Youtube Partner

I am a YouTube partner. My channel is called broadsurf. As of today (it will change downwards for sure!) it is the top pets and animals channel for the month according to the Channel stats:

Screenshot as at 5th Nov. 2009 for the month. It is top! Great but I am realistic.

My name is Michael Broad. I make videos about cats to publicise my website: http://www.pictures-of-cats.org/.

I don’t actually think that my videos on my YouTube channel have made a massive difference to hits to my website despite plastering my web address over the videos! And of course YouTube allows you to put a link to you website on your channel (your home page at YouTube).

Although  Alexa (an Amazon web traffic measuring site) tells me that YouTube brings in 7.9% of the traffic:

So what are the advantages of being a YouTube partner and how do you get accepted?

Application

When I first made an application I got a pretty fast response to tell me that it would be unlikely to succeed. So I didn’t follow through. That tells me that if you don’t get such a response you are likely to succeed.

I made my second application when I had posted some videos of an F1 Savannah cat called MAGIC. This changed the dynamics a lot. The hits built as this cat was named the Guinness World Record tallest pet cat. Korea got hold of it and the video was embedded in some of their high hitting websites. One video in particular caught their attention:

OK, the first thing for a successful application would seem to be the obvious; a considerable number of lively hits going on at the time of the application. Even with  30,00o hits per day I was only ranked No. 39th amongst all the UK partners (all divisions). The numbers are big in YouTube.

In order to get good hits the video has to have something different but it need not be a good video. There are a lot of poor videos getting massive hits. The more extreme the better seems to be the method, which is not my style and I think YouTube should promote pure quality as well (which it may do incidentally – I just have not noticed).

Next and most importantly all your videos must be your copyright. When you apply this is scrutinised.  YouTube have been criticised over the way they have turned a blind eye (or at least that is what some people think and say) to breaches of copyright by people who upload videos. They probably can’t keep track of the uploads. But when a person applies to be a YouTube partner it means that they (YouTube) are directly involved and they can’t be seen to be partners with a person or persons who flagrantly breach copyright. So the application process contains a lot of references to copyright. It focuses heavily on that to the point where YouTube say that they will delete a video if a partner uploads one that has a breach of copyright problem on any media issue: still images, music, video, anything.

So, your videos must be free of copyright breaches. No not quite actually. If you disclose a breach they might still accept you as a partner. After all a breach of copyright is not actionable until the copyright holder takes action and sometimes the copyright holder might actually approve the breach because it helps them. And in any case copyright is not black and white. It is complicated and their is such a  thing as fair use. Plus few people sue on breach of copyright as it is so bloody expensive to sue and the outcome is so uncertain. All that said keep the videos clean of copyright violations. Do it right and YouTube will like you.

OK, you have plenty of hits and your vids are clean: GO HERE to apply.

The Benefits

The first benefits I am going to mention are the ones in my mind, the outstanding ones: Monetisation and Customisation. There are others.

You can make money with Adsense. You need an Adsense account. I already had one. If you haven’t it is pretty easy to apply but it takes a bit of time. I would expect that if you are accepted as a YouTube partner you will also be accepted for an Adsense account.

How much can you make from Adsense? It is a numbers game, pure and simple. You need lots of hits because the number of people who click on an advert are small in percentage terms. I have 66 videos. I enabled ads for about 6 (10%) and made about £70 (GBP) in one month.

Customisation is good. You can place customised bits here and there, the most noticeable of course being the header. The process of customisation is straightforward.

What else? I am not that commercially minded but people who make videos to make money can do things like utilize their sales to sell their own ads.

The full set of benefits as declared by YouTube are here: Benefits.

From YouTube Partner to Home Page

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Savannah Cat Charms the Children

Titan is a wonderful, young boy Savannah cat in this video. He is so tolerant and adaptable to human activity and conditions. He takes it all in his stride. We know how children can be a little over enthusiastic with animals and the domestic cat. But this has no effect on Titan.

Titan is an F1 (first generation) Savannah cat of great quality both in appearance and character. Perhaps his great quality is his character. This is because he was raised at A1 Savannahs by the Stuckis. They take a great deal of time over socialising their cats.



You can see this video in large format with some more information on this page:

TITAN Charms the Children



From to Home Page

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The Savannah Cat Shake

The Savannah Cat Shake is a dance that I have just made up. It is great background music to this video. A credit to the composer is in the video. The Savannah cat is very energetic sometimes and very athletic. Of course that is not always the case. But they seem more alert and sharper than the conventional moggie and I am though talking about an F1 Savannah cat in this instance.

In the video I tried to bring together a bundle of quick moving clips to convey energy and a zest for life.

The video clips are by Kathrin Stucki and as you probably know she own and manages A1 Savannahs with her husband Martin Stucki.

The cats are MAGIC a female cat who happens to be the Guinness World Record Tallest Domestic Cat and TITAN a male F1 Savannah who is equally impressive and a really sweet boy cat.



You can see the video in large format here: Savannah Cat Zest



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