How To Become A YouTube Partner

If you’ve spent some time on Youtube you’ve probably heard of their partner program, and that you can make money from your videos through revenue sharing. This means that you put ads on your videos and get paid for them. Sounds good right but what do you need to do to be a partner and is it worth it?

How to become a YouTube partner

Potential YouTube partners have to meet some criteria before they’ll consider you for a partnership. There are four things that YouTube analyzes before they accept or reject your application, they are

1. Subscribers And Friends

2. Video Views

3. Daily Video View Count

4. Copyrighted content

For subscribers and friends a good number is somewhere between 500 to 1000 each. Though I have heard of some people becoming partners with as few as two to three hundred subscribers and friends. Either way it doesn’t hurt to have a higher number if not for anything else it will help push up the number of views your videos gets.

For video views a good number for your videos is somewhere between 50 to 200 thousand. How do you get that many views? There are lots of ways, the best ways though are to subscribe to other video channels, respond and leave comments, post videos on a regular basis. And overall be an active member on YouTube. Think of like this “The squeaky wheel gets the grease” or in this case the more active you are and get yourself notices the more people will find you and watch your videos.

Your daily view count is the number views your videos get every day. YouTube likes this number to be around 1500 to 2000, but more is obviously better. Especially if those videos link to a website or blog you want to promote.

And finally copyrighted material, this means that you can’t use audio, video, pictures, logos, or anything that isn’t yours and that you don’t have permission to use. This can also apply to videos such as tutorial videos that use screen captures. So if your videos are say fan made tribute videos to your favourite movies and music these won’t be allowed. It has to be 100 percent your content. As for music You tube does have a large selection of music you can add to your videos that they will allow and doesn’t infringe on copyright.

Does this mean you shouldn’t make these kinds of videos, of course not; many of them are very popular it just means you won’t be able to become a partner. You can still use them to promote your site.

To become a member simply go to YouTube channel, go to where it says account, then creators and partners at the bottom of the page. Once there go to where it says partner program and benefits and qualifications, or just click this link here https://www.youtube.com/t/partnerships_benefits#qualifications. Then you follow the application steps and wait for your channel to be reviewed. It can take a couple weeks to well over a month to hear from them. Also don’t be surprised if your account is rejected at first, unless your videos are extremely popular it’s very common for potential partners to have to re apply a few times before being accepted.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of being a YouTube partner?

1. If you’re a partner and upload a video you own the copyright and the distribution rights of that video, and all the videos you upload to your channel. If you’re not a partner any video you upload even if it’s 100 percent all your content YouTube can manage it as they see fit. Meaning if they don’t like it or if it doesn’t meet their guidelines can ban or block it.

2. You get to make money with your videos. To me that seems like a pretty big advantage. As to how much you can make off YouTube Unfortunately YouTube doesn’t allow that to be made public and partners have to agree to those terms. But your videos will earn income by either PPC or pay per click. Or by CPM or cost per impression or the number of visitors who view the video.

3. The exposure your videos will receive is far greater for partners then those who aren’t. Your videos will be placed at the very top of video searches, giving you even more traffic.

4. Greater control over customization. As a YouTube partner you can customize your channel page with a custom made skin to match the look of your page to your logo or brand. This helps you stand out even more above those who aren’t partners.

What Are The Disadvantages Of Being A YouTube Partner

1. All your videos have to be 100 percent original content. If your channel is dedicated to fan made music videos for example, count yourself out. However if you have the original owners permission you can use their content.

2. Not all users can become partners. There are only so many countries that YouTube will allow partnerships from. While this list will grow over time you might have to wait awhile before you can become a partner some of the countries that are currently allowed are

Canada

United States

Australia

United Kingdom (Britain)

France

Germany

Ireland

Japan

Spain

3. You have to follow the rules. Once you’re a partner you have to follow YouTube’s large amount of rules to keep your partnership and keep you account in good standing. This also applies to the design of your page and how it can be optimized. For example you can’t have arrows pointing to ads you want to be clicked or other tricks to get viewers clicking on ads for you.

All that being said if you can get a partnership with YouTube I say go for it. I personally think the rewards far outweigh the negative.

Top 10 Earning YouTube Partners as of January, 2011

1. Ray William Johnson

2. Shane Dawson

3. The Annoying Orange

4. Philip DeFranco

5. Ryan Higa

6. Fred

7. Shay Carl

8. Smosh

9. The Young Turks

10. Natalie Tran