#youtubeisoverparty
The advertising industry is a fickle beast. While we as content creators like to think of ourselves as servants of our audience, they’re often not the ones paying the bills. For many on YouTube, ad revenue is their channel’s only source of revenue. As we learned with YouTube’s latest step toward appeasing advertisers, relying on this single source of revenue can be a dangerous strategy.
As a refresher, YouTube rolled out an update which notifies YouTubers when their videos are deemed unfriendly to advertisers. Videos are policed by an algorithm which attempts to determine whether or not a video is controversial or offensive in nature. If it is, advertisers can choose to not have their ads placed in front of that video. Most advertisers choose to avoid videos flagged as controversial or offensive and thus, that video makes a very small fraction of what it would if it weren’t flagged.
Some YouTubers and fans are pretty upset about this, citing it as a form of censorship. For a more detailed explanation of the whole situation, I advise reading this article from the Internet Creators Guild.
It’s been argued to death, so I won’t go into whether this change is good or bad for creators, advertisers or YouTube as a whole. Rather, I want to discuss over-reliance on advertising as a revenue source.
It’s entirely possible that YouTube could take drastic measures to increase revenue or reduce expenses, leaving content creators high and dry.
Though it’s now over 10 years old, relative to traditional media, YouTube and the industry of online video is still rather new. It’s going through growing pains, so some volatility is to be expected. But even as things continue to settle, if your YouTube channel is a business, or if you hope it to eventually be a business, you should expect even greater swings in the whims of advertisers and be prepared to rely on alternative revenue sources.
A common solution for YouTubers is to sell merchandise like T-shirts, posters, hats, and stickers. Some channels have had luck getting viewers to pay them directly via Patreon. YouTube channels that heavily feature products include links using affiliate trackers to earn commissions from retailers like Amazon.
And then there are branded deals. When your channel is big enough, advertisers may approach you or your MCN directly in order to incorporate their product natively into your content. This is a great way to earn meaningful advertising revenue without sharing a penny with Google.
As professional creators, managing revenue is only part of our job. Audience cultivation and management is just as important when having an engaged audience is the key prerequisite for earning ad revenue.
What if YouTube shuts down tomorrow? I don’t believe that would happen, but as of 2015, YouTube is still unprofitable. It’s entirely possible that YouTube could take drastic measures to increase revenue or reduce expenses, leaving content creators high and dry.
Planning for this kind of disruption may sound extreme, but it’s something big companies do all the time. Facebook for example, fears a day when they may be banned from Google’s Play Store. In preparation, they may have begun developing their own app store.
As a content creator, you should work toward having your audience follow you on multiple platforms, and I’m not talking about you as a personality. Ideally you should be prepared to uproot your entire organization and have people watch your videos elsewhere. Facebook is the ideal target, but don’t rule out Vimeo or even your own website.
If you have a healthy, diversified revenue stream coming from pre-roll advertisers, third party sponsors — i.e., brand deals you sell yourself — merchandise sales, affiliate links and crowdfunding, all spread across multiple platforms, you’ll be well protected if one of those revenue sources or platforms evaporates. Otherwise, while times may be good today, your future is resting in someone else's hands.
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