The Basics
Locking articles and posts behind paywalls is a practice that has been leveraged successfully by newspapers and news sites for many years. Now it’s time to bring that to the average creator with the new Exclusive Article Koji.
This new Koji lets anyone write, edit, and monetize their written content from anywhere on the web, without the need for a third-party publisher.
Exclusive Article is for Everyone
We think that anyone can be successful with Exclusive Article: bloggers, journalists, podcasters, musicians, YouTubers, you name it! Whether you’re sharing your thoughts on the latest Bachelorette episode, discussing your fitness journey, or even writing a creative short story, Exclusive Article lets you create, format, publish, and monetize it—all from your social profiles.
That said, there are a few things you should keep in mind when deciding whether Exclusive Article is right for your social profiles:
Type of Content
Think about what your biggest strengths and interests are when deciding what to write about and in what format. If you write to these interests and strengths, you’ll find the process a lot more rewarding and your followers will be able to tell the difference.
For any kind of influencer or creator, blog posts are more informal and can be great ways to share your personal life and your thoughts with your followers. It will give people an opportunity to pay to learn more about you as a person, which can be very appealing!
If you’re a journalist or podcaster, it might be beneficial to include bonus articles and content in Exclusive Article so that your more avid readers and followers can satiate their desire to learn more about things you’re passionate about.
And maybe you’re an author or musician! Giving your audience a sneak peek into your newest projects (books, poems, short stories, lyrics, etc) is a great way to earn money while also building hype around your future releases.
Audience
One of the biggest things to consider when writing content for Exclusive Article is what your audience is like. What is the average age, what are their interests, and would paying for premium written content be something reasonable to ask?
In most cases, you probably have a pretty good sense of what these answers are, but if you don’t, it might be beneficial to figure them out and test the waters. Learning what your audience is interested in will help you tailor your content and write something that they would actually want to read and pay for.
Let’s Get Started
The Exclusive Article Koji is free to use and available. Setting it up is easy, and there are a few choices to make depending on the type of experience you want to create.
NOTE FOR iOS 15 USERS: You may experience some difficulty formatting your writing while in the mobile version of Exclusive Article due to a keyboard display issue. We recommend writing and publishing in the desktop/laptop version of Exclusive Article. This issue does not affect Android devices.
Writing Tools
Once you’ve added the Koji to your social profiles, you can start writing. You’ll have access to text formatting tools (headers, lists, text styles, section dividers, etc) and can add as many images as you want to your pieces.
This allows you to write, edit, and publish from any site your Koji social profiles is linked in. That could be the Instagram Koji, on Twitter, or even your own existing website.
Something to keep in mind when writing is that only the first few lines of your piece will be shown to followers. The rest will be under the paywall line, so make sure you’re opening your piece with a gripping sentence to pique your followers’ interest and give them a reason to keep reading. Once you’ve finished writing and editing your piece, tap “Next” in the upper right corner to move on.
What Is A Koji?
A Koji is a type of interactive media that can help you sell your products, downloads, services or premium content. To create a Koji, simply select a template and customize before sharing the unique URL on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, WhatsApp, or anywhere else!
Pay To Unlock
In addition to adding a cover photo or video, you can choose how much it costs to unlock the article. The length, subject matter, and exclusivity of the content will help determine how much you should charge for people to unlock it. It can sometimes be difficult to find the right balance, but you can always experiment with different amounts later and change it whenever you want to.
Edit After Publishing
It’s important to be able to add, change, or remove parts of your written pieces, so we’ve made sure that you always have the opportunity to edit your pieces after publishing. Tap on the “open in window” icon in the top right of your Exclusive Article Koji, then tap on the Koji name at the top of the page.
This will bring up the Koji Details page where you can then tap on “Edit” to bring up the text editor again. You can also move the paywall line here as well.
Finishing Up
If you’re not sure what’s right for you, don’t worry too much about these settings right away. You can change them (or the content itself) any time simply by editing the Koji.
When you’re happy with your writing, simply save and publish your Koji. Make sure you give it a catchy icon. If you’re ready to promote it right away, consider making it a profile highlight so it’s highly visible when people visit your social profiles.
That’s it! You’re ready to start writing and publishing your articles!
Promoting Your Exclusive Article
Koji makes it easy to write and publish your content, but once your Koji is ready, you need to make a plan to promote it.
Everyone is different, so there’s no one-size-fits-all recipe for promotion, but we’ve compiled a few best practices to help you get started.
Build Hype
Before you actually publish your piece on your social profiles, tease it to your audience and promote it on your other social media accounts. Tweet about it, talk about it in your story or lives, make a video about it.
Let your followers know what it will be about or keep it vague so they have to visit your social profiles to learn more! You know your audience best so entice them to visit in ways that will be successful.
Set A Schedule
You can absolutely publish a one-time piece that can generate revenue for your social profiles, but setting a low cost and publishing things on a schedule—whether that’s daily, weekly, or monthly—will help keep your followers interested in coming back for more.
You could even serialize a story or longer article and publish a portion every week. Giving your followers something to look forward to will be valuable for them and lucrative for you.
Final Thoughts
Exclusive Article is a versatile and powerful Koji. We hope that the pieces it inspires you to write and share with your audience will be rewarding for everyone!
We’d love to hear your feedback, ideas, feature requests, and bugs. Twitter is the easiest place to get in touch – we’re @madewithkoji, and we can’t wait to see what you do with this new Koji.