TwoCents offers you an opportunity to earn from your written content (insights).
There a 3 main ways to earn on TwoCents - Tips, Subscriptions and Ad Revenue.
This page covers all you need to know about these 3 monetization types.
For more general information on TwoCents as a knowledge and information marketplace, and other major features, Click here
Here we briefly introduce the 3 ways content can be monetized on TwoCents.
In the next couple of sections, we dive deeper into Tips, Subscriptions and Ad Revenue.
The first step towards becoming eligible to earn on TwoCents is completing your profile.
Ensure you fill in as many fields as apply to you on your profile, however the ones required for earning eligibility are - a photo, your phone number, where you live, your occupation (company and position), and a short bio
The Contributor Score is a measure of the engagement and monetization that all your content on TwoCents has received.
Contributor Score is a weighted sum of Total number of subscriptions ever received. Total number of tips received. Comments on all content (insights). Upvotes on all content (insights). Views on all content (insights). Total number of insights.
The more content you post and the more engagement with your content, the higher your Contributor Score.
The last eligibility criteria for receiving tips is a Verified User Profile.
A user can become verified when they have: Completed all the key parts of their profile. Achieved a Contributor Score of 100+ Shared at least one insight per week for 5 weeks.
In addition, our team may perform a check to ensure that all the information provided on a profile seeking verification is accurate.
Verified users have a verified icon beside their name.
The business message is a way to advertise what you do (asides from writing) to your readers.
The business message is not related to monetizing your content, but we explain it here because it can only be displayed when a user becomes verified.
You can et your business message by adding an image and a short message. If no image is provided and you "turn on" your business message, your profile photo will be used as your businsess image.
Once you have met all the above-listed criteria, you become eligible for receiving tips on TwoCents.
The next step is linking your bank account(s) on the "Add your bank accounts" page. You can link up to 7 bank accounts.
Depending on the country (and currency) of the bank account you are linking, you might need to provide details such as a SWIFT code, Routing number, bank branch code (if the bank is in Ghana, Tanzania, Rwanda or Uganda).
In a case where the country the bank account is in isn't on the list of countries, you may send us an email with all the relevent bank account details and we will add it manually.
By default, the first account you link is set to active, meaning tips people send to you will be paid into this account. However as you add other accounts, you can change which account(s) is/are the active account(s).
You can have only 1 active account per currency. So say you have 4 bank accounts linked, 2 dollar (USD) and 2 Naira (NGN) accounts, you can have only 1 Dollar and 1 Naira account set to active.
Setting all bank accounts to inactive means a user won't be able to receive tips.
Currently, there is no way for users to edit or delete their linked bank accounts.
Should you need to edit or delete the information for one of your linked bank accounts, you can reach out to us here
As expected, you can only receive tips in the currencies of your linked bank accounts.
We encourage all writers/contributors in TwoCents to link foreign/hard currency bank accounts which allows them to receive tips (and subscriptions) in foreign currencies.
At the bottom of each insight, two things are displayed:
Your readers see a link to tip you. This link triggers a dialogue with certain information.
If you are set to receive tips (met all the criteria), the dialogue will contain links to pay with either an online option or with a saved card (if you have previously tipped with a card).
A "Check back later" message is shown in the dialogue if you (the insight owner) are not setup to receive tips.
Users can send tips on this page.
You can send tips in the currencies of the receiver's linked bank accounts. These currencies
There is a minimum amount you can send for everhy currency - for example, 500 for Naira (NGN), 2 for USD, GBP and EUR etc. The minimum amount is displayed as you input the amount.
We also give senders the chance to (optionally) add a tip message, a nice short message letting the user know how much you love and appreciate their writing.
If you followed the "Saved Card" option in the send dialogue, you can send a tip by charging one of your saved cards directly.
All you need is to select one of your saved cards, enter an amount, and your card will be charged seamlessly.
All saved cards are securely linked using industry standard encryption and best practices.
You can remove saved cards by accessing the "Edit Cards" form shown on the "Edit Options" page.
If all goes well (as it should), you will be shwon this page.
Clicking the link shown takes you to the Tips page where all information about your sent and received tips resides.
On the rare occasion that your tips fails, either due to some network issue, insufficient funds etc, this page is displayed, along with a nessage explaining what went wrong.
We email you a receipt of the tip containing the reference, transaction type (card/USSD/bank transfer) etc.
We send you this email when someone sends you (the insight owner) a tip.
This email, along with the tip receipt, is sent to the tip sender
This page houses all things tips. You can view your sent and received tips, tip receipts, tip messages.
This is also where you can reply to tip messages.
When users send you a tip and include a tip message, you get the chance to reply to this tip message on the tips page.
When you reply, we email the tip sender, and you have about 2 minutes to edit your reply.
On your profile page, there's a tab that displays all your insights.
Each insight has a section that displays the tip information/breakdown if it's a free insight.
At the top (or top left on laptops, desktops etc) of your Feed, a Tip summary is displayed.
This summary shows a breakdown of all received tips by currencies.
To understand all service charges and commissions assosciated with sending tips and subscriptions on TwoCents, visit the Terms and Charges section of our legal page.
In cases where refunds are required for sent tips owing to mixups, duplicate transactions etc, TwoCents will issue refunds that meet our refund criteria
On TwoCents, Insights (posts) can either be free or premium.
Free insights can be monetized through tips, premium insights can be monetized by subscriptions. Only users who have subscribed to a writer's/contributor's can access their premium insights.
Premium insights have the premium icon attached to them at the top right or top left depending on where on TwoCents the insight is (Feed, Insight page, Search result page, Profile etc)
In this section, we focus on all you need to know about subscriptions.
You can set an insight to premium from the Edit page.
If you are a contributor that has subscribers, you will not be able to change an insight from premium to free.
In addition, you can set insights to premium BEFORE YOU BECOME ELIGIBLE to receive subscriptions; these insights will have the premium icon on therm but will not be locked (everyone will have access to read them).
These insights will be able to receive tips until you become eligible to receive subscriptions, after which they will get locked, and only your subscribers will have access to them.
Generally, for the sake of maintaining a healthy and trustworthy relationship with your readers and subscribers, we highly encourage that once you set insights to premium, you do not revert them to free.
To become eligible to receive subscriptions, you must have a Contributor Score of 500+.
Once you are eligible to receive subscriptions, the next step is to set your rates via the rates form
On this page/form you can set your monthly, quarterly, and yearly rates for local currency and international currencies (USD, GBP, EUR).
To successfully set your rates, you MUST have linked at least one bank account, and this account must be set to active.
If you reside in a country where your local currency is also hard currency (US, UK, European countries that use the EUR), set your international rates the same as your local rates (DO NOT leave any field blank)
You can edit your rate ONCE EVERY 30 DAYS, so be sure to think carefully about what you want your rates to be.
Just as with tips/tipping, you can receive subscriptions in currencies of your linked banked accounts.
It is advisable to have at least one hard-currency bank account linked on TwoCents, to receive both tips and subscriptions in foreign currency from your readers.
You can add a short subscription message that appears on all subscription payment pages.
Click the "Sub link" button to copy and share a link to your subscription payment page
For premium insights, you see a "Sub link" button as explain previously.
Readers viewing a premium insight see one of two things. 1. A truncated version of the insight along with a "Subscribe to view full insight" button. Full access to the insight if they have subscribed to the contributors/writers premium insights.
Similar to the dialogue for sending tips, this dialogue shows the different sending/payment options namely "Send Online" and "Saved Card"
On this page a user selects a currency and a subscription type (monthly, quarterly or yearly)
The currencies displayed are determined by the currencies of the linked bank accounts of the person to whom you're subscribing.
Sending with a saved card requires selecting one of your saved cards and choosing a subscription type.
A Successful charge results in a page redirect, otherwise an error message is displayed.
Upon a successful subscription, this page is displayed.
Clicking the link shown takes you to the Subscriptions page.
On the rare occasion that your subscription fails, you will be redirected to this page.
We send the subscriber a receipt containing infromation like transaction reference, transaction type (Card, USSD, bank transfer etc), subscription expiry date etc.
An email sent to the subscription receiver alerting you about the new subscription.
In addition to the receipt, we also send you (the subscriber) this email letting you know that your subscription was successful.
This page holds all the information about your Subcriptions. There are 3 tabs namely: All Subscriptions - displays all the subscriptions ever received, both active and inactive. Active Subscribers - this tab shows all your current/active subscribers Subsribed to - A list of contributors you have subscribed to (sent subscriptions)
Just as with tip messages, you can reply to subscription messages.
Under each premium insight on this list, you'll see a button to copy a shareable link to the payment page to subscribe to your insights.
A section is provided at the top (or top left) of your Feed that shows your current active subscriber count.
This section is visible only if your subscription rates have been set.
Ad Revenue is the highest tier of earning on TwoCents.
Writers/Contributors receive a share of what brands and businesses pay to advertise on their insight pages.
Ad revenue requires a Contributor Score of 2000+
The Contributor Rankings is a list of the top contributors on TwoCents, ranked by their contributor score.
Currently the list shows only the top 20 contributors.
The Contributor Rankings alo gives brands a snapshot of and quick access to the best contributors to advertise with.
Paid Contribution is a 3-month writing engagement we offer certain writers/contributors.
During this 3-month period, TwoCents pays certain writers weekly for the content they post.
We offer paid contribution to those that demonstrate a high-level of writing talent and based on several other criteria.
There is no strict criteria for paid contribution.
As mentioned earlier, we consider several things before we offer a writer paid contribution.
The screenshot shows how you can track what you've earned as a paid contributor.
With all the consumption of audio-visual content on the internet it's easy to forget that writing still is a form of content-creation and deserves all the deliberateness and craft that goes into developing other content forms.
Edit as many times as needed, use high-quality, original (if possible) images, leverage tools such as Quillbot, Grammarly and the host of AI tools to improve tone, structure etc.
How large is my online audience? Do they consume written content? What themes of written content do they read on average? How and where do I distribute my write-ups (insights)? What are some demographic or psycographic attributes of my network that might inform/dictate what and how I write?
These are a few questions to ask yourself to come up with the right strategy when sharing your content from TwoCents to platforms like X (Twitter), LinkedIn, WhatsApp or Telegram.
As you write and observe how your audience interacts with your content and sends you tips, you will devlep an intuition for what the right frequency is. This could range from once per week to thrice a month, but will generally differ from writer to writer.
With all the writing/editing tools available today, it's inexcusable to push out written content containing grammatical and/or typographical errors. Use all the editing tools and apps at your disposal to ensure your writing is clean and error-free.
People appreciate unique insights that they can relate with (relatability), learn from (informative/educative), get inspired by (inspirational), or whose theme they are simply interested in (interesting/exciting/captivating).
As a writer/contributor on TwoCents, your content should capture/convey at least one of those four characteristics to increase your chances of getting tips.
On the one hand it's as simple as a "KFB", "Please share, like and comment" or "Subscribe to my...", on the other hand receiving tips requires that you adhere to the above-mentioned guidelines and meet the previously discussed requirements.
At the end of the day, the big take-away is...well, don't be scared to ask. A simple "Please read and consider tipping" would suffice.
This is a reasonably good howbeit non-fullproof litmus test for determining whether or not you will receive tips for your content.
However, generally, if you check all the boxes listed on this page, like "Knowing your audience", "Doing the basics", "Writing at the right frequency" etc, asking and answering this question will more likely than not be a good predictor of whether or not you'd get tipped.
This is probably the worst way to share your content. People are overloaded with information by the second by multiple things vying for their attention - should you be lucky enough to get their attention, the last thing to you want to do is present something "uninspiring" or "boring"
Users are almost certainly going to ignore and not click links shared this way.
While this is a notch better than the previous way, it still doesn't grab as much attention as possible.
Having the meta image showing is good, but there is an even better/smarter way to do it.
Same as the first example; DO NOT DO THIS.
What you want to do is share a clipped screenhot of the page/content with a link.
This ensures that people see just enough to become curious, and still click the link to view more.
In addition, it allows you to seel yourself to your readers and listeners by letting them see your content stats (contributor score etc), veified status, occupation, profile photo etc...
Always remember, people buy into people, before things.
Another good example.
As a general rule on digital platforms, DO NOT share links withot the meta image showing.
You always want to wait for the meta image and meta information to load and display before you share - poor network conenctions can slow down this process, but be sure you wait for as long as you need to for the meta details to render.
Same as explained before, DO NOT share bare, boring links.
Ensure the meta information has rendered.
...or better yet, share a screenshot with the link to the page/content.