Meta will open up monetisation to Nigerian creators as it steps up Africa play

Meta Platforms will allow content creators in Nigeria to make money through ads and other features, in a move it hopes will keep the country’s top content creators on its platforms. Those options and features are expected to be ready before June 2024, said Nick Clegg, the company’s President of Global Affairs.

Content creators in America, Australia, Canada and South Korea were the first to be able to earn through “Ads on Reels,” in 2023, a performance-based program that pays according to how the number of plays their reels get.

“With a performance-based model, creators can focus on the content that’s resonating with their audience and helping them grow,” Meta said in May 2023 after months of testing the program.

On Friday, Clegg hosted some of Nigeria’s top creators in their Lagos office as part of a week-long visit to South Africa, Kenya, and Nigeria, some of its important African markets.

“Nigerian creators have global reach,” Clegg said in a conversation with TechCabal on Friday afternoon, pointing out that creators will soon have “the ability to run ads in-stream and use other tools such as Instagram stars and gifts that are available to creators elsewhere in the world.”

Clegg also spoke about Meta’s 45,000km subsea cables, which landed in Lagos and Uyo in February 2024. It was a timely conversation, one week after damages to subsea cables across Africa slowed down internet service and disrupted banking in at least two countries.

“The way we built to Africa is that [the subsea cables] are sunk by 50% more under the seabed, so it will be less susceptible to that disruption, which I think will enhance connectivity,” Clegg shared.

But connectivity and resilience are not the only issues. Funke Opeke, the CEO of MainOne, a fibre operator acquired by Equinix, said in 2018 that the broadband capacity of most fibre providers was underutilised.

Clegg acknowledged the problem, adding that he had met Funke Opeke during the week and also spoken about underutilisation with the government.

“I learned from my meetings with the President and the minister in Abuja yesterday that they are very focused on this and trying to fund different ways of leveraging external expertise and capital to increase internal connectivity. That will happen over time.”