How To Make Money On YouTube

9 Ways Influencers Monetize Their Youtube Channels

YouTube has become a content phenomenon. According to Statistics Brain a staggering 1,325,000,000 people use YouTube, watching 4,950,000,000 videos every day. 3.25 billion hours of video are watched on YouTube each month. Is it any surprise, therefore, that YouTube stars are often more influential than traditional celebrities?

Of course, successful YouTube stars do not provide their entertainment for free. They do not put themselves on the medium for philanthropic reasons. They have found that it is perfectly feasible to make money on YouTube, and if you manage to break into the ranks of the famous and influential it can be seriously good money.

#1 Advertising Revenue

#2 Earning Rewards as a YouTube Partner

#3 Joining an MCN (Multi-Channel Network)

#4 Merchandising

#5 Ancillary Products

#6 Sponsorship, Endorsements, Product Placement

#7 Affiliate Links

#8 Subscription Fees

#9 Crowdfunding Support

What are the main ways you can earn money from YouTube?

Google owns YouTube, so it is not surprising that they have made it extremely easy for you to sign up to Google Adsense and attach ads to your videos. The ads displayed will be different for everybody who views your video, as it is dependent on the viewer’s web-surfing history (have you wondered why it is that you keep seeing ads for a product you have previously taken a look at on the internet?)

Advertising Revenue

For a start, you share the advertiser’s money with Google. Although it is not clearly disclosed, it appears that Google keeps about 45% of what advertisers pay. In reality, you will earn somewhere between $1 and $2 per 1000 views (CPM). This rate changes regularly.

Being a YouTube partner does not earn you money per se, but it provides you with tools that make it easier to do so. Technically you become a YouTube Partner the moment you monetize your content and begin to share advertising revenue with YouTube. This gives you access to in-depth analytics about your viewers and their ad-clicking. You also gain a few other partner benefits, such as custom thumbnails and the ability to broadcast a Google Hangout.

Earning Rewards as a YouTube Partner

You receive special framed Play Buttons on your site, once you gain certain levels of subscribers: a framed Silver Play Button for 100,000 subscribers and a framed Gold Play Button at 1,000,000 subscribers. You gain further tools and community support the more subscribers you receive.

If you operate a successful YouTube channel, you could consider the option of joining a Multi-Channel Network. Three of the better-known ones are Fullscreen, AwesomenessTV, and Freedom. The official Google definition of Multi-Channel Networks (MCNs) is that they are “entities that affiliate with multiple YouTube channels, often to offer content creators assistance in areas including product, programming, funding, cross-promotion, partner management, digital rights management, monetization/sales, and/or audience development.”

Joining an MCN (Multi-Channel Network)

If you are a stand-out talent, these networks will greatly help your growth. If you are lucky, they will invite you to participate in their original productions. They are the best way to get mass exposure for the truly talented. They also provide an opportunity for you to cross over into other media, such as t.v., films and books.

Merchandising

Once you have made a name for yourself you will have followers - your personal fanbase. These followers will often be happy to spend money on any merchandise you sell. You could, for instance, create a range of shirts or hats that promote your site. Many followers are happy to buy your merchandise - it helps make them feel part of your group.

Some of the more influential YouTubers gain enough fame and traction that they can use this fame to help launch new products. PewDiePie, for instance, was able to collaborate with Canadian developer Outerminds Inc to create his own 2D side scrolling video game, PewDiePie: Legend of the Brofist. The game grossed over $100,000 on the day of its release in the United States. According to MoneyNation’s calculations, PewDiePie made $8.9 million of pretax income from merchandising and ancillary products in the 2016 financial year.

Ancillary Products

Most YouTube content creators are involved in other activities - YouTube is not their entire life. If they can build up a huge base of subscribers to their videos, however, they have a ready-made audience to whom they can promote their other activities.

Once you have made a name for yourself sponsorship opportunities often arise. Realistically you need to have a substantial audience first before companies are likely to consider sponsoring your channel. It is similar to any other type of corporate sponsorship If a business believes that it can benefit from having its name linked to your channel it will consider sponsoring you. As with everything else, the larger your audience size, the larger the sponsorship you will be able to negotiate.

Sponsorship, Endorsements, Product Placement

Of course, for ethical reasons (as well as meeting the YouTube terms and conditions) you need to make it very clear on your page who any sponsor is. Your sponsors are, for all intents and purposes, advertising their products or services around your videos.

Quite a few YouTube channels regularly review products. These are in a wide variety of niches. Some are pure advertorials, but quite a few have educational content that teaches the viewers about a particular product’s features and how the viewer can best use the product. There will usually be a link in the video description directing the viewer to a site where they can buy the product. These links are set up as affiliate links (so that the shopping site knows exactly where potential visitors arrive from). If the visitor ends up buying the product, the owner of the YouTube video receives a percentage of the purchase price.

Affiliate Links

Affiliate links are something of a gray area in relation to YouTube’s rules. However, they are relatively common, and as long as you use them sensibly, YouTube appears to accept them. The key to successfully using affiliate links is that you must be honest and transparent (don’t hide what you are doing from your viewers), and you still need to provide value to your subscribers.

If you can build up a solid following of people who see true value to themselves in your videos, you may consider creating gated content in a premium paid Subscriber-only channel. This is clearly not an option for beginners. Most YouTube viewers are conditioned to watching material for free, and it is something of a mind shift to have to pay to watch videos on the site.

Subscription Fees

You may be able to use your free YouTube channel as a form of freemium lead to your paid services. Give away some quality videos on your free YouTube site, but hold back your best videos for behind a paywall on your own site. A good example of this in practice is The Young Turks.

Crowdfunding is rapidly becoming a common business model for the funding of many types of products and services. It should, therefore, be no surprise that YouTube creators have discovered this and are many are encouraging their supporters to help them out financially. Crowdfunding is where people go to a specific page on a website, such as Patreon, and donate money. Of course, for this to be a possibility you first need to build a loyal audience, and create regular quality content.

Crowdfunding SupportOne example is The Nerdwriter who produces a weekly web series of videos aimed to cultivate worldview. He set a crowdfunding goal of $3,000 to expand his use of original animation and buy new camera equipment. This was after he had already targeted and exceeded milestones of $400, $700, $1,000, and $2,000 in his funding quest. He reached his $3,000 target thanks to donations from 1,909 patrons. As an incentive to his crowd funders, he has posted 30 videos, restricted to only being viewable by them. It is a common practice for video makers to produce exclusive content for their crowd funders.

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