The start of 2018 is not as good for marketers as it was expected. First, the news feed update announced by Facebook and after a couple of days, YouTube sent an email to all the existing affiliate partners of YouTube about their new partner policy. The lacs of people are joining YouTube partnership program throughout the world to earn revenue from advertising through the YouTube Partner Program (YPP). According to YouTube, “more creators than ever are earning a living on YouTube, with the number of channels making over six figures up over 40% year-over-year.” YouTube has made the changes in the YPP policy and now they want to build more solid YouTube ecosystem. In the email released by YouTube, it is said that – “While our goal remains to keep the YPP open to as many channels as possible, we recognize we need more safeguards in place to protect creator revenue across the YouTube ecosystem.” So what does it mean? Well, it is not so easy henceforth YouTube earning!
In April 2017, YouTube set a YPP eligibility requirement of 10,000-lifetime views. This was just to make sure that whether channel follows YouTube’s guideline and policy, they realized they need to set still higher standards to make the ecosystem stronger and safer. So even the ranking of the YouTube video is no more depending on ‘how many views you are getting on your video’, it counts on ‘the total hours of watch time for your videos on YouTube’. Along with all such updates, it is not a child’s game now to create any type of video just in the anticipation to earn few bugs from YouTube ads. The affiliation with YouTube is all about high quality and engaging contents.
In an email released by YouTube, it is clearly mentioned that:
Starting today we’re changing the eligibility requirement for monetization to 4,000 hours of watchtime within the past 12 months and 1,000 subscribers. We’ve arrived at these new thresholds after thorough analysis and conversations with creators like you. They will allow us to significantly improve our ability to identify creators who contribute positively to the community and help drive more ad revenue to them (and away from bad actors). These higher standards will also help us prevent potentially inappropriate videos from monetizing which can hurt revenue for everyone.
“That’s so harsh” was the initial reaction from all those people who want to earn money from YouTube. Getting 4000 hours of watchtime in a year requires seriously good content and for 1000 subscribers, you have to be consistently adding high quality and engaging videos. This might not be encouraging news for thousands of YouTube partners but at least a good move for good content developers. Further to their announcement, YouTube said:
On February 20th, 2018, we’ll also implement this threshold across existing channels on the platform, to allow for a 30 day grace period. On that date, channels with fewer than 1,000 subs or 4,000 watch hours will no longer be able to earn money on YouTube. When they reach 1,000 subs and 4,000 watch hours they will be automatically re-evaluated under strict criteria to ensure they comply with our policies. New channels will need to apply, and their application will be evaluated when they hit these milestones.
This update also means that now the number of videos on YouTube will be lesser to showcase the ads. Means the channels who have survived after this policy change may get more ads on their videos which may make them earn more. I have kept saying this to many people that use YouTube strategically for marketing of your business rather than considering it just as a medium to earn money. YouTube is a great Digital marketing strategical platform which you must integrate into your strategy.
