Social media is one of the most popular forms of communication with over 4.62 billion users (or 58.4% of the world’s population) as of January 2022. Users also spend on average 2 hours and 27 minutes daily on social media apps. As social media continues to grow in popularity, a new monetization concept has emerged in the space. This concept is known as engage-to-earn (E2E) and it’s based on users earning an income by creating engaging content, interacting with other users, and receiving tips.
In this post, we’ll look at how the engage-to-earn model works as well as the Taki social media app that employs the model.
What is Taki? How does it work?
Taki is a Solana-based, tokenized social media platform that enables users to earn tokens based on user engagement. The platform uses an engage-to-earn approach that aims to reward higher-quality content. The system works by allocating TAKI tokens to users based on the level of engagement their posts receive. The app allows users to earn TAKI by completing daily tasks such as engaging with other users’ content, uploading your content, and sending or receiving tips.
Token payments are provided as an incentive for creators to post useful and engaging content whilst avoiding intrusive monetization methods such as personalized adverts. The app is currently invite-only, similar to the popular Clubhouse app, with users only being able to gain access through an invite by an existing member or via a waitlist.
Once a user creates an account, they’ll be able to access their wallet where they can store the two native tokens for the platform – TAKI and User Coin – I’ll go into greater detail about each token shortly. Users can also see their wallet balance in dollar ($) value, as well as buy and sell the User Coin token.
Since TAKI is a cryptocurrency, it can be bought and sold via exchanges and the platform plans to enable token withdrawals and deposits, allowing users to withdraw their earnings, or deposit TAKI in order to buy more User Coin. Taki has three native tokens on the platform, TAKI, Gold Taki, and User Coin:
TAKI
TAKI is the main token on the app, and users can earn this token by engaging with the app, for example by posting content (such as videos or pictures) and liking or commenting on other users’ posts.
Gold Taki
Gold Taki is used for sending tips on the app, each Gold Taki is worth 2 TAKI and the recipient gets a portion of the Gold Taki that is sent
User Coin
User Coin is a token that shows how much clout or influence a creator has on the app. User Coin can be bought or sold for TAKI as well as “staked” to receive a larger amount of Gold Taki.
The app aims to build a social network that is monetized via user engagement, allowing creators and users to earn tokens on the platform by completing daily tasks, posting engaging content, and interacting with other users on the app. The thought behind the engage-to-earn system is that users can be incentivized to interact with others and create valuable content, with tokens being earned via tips or completing daily tasks.
Traditional social media is also driven by user engagement, with algorithms favoring content that is engaged with the most, pushing it out to a larger audience which in turn increases engagement and gets the content pushed out more. This is almost like an engagement cycle, powered by social media algorithms. Engagement is almost like a form of social currency, allowing creators to gain more clout, the more their content is engaged with and shared.
Users on traditional social media usually monetize their content through sponsored posts whilst the platform monetizes via advertisements which can be aggressive in some cases. For example, a user might watch six food-related Instagram reels and find themselves bombarded with food-related advertisements on their timeline. Whilst beneficial for businesses and even users, as adverts can provide something that the user is looking for or solve a problem they have, but also these ads can become intrusive and distracting at times.
Engage-to-earn can help to alleviate this issue by tokenized monetization which can also benefit users on a social media app. For example, TikTok is one very popular social media app that has started paying its users 2-4 cents per 1,000 views on their videos. However, creators receive different amounts depending on factors that are not disclosed by the app. Tokenized monetization via engage-to-earn instead allows creators to receive tips from other users as well as tokens from the app itself for engaging with other users on the platform.
The Taki app aims to provide an alternative means of monetization for users and the engage-to-earn model could grow in popularity like other models before it, like the play-to-earn industry which is projected to reach $3.6 billion by 2028.
Conclusion
Taki is a social app that is based on the engage-to-earn model, allowing users to earn tokens by posting engaging content, receiving tips, and interacting with other users via daily tasks. Whilst the engage-to-earn concept looks interesting we’re still yet to see how users will respond to this concept and if it can take off and become a mainstream concept. If the model resonates with users we could see a new style of social media take the center stage.