Today, there are a handful of ways creators monetize their online content. While not fully exhaustive, the most popular and widespread mechanisms are 1) Advertisements 2) Subscriptions 3) One-Off Sales/Donations 4) Brand Sponsorships & Influencer Marketing and 5) Affiliate Marketing.

This is obviously not a monetization stream that can be applied to every single media company out there—if you focus on collectibles, it’s an interesting one—but the strategy behind it is one that all companies should be trying to think about.