Tips on How to Make Money on YouTube

Each year countless ambitious entrepreneurs set out to make a fortune through YouTube, with visions of massive followings, big paychecks, and a generally glorious career. Most of them, of course, fail to make millions monetizing their original video content–for a number of different of reasons. But there are countless YouTube success stories as well. Below, we provide 101 tips, tricks, inspirations, resources, and reading items for those looking to make a living, or at least some additional spending money, through YouTube or other online video sites. (By the way, you may also be interested in our guides to making money on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Google+)

Ways To Make Money On YouTube

1. Become a YouTube Partner. The simplest and most common way to make money through YouTube involves partnering directly with YouTube and effectively splitting the money that is made off of ads. This includes both the ads that play during and before your videos, as well as the banner ads that are shown to the right of your video on YouTube.com. For a detailed breakdown of the various ad units, as well as where earnings for each are displayed, The biggest advantage of the YouTube Partner program is the convenience: it’s easy to get up and running and start earning some revenue. However, it’s going to be tough to get rich this way; only a very small portion of YouTube partners make the big bucks.
2. Sign up your own sponsors. There is, of course, another wayto make money off of YouTube: cut out the middle man and sign up your own sponsors. If you’re able to build a substantial audience, you’ll have the ability to sign up sponsors for your programming who want to advertise their products and services to your target audience. There’s no simple formula for signing up sponsors for your program; it all depends on your audience, the number of potential sponsors, and their budgets. But if done correctly, this can be a very lucrative source of revenue for YouTube channels.
3. Promote your own merchandise. While many YouTubers focus on the “direct” monetization routs available, perhaps the biggest potential in video is in the opportunity to promote other products and services that are moneymakers for you. Giving away free video content can be a great way to make money–if you’re effectively promoting merchandise or services that your free users will pay for. If you have products or services to sell and a YouTube audience that would be interested in purchasing them, this might be your best monetization opportunity.
4. Go freemium style. YouTube can be a great way to generate leads for your paid services, and a “freemium” business model can be a great way to turn on the masses to your paid product. This concept is pretty simple; give away a bunch of content for free on YouTube, but hold back some of your best stuff behind a paywall on your own site. If you can get a big crowd to enjoy your free content, odds are that you’ll be able to get a portion of them to pay for your exclusive video as well. The Young Turks have implemented this model well; check out their channel for a good example of freemium.
5. Get an affiliate deal in place. If you don’t have a great premium product to sell, find someone who does–and cut yourself into their revenue stream. If you have a large and/or targeted audience, find a partner whose products you can promote in your videos and hash out a way that you can get credit for sending clients their way! Affiliate deals can be tough to monetize if there are no obvious partners for your channel, but there’s a huge opportunity here if you can effectively become a spokesman for another company in your videos.

Other Ways To Make Money Off Your Videos

Of course, YouTube isn’t the only source out there for monetizing your quality video content. Though it’s the most commonly used system (and for most people the best way to make money), there are some alternatives that may be better fits for some:

6. Become a “Motionmaker” at Dailymotion. DailyMotion has become a popular alternative you YouTube in recent years, and represents a way for video producers to cash in on popular submissions. The process is pretty simple; “Motionmakers” have the ability to upload their videos toDailymotion and earn a portion of any advertising revenue generated.
7. Open up your Vimeo Tip Jar. Vimeo takes a different approach to monetizing videos. Instead of relying on ads, this site uses a “Tip Jar” model. That’s pretty much what is sounds like; viewers of Vimeo videos have the option to “Tip This Video,” which involves giving a tip of about $1 up to $500. Video producers get about 85% of all tips generated.