Jah Prayzah at 1 million Facebook followers, swimming in money?

I don’t think Jah Prayzah needs an introduction now.

There are a million reasons why should know him by now. The musician is uber popular now. I mean, how can one have 1 million Facebook followers in a nation of about 15 million. That’s close to 7% of the population.

That’s even more impressive when you consider that about 67% of the country lives in the rural areas. They have limited access to electricity and the internet.

So really, the million is mostly from urbanites, of which there are about 5 million. If we assume an insignificant number of followers in rural areas, Jah Prayzah has about 20% of urban dwellers following him on Facebook.

So JP is practically drowning in money, right?

That is the first thought that crossed many people’s minds. Unfortunately, that is a question not easily answered. We first need to understand how one makes money on Facebook.

JP getting paid by Facebook

Jah Prayzah does not get paid for having a million subscribers. Facebook does not pay one for having any number of followers. However, there are ways of making money on Facebook.

In-stream ads

Here, Facebook places ads before, during or after the videos he posts. The money to be made is dependant on the advertiser and the number of views the video garners.

Sampling the videos on Jah Prayzah’s page, I didn’t see any videos with in-stream ads. It is probably because he mostly posts short videos which are not ideal for in-stream ads. You can’t have an ad longer than the actual content, so no ads.

I’m guessing length of video is the reason for there being no in-stream ads because the views are good. Most videos on the page have over 30000. That is pretty good.

JP fan subscriptions

Here, Jah Prayzah would set a monthly fee that super partners/ fans would pay to support him. He would reward them with exclusive content or something else.

Jah Prayzah does not seem to be pursuing this income stream. It would be a tough sell anyway.

Collaboration with brands

This is where JP’s bread is buttered. He partners with a number of brands including Zol, Securico and Nyaradzo.

You can tell how important these partners are to him by the heartfelt thanks he gave them when announcing that he reached 1 million followers.

Sometimes he creates original short videos to promote their products and services. Sometimes he posts partner created content on his page – proper ads. The content is doing well in terms of viewership and follower engagement.

I saw some live video promoting a Nyaradzo product with 67000 views and 1200 likes and hearts.

Such performance should help when he negotiates rates with the partners. Brands are after the eyeballs he provides and he’s after the compensation.

There is no way we could know how much these brands are paying to be JP’s partner. So, we cannot know exactly how much the 1 million followers are translating into cash money for him.

However, we can assume that whatever he’s getting is plenty, especially when put in the context of the average Zimbabwean salary.

Promoting his own music

JP is not like the typical influencer who is only social media famous. JP has a product of his own that he gets to promote to his 1 million followers.

He announces and promotes his songs and albums. Then promotes the videos to his own songs, which can be found on YouTube.

We know that musicians make most of their money from live shows these days. JP is in the enviable position of having 1 million fans in one place he can tell about his live shows.

In closing

While we know that Facebook did not pay him for reaching 1 million followers, JP can and does monetize that huge following.

We live in Zimbabwe where most are under the poverty datum line. Jah Prayzah is not under that line and his partners play a major role in that.

So, while we can’t know the exact amounts, we can say without reservation that he is swimming in money.