Seriously, YouTube?

[Raneni]

Hi,
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Update after I finished writing everything: it may be a long thread for some of you, so thanks in advance for everybody who takes their time to read it all.
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I have a YouTube channel based on a type of TV series, where I discuss news about those series, things which happen in different episodes and so on. When I started the channel, I thought the worst thing which could happen would be to get a copyright strike because I use the series name in the title and pictures from episodes for the thumbnails. Fortunately enough, this was not the case. But YouTube got me anyways...

Yesterday I was going through the videos to see which ones are performing well and I had an unpleasant surprise when I saw that the green monetization badge was not appearing near any of the videos. It basically dissappeared. Then, I went to Dashboard and I saw that the earnings do not appear anymore...I switched to the old YouTube dashboard and I saw that the channel is not enabled for monetization anymore because of ”Repetitive Content”... So, basically, I lost everything. But not because of some sort of copyright claim or anything, but just because of...I don t know what.

Now, here s the thing. when I first started this, I thought that I do not want to work for nothing, so I decided to not use any type of musical background to avoid any type of copyright. Later on, I used on some videos the free music which YouTube gives. But, from the 100+ videos I have, most do not have any musical background. There is only the text I wrote, put on some good looking slides with video blocks. You know, just like any informational video out there.

Even if those videos sound boring, people were watching them, because they wanted to find out all the latest news from their favourite series...I even had videos with 100.000+ views. Now, you may believe that I cashed out hard on those, so I don t have all the reasons in the world to whine about this, but it is not the case. I started working on the channel in winter and I got the monetization in may. Regarding the earnings, I was only able to receive 1 payment for may, which was around 200-300$.

This had a great impact on me, because I put so much effort into making this videos. I did not copy-paste anything, everything being written by me from scratch. Texts for 2-3 videos per day, some which are even over 10 minutes is no easy task. And now, here I am, with a YouTube channel with almost 20,000 subscribers, which I may not be able to use anymore or take advantage of...

There are some possible things I may be able to do:

1. The best scenario: I have to delete all those 100+ videos I got on the channel. Then, I need to think of a new format to tell those news, so that YouTube won t see them as...repetitive. But, I do not think that it is possible. Maybe if I read the text in a friendly manner, it won t be as repetitive, even if I saw that some other informational channels with voice were demonetized too...Other than the adding of my voice over the videos, I don t see any way to add dynamics to the videos. I would lose all the views and I would need to start again. This would be the best thing, if i knew what to do to make those videos to stay under the bar and monetized, because I would have those subscribers, so the views won t be that hard to acquire as it has been when the channel was unknown.

2. The worst scenario: I have to delete all the videos, rename the channel and do something new on it. Maybe something like videos about different products with link to them in the description (affiliate marketing). Or maybe I should rebrand it as my own vlogging channel and start adding videos on this niche. Why is this the worst? Well, people who are subscribers right now want to see infos and stuff related to those series they love. If I do something new, they would unsubscribe fast. Plus, I would risk to lose them all for...what? 5$ per month? People are not keen on watching those videos and actually buying something, because they believe that that commission I got as an affiliate would be added to the price they pay for the product. Yes, I know, that s nuts, but ther are a lot people here who think this way, even today...

3. The lucky scenario: this one means that I would continue to post videos regularly, adding at the end something like ”If you like my work and you want to support this channel, you have a Patreon in the link in description”. Why is this the lucky scenario? Because I would need to be extra extra lucky to get even half of the earnings I had from YouTube ads. I see several channels out there with hundreds of thousands of views who barely have a few patrons. Given this fact, it is a sure thing that a mere YouTube like me, with only around 20,000 subscribers won t even get money for a pizza per month.

What would you do if you were in my situation?

P.S: Another ”great thing” which I simply do not understand is that even if I received the notification about the demonetization a few days ago, it seems that I will not see any cent from the money I made in June, even if all month long, everything was ok. I believe that those money should get to me, but nope, it seems that even if it is July now, when I got demonetized, all the earnings from June are lost...

 

[MEng]

something similar to that happened to me with one of my channels. i had a channel where i discuss about movies , tv shows or anything related to entertainment niche but i didn't show my face just voice. youtube disabled monetization on that channel few weeks ago.

bigger channels with similar content are still monetized but small channels are demonetized.

i actually ended up selling my channel i have some other channels anyway.

patreon is good if u have good ardent fans who will support u. maybe u can try selling some merch or do some affiliate marketing. or just go ahead just show your face on videos. you can easily get monetization back.

 

[thevideoguy]

Sorry to hear about your channel, @Raneni

Based on your description, it sounds like your videos were standard slideshows without voice overs. If that is the case, it makes sense why your channel was demonetized.

For info on what kind of videos are allowed to be monetized, check the ''Follow Adsense Program Policies' tab here and read the 'Content Quality Guidelines' section: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/1311392

Unfortunately, as you say; you probably won't be able to get monetization enabled again, without deleting all of the videos. Due to the nature of your content, you will probably have a hard time monetizing using other methods you've described like affiliate, Patreon, etc. as your viewers probably aren't watching your videos with intent to buy related products/services and you likely have 20K subscribers with few to no hardcore fans who would support this kind of channel financially.

What would you do if you were in my situation?

If I was in your situation, I would sell the channel. A demonetized 20K sub channel will probably fetch you $200-$1000 depending on the content, geo location of subscribers, monthly views and subs, view and sub growth trend, etc. I would sell it on Swapd or EpicNPC. If you would like to go this route, look for similar channels on these sites to see what they are selling for to give you an idea of what to price at. Deal through a middleman and do not accept PayPal goods and services as the buyer can charge back the payment and you'll likely lose the dispute.

Good luck!

 

[King89]

You have a solid/good reach with your channel. There a plenty of options to monetize the traffic. Nowadays the worst thing you can do is to trust in Youtube revenues. This is simply an add-on as soon as you don't create original content.

@MEng pointed some of the options, but I wouldn't go with Patreon cuz it's just not worth the effort until you got a huge reach and do original content at same time. Just search around the forum, lots of Youtube monetization threads do already exist, beside some journey threads which do quiet well.

 

[Bigdadddy]

Tbh YouTube is done for in case of earning through ADS.

It should only be done to get that free traffic for your brand.

My Advice : Make a blog and redirect viewers from there to your blog post where you give intensive review.

Put ads there and start building your email list and push subscribers and send them movie related CPA offers.

 

[cpadivergent]

I have never made a video for YouTube, but it seems to me that there are other ways to monetize the video.
I think you should try affiliate programs. For example, some affiliate programs of streaming movie services. Or something like a t-shirt with prints (with the heroes of TV series). Or movie posters. - you can put 5-10 affiliate links in the description. I'm not sure, but maybe you will get some kind of affiliate commission.

See how your competitors monetize the channel, maybe they have some kind of affiliate links in the description? You can join these affiliate programs too.

I think it's bad to delete all videos. Just try other ways to monetize.

 

[Akuchi]

Patreon and about 5 other platforms should have been used from the start so that you would have already had an audience on there.

This happens to a ton of my YouTube friends and is a reason I have been doing more random content here and there instead of sticking to a specific microniche.

It's hard to give you any good advice as I am in a completely different niche but this sounds pretty typical of YouTube. Thank you for the reminder to never rely solely on Adsense as that is useful for others.

 

[lehyy]

youtube is getting stricter each day, you should know that your type of contents arent allowed anymore to be monetised. any slides texts etc are considered repetitive, yes there are some people still earning from similar channel type but most of them are either older channels very well established or they simply havent been caught yet. you donyt have to sell the channel you simply need to start all over, remove old contents, use your voice and using your voice alone is not it, you need to actually add value to whatever you are presenting. commentary that makes sense etc ... f*** youtube though.

 

[Raneni]

something similar to that happened to me with one of my channels. i had a channel where i discuss about movies , tv shows or anything related to entertainment niche but i didn't show my face just voice. youtube disabled monetization on that channel few weeks ago.

bigger channels with similar content are still monetized but small channels are demonetized.

i actually ended up selling my channel i have some other channels anyway.

patreon is good if u have good ardent fans who will support u. maybe u can try selling some merch or do some affiliate marketing. or just go ahead just show your face on videos. you can easily get monetization back.

Sorry to hear about your demonetization...It s pretty frustrating to lose all the money, after you worked hard. Regarding my problem, there is no solution in opening a Patreon, because, as I said, even the channels who have hundreds of thousands of views receive peanuts (at least in my country).

Given the nature of those tv series I talk about (they are some kind of soap operas) I wouldn t want to show my face, because it would be pretty embarassing. I don t particulary like this genre, but others do, so there is potential for some small monetization...

I was thinking of doing PowerPoints, then to film those Powerpoints, where I post the info, while I actually talk and add something here and there, so that it would seem like a natural video, idk.

Sorry to hear about your channel, @Raneni

Based on your description, it sounds like your videos were standard slideshows without voice overs. If that is the case, it makes sense why your channel was demonetized.

For info on what kind of videos are allowed to be monetized, check the ''Follow Adsense Program Policies' tab here and read the 'Content Quality Guidelines' section: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/1311392

Unfortunately, as you say; you probably won't be able to get monetization enabled again, without deleting all of the videos. Due to the nature of your content, you will probably have a hard time monetizing using other methods you've described like affiliate, Patreon, etc. as your viewers probably aren't watching your videos with intent to buy related products/services and you likely have 20K subscribers with few to no hardcore fans who would support this kind of channel financially.



If I was in your situation, I would sell the channel. A demonetized 20K sub channel will probably fetch you $200-$1000 depending on the content, geo location of subscribers, monthly views and subs, view and sub growth trend, etc. I would sell it on Swapd or EpicNPC. If you would like to go this route, look for similar channels on these sites to see what they are selling for to give you an idea of what to price at. Deal through a middleman and do not accept PayPal goods and services as the buyer can charge back the payment and you'll likely lose the dispute.

Good luck!

Well, yes, indeed. There is no room for other ways of monetizing the channel, other than YouTube Ads. If it is really, really necessary, I will delete all the 100+ videos, if I knew that from now on I have a way of making the future videos to remain and be monetized...

Regarding the sale of the channel, given the fact that it is not an english one, I believe that the most optimistical price I would get for it would be 100$. I know, those are still money, but I tend to get attached to all the projects I create and this would be a pretty small price, in my opinion. So, it is out of the question, but thanks for your idea.

You have a solid/good reach with your channel. There a plenty of options to monetize the traffic. Nowadays the worst thing you can do is to trust in Youtube revenues. This is simply an add-on as soon as you don't create original content.

@MEng pointed some of the options, but I wouldn't go with Patreon cuz it's just not worth the effort until you got a huge reach and do original content at same time. Just search around the forum, lots of Youtube monetization threads do already exist, beside some journey threads which do quiet well.

Yes, for a channel of this size, it really has some engagement and views. But that may actually be the result of hours and hours put into writing good description, titles and spreading the videos on social platforms.

And yeah, if the channel was an english one, it would have been an easy task to apply different ways of monetization. But given its nature, the channel can t rally benefit from other. People are not really interested to buy or to do anything else than finding out what happened with their favourite characters. So... it is pretty much YouTube ads or nothing...

Tbh YouTube is done for in case of earning through ADS.

It should only be done to get that free traffic for your brand.

My Advice : Make a blog and redirect viewers from there to your blog post where you give intensive review.

Put ads there and start building your email list and push subscribers and send them movie related CPA offers.

Yes, that would be an idea I was thinking of lately. But the thing is that if I make this website, I will still need to use AdSense to monetize it, because there are no movie related CPA offers for my country + people won t really complete those. They just want to watch things about their favourite characters from those soap-like TV series.

I have never made a video for YouTube, but it seems to me that there are other ways to monetize the video.
I think you should try affiliate programs. For example, some affiliate programs of streaming movie services. Or something like a t-shirt with prints (with the heroes of TV series). Or movie posters. - you can put 5-10 affiliate links in the description. I'm not sure, but maybe you will get some kind of affiliate commission.

See how your competitors monetize the channel, maybe they have some kind of affiliate links in the description? You can join these affiliate programs too.

I think it's bad to delete all videos. Just try other ways to monetize.

Well, I was thinking of this, but those soap operas don t really have characters that popular to make T-shirts with them.

Patreon and about 5 other platforms should have been used from the start so that you would have already had an audience on there.

This happens to a ton of my YouTube friends and is a reason I have been doing more random content here and there instead of sticking to a specific microniche.

It's hard to give you any good advice as I am in a completely different niche but this sounds pretty typical of YouTube. Thank you for the reminder to never rely solely on Adsense as that is useful for others.

Well, Patreon, as I ve already said, is useless for this project. What other platforms do you have in mind?

youtube is getting stricter each day, you should know that your type of contents arent allowed anymore to be monetised. any slides texts etc are considered repetitive, yes there are some people still earning from similar channel type but most of them are either older channels very well established or they simply havent been caught yet. you donyt have to sell the channel you simply need to start all over, remove old contents, use your voice and using your voice alone is not it, you need to actually add value to whatever you are presenting. commentary that makes sense etc ... f*** youtube though.

Well, I know it now...I don t really want to sell the channel + I won t even get 100$ for it. I was thinking of adding the text i write in Powerpoint, then to film the presentation with the smartphone, while I also talk about things from the text. Other than this, I don t know what I could possibly do. It is not really a broad subject to talk about so there are not really ways to ”add value”, unfortunately.

 

[Danquids]

If you are not big they don't care, look are WatchMojo, literally stuffing keywords, putting clips, and just voice no face.

 

[Machinecode]

Ohh watchMojo i guess when your a huge channel you can get away with anything, i always wondered how they just recycled and stayed monitized

 

[SwitchMitch]

Use it for traffic. I don't recommend selling it as you have som vids with 100k views. You can direct viewers to your site and try to monetize them. I know that's a long shot at success but then, it is certainly better than losing it altogether after so much hard work. But this time, make sure you voice over the content. That is critical. I am surprised you don't already know about it. Slide vids are considered low value. Adding voice over is almost a norm. If you are not too sure about your ability to do voice overs, don't worry, you can outsource that part to fiverr guys or girls. But I really suggest you use your own voice. I am an Indian and have an accent but still, I do my own speaking. Cheaper and better.

 

[lehyy]

Well, I know it now...I don t really want to sell the channel + I won t even get 100$ for it. I was thinking of adding the text i write in Powerpoint, then to film the presentation with the smartphone, while I also talk about things from the text. Other than this, I don t know what I could possibly do. It is not really a broad subject to talk about so there are not really ways to ”add value”, unfortunately.

Adding value is your own 'POV' (point of view). its no big deal. Just TALK. So you could still show those texts or slides whatever but speak on the video, add something extra. its like chatting in everyday life. think of your audience as friends. you were demonetised simply cause your video is only texts and slides, so start speaking. but dont just read out what you put on text alone, 'expantiate on it' thats about as best as i can explain it.

Many channels use texts and photos/videos alone and still monetised, but majority of them are businesses, or established channels or they could be under MCN that protects them. i personally think you will get more views if you use your voice. even robots get views when they speak. just be confident is all.

dont sell the channel.