Whatsapp content – Writing Jokes, Articles, Essays, and generating ROI

Have enough eulogies been published in print (that we’ll get to read tomorrow), online, blogged, whatsapped, facebooked, redditted, tweeted (this sounds better than the rest) that we have read or do we have stomach for another that I am going to post here? I think debating on how much content is enough is not in the scope of this article; one thing I would still want to ask though – how do you get to make money out of this kind of content writing. In fact, I would not even call it content writing or content creation – this has to be some sort of campaign. Now maybe I am wrong while I slot it as campaign but then what do I slot this as?

Let us pick an example of a typical Whatsapp content – a satirical picture edited with a smart phrase that evokes enough interest from a recipient to forward it to a dozen of her friends – something like this.

There won’t be much imagination involved in realising the kind of virality it could acquire. And when someone is hoping for virality and a lot more are valuing virality, why won’t the factor which is one of its most fundamental to this game – content creation, be awarded, in cash?

Now that we have come to understand that it cannot not involve cash, we shall hop on to our next task – (unscientifically) estimating how and how much. If we assume, there are a dozen newspapers in more than two dozen states that are doing a million copies daily and paying to create content in the form of article and/or a photograph, and further assume that these would be worth… I think we are diverting from the topic of this post. We are trying to find out more about the kind of guerrilla style content creation, and propagation but for which nobody seem to pay anything for consumption. We are not discussing the mainstream article writing for print publications here. Let us then go to “how” and “how much”.

How – morphing an image doesn’t take much. You pick up a copyright-free image off Google Images and think of a popular phrase/dialogue/slang and just do it in MS-paint. No high end imagery, writing, drawing, sketching, software, hardware, mind required really. And if you are forward thinking (which cash could propel you to be), you can probably create content for both of the maximum possible two outcomes of the match.

How much:-

(Content) – assuming just one image is created for each guy in each team of the semifinal – 22, and one for the other outcome. You end up with 44 images.

(Time) – assuming you take 10 minutes on average to execute each task, it gets to around an eight hour shift.

(Investment) – assuming you get hold of a smart kid who has a knack for content creation, then around a couple of thousand bucks ~ $33.3 [let us ignore other indirect costs for now].

(Reach) – assuming each image is initially pushed to just 10 people. It translates to 440 start-points [let us assume that only 2.5% start-points, that is, 10 could be engaged]. Assuming any given image reaches a maximum of 10 levels with each level maxing out to an average of 3 branches, it translates to 295,240 screens.

(Media) – assuming this campaign [at this point, I believe, we can convincingly enough call it one] is successful on just 2 networks [which do not share their screen real estate with advertisers]. Although no product seems to be advertised here but there is no denying that it has reached 590,480 eyeballs.

(Cash) – assuming the content creator gets 10 paise ~ $0.0033 for each eyeball [passive income generation is out of scope of this article – the ISP/mobile carrier, the screen manufacturer and whole ecosystem], it translates to cool 59,048 ~ $1k.

An ROI of 2,850%. [gulps] Shall I change the title of this post now? [smiles]