What Does YouTube’s New Advertising Rules Mean For Bloggers?

With the right content and amount of following and views, one can make a fortune just by posting videos on YouTube.

But this fell apart for some yesterday when YouTube announced an increase in its rules regarding advertising on videos in a bid to suppress the concerns expressed by brands about “troublesome content”.

YouTube logo. Photo credit: The Mark Consulting

“There’s no denying 2017 was a difficult year, with several issues affecting our community and our advertising partners,” YouTube vice president of display, video and analytics Paul Muret said in a blog post.

Channels at YouTube will need to have at least 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of watch time within the past year to be eligible for ads, according to Muret.

Previously, channels could be eligible for ads as part of a YouTube Partner Program by racking up 10,000 views or more.

“We want to take channel size, audience engagement, and creator behaviour into consideration to determine eligibility for ads,” Muret said.

YouTube will closely watch for spam, abuse flags and other signals to make sure channels are remaining within the Google-owned video-sharing platform’s policies regarding content, according to the post.

Muret said that manual reviews of video will be added to a Google Preferred system that brands use to place ads with popular YouTube content to better vet videos.

YouTube is also providing advertisers simpler controls regarding where ads appear and transparency including safety checks by outside parties, according to Muret.

The changes were expected to affect “a significant number” of YouTube channels eligible to run ads.

YouTube late last year pulled 150,000 videos of children after lewd comments about them were posted by viewers and went public with a vow to greatly increase the ranks of workers focused on rooting out content violating its policies.

The moves came as YouTube strived to assure companies their ads would not appear with offensive or inappropriate videos.

“We are passionate about protecting our users, advertisers and creators and making sure YouTube is not a place that can be co-opted by bad actors,” Muret said.

“While we took several steps last year to protect advertisers from inappropriate content, we know we need to do more to ensure that their ads run alongside content that reflects their values.”

This move will be good for users and advertisers, but it also means that some creators may face losing a valuable source of income although YouTube insists that the majority of those affected by the stricter rules were making little money from adverts in the first place.

Some people have taken to social media to rant about their concerns regarding the new rules, especially new bloggers and people with small businesses. They are now asking viewers to subscribe so that these rules will not affect them adversely.

YouTube just issued a 30 day notice to anyone who doesn’t have a large fanbase. Even those who already had partner status from when they were handing them out like hotcakes are getting it taken away.

They’re actively killing the smaller channels. @YouTube, are you serious? pic.twitter.com/IUCm3WrB3w

— meika fira (@mBackfire) January 17, 2018

Today, Youtube announced that channels that haven’t reached 1000 subs and 4,000 hours of watchtime will not be able to make money anymore.

Sigh

— Deola Adebiyi (@d3ola) January 17, 2018

Blogging and Youtube is how I make a living and because I have not reached 1000 subs, I won’t be able to make money anymore.

The money I am earning per video is small but it’s something. And now Youtube wants to take that small something away from me

— Deola Adebiyi (@d3ola) January 17, 2018

What Youtube is doing is not fair but it’s their platform and they can do what they want with it. They obviously don’t care about smaller creators like me but I’m determined to succeed no matter what

— Deola Adebiyi (@d3ola) January 17, 2018

I read that email and almost started crying. You encourage us to make start channels and make videos and then announce that because we are small, we can’t make money. SO much BS.

— Deola Adebiyi (@d3ola) January 17, 2018

A lot of Nigerians would rather watch international Youtubers than watch local ones. The international ones don’t need your views – they are already doing fine. Help the ones here in Nigeria that struggle to create content.

— Deola Adebiyi (@d3ola) January 17, 2018

What’s your take on this? Feel free to share.

***AFP