Now what's all this talk about earning lots of money in a very short space of time from a very small number of people on YouTube? Well it all comes down to this. We recently published a video all about 

One of the tools we talked about during that video was 

, which are small financial contributions from viewers to live streams which will highlight their message in the live stream chat. Now Super Chats are not new, it's been a feature that's been on YouTube for a number of years, but what is new is just how profitable they are for video creators. YouTube has confirmed that there are now over 90,000 channels who have received Super Chats - with some streams earning more than $400 per minute!

Now we ourselves occasionally get Super Chats on our live streams and we're very appreciative of it, thank you very much. But to say that it's a number one revenue source for channels and that you can earn over $400 per minute seems fanciful, until I saw this livestream from Travis McPherson (tune into the video above to watch).

Travis is part of the vidIQ family. You may have seen him on our channel, or at live streams and he does lots of work with customer service in the background. But Travis is also a video creator in his own right with the channel 

And he does all sorts of things on technology including live streams. At the time of recording, Travis's tech channel is just shy of 40,000 subscribers and I have no idea what he's doing right here. But this is one such live stream he did recently on the Samsung Galaxy Note which ran for about 48 minutes and got around 1,000 views. Just some of the Super Chats Travis received during that live stream including a single donation of $100 Canadian dollars. So first of all Travis, that's some savage work my friend. But second of all, and most importantly, how on earth did you do this? We decided to ask him.

 Actually the ability for me to get all of these Super Chats really had nothing to do with me chasing different ways to get the money, it was actually more about me chasing ways to make my live streams better. Let me explain.



I would go to other live streams and I would try to figure out why people were so excited to be there and why they were so much fun. I would go to other creators live streams and I would enjoy them myself. And one thing I noticed was in one of my favorite creators live streams he would do sound effects periodically and people loved it! And then I noticed that the more sound effects were being used, the more people would send Super Chats which I thought was interesting.



So what I wanted to do first was put sound effects in my videos. There's multiple ways of doing this including free ways where you can do a soundboard on your computer. But I bought the 

 and it's already paid for itself.



Basically it has a bunch of different buttons that I can completely modify and put different sound effects and different, cool little visual effects in my live streams. It makes it more fun.



Secondly, I made sure that I'm full of energy every single live stream. People want that, people love that. They come to my live stream because they enjoy themselves. And of course the most important thing, the thing you're wondering about how do I get them to spend money, well I don't. I just enjoy myself. I play sound effects when cool things are happening and when someone sends a Super Chat it's a big celebration.



I have a specific song I play, I do a little dance, and you know what, it works. People love it when you can take a minute to just appreciate that someone has sent you money just for being live, they really appreciate it as well. And because I go to other streamers live streams I go to other creators live streams, they actually come to mine as well and a lot of those Super Chats were from other creators. I really believe that going to people's live streams, being apart of the community and then making your live stream as fun as absolutely possible, is all you need to do. Focus on the people in your live stream make it awesome for them, and the rest just kinda works its way out.

Making Live Streams Work for Your YouTube Subscribers

YouTube subscribers are a fickle bunch. You only need to look at your analytics to see how many views you get from actual subscribers and it's usually less than 50% on most channels.

Beyond your standard subscribers are actual fans of your channel, the ones who post comments in all of your videos, who turn into every single live stream, they volunteer to moderate, and in the most generous way they start to offer you Super Chats and become members of your channel.

Those are your super fans, and if you continue to give those super fans enough value and make them part of the fabric of your channel you will never need to ask for anything from them they will give it to you because they are so invested in your success.

Oh and one final thing, I said that Travis earned these $200 from about 150 viewers although the live stream said it got a 1,000 views this is because you have concurrent viewers watching the live stream there and then, they drop in and out, and in reality Travis probably earned that money from maybe 10 at max 15 Super Chat contributors. So in theory you can make far more money than you would ever make on AdSense with just a handful of diehard fans.

If you want to take your YouTube channel to the next level and 

 then make sure to download vidIQ. It will help you research YouTube, analyze videos, audit your own channel, and take actionable steps 

48 minutes to create 1 video earning over $100, with vidIQ branding and icons

How do you earn more than $100 in less than an hour from just 150 people watching your content on YouTube? We tell you how!

How to Make More Than $100 on YouTube in Less Than an Hour!

There used to be a time where you could only make money through YouTube from AdSense, and you would have to generate any other income, such as affiliate links, brand deals, and merchandising, off-platform.

But YouTube has got a lot more sophisticated in the last couple of years, now giving you several options to make money officially through them. On top of that, YouTube have recently announced some upgrades, as well as some facts and figures about how you can make money on YouTube.

Now, just before we go into the details, there is something that you video creators do need to bear in mind. All of these tools are part of the 

, which means you need 1,000 subscribers, 4,000 hours of Watch Time, and have applied and been accepted into the program. If you haven't yet got there, please watch the following video which is full of tips, tricks, and advice to help you get there.

How to Make Money on YouTube through the Partner Program

If you have reached that target and you have been accepted into the YouTube Partner Program and you have monetized your content, congratulations, but at this point, you're probably feeling a little bit like this. Oh, is that all I get?

Now, don't get me wrong, there is absolutely nothing wrong with earning money from the adverts on your videos, but you don't earn that much compared to what you could potentially be earning from other income sources, and of all of the income sources you have control over, AdSense is probably the least reliable.

With changes in CPM, changes in season, and the demonetization of videos from YouTube, you have almost zero control over any of this, so by all means, have AdSense running in the background as a nice bit of extra cash, but start to think bigger with these YouTube tools.

Super chats allow viewers to make a financial donation to a channel and then have their message prioritized in their livestream chats and during YouTube Premier chats. The best thing about this feature is that it's pretty much available to all monetized channels as long as it's available in your country. To find out whether you're eligible for Super Chats and to turn them on:

Click on the Monetization link on the left hand navigation bar in the new Creator Studio

Click on the Live Chat tab at the top on the page

On this screen, if eligible, you should see a simple Super Chat toggle to turn this feature on.

Now, we here at vidIQ do live-streams every single week, and we occasionally get Super Chats from you, the awesome community. Thank you very much for that. And YouTube recently said this about Super Chats, and the numbers, to be honest, are mind-boggling:

There are now over 90,000 channels who have received Super Chats with some streams earning more than $400 per minute.

Super Chat is now the number one revenue stream on YouTube for nearly 20,000 channels - an increase of over 65% over last year!

The simplest way to explain this is that Super Chats come from your biggest fans because they feel involved in your journey. They are part of your community. They feel invested in you, and through the medium of the livestreams that they're watching, they want to give something back to you.

Now, live-streams may get a fraction of the views that your video on-demand content might get, but those people watching your live-streams are your most dedicated followers, and if I, the video creator, make sure that these livestreams are all about the audience, that's where Super Chats can really work.

And the funny thing is, here at vidIQ, we do live-streams every Tuesday where we audit your channels. It's all about you, but we actively discourage people from sending us Super Chats, because we don't want to favor people who have sent us money and audit their channels. We wanna do it for free, but people still send us Super Chats as a way of saying thank you. That's the power of the Super Chat.

Now, of course, there is a personal/content barrier to entry. In order to get Super Chats, you need to do livestreams. Now, if you're a gaming channel, this is very easy to do. You just start screen recording a game that you're playing on and livestream to your audience and talk to them as you're doing it, but if you're new to livestreaming and you're not a gamer, just be honest with your audience.

Post in your Community tab that you're gonna do a hangout session or a Q&A or you're gonna look at important questions that have been asked on your videos and try and answer them. Make sure that, when you go live, you're talking to your audience, so being a little unplanned is not a bad thing, and just enjoy the experience. Live-streams can be crazy things, but once you get used to them, they are fantastic, and at the end of that journey, you have Super Chats to financially support you. Incredible stuff, do try it.

With the Super Chat tool already highly successful, YouTube announced a new feature called Super Stickers. This will allow fans to purchase animated stickers during livestreams and Premiers to show their favorite creators just how much they enjoy their content.

Stickers will come in a variety of designs across different languages and categories, such as gaming, fashion, beauty, sports, music, food, and more.

Generate Revenue on YouTube by Selling Merchandise

I'm sure you've seen the merch carousel that's now directly baked into YouTube channels that allows you to buy merch directly from the video watch page. The requirements for offering this feature are a little stiffer. Being in the YouTube Partner Program is the prerequisite, of course, and for this, you will need more than 10,000 YouTube subscribers and have zero Community Guidelines Strikes. To set this functionality up:

Go to the Monetization screen in the new Creator Studio

Click on the Merchandise tab and then toggle on the Display Merchandise option.

Set up merch items from the merch store you intend to use.

There are many YouTube channels that have built entire financial empires out of merchandising, and as you grow your channel and build your community, you will start to develop brands and slogans and characters that people might want to get a piece of in terms of merchandise. Being able to sell your stuff officially through the YouTube platform is pretty awesome. However, the drawback to date has been only one available merch provider, Tee Spring, but the good news is YouTube recently announced five new supported vendors, and those are Crowdmade, Don't Forget To Be Awesome, Fanjoy, Represent, and Rooster Teeth. We recently featured Crowdmade on TubeTalk and you can read more about them and 

how to make money from selling merchandise on YouTube

How to Make Money from YouTube Channel Memberships

YouTube Channel Memberships allow viewers to join your channel through monthly recurring payments. In return they get membership-only perks like badges, emojis, and other goods you offer, like exclusive live-streams, extra videos, and even discounts on merch. The eligibility requirements are pretty strict for this one.

You need 30,000 subscribers, be over the age of 18, be located in a country where channel membership tools are available, agree to the terms of service of the feature, and have zero strikes on your channel. Even then, you might not be eligible, as it's still rolling out.

Now, of all of the monetization roots you can go down, memberships probably requires the most effort from you. Super Chats are pretty much taken care of by YouTube. You don't have to do anything for them. In terms of merchandising, you can pick one image and create dozens of items from it and have a shop set up within the hour, but with channel membership, you are making a commitment to your audience to create exclusive content for them. So, think about the creative juices and the time, energy, and resources you're going to have to put into your channel members.

Think back to when you were first starting your channel and you were committing to a video schedule, whether it be once a week or once a day. Well, channel memberships is like that, but on an entirely new scale. You need to make a commitment to those channel members to provide what you're promising, because they're paying for it.

With all that being said, recently, YouTube have massively upgraded this tool with one of the most requested features, membership levels. With levels, creators can now set up five different price points for channel membership, each with varying perks. This is how the Fine Brothers are using membership levels on their React channel, going all the way up to $30 a month. According to YouTube, this has increased revenue from their channel memberships by 600%!

 And to access our full suite of tools to elevate your YouTube channel to new heights, 

Man wearing pixelated sunglasses holding play money with YouTube 2019 updates icon.

YouTube recently announced even more ways that creators can generate revenue from their video content. Find out if you can take advantage of the new features via the YouTube Partner Program.

How to Make Money on YouTube! [New Updates]

So, it sounds like you've hit 1,000 subscribers, and 4,000 hours of watch time, and you've applied for and been accepted into the 

. Congratulations is in order. Let's give you a couple of tips to help you start earning some money from your video content.

How to Manage the Monetization of Your Content on YouTube

To be clear, this tutorial is not about how to unlock monetization on your channel. It's about how to manage the monetization of your content once you are in the YouTube Partner Program. To do this:

Click on your profile image in the top right-hand corner of the screen, and then click on the YouTube Studio link.

This is the new YouTube Creator Studio, and from here, you want to click on ‘Monetization’ from the left-hand navigation panel. (While there are several ways to earn money on YouTube, if you have just been accepted into the Partner Program, you will likely only have access to video advertising. For an in-depth look at super chats, merchandising, and memberships, 

Click on the ‘Video Advertising’ link, where you can confirm your current monetization status, as well as review and change your current settings.

Now if you want to essentially flip the big switch and turn monetization on for all of your future videos, go to ‘Settings’ on the left-hand navigation panel.

Then click on ‘Upload Defaults’, followed by the ‘Extras’ tab

At the bottom of this screen, you will see your video content advertisement options. By changing these settings, all future uploads on your YouTube channel will take these defaults.

However, if you want to change monetization settings on individual videos, you can do that too by going to the ‘Video’ section of the Creator Studio to see a list of all your videos.

One of the columns in this list shows the monetization status of each video, which you can quickly toggle on or off.

Once you make the change, don't forget to save it, and once you have saved it, a green dollar icon will display for that video if all is good.

If you want to tweak the advertising settings for each video, click on the video itself, and then click on the Monetization link on the left-hand navigation bar.

At the top of this screen, you have the option to turn on or off monetization for the individual video, and below that are the various ways you can advertise your content, from display ads to sponsored cards, non-skippable ads, and so on.

If your video is longer than 10 minutes, you'll have the additional options to put ads before, during, and after the video itself.

Now, let's check out one final important setting:

Again, in the Creator Studio, go to Settings, and this time, hover your mouse over ‘Other Settings’, and then click on ‘Advanced Channel’ settings.

As of time of recording, this throws you back into the classic Studio, and you want to make sure that this check box labeled Disable interest-based ads is unchecked.

If it's ticked, YouTube cannot target the viewer of your video with personalized ads based on their interest, and it may significantly reduce the ad revenue you receive from your videos.

Now then, just in case YouTube are watching, in the classic Studio, you used to be able to select multiple videos and then apply monetization changes to all of them, which was really handy. Alas in the new studio, that option is, well, no longer an option. Get it sorted please, YouTube.

Why Turn off Monetization on Any of Your YouTube Videos?

You may be asking the question "Why would I want to turn off monetization on any of my videos?" Well, there are special circumstances. For example, you probably don't want to put loads of adverts on your channel trailer, and if you are promoting a certain brand, you want to make sure that no competitors' adverts are appearing on those videos as well, so you might want to turn it off for them.

And if your video is for the community or it's for a charity, again, it might not be appropriate to include general random adverts.

 then make sure to download vidIQ. Join over 1 million other users and use vidIQ to help you research YouTube, analyze videos, audit your own channel, and take actionable steps 

Video monetization concept showing video icon pointing to dollar sign symbol

So you've been accepted into the YouTube Partner Program. Let's give you a couple of tips to help you start earning some money from your video content.

How To Monetize Your YouTube Videos In 2020 - Beginner Guide

So you've been diligently working away on your YouTube channel, trying to get to 4,000 hours of Watch Time to monetize your content, and checking YouTube to see how your progress is getting on. Then all of a sudden, you've lost a huge amount of those Watch Time hours. What on Earth just happened?

Now if you have been a regular visitor to vidIQ, you will know that I love to keep you up to date with all things monetization on YouTube. But this little news story came out of nowhere, and caught me completely by surprise.

What Just Happened to your Watch Time on YouTube?

If you are a video creator working towards 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of Watch Time, you'll be very familiar with the monetization eligibility screen which tells you exactly how close you are to meeting those requirements. That screen is very much part of the classic YouTube Creator Studio, and if you are a video creator, you should know by now that there is a new Creator Studio with lots of new analytics and features. For more information about that, 

But this screen is old and it needs updating, and YouTube has done just that. Creators working towards their monetization goal have a new much cleaner and simpler screen to reference. But what they also seem to have is new and much-reduced Watch Time hours than they saw before. I'm sorry if this has raised any alarm bells for you, but you might want to go check your monetization page right now.

The problem is unless you have a real eagle eye and have been checking these statistics every single day, you might now be sure whether or not your numbers have changed. Over the last few days, I've been seeing several 

 that creators have lost hours from their channels just as they thought they were going to hit the new monetization threshold. This is what YouTube are saying:

They fixed this technical issue in the new Studio sign-up page to clarify whether you're eligible to monetize. So that means one of two things, both of which are a little worrying to be honest. Either YouTube have been showing you the wrong numbers for eligibility for years, in which case, shame on you YouTube. Or YouTube have changed their policy a little bit and haven't clearly communicated that.

The reason I say that is because I asked YouTube over 12 months ago whether private and unlisted videos count towards your Watch Time hours for monetization. And at the time, they said private doesn't, but unlisted hours do. Now it could've been a miscommunication in the conversation I was having, but have YouTube quietly removed unlisted hours from videos?

If that second theory is complete baloney, then let's go back to the first one because it might explain why so many channels have been in review without ever being accepted because they don't technically have the required number of public hours even though they thought they did because that's what YouTube was showing to the creator. This all gets very confusing very quickly, doesn't it?

YouTube Watch Hours: What Creators Need to Know

Let's put these theories to one side however and concentrate on the cold hard facts as shown in this 

. They now talk about valid public Watch hours which is definitely a new term when it comes to monetization, and definitely suggests to me that YouTube wants to clarify this requirement. On the support page it now confirms that "not all watch hours count towards the 

 threshold," and states what does actually count as a valid public watch hour, which is:

Watch hours gained from videos you’ve set public

Watch hours gained through the following types of video 

The Trueview confirmation is interesting - it basically means you can't buy your way to monetization.

And all of this led to a question in my head that I wanted to pose YouTube. What if you have a video that was public? Let's say you do a livestream and then you want to set that livestream to unlisted. If the video is set to unlisted or private, do the views that you gained whilst it was public still count towards the Watch Time hours? And YouTube's answer was yes.

I don't know, I don't sound confident, do I? I'm not sure I'm confident on the answer they gave me either, but that's what they told me. I guess what you could do is set some videos to unlisted for a couple of days and see if that does affect your monetization number. But you don't really want to risk that so I'm not going to suggest you do it.

Man analyzing YouTube video views dropping from 4,479 to 3,124 with vidIQ branding.

YouTube has clarified its policy around Watch Time and what it takes to get to the magic 4000 hours so you can monetize your content. If you've seen a recent drop in Watch Time hours on your channel, we know why.

Major 4000 Watch Hours Update From YouTube! [Monetization News]

We recently discovered a channel on YouTube that hasn't published a video in nearly two years and yet in that time, it's been able to generate nearly $20,000 in revenue. How did we find this channel? Well, it was pretty easy, it's my very own channel. Oh yeah.

That's right folks, for those of you who don't know, I had a life before vidIQ, running my own YouTube tech channel called 

Now I've already chronicled that part of 

 in the creative stories that we did here at vidIQ. However, what I haven't looked at is what happened when I stopped making videos on that channel. I started working for vidIQ full time in October of 2017 and I had ambitions of continuing to run my other channel as a hobby on the weekends and when I had time.

But let’s be honest, a YouTube channel is all-consuming and I absolutely love what I do here in serving you the community. So I made the decision six months into my time with vidIQ to stop making videos on the Video Gadgets Journal. I simply didn't have time and I was worried that I was just going to burn out. And you know what? 

After 450,000 subscribers and over 30 million views

I am as passionate as ever about what I do here at vidIQ. But just because I stopped making videos for my channel, didn't mean I killed it dead. Because you see, for a lot of YouTube channels, they act like massive oil tankers in the sea. They are very slow to get moving and finding traction, so building up an audience, finding those first 100 subscribers, 1,000 subscribers, monetizing your content, it can take months, years.

For me, I was running my channel for about six to seven years. But when you stop making content, it doesn't mean that all of sudden those views stop. Those pieces of content are on YouTube forever and if people still want to watch them, they will do, even from the very first video that was published on YouTube. And you know what that means? Passive income.

Generate Passive Income on YouTube with Evergreen Content

Now to give you a little bit of background on what the Video Gadgets Journal did, it was a tech educational channel, where I showed people how to use mobile phones, and record iPhone screens in particular. It was essentially evergreen content. So what happens to a channel with content such as this when you go cold turkey? You might expect a channel to suffer a decline when there isn't a single piece of new content being published. But astonishingly, for almost a year, the channel maintained its traction. And whilst the decline has been steady throughout 2019, I'm astonished to discover that still, over 7,000 viewers a day find my years old content useful and relevant today.

First of all, just how cool is YouTube? The opportunity to upload content for free to the internet and then have people watch that content years into the future. Second of all, my old channel represents the power of search and suggested content when you are making evergreen videos. I made these videos to hopefully serve a user base for current technology. That technology is now two, three, four years old and yet people are still finding my videos at the top of the search rankings and watching this content.

It also speaks to how all of the work, effort, energy, and resources put into creating YouTube videos is front-loaded. You spend an intense number of days and hours to create the video and then once it's out there on YouTube, it can generate metrics, audience, community, and income for you for years to come.

So how does all of this translate into cash? Well, let's take a look. Without publishing a single video, for almost two years, and just relying on the content that's already on my channel, the Video Gadgets Journal has made over $19,000 in ad revenue alone.

Now the distribution of that income is fascinating in itself. In the second half of 2018, despite views staying stagnant, income doubled, supporting the eternal truth that advertisers spend most of their budgets during the holiday season.

And then, of course, you have the typical January slump, whether or not you're making content, you will always suffer from this. So my advice is if you do want to take a break at any time of the year on YouTube, January is your best bet. Ironically, we made a video all about this last year in January.

It is inevitable with the erosion of time that my channel will continue to bleed views and in the revenue. But I am utterly astonished that the channel has held up this well. I literally haven't touched anything on The Video Gadgets Journal in over 600 days and yet in that time, it has generated enough income to pay the rent.

The Power of Evergreen Content on YouTube

I've already explained some of the reasons why a YouTube channel can sustain itself in the broader sense, even if it's not pushing out any content. However, I think there are some subtle reasons why my Video Gadgets Journal channel is sustaining its life, even though it is currently moth-balled and this what I think they are.

I have already mentioned this concept dozens of times on the vidIQ channel, but it does bear repeating. Evergreen content, especially for search based educational channels, is the elixir of life. It is really difficult to establish yourself as evergreen content, but once you're there, it's incredibly difficult to shift you. Evergreen content is like when you're playing a video game and you're on an undefeated streak of some kind, and the game starts rewarding you with multiplying bonuses that just keep going and going and going.

And the reason I know evergreen content is so valuable to a channel is because I've repeated this success on the vidIQ channel.

We’ve created many videos on how to delete a YouTube video, how to add subtitles to your video, how to create a playlist, how to hide your subscriber account, etc but thanks to the new creative studio, the way you do them has completely changed. And throughout 2019, we have been systematically working our way through a big list of beginners guides for the new YouTube creative studio. And you can see the results, vidIQ's tutorials on these topics have positioned themselves at the very top of the search rankings.

Now as of time of recording, both the classic creative studio and new creative studio can be accessed by video creators. But when YouTube turn off access to the creative studio, all of those old tutorials on the classic studio will be obsolete, leaving our new studio tutorials ready to clean up. All of these new creative studio evergreen pieces of content follow a similar analytical journey.

It is not uncommon for evergreen content to tank very quickly after its launch. It's usually not a sexy topic, and only a small number of people may be searching for the keyword, but the power of evergreen content is that the same number of people will likely be searching for the term tomorrow, next week, next month, next year. And if your video delivers the value the expected audience wants, this is what can happen. Almost as many views per day as the day the video was launched.

This has been our side project throughout 2019, creating simple tutorials to do important things in the new YouTube creative studio. As you can see, some videos have been more successful than others, but each and every one of them is still getting views today and fingers crossed, those should be guaranteed views for years to come.

I followed this evergreen strategy more loosely with my old channel too, the idea being to create tutorials for mobile phones and screen recording tips for iOS devices. And today, those videos are still getting 10, maybe 20 views per hour. So the evidence is pretty clear and well-proven. Evergreen content will help sustain your channel in the long term, as demonstrated by videos like this:

Long-form Evergreen Video: The Key to Success

But we're already established that breaking into evergreen topics can be really difficult. So how do you make your content more desirable to your audience and to YouTube so that you find yourself at the top of the search rankings? Can you spot the common thread that ties all of these successful videos together? They're all long-form tutorial guides, often over 10 minutes, and they go above and beyond what most of the videos on the topic deliver.

When it comes to educational and tutorial content, generally, the viewer wants an answer to their question as quickly and efficiently as possible. So what I decided to do was give them every answer to every question they had, and essentially become the best in class for mobile phone tutorial content. Now of course, this didn't always work, there are many videos that I made that never got the evergreen traction. But those that did have stood the test of time.

As you will well know, if you are part of the 

, the longer the video, the more advertising you can plaster around the video and inside the video, so that not only do these evergreen videos get loads of views, but they also get huge dollops of watch time and ad revenue.

Now if you're a regular visitor to vidIQ, you will have heard me talk about this concept many times in the past. I feel like it bears repeating here because now I've got $20,000 of ad revenue to back this up - make content that works for your channel. The metrics are there, YouTube is telling you what works for your audience, and if you ignore it, then shame on you.

Even though the channel is dormant, thanks to vidIQ's channel audit tool, the data is still as clear as day. Views per hour, subscribers gained, total watch time, average watch time, all the metrics point to a strategy that works. So repeat that strategy.

A lot of people hate this idea of being pigeon holed into one particular niche on YouTube. But the way I see it is that YouTube has decided that you are the ambassador, the educator, the thought leader, the authority on a particular topic on YouTube and it wants to take the audience that is interested in that topic and serve them to your content. And it's all done for free. How cool is that?

And as proven, I've been able to take this concept and apply it to YouTube education with vidIQ. Those video creators with the talent will embrace this idea and take it wherever they want to with the topics they want to share with an audience. As I said at the top of this video, this success didn't happen overnight. It took me years to formulate that video strategy. But it is right now the reason, you are watching a vidIQ video with me in it, whilst I'm earning money passively from a channel I haven't touched in almost two years.

But here's one huge caveat about everything I've told you. It's all very nice earning this passive income. But relatively speaking, it is a tiny amount of the potential money you could earn from your YouTube channel. Once you factor in other YouTube tools, such as memberships and super chats, and then the things that you can do outside of YouTube, such a brand deals, sponsorships, you can earn many multiples of that icing on the cake ad revenue.

In many respects, ad revenue is the least reliable source of income for YouTube channels because at any point, YouTube could flick a switch, or advertisers moods could change. And that will leave you out of pocket. Don't get me wrong, I am extremely grateful for the millions of views that channel has generated and indeed the ad revenue. But it wouldn't sustain me in a full-time position on YouTube. And that's where vidIQ came in. The opportunity to turn my hobby, my passion, into a career.

And if you’re really serious about growing your YouTube views and subscribers, sign up for exclusive access to the 

 and learn how to launch a successful YouTube Channel in just 30 days.

Man pointing at blurred YouTube estimated revenue with surprised expression and logo

Still unsure whether evergreen content is the key to real success on YouTube? Read how a dormant channel is still generating passive income without any new content.

How Much YouTube Paid Me for Doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!

I'm sure you're all aware of Super Chats at this point, a way for viewers to donate to your live streams. We’ve actually covered this, highlighting how a 

creator was able to earn $200 from just 48 minutes of live-streaming with less than 50,000 subscribers

But what if you could monetize your entire catalog this way, so that people could donate, like a tip jar, to any video on your channel? Yeah, that's coming to YouTube.

We've stressed this before when it comes to turning your YouTube channel into a business, try and rely as little as possible on YouTube ad revenue alone. There are so many more efficient money-making opportunities, including brand deals, sponsorships, merchandising.

The off-platform opportunities are almost endless, but it's always nice when YouTube adds another money-making opportunity. We've had Super Chats, we've had Memberships, and now we have something that YouTube are calling 

YouTube Viewer Applause & Revenue Generation

Now before you excitedly rush onto YouTube to enable this, a word of caution. As of time of writing, Viewer Applause is currently in beta, and open only to those invited by YouTube to test it. We will do a full-on tutorial once it's officially released, but here's what we currently know.

Of course, the prerequisite to all of this is that you will need to be in the 

From the new Creator Studio, if you click on the Monetization tab to the left, and then click on the Supers tab at the top of this page, you should see a toggle that will allow you to enable Viewer Applause. And from a creator perspective, that's pretty much it. There isn't any level of sophistication. Presumably, when YouTube rolls this out to everybody, you'll be able to go into individual videos and turn this off like you would do monetization on an individual video.

Now let's take a look at this from a viewer perspective, what can they do with your Viewer Applause? The viewer will see this Applaud button nestled in next to likes and dislikes, so when you click on this, you'll be given the option to buy applause and show your support.

Currently, this is only available on the desktop viewing experience of YouTube. There are purchase limits to Viewer Applause of $500 U.S. dollars a day, and $2,000 a week, those totals are combined with Super Chats and Super Stickers. A viewer can applaud a video as many times as they wish, but each applause is non-refundable, and it is important to stress at this point, it doesn't create a paywall on the video, this is all treated as a donation or a tip jar.

At this point, the look feel, design, button placement, and donation amount for YouTube Applause could all change based on tester feedback. Now in this sense, I've got to give YouTube some credit here, I've never seen such an open beta testing function.

Viewer Applause: 70/30 Revenue Split in Favor of Creators

For example, we've all heard about YouTube bringing A/B thumbnail testing to the creator community, but I don't think any of us have seen it out in the wild. But with this, they seem to be openly sharing it with those why are keen to test it, on channels of all shapes and sizes, and those who do test it will benefit from the revenue split, which is 70/30 in the creator's favor, as always for these types of things.

And just imagine if this does get out of the testing phase and is released to all creators. And have it on every single video that you release, it's not just restricted to live streamers.

When you start to implement calls to action to that applaud button in your video, much like many of the fan funding opportunities that people already promote in Patreons and YouTube memberships, that could be a significant increase in revenue for many creators. So, for YouTube, on this one, I really do applaud them. Forgive the pun.

In my personal opinion, I think this is a no-brainer, a fantastic idea from YouTube that's going to benefit many creators on the platform. But I'd love to hear your opinions on this, especially from those who are just YouTube viewers. Do you think you would donate to creators through the applaud button? Or is it just another money-making exercise from YouTube themselves? And, for creators, I'd love to know how you would inventively use the applaud button in your videos as call to actions.

Now, there's one more thing we need to consider here, and I think this is going to be a common occurrence throughout future YouTube videos, and that is whether or not this going to benefit kids content creators. Unfortunately, given the amount of personal information that YouTube is going to see from the viewer, especially when it comes to credit card details, I can't see this getting anywhere near kids’ content creation.

Person with dollar sign eyes next to YouTube donation button and logo illustration

YouTube is rolling out a new way for creators to make revenue on the platform. It's in beta right now but we bring you a sneak preview.

YouTube Viewer Applause: Could THIS Make you MORE MONEY FASTER?

We know that some of you have battled through a lot over the last 12 months just to get your content monetized. 1000 subscribers, 4000 hours of watchtime, and an agonizing application period. But, you finally made it. #HereComesTheMoney!

With the run up to Christmas you've probably seen your revenue from your YouTube videos gradually climb too... then BAM! Here comes January and all of sudden you are earning even less peanuts than you were this time last week. The question is WHY!?

In summary it comes down to economics. But the more important question should be why does this really matter, because if this REALLY concerns you, then I'm afraid you are REALLY selling yourself short!

Install the vidIQ Chrome Extension for free today: 

Line graph comparing earnings trends in December versus January with vidIQ branding.

How To Make Money on YouTube