SHOULD YOU CONSIDER THE YOUTUBE PAID CONTENT OPTIONS?
Since the release of the last version of this blogger, YouTube has opened paid content options to YouTube Channels with 1,000 or more subscribers, which many would consider an easy number to reach.
The original requirement was 10,000 users, and it’s very possible that YouTube could lower the requirement again this year. Essentially, anyone with a YouTube audience of note has access to the program.
Currently, paid content options are only available in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Hong Kong, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Philippines, South Korea, Spain, Uganda, United Kingdom, and the United States. More specifics on requirements can be found here
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/3249165.
What are these premium options, and why do they matter?
The most popular option is the ability for channels to open new paid channels that require users to pay to view.
Paid channels can be compared to paid television channels in the traditional cable television model, in which where the price per month makes all content available that month.
At the time of writing, Google gives 30% of the profits from a paid channel to the creator of the channel.
The creator owns all content hosted on a paid channel, and there are no exclusivity requirements that your content be made available only at YouTube.
At the time of writing, there are 291 paid channels at YouTube, a list of which can be found here:
https://www.youtube.com/channels/paid_channels
In addition to paid channels, creators with more than 1,000 subscribers are also given the option to produce paid videos - videos that customers can either purchase or rent.
A purchase or rental involves no physical transaction of goods
it simply makes the video available to the customer through YouTube either for the rental period, or indefinitely if a purchase is made.
Although this process may seem foreign to the traditional YouTube user used to free content, it is important to note that the same process and engine is used by YouTube to rent/sell premium movies and television shows.
And This process of renting and buying is predicted to become more and more popular as time progresses. Like Paid Channels, Paid Videos give 30% of revenue to the creator.
A 99 cent example of a Paid Video can be found here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4OUwjaYcPTg.
To make a video available for purchase or rental, click to edit the video in YouTube and select “Require rental or purchase to view” in the monetization tab.
When you offer a video for rental or purchase, YouTube lets you pick the
pricing and age rating for each video. At the time of writing, YouTube requires an entry for every rental and purchase price in every country.
This process can be a bit tedious in nature (especially if you want to sell your video in multiple countries even English speaking ones). However, if you don’t set your video rating, YouTube will assume that your video is for adults only, which can result in some embarrassing assumptions or awkward questions at tech support.
Payment at YouTube for rental or purchase requires a Google Wallet account. While this is the same account Android Phone users need to emulate the features
of Apple Pay, funded Google Wallet accounts are, at this point, a rarity.
The real question you should be asking is this:
Is the Premium model for content something that you should consider? The impact of reach of YouTube is without question, however the question of whether or not YouTube’s audience will be willing to pay for content when so much other content is available for free still needs to be examined.
When you add the extra steps required for a Google Pay?
account for access, it is difficult to believe that enough of an audience is there to make this a financially viable model at this point in time.
Online media is always a question of market to media. The market for YouTube at this point continues to be people looking for free content, expecting to find an audience willing to pay for your content.
I cannot recommend this business
model at present, but this could change in the future. However, at this point I don’t recommend this strategy.
The one strategy for paid YouTube content or a paid channel worth considering is the social proof that this type of relationship with YouTube can carry in certain audiences. I’ve used the example above of my pay-per-view video as an example of how my channel carries a certain gravitas within YouTube that note veryone has.
Being able to “sell” at YouTube puts me in a league different from a lot of my competitors.
You would be surprised how many YouTube gurus and authors don’t have the numbers for some of the advanced features mentioned here. If such positioning is valuable to you or your company, now or in the future, you might want to make a paid video for channel available.
If you’re worried about how a paid channel with an audience of two would look, that that It is possible to “turn off” your audience count to the general public.
At this point, a positioning play for YouTube paid content is the only model I can recommend.
Register this blogger as described in the first chapter, and I promise to update you this year if anything changes worth noting.
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