The creator economy has been growing rapidly over the past few years, both globally and locally. Following the pandemic, Sri Lanka has also seen impressive growth in content creation, specially through online content creators – influencers – who have popped up, all with their own signature styles and niches with large audiences they’ve cultivated for themselves.
With this rise in content creators and the growth of their fanbases, marketers have taken notice and begun to pump money into ad campaigns that feature these creators, taking advantage of their readymade and often niche-specific followings to communicate their brand message.
Originally, influencers fed off the crumbs of free products and perks that came with advertising for a brand. However, with the integral role they now play in marketing a product or brand, influencers have been elevated to a level where they can demand compensation for their contribution.
For the most part, the label of ‘influencer’ has now evolved to take the meaning of content creator, signalling the shift to more mindfully curated content that tells a clear overarching story built around each individual creator, their experiences, and how they view the world. This has, in turn, impacted how creators work with brands, such as by paying more attention to how brands and creators align when it comes to values and vision.
On top of brand partnerships, the social media platforms which allow all these creators to showcase their content also share in the fruits of these creators’ labours, and so they too have begun to share some of the profits they’ve been generating through these creators who have chosen their specific social media platform to feature their content. The question is, with all this funding and earning potential ready for the taking, are content creators able to depend on the money they generate from their content creation for their livelihood?
Internationally, the answer is yes. There are plenty of full-time content creators who live quite comfortably off the money they earn from their content creation. However, in Sri Lanka, things don’t appear to be quite there yet.
Full-time creators in Sri Lanka
Recently, a Lankan content creator on Instagram, Sushmita Wijayaratna (@shmit_happens) announced that she would be moving on to content creation full-time, sharing on Instagram: “Okay so something big happened today. I officially quit my job as a lawyer to do content creation full-time. This video sums up why. This job lets me be free and creative while pushing myself at the same time. Congratulate me!!”
Sushmita is not the only one who has made this decision to pursue content creation full-time. Other creators like Shenelle Rodrigo aka @sheneller on Instagram also spoke about how they had decided to take the plunge.
There are multiple others who do not often reveal their reliance on the income they generate from content creation while being full-time creators and being entirely dependent on that revenue.
However, there appears to be a difference between full-time content creators abroad and in Sri Lanka. In Sri Lanka, it is still a hustle. While it is also a relatively new concept, and not many individuals write down ‘social media influencer’ on their CVs or job applications, content creation is also mostly reliant on brand sponsorships.
Thanuja Jayawardena popularly known as Lola (@lola_mca) on TikTok, also shared her own experience as a full-time content creator, noting how it had been a rather challenging experience. “I was working full-time for 16 years and to relieve my stress I got into Tiktok,” she shared.
“I have always loved to perform, I loved to act, to dance. Ass I gained a following, small brands started to reach out to me. Bigger brands would then approach me after seeing the videos that I did for those other smaller brands.”
By the time Thanuja decided to quit her day job to pursue content creation full-time she had already established herself online with a considerable following, to an extent.
“I started social media because I was sick of my job and I already wanted to leave. My advice is, if you want to start content creation full-time, then you have to have some stability in the beginning. You must have some savings because there can be dry months where you won’t even find a drop of water because your earnings are zero. So you should have some income to keep going,” she said.
However, this doesn’t mean being a content creator in Sri Lanka isn’t lucrative, with Thanuja noting the field could be very rewarding if you were truly passionate about the content you create: “I think once you develop your audience and your platform then it is definitely a great income source. When you are known and established, then lots of brands will approach you and you will get endorsements.”
This said, in Sri Lanka, it is slightly different when it comes to earnings from the platform you are on, as only YouTube allows monetisation while TikTok and Instagram are yet to enable their creator partnerships for monetisation. This was something Thanuja stressed was important for creators to know before taking the plunge and going full-time.
Huge monetisation potential
Speaking to content strategist Mihi Perera, The Sunday Morning Brunch learnt that when becoming a content creator, it was important to establish an income stream by first establishing your own personal brand and to do this well.
“I know a lot of content creators who make good content but are unable to market themselves properly to make enough money, so they continue to push their content to bigger audiences and keep growing their influence,” Mihi explained.
Moving beyond the role of individual creators themselves, Mihi also noted that a larger concern for Sri Lankan creators as a whole was the country’s limited monetisation potential when it comes to social media platforms. All social media platforms, except YouTube, do not allow the monetisation feature in Sri Lanka, which poses a great handicap for creators.
“You can realistically pursue content creation full-time in Sri Lanka, but it doesn’t offer a lot of stability. However, if you follow through with a good and viable content strategy you can get quite far even in Sri Lanka.”
About the audience
Popular online creator Kaali (@kaali.official) spoke to Brunch about the nature of the audience in Sri Lanka and how that could also affect the career trajectory of a content creator.
“Statistics show that despite all this growth, the digital audience is still relatively small in our country, compared to television. However, while I am able to generate a considerable income thanks to creating content online, it is not my only income source, as I do a lot of other things like marketing campaigns, brand promotions, gaming campaigns, etc. But content creation is definitely what I enjoy the most,” he said.
“Within Sri Lanka, you have to be exceptional in order to maintain a consistent fanbase. You can see the nature of our audience – they are susceptible to change. There is no such thing as a loyal fanbase, so you have to always keep changing your content and if you are clever in creating dynamic content then you can survive,” he added.
However, much like Mihi, Kaali also stressed the inherently unpredictable nature of social media platforms and how it might make things difficult, with content creators being unable to do anything about it: “The most important part is how social media platform algorithms are so unpredictable that we can never truly know when we will get banned, restricted, lose our reach or engagement, and that is sort of why I have been proceeding with caution on these platforms.”
Looking forward
Content creator Hansika Edirimanna (@hansika_edirimanna on TikTok) noted that despite this, she personally believed that unless you were able to breach certain very high thresholds, full-time content creation may not be a possibility in Sri Lanka, although she was still hopeful that the future would be far different.
“I personally feel that Sri Lanka does not yet offer the infrastructure or support necessary for creators to pursue content creation full-time. However, there are numerous creators with the capacity to definitely establish themselves on a much larger scale if the means are made viable to them.”
She also added that this was simply the beginning for Sri Lanka and that she was positive that the creator economy would only continue to grow.
While full-time content creators or those who rely primarily on their income through content creation may not be too common in Sri Lanka right now, there still exists a large chunk of individuals who rake in a considerable income (enough to sustain themselves entirely) from their online content creation.
Many of these creators have cleverly crafted a presence online, toeing the line between being brand-friendly while also remaining credible to their audience. They have also taken the leap of making their passion into a job, which can oftentimes lead to unpleasant consequences, and despite overcoming all of this, they can still face the perils of an uncertain algorithm.
There is also the concern of passion vs. income, which Thanuja highlighted, sharing that a mistake people often ended up making was getting into content creation with the intention of making money and then hitting a wall because they did not have the passion for it. She stressed that this was bound to happen if you did not engage in the field because you loved it.
Being a content creator is definitely possible, but as with a lot of creatively-driven professions, there is a lot more to being a content creator than meets the eye, and it is important that those looking to enter the field professionally are aware of this to ensure that they are able to thrive.