Earlier this year, Youtube, Google, Amazon, Facebook and several other companies sought to fight fake news and controversial content that their advertisers saw unfit. Now many users of these once great platforms that were used for connecting with their audience and building a following have been cut off from their revenue stream. Causing many people to re-think what they can do differently to make any type of money to continue doing what they love and keeping the brand they have put their blood, sweat and tears into creating.

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A few months ago several alternative media outlets including Activist Post, Intelihub, We Are Change, and a number of others asked me to come up with a plan for monetization, so I set out to do just that to figure out a way that I could keep the alternative media alive and kicking.

Honestly, back then I didn't have many answers to how to combat this severe problem trying to kill alternative media outlets besides seeking more ad affiliates and better SEO, as well as using Patreon. Today I have way more answers to how independent journalist as well as alternative media organizations' websites can continue their businesses by starting to shift away from centralization and have fully thought up a strategy that in theory should work.

There will always be the overwhelming concern that you can have your career and all that you worked for entirely ruined by being completely shutdown without any questions asked however the less centralized your business is the better chance you have of a single infraction of censorship not completely stopping your operation dead in its tracks destroying all you built.

I had that moment when Twitter censored my 9-year-old account now back in my possession due to threatening a lawsuit so first tip is if a company is public on the stock market buy a small share as an investor you have different rights than as a user. It's also how I got my Twitter account back by threatening to sue Twitter for breach of "fiduciary duty."

Second, relax you have to evolve your thinking and think outside the control system matrix that has been established for you. We live in an entirely new paradigm where if you are resourceful enough you can make money and it all adds up.

For that reason I recommend not completely distancing one's self from the main big social media networks yet but having a back up where people can view your content that you know will remain safe. There are a number of networks that you can use and honestly I recommend using them all in conjunction especially since they give you a share of the pie allowing you to monetize your work through the sheer use of the new attention economy paying you in cryptocurrency.

Social Media: Steemit, Ong.Social, Zappl, Gab.ai

NOTE: Because I am a journalist I am in contact with - Gab, Zappl and Ong.Social so I will make sure that any community concerns on any of these platforms gets to the attention of the respective company.

For simply posting your work or a post about your work linking to your website you can earn cryptocurrency which can then be transferred to fiat or can be transferred to other cryptocurrencies using an exchange or service like www.shapeshift.io.

Now the problem of posting your work on all of your social media networks is tiresome and a bit of a headache to have to go individually through each of your profiles that's where Ong.Social comes in to play Ong is a social media dashboard hub that allows you the user to share simultaneously and with ease to all of your favorite major social networks and the alternatives with one single post.

With this revolutionary technology you can take advantage of not only Ong's platform which also pay users for their post based off views and up votes received but you can also take advantage of being paid through the other platforms paying in cryptocurrency Gab.ai, Steemit and Zappl.

Ong.social is essentially a paid content mirror that also serves as its own social network.

Ong is currently running their ICO, you can purchase Ongcoins at www.ongcoin.io. The company is backed by IBM and has incredible promise for the future in my opinion.

Of course you need an audience on all of these platforms and that can be obtained by spreading the word of alternative social media networks through your already existing established proprietary networks and asking your followers to follow you there or simply just building a strong following elsewhere within time.

The next hurdle to overcome is for video creators as Youtube the major video giant that videographers have relied on for the past decade continues to censor more and more users each day.

So what alternatives are there to Youtube that can give you some form of monetization for your hard work?

There are several alternatives for Youtube including - D-tube, Bitchute, and vid.me.

I recommend using all of these in conjunction with the networks we mentioned above and to make even extra money make a Steemit post with any of these embedded especially D-tube and Bitchute which are paid out in cryptocurrency.

There is also the option if you have a large following to get paid to advertise products for companies through your social media then get paid for commission of a sale or simply paid to do an advertisement.

You can also start a podcast and get paid to advertise sponsors in your broadcast.

Finally, the last thing you would need to monetize as an independent journalist is your website with cut backs on ad revenue from ad platforms like Google Adsense and Amazon two of the most commonly used don't panic there are a number of other alternatives that pay out in fiat you can check out some of them here.

What we will be sticking with is starting to decentralize your website away from being paid in d0llars and shifting towards cryptocurrency.

Some of those networks available that pay out in Bitcoin are - CoinURL, AdBit, BitMedia, Mellow Ads, Cointraffic, Coinad, A-Ads and I am sure there are way more but don't blindly trust do your own research.

With all that crypto you have been earning you can do one of two things cash it all out or you can do the smart thing and reinvest into small and medium market cap coins that have a community, technology, and the team to make it big in the future. You can find that information out through research and starting your journey at Coin Market Cap.

Imagine acquiring Ethereum when it was just $5 per digital token and obtaining 500-1000 tokens?

Look for promising coins current or ICO's (Initial Coin Offerings) that offer a service to their users or that solve a problem and you are almost guaranteed a good return in the long -term. In that example with Ethereum at today's price you would sitting on $160,000 - $320,000 currently.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Make sure when you are willing to invest in an ICO that you look for media about the coin in question and that the project is real and not a scam. While investing in ICOs early on you can get a good deal sometimes coins for 5 cents you also have the potential to get burned. Know where your money is going research into the company and the team.

Also rule of thumb never fully cash out all your coins instead take a small profit of 30% that way if the coin goes up you still hold stake so in the above example you would take $48,000 or $96,000 depending on how many coins you had 500 or 1,000. Then you take what you made and cycle investments into other cryptocurrencies while keeping the rest you don't invest for yourself.

Y0u can also invest in cryptocurrency mining contracts so each day you are getting back some type of residual income.

Two good well established cryptocurrency cloud mining sites are Hashing24 and Genesis-mining.

For any other websites I recommend severe vetting and intense Googling of customer reviews because there are a lot of scams out there.

These mining contracts often come with affiliate links so you can gain even more just by someone signing up and purchasing a contract through your affiliate link.

You can also start accepting cryptocurrency donations for the top major coins currently I would choose Bitcoin and ETH but you can also accept Monero and Zcash two other popular alt coins or any you want really.

If you combine all these strategies and just keep doing what you are doing, then you will survive the adpocalypse and come out unscathed like a gladiator ready to fight another battle.

I hope this helped everyone but for those this doesn't apply to check out some of the other independent journalist on Steemit besides myself and show them some love remember this is their job.

So far the well established journalist I have found on Steemit who I know or know of include - @LukeWeAreChange, @shepardambellas, @dbroze, @DollarVigilante, @JeffBerwick, @TitusFrost and @JoshSigurdson.

The organizations on Steemit: @ActivistPost, @Coinivore, @tftproject, @keiserreport.

If you are here on Steemit and an independent journalist or are a news organization leave a comment and I will add you to the list support independent journalist and journalism!

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Peace and Love AK.

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