You may have heard that YouTube will soon be tightening its Partner Program guidelines for monetizing videos. This news might’ve scared you. we try to put those fears to rest.
Why YouTube changes monetization rules?
As of February 20th, channels included in the Partner Program must have:
- 1,000+ subscribers
- 4,000+ hours of watch-time within the last 12 months
If you meet these requirements, nothing to worry about! If your channel doesn’t meet these new criteria you will no longer be allowed to directly monetize the videos you’ve uploaded to your channel.
Why is YouTube changing the rules?
In short, it’s to ensure the long-term viability of YouTube as an advertising platform.
If a Domino’s commercial gets queued to play before some weird video that has nothing to do with Domino’s target audience, just because the person who uploaded that video added the right keywords to game the system, well, Domino is throwing its money away.
And worse, if a Domino commercial plays before some video with hate speech, controversial content, or violence, their reputation takes a hit.
Neither of those scenarios is acceptable to advertisers, but that’s exactly what was happening last year. It understandably scared advertisers away and YouTube took a big financial hit.
Now YouTube is making corrections. These new channel-monetization guidelines are one part of their stricter quality-assurance strategy, providing more protection for advertisers. When the advertisers are happy, YouTube is happy; when YouTube is happy, the better the chances that YouTube will remain a viable venue to share, promote, and monetize your music.
Did Youtube make harder to monetize music?
If you have less than 4000 hours of watch-time over the last year for the videos you’ve uploaded directly to your channel, you’re really not losing out on much money, to begin with. Smarter people can do the math, but it really amounts to about a nice dinner out… for one.
It’s probably a more worthwhile use of your time to boost your video output and subscriber count.
If you use YouTube as it was intended (as a content channel with engaged subscribers, and not just a place to park your music and promo videos), you can follow the steps outlined in YouTube’s Creator Academy to reach those minimum requirements — and beyond. Then you’ll be able to collect those peanuts AND earn more than just peanuts because your audience is finally growing and energized on the platform.
Digitunes is still monetizing your music on YouTube
Another reason you don’t need to worry about these changes (at least not as much as you might’ve thought): If you’re monetizing your music through Digitunes’ YouTube Monetization program, we’re still continuing to collect revenue for as much of your original content as possible via Content ID.
You still have time to reach YouTube’s minimum requirements
To some degree, YouTube payments aren’t passive income. It takes WORK to build an audience. It takes WORK to keep that audience. And regardless of your channels current numbers, every single channel on YouTube can benefit from a little extra focused attention.
We have plans to boost your videos
Digitunes has marketing plans to make it easy to create effective online marketing campaigns. You can quickly design and implement campaigns that will drive traffic to your channel, boost video views, and help you reach YouTube’s new Partner Program requirements. Please check the Digitunes Marketing Plans here.