In the earlier days, sharing videos with high-quality content that earns a million views and generating income from advertisements was how people made money from YouTube. These days, those who create and share good quality content on YouTube can gain access to different ways to monetize their videos. First, let’s answer the question, “what is the YouTube Partner Program all about?”
YouTube Partner Program
Through the YouTube Partner Program (or YPP), content creators are given wider access to the platform’s features and resources such as direct contact with YouTube’s Creator Support team, Copyright Match Tool, and monetization features. An eligible content creator can also earn a share from the revenue from advertisements placed by YouTube on their videos.
In order to be eligible for YouTube’s Partner Program, you need to reside in a region or country where YPP is available. It is critical that you first review and comply with the platform’s channel monetization policies. Also, your channel should not have any active violations against YouTube’s Community Guidelines.
Other requirements include:
- Google AdSense account linked to your channel
- 1,000 or more subscribers
- At least 4,000 watch hours accumulated over the immediately preceding 12 months
Making Money from Google Ads
YouTube monetizes eligible video content through advertising formats such as pre-roll, display, and others. Advertisers on YouTube pay per click or per view (impression). The content creator earns 55% of this revenue while YouTube gets 45%. For a video to be eligible for monetization, the channel needs to have met the minimum subscriber and watch hours count and the video must meet the platform’s community guidelines and advertiser-friendly content guidelines.
Making Money from Brand Sponsorship
If you have a huge number of subscribers to your YouTube channel, you can earn money from influencer marketing. A brand or company can pay you to create content promoting the use of their product or service. Take Michelle Phan, for example. She is popular on YouTube for all her makeup tutorials that premier cosmetics brand Lancôme sponsored videos of her promoting the brand while demonstrating makeup techniques.
There now are hundreds of agencies that match brands with influencers on social media channels like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and others.
Making Money from Fan Funding
You can open your widely-subscribed channel for memberships. Your channel’s fans and subscribers pay monthly membership fees for bonus content you sell like live chats, badges, members-only videos, emojis, and more. Top YouTubers can earn up to $40,000 each month from fan funding.
Making Money from Merchandise Sales
As a YouTube Partner, you can enable the merchandise sales feature and offer as many as 12 merch items for sale. American YouTuber Jeffree Star who publishes content about makeup and beauty, has sold millions of dollars worth of makeup to his fans via YouTube.
Best Practices for YouTube
For you to attract more subscribers to your channel, it is crucial that you are consistent in coming out with quality, engaging video content that is relevant to your audience. High-quality videos are interesting, relatable, stimulating, and share-worthy. Your viewers will subscribe to your channel either to be entertained, informed, or to learn.
The more your video engages viewers, the more valuable it becomes to YouTube, making it more likely that your video (or videos) to rank higher among user search results.
You can also optimize your videos, improving their rank in YouTube searches. Take advantage of the Google keyword planner to learn about common words that people use when using the search engine. Use critical keywords in your video title, description, and actual video.
For instance, you are producing an instructional video about marketing ideas for insurance agents, try to run these keywords through Google first and check which words are most commonly used by people when searching about this topic. Make sure you include whatever keywords you learn into the actual title, tags, and description, and mention them a lot in the video itself.
If you have accounts in other social media channels (like Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram), make sure to promote your YouTube channel and videos through these platforms to generate more viewer traffic on YouTube.
Content creators who have at least 1,000 subscribers and have accumulated a minimum of 4,0000 watch time hours are eligible for the YouTube Partner program. Being a part of this program grants you access to YouTube features that allow you to earn money, whether through Google ads, merchandise sales, or funding. Highly-followed channels are also potential influencers who can generate revenue from brand sponsorships. Follow YouTube guidelines and best practices to increase your revenue potential.
