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Social influencers finally have the chance to make money with The8App

Micro-influencers want to be rewarded for their interactions on social media and now The8App enables users to monetize their social influence by sharing brand campaigns.
Written by Eileen Brown, Contributor

New York-based social marketplace company The8App has launched a platform for brands to reach consumers, or "nano-influencers."

Its "The8App Cloud" offering gives individual users a daily stream of direct offers from brands that want to reward them for posting or sharing relevant content across their own social platforms.

Social influencers finally have the chance to make money with The8App ZDNet
The8Cloud

The platform has been around since May 2015 where, then called "Weare8," it promised to pay its users for their original content.

Now the site claims to have over 85,000 users communicating across 30 vertical feeds such as style, tech, art, music, wellness, and sports.

It claims that it has a combined social following of over 1.2 billion with direct access to 10 million influencers globally.

Users can accept an offer from a brand, follow the campaign directions, and be rewarded for success.

As users earn money through the system, they have the ability to either cash out, get discounts on those offers, or donate a portion of their earnings to a charity of their choice which is tax deductible for the brand. Offers are based on user's profile and activity on the app.

The company retains 20 percent of revenue, and gives 80 percent to the user. It says that the app provides an "ecosystem that facilitates a direct conversation between brands and the individual."

Brands can build campaigns using the app's micro-influencers to spread their marketing content. Users can track the performance of their post using the analytics tools built in the app.

Of course The8App is not the only brand to pay its influencers. There are other social platforms that pay users to post content. Some, like the Tsu social network which paid its users, or enabled them to donate their earnings to charity, burned brightly for a time and then crashed.

Others, like Experticity's community, or Voltu's app recommendation platform reward their micro-influencers for social marketing.

CEO and founder Sue Fennessy said: "Today, over 1 billion people spend an average of five hours a day on social media without any financial reward.

We need to understand that 'we the people' are valuable, and our time and content have built two companies worth upwards of $1 trillion. In a sense, we have been giving our value away for free."

My first offer was from the app itself promising me $1 if I posted about the app across my other social platforms.

Other incentives shown were for a Groupon 50 percent discount at a flea market in Maine, and a 53 percent discounted admission to a museum in Portland. Both offers are not very useful to me in the UK.

Although the brand wants to "empower every individual with the tools to monetize their social influence," blindly sharing ads across my social feeds does not make me comfortable.

Perhaps fashionistas and style gurus might love sharing ads for the latest beauty product or style item, but I am not sure that my followers would approve if I filled my Facebook and Twitter feed with ads about technology.

Brands might love the opportunity to tap into influencers so they can incentivize social content on behalf of the brand. Micro-influencers can then reach out to the social customer and incentivize on behalf of the brand.

But get-rich quick schemes are often too good to be true. Like affiliate marketing revenue for the end user, I think that users might have to wait some time until they can solely live off their social media activities from the app.

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