youtubecreatorbloguk

Meet Rinuszingt, April's YouTube Partner Success Story!

Monday, April 30, 2012

Being a YouTube Creator Just Got Even More Rewarding

Thursday, April 12, 2012

[Update: This blog post was updated at 5:20PM on 4/12. Please read more below.]

Everyone has a different reason for being on YouTube. Some people want to be stars, others want to share what they know, and others are in the right place at the right time when something beautiful happens. Creativity is ever present and ever growing on YouTube: with more than 60 hours of content uploaded every minute, creators are constantly uploading fresh, innovative content and building audiences of millions around the world.

Back in January, we shared how we’re helping more creators earn money from their videos. Today, we’re expanding this more broadly so that if you’re uploading high quality, original content and monetizing it, you’re eligible for the Partner Program. You can learn more in the Help Center.
To further help all Partners in their careers, we’re also increasing the number of initiatives and resources to help all Partners unlock their creativity and skills, build larger audiences, and earn more revenue. You can find all of these initiatives and the latest Partner news at the Creator Hub (youtube.com/creators). Some of these initiatives are available in certain countries, but rest assured that we’re actively working to make more of them available in your region.

To help you unlock your creativity and further develop your skills:

Creator Clubs & Meetups: Sign up for a Creator Club to network and collaborate with other creators in your area; discover a Meetup near you, where you can meet YouTube staff and other creators.

YouTube Creator Academy & Next Creator Camps: For more hands-on training, we’ll be offering seats at the YouTube Creator Academy and Next Creator camps. YouTube Creator Academy will focus on video production training. Next Creator programmes will offer the chance to meet other creators, and gain skills to be more successful on YouTube.

Trainings & Updates: Check out our ever-growing collection of tutorials on the Creator Hub. To ensure you’re always informed of the latest updates and happenings in your region, subscribe to the Creator Blog.

YouTube Editing Tools: Whether you’re looking to improve and increase your production quality, or trying to create easy, fun videos, YouTube has a host of new tools to help new creators easily produce high quality videos. You can find most of them in your Video Manager.

To help you build larger and more engaged audiences:
Partner Promotion: Over the next few months, we’ll be rolling out Partner Promotion globally. This means our partners can receive free advertising on the Google Display Network.
Creator Playbook 2: The YouTube Creator Playbook 2 is the latest version of the definitive YouTube audience development guide. Find it at youtube.com/playbook. Translated versions will be available in just a few weeks; please check the Creator Hub.

To help you earn revenue from your videos:
TrueView and Other Ad Formats: TrueView is one of many innovative ad formats that can help creators earn more revenue, more deeply engage with their audiences, and provide a better overall experience to viewers. We’ve also improved a host of other monetization features, such as bulk monetization.
YouTube Analytics: YouTube Analytics is a powerful tool to help you build larger audiences and make more money. There have been some feature enhancements made so that more creators can take advantage of its reporting power.

[Update] We're excited to provide more creators with the opportunity to become partners and have access to programs and resources to help them be successful on YouTube. These programs will be tailored to partners based on their specific needs. We also recognize that custom thumbnails and banners are sought-after features by many creators. We are working on making these and other features available to more newly-made partners over time, like we have done with long uploads and monetization.

As always, you can stay on top of all creator-related initiatives and news at youtube.com/creators. We’re excited to see your channels continue to evolve as we bring more resources to more creators on YouTube.

Posted by Sara Mormino, Head of YouTube Content Operations and Next Lab EMEA

Meet Koalakombat, March's YouTube Success Story!

Friday, March 23, 2012

Introduction:
Please tell us a bit about yourself. What is your name, your channel name? Where are you from, your fan base?

My name is Ralph Ruthe, my channel on YouTube is called “koalakombat”. When I started in 2006, I was working on a flash-game by the same name so I decided spontaneously to give my channel the same name. Looking back maybe not the best decision, but neither a catastrophe. I live and work in Bielefeld, Germany.

History:
Please tell us how it all started. How and when did you start creating videos? When did you decide to be active on YouTube and become a partner? What was your first video on YouTube?

Mid 2005 I was already successful for several years with Cartoons published as books and publications in several magazines. Several attempts to translate my characters and content to video with professional animation studios and production companies were unsuccessful because I was not fully satisfied with the results. Professional producers just didn’t get my sense of humor as they were producing primarily for a child audience. My target group focused rather on teenagers with no upper age limit. I further focus on content rather than art. Accordingly, my first video from 2006 was a non-animated music video with self-designed puppets. When I got to know Falk Hühne, who was already producing animations, I saw a chance to jointly produce short clips on a small budget to demonstrate my ambitions and capabilities to established players.

Channel:
Please explain your channel. What's the story behind your channel? How did you come up with your channel concept?

My Channel stands for comedy. Animated, real life or puppets - what matters is that it reflects my humor 100%. Music plays a major role in my clips - I write and compose everything myself. My Top 3 are: "Du bist wie Sand", "Biber und Baum 2", "FLOSSEN - die Falltür".

YouTube Partnership:
Please share your experience of being a YouTube partner. How has being a YouTube partner helped/changed your business and personal life? Were there any surprises? What are your plans for the future of your channel and YouTube partnership?

The primary benefit of the YouTube partnership for me: the ability to develop videos without constraints on content or time according to my ideas, and the possibility to refinance my production cost (sometimes even make a small profit). Honestly, I didn’t even expect this level.
My characters and cartoons were known before my YouTube Partnership, but only through YouTube I was able to introduce myself as a musician and film producer to my audience because I could produce without any limits or constraints on creativity. I’m very comfortable with this situation and hope that will continue.

Success:
How do you define success? How did you become successful on YouTube? What were your goals for your channel, and how did you achieve them? What would you recommend to newbie partners to be successful on YouTube?

Success for me is the chance to do what I like best and what I can do well so people recognize me and I can make a living off it. I think that’s the recipe for success: To do what you really love. Not only for YouTube, but in general.

Creative Inspiration:
Please tell us what inspires you. Do you have a particular creative aesthetic? Are there other YouTube channels you watch, creators you admire?

Inspiration is everything. Shopping in the supermarket, a movie, an overheard conversation in the tube. But also other YouTubers, sure. For instance, I love the clips by Mr. Weebl.

Key Takeaways:
Anything you want the YouTube audience to know about you, your channel, or being a YouTube Partner?

I always try to surprise myself.
Koalakombat, YouTube Partner, recently watched “ Dick Figures: Kung Fu Winners”

Changes to Related and Recommended Videos

Monday, March 12, 2012

To make the videos you watch on YouTube more enjoyable, memorable, and sharable, we're updating our Related and Recommended videos to better serve videos that keep viewers entertained.For years, the Related and Recommended videos we served to the right of the player and on the homepage represented our best prediction of what people wanted to watch next. We regularly tweaked the system that selects these videos to keep it evolving with the rest of the site.Today, this system serves videos based on the number of clicks they receive, which would be like suggesting a TV show based on how many people briefly flipped on a channel while surfing. But clicks aren’t always the best way to predict whether you’ll be interested in a video. Sometimes thumbnails don’t paint the whole picture, or a video title isn’t descriptive.We’ve been experimenting with the way we offer Related and Recommended videos, focusing on video engagement to get people to the videos they like more quickly. In particular, we’ve discovered that time watched is one of the best indicators of a viewer's engagement. As a result, we’ll be focusing more prominently on time watched in providing Related and Recommended videos starting next week. While we'll still be looking at clicks, engagement will become the leading indicator for serving these videos.So, if you’re making videos that keep people engaged, Related and Recommended videos will begin showing your videos more prominently. On the flip side, videos that don’t will not be surfaced as prominently, which will impact a video’s viewcounts over time. How can you adapt to these changes? The same as you always have — create great videos that keep people engaged. It doesn’t matter whether your videos are one minute or one hour. What matters is that your audience stops clicking away and starts watching more of your videos.To help you, we have an Analytics Audience Retention Report, a list of best practices, and answers to frequently-asked questions to find ways ranging from content to programming. As this kicks off next week, we’ll continue to share resources on this blog to help drive even more audiences to your videos and to your channel.The YouTube Team

Meet JPelirrojo, February's YouTube Success Story!

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

We have loads of partners across Europe that are taking advantage of the YouTube Partner Program, and becoming highly successful on YouTube. We've asked some of these partners to share their experience on YouTube and within the program, shed light on how to best utilize the platform. This month's featured partner is JPelirrojo, please read on for his story and best practices!

Introduction:
Please tell us a bit about yourself. What is your name, your channel name? Where are you from, your fan base?

Hello!
My name is Juan Miguel Flores, however nobody calls me Juan Miguel. My main YouTube channel is youtube.com /JPelirrojo and almost everyone calls me " JP ", " Jota" or mostly " Pelli ".
I was born in Madrid and I still live there, but I travel a lot. A couple of years ago, I've lived in Ottawa (Canada) for a year and now I travel to Utrecht whenever I can, because my girlfriend lives there.

History:
Please tell us how it all started. How and when did you start creating videos? When did you decide to be active on YouTube and become a partner? What was your first video on YouTube?

My first videos were all music videos. I make rap music and I have two albums released in the national market here in Spain. Because of this I got a website and to upload my videos to my website, the simplest way was hosting them on YouTube .

Some time later, in Canada, I was not allowed to work or study, so I started spending more time on YouTube, I started to follow American vloggers and finally started to create my own vlog combined with what I knew about music. Then I wanted to become a partner, in particular to further customize my channel, but I could not, until the third attempt.

Channel:
Please explain your channel. What's the story behind your channel? How did you come up with your channel concept?

My channel is a mixture of humor, music and special effects and editing. These are basically my main influencers: MysteryGuitarMan, freddiew and DeStorm.

YouTube Partnership:
Please share your experience of being a YouTube partner. How has being a YouTube partner helped/changed your business and personal life? Were there any surprises? What are your plans for the future of your channel and YouTube partnership?

Being a partner has changed my life completely. Thanks to "YouTube NextUp" I took part in and managed to win. That allowed me to quit my job at the time (worked at nights at a gas station) and devote myself exclusively to my videos, my music and my acting. Now I make my living with it all and does not look like I will have to find a job that I like in a while. Because this is growing and growing!

My future plans are certainly living exclusively of my videos and AdSense, not to depend on anyone and I can continue doing what I enjoy doing. Like now, but without having to look for sponsors, focusing only on the creative :)

Success:
How do you define success? How did you become successful on YouTube? What were your goals for your channel, and how did you achieve them? What would you recommend to newbie partners to be successful on YouTube?

For me the greatest success is to live as you like. I always enjoyed doing too many things and it was hard to focus on something ... But YouTube not only offered me the opportunity to unify everything, but also being able to live of it. That is why I think I'm succeeding. I don’t need to wake up early if I don’t want anymore! I choose my own schedule, I do things my way ...But yes, I work longer hours than in any other job I've ever had ... but with a smile on my face ;)

My advice to "newbies " on YouTube is: Dont be in a hurry, focus on doing what you like and be good at it instead of thinking about being seen and subscribers. If you do what you like and you're good at it, time will attract a lot of people to your channel, for sure.

Creative Inspiration:
Please tell us what inspires you. Do you have a particular creative aesthetic? Are there other YouTube channels you watch, creators you admire?

I am inspired by my life, day by day, all! Many people ask me where you got so many ideas, and all I want is to have more time to capture far more than I have. I never lack ideas, I lack the time to take them all out.

Since childhood I have always been more interested in drawing, music, acting, poetry and computing than anything else. My books are full of pictures and instead of doing my homework in the college, I spent the class drawing and writing songs. It is something that has always been there.

Of course most of my inspiration comes from what I consume and the people I admire. My biggest role model in life is Will Smith. In YouTube, as I said, MysteryGuitarMan, freddiew, DeStorm and many more like Julian Smith or ShayTards.

Key Takeaways:
Anything you want the YouTube audience to know about you, your channel, or being a YouTube Partner?

Well, just to tell everyone that YouTube has a space for everyone, it is your own window to internet and therefore the whole world. No matter what you like and what inspires you, here is a place for you. I would encourage everyone to try it, it's addictive, healthy and you will go big.

JPelirrojo, YouTube Partner, recently watched “ Time To Reply”

Switch Your YouTube Channel to the New Design by 7th March

Thursday, February 23, 2012

As we told you in December, we want you to have more options for how you organise and showcase your videos on your YouTube Channel, so you can continue to grow your audience. For that reason we launched a new design for Channels, which allows you to select one of four templates to better fit your needs as a creator, as well as customisations to keep your viewers engaged and coming back.

In order to provide your viewers with a consistent experience across YouTube, we’d like you to switch your current Channel to the new design by 1 March. We will automatically convert all Channels on the site to the new design on 7 March, so update yours before then to make sure that it is set up to your liking.

If you haven’t already, you can opt in by clicking the blue “Try the new design” button at the top of your Channel page. You may also switch back to the old Channel design repeatedly before 7 March by clicking the “Switch Back” button on the appearance tab of the Edit Channel menu on your new Channel.

To help you get your Channel fully ready, we have resources within the Help Centre, including a Channel Migration Checklist.
Your feedback on the new design has been tremendously helpful, as we continue to make refinements to improve both your and your viewers’ experiences. We hope that you have a successful transition to this new design.

Creator Blog