Making YouTube videos can be fun. It is a great way to connect with your audience and talk about a topic you are interested in and passionate about.
However, YouTubing is more than that — while it's great to spend time and energy on a video and a subject that you'd like people to know more about, it also helps if you can make some money out of it, especially from people who care about your content and watch your channel grow. This is where YouTube channel membership can come in handy.
YouTube channel memberships are an excellent way for your subscribers to show some life and support your channel by donating a certain amount of money every month but first you have to know how to become a YouTube partner. One of Channel Memberships' primary purposes is to help YouTubers make more money out of their channel, which allows them to commit more time to the platform and create more content that people love and get inspired from.
There's more for your channel members — they get access to interesting features and add-ons such as live chat, exclusive emoji, and member-only posts which make the creator-audience relationship more engaging on the platform.
YouTube channel membership works by letting you charge a fixed monthly amount to your members. The membership price starts at $4.99 and can be upgraded to even higher membership tiers to include more perks. For example, if your viewers join the most expensive membership tiers, they get access to most perks.
You receive 70 percent of the funds while YouTube keeps the rest 30 percent of the monthly payments made to your channel through the Membership Program. The price is inclusive of all the taxes, which means that you might make around $3.49 for each payment. YouTube also takes care of the transaction-related expenses on its end, so you don't have to worry about shelling out more money when deciding to withdraw the amount.
The benefits that members get for joining the program depends on the channels. However, here are some of the benefits that can be common across channels.
Loyalty badges for members are images that appear next to their username while they type a comment on your video or send a message on live chat.
The loyalty badges help the members stand out, so you know that the comment or feedback comes from someone who likes your channel and enjoys your video. You can make it a point to keep an eye out for them!
Member-exclusive posts appear in the Community Tab only for paid members of the channel. You can use this channel to offer insights and images into how a video is made or offer them something that you won't usually provide for people who have not subscribed to your channel.
Member-exclusive posts help build audience loyalty in the long run as they get to see more than what regular members can access.
YouTube channels can choose to offer their members exclusive emojis that they can use across YouTube — both on the app and the website.
These emojis can feature unique artworks that add a custom touch to the YouTube user-experience for your members.
YouTube memberships come with several benefits and can be a great tool for YouTubers to enjoy the full benefits of being a creator on the platform. Here are some benefits of the Membership program:
Everyone is wondering how to earn money from YouTube. Money can be a great motivation for making YouTube videos, especially if your content is inspiring, engaging, and motivating. If people love your content, they become patrons, and that's quite fulfilling as a creator.
With more money, you can devote more time and resources to doing what you and the paid channel members of your channel love — make more creative and inspiring videos that are worth donating. You can even earn money through YouTube super chat when you have channel memberships enabled, which means more money into your pocket!
YouTube has many users, which is why some of your videos might receive a lot of views but not enough engagement. Sometimes, it can be hard to find an audience that's truly engaged in your channel and enjoys the videos you make. This is where a membership program can come in handy. It can help you discover an audience-base that's interested in your work.
With the right audience, you will know what other videos to make, and their continuous feedback and motivation can help you get better at making videos.
The burnout might come quickly, and as a creator, you might find yourself in a space where you no longer want to make videos or want to go on an indefinite break. However, when you have members on your channel, you will always want to come back and make videos for them as it's your comfortable space — they care about your work, and that's inspiring and fulfilling. Besides, the money you make through the membership program can help you purchase more resources that can help improve the videos' production quality on your channel.
YouTube Membership is a great place to sell merchandise to increase your brand awareness and make some extra money. Your membership tier level can help you introduce more goodies on the platform that your members can purchase for exclusive perks and features.
YouTube's platform is pretty straightforward, but things get exciting once you have membership and perks in place: You can create a highly engaging channel environment with interactive chats and stickers that add more value to your channel and make it slightly more personal for both you and your members, and this will eventually help you earn more money with channel memberships.
The membership feature sounds interesting, but it comes with specific requirements. Let's look at them.
YouTube has a condition around who can access and enjoy the Membership program's benefits on their channel.
To gain access to the Membership feature, you must already have joined the YouTube partner program, have more than 1,000 subscribers on your channel, and should not have violated any policies. You also need to be over 18 years old for this program.
YouTube Channel Memberships are not available worldwide, but you can access them from a lot of countries. Here's the list of countries where you can access this program.
Besides agreeing to the YouTube Terms of Service, Community Guidelines, and monetization policy, you should also ensure that you do NOT host contests, lotteries, sweepstakes, or 1:1 meetings on the platform. You also have to avoid letting your users download content (including) music available on YouTube. Your perks also cannot be directed to children.
Channels admins eligible to use the Membership feature can follow the steps below to enable Membership on their channel.
1. Go to the Monetization tab under YouTube Studio and click on membership
2. Submit your badges, emojis, and perks so that YouTube gets to approve them. The approval time is usually 24 hours
3. Make an introduction video
4. Publish your membership after the review is complete
The on-screen instructions to setup channel membership on your channel are quite friendly and you can set things up in no time.
Once you have successfully set up Memberships, your channel visitors will see a Join button next to the Subscriber button, and this is where they can become members of your channel.
Memberships can be turned off on the same page. Remember that the recurring payments made by your channel members will be canceled if you decide to turn off the features. They also cannot be recovered automatically once you re-activate the feature; your viewers must join your channel once again to become members.
Channel Memberships are a great way to make money from YouTube while benefiting the community. As we mentioned above, you receive 70 percent of the membership funds while YouTube keeps 30 percent. Besides the membership, you will also be making money through ads under the Partner program and by using other monetization tools such as affiliate marketing and posting videos from a sponsor.
Selling merchandise through subscription tiers can also be a great way to make some money on the platform.
The money you can make varies and is based on your channel's popularity and subscriber-base. To put things into perspective, if you have 1,000 members, then you can make a minimum of $3,490 from membership, plus the revenue from the Partner Program and other income methods.
Here are some of the tips you can follow to ensure that you make the most out of the Membership feature on YouTube -
New viewers and channel subscribers will only be motivated to subscribe to your channel if they find it professional. Ensure that your channel's design — artwork and profile picture — are to the point. You might also want to have your channel's description and contact links right in place as your viewers might want to find out more about your channel. Make your site more accessible to new viewers as it will increase the trust factor.
You should take care of the fact that the perks you offer to your members are reasonable and well worth the money spent — they should be getting what they pay for. If the perks match the payment tiers, it makes more sense for someone to subscribe to your channel.
For your highest membership tier, try to offer a physical product, like a tote bag or a t-shirt that your members can use in their everyday life. This will make them feel more connected to your channel and help spread the word.
It's a must to make great content so that your members continuously get value out of your channel. It must be fulfilling and motivating for them, so much so, they feel inclined to increase their subscription level and even ask the people in their network to become a member of your channel.
You should try to keep posting videos as pausing your membership might make things more complicated — your viewers might have to subscribe to them once more, and that's added work on your part. Besides, your members might always want access to great content, so ensure that you are always on your feet.
However, if you feel that you are struggling with content creation, you might want to reevaluate your YouTube schedule to take some stress off the table and keep up with productivity while taking care of yourself.
People subscribe to your channel because they care about you. This means that they will also be providing valuable feedback to you. Be receptive to feedback and make necessary changes and improvements to your videos and channel.
You might also want to invite some feedback by creating members-only posts and polls to figure out what your audience is looking for.
As a YouTuber, you must ensure that you always create great content and never break the platform's policies, as it might land you in an undesirable space and might strip you of your creator's privileges. Playing by the rules and respecting the community really helps create a healthy environment for your viewers, which eventually improves your channel's growth prospects.
As a creator, it's essential to stay motivated and have the financial resources to make videos. The YouTube membership feature makes this possible. While the subscriber requirement to access this might seem challenging to new creators, it is only a matter of time for them to get to that mark and make passive income on YouTube. The key is to keep on creating great content that's a hit with your audience.
Suppose your viewers find out that your videos are engaging, funny, or informative. In that case, they might find more reasons to come back to your channel and eventually end up becoming your subscribers and members. Try to be more engaging to your subscribers and make them feel right at home so that they have more than enough reasons to become members and help you on your video-making journey as a YouTuber.
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