
WordPress enables you to implement this “gating” functionality seamlessly, allowing you to create your own platform akin to popular sites like Medium.com.
There are a number of plugins that allow you to set paywalls for your content, including our own solution – Mindspun Payments. It offers the Ecommerce functionality you need to sell access to content, whether web pages or downloadable assets.
Your own channel for video content
WordPress can easily integrate with third-party streaming services like Twitch, Vimeo, YouTube and Wistia. Embedding a video is as easy as it gets (and you wouldn’t want to host the actual streaming content).
There are themes designed specifically for media and video streaming that can enhance the visual appeal and user experience of your platform. Plugins like Presto Player can provide advanced video playback features, customizable players, and analytics, enabling you to offer a professional and engaging streaming experience to your audience.
The objective here is to lever streaming services for the infrastructure and their massive audiences. Take them back to your own website to complement the experience, build your brand and own your audience.
Elearning and coaching material
E-learning and Learning Management Systems (LMS) have enabled solo educators, trainers, mentors, and organizations to package and sell their know-how. The industry is worth billions and if you head over to the LMS section of eLearning Industry’s software directory you’ll see close to 1,000 listed.
So why choose WordPress?
To start with, WordPress hosts a vibrant ecosystem of LMS-focused plugins, such as Learndash, LifterLMS, and TutorLMS that cater for all kinds of E-learning flavors. You can also build your own Udemy-like marketplace.
The big advantage WordPress has over the competition is that it’s extremely extensible. Not just in the context of the learning experience. Think of what else you can complement it with. If you are an online coach, for example, you can offer consultancy services. Or publish a newsletter to monetize via sponsorships.
Newsletters
The newsletter format has made a big comeback in the last few years after being sidelined by other channels. While it may be perceived as somewhat old fashioned, the numbers don’t lie – it’s still widely used and an effective marketing channel.
Substack has proved that newsletters can be monetized. Backlinko reports that they have 500,000 paying customers and millions of readers. It’s a format that a digital creators like because it’s easy to set up and run.
WordPress comes into play as part of a strategy to grow your audience, brand and revenue streams. To attract new readers and give existing subscribers destinations to click off a newsletter and carry being engaged.
The WordPress ecosystem is rich in plugins and services that focus on building, designing, and optimizing newsletter functionality. One of our favorites is Newsletter Glue, which allows you to construct newsletters directly within the WordPress dashboard, streamlining the process and eliminating the need for external services.
Getting Paid For Your Content
Having a positive and reliable payment experience is important, whether selling one-time purchases or offering subscription services like online courses, newsletters, or gated content. The key is to find a solution that is easy to set up for you as the site owner while being convenient and user-friendly for your visitors.
As you can imagine, there are many options to choose from in the WordPress plugin directory.
At Mindspun, we have developed a solution for digital creators that is easy to use, quick to set up and plugs into Stripe, which is a widely adopted and trusted payment gateway.
By integrating Stripe with your WordPress site through MindSpun, you can create products within the Stripe platform and easily incorporate them into your website. This allows you to offer both one-time payment products and subscription models to your customers.
It’s called Mindspun Payments and has been ‘built for blocks’. That is, WordPress powerful new editor.
WordPress Powers Digital Creator’s Ambitions
With WordPress you’re setting a foundation for growth. Unlike proprietary platforms, you can scale and extend as much as is necessary. And you remain in control – you own your content and data.
The technical barrier to entry is not as low, but the learning curve is. You can get going in minutes using a theme or build your own from scratch, and there are plenty of resources and communities that can help.
WordPress itself is powered by digital creators. Hundreds of volunteers who have embraced open sources and are collaborating to improve the platform. You can be part of this, too.
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