Can Sponsorships Save YouTube?
By: Daniel Imbellino
Tags: Social Media, Youtube Creators, YouTube, Gaming

Given the state of Google’s efforts of mass demonetization sweeping across their video sharing platform YouTube, to say that YouTubers are losing their livelihoods would be an understatement. Among the victims of Google’s constantly changing advertiser friendly guidelines, there’s no question that gaming channels in particular have been hit quite hard. In light of many YouTubers throwing in the towel and calling it quits, it appears Google is attempting to come up with a viable solution, Sponsorships! But will this new initiative be enough to save YouTubers who’re currently sitting penniless, and stop the mass exodus of gaming channels who’re currently ditching YouTube for alternate platforms like Twitch?

How YouTube Sponsorships Work:

Sponsorships for channels are a way for fans to help directly support their favorite creators, and there’s no Patreon or third party platforms required to make it work. In order for channels to get started, they must have at least 1,000 subscribers, and they must be gaming related. This is kind of a bummer for non-gaming related channels who’ve also seen their revenues take a major hit from demonetization. However, Google did state they’re also testing out the feature with non-gaming channels, but the feature is not yet available to creators in alternate categories in general.

Fans can sponsor a channel for just $4.99 a month with a recurring subscription. Google is also incorporating a separate live-chat feature just for sponsors, so when creators are in a live stream, they can better interact with their biggest supporters first.

Creators will be able to create custom badges to help their supporters stand out during live-chat sessions, as well as custom emoji’s that are shared with supporters. Creators will be able to create their own unique badges and emojis to upload and make use of.

Other Requirements:

Your channel must be monetized, you’re at least 18 years old, and your channel has live-streaming enabled.

What Affect Will This Have For Struggling Creators?

Google stated they’ve seen good results in early tests from channels who’ve implemented the sponsorship feature, noting the popular YouTube channel Rocket Bean racked in a whopping 1,500 sponsors on the first day the feature was made available to them.

For bigger channels, including gaming channels like MetalJesusRocks, sponsorships with Patreon have proven worthy. But this isn’t the case for every channel, and unfortunately, sponsorship revenues can ebb and flow depending on the time of year, and economical conditions too have a great effect on how much the public is willing to support.

The difference here is that rather than asking fans to sign up on a third-party platform to support their favorite creators, now they can do so right on the YouTube platform itself. Its likely the integration will have a stronger effect on convincing people to want to support those they watch the most.

But, another question remains. Will sponsorships somehow equate to a viable replacement for lost ad revenues? Keep in mind, creators as a whole are suffering under the weight of Google’s new ad friendly guidelines, and some channels have seen as much as 90% of their back catalogue of videos lose their revenue entirely. That’s years of hard work literally flushed down the drain!

Demonetization of the YouTube platform is so bad at current, its likely creators would be forced to rely on sponsorships for the bulk of their revenues.

Another way to look at this is that, its likely the sponsorships could actually prove to be a lot more beneficial for creators than their reliance on advertising revenues; which, by the way, have been drastically falling off a cliff for years, and are currently at record lows. Most channels are lucky to break 50 cents for 1,000 views on average, and for some, the revenues are much less than that.

In light of the recent adpocalypse that’s been sweeping across the YouTube platform for the bulk of this past year, Google is also having a difficult time securing enough ads to span across the millions upon millions of videos that are posted each day. The fact is, Google is facing a crisis in terms of ad fill-rate, as some advertisers have yet to return, and a poor economical climate in the U.S isn’t helping things either.

Although, with sponsorships, creators wouldn’t have to worry about having Google swing the demonetization hammer at them, and even if they lost ads on a video, they could still pull in revenue from their efforts.

Another thing to consider here is that the bulk of viewers aren’t going to be able to afford to support ever channel they watch. In fact, more than likely most who do decide to support creators will likely support one or two at most. This could spread very thin the amount of available sponsorships given the over saturation of creators on the platform.

Conclusion:

I think Google’s efforts of opening the doors to paid sponsorships is a step in the right direction for creators, but it shouldn’t be a distraction to the problems the platform is still facing in terms of demonetization and censorship. It appears Google has gotten almost too strict in their attempts to define what content it deems advertiser friendly, what is not.

For gaming channels, even games that depict the mildest of violence appear to be taking a direct hit. Call of Duty channels literally died under Google’s demonetization sweeps, and more recently games like Destiny, which is hardly that violent, are seeing ad revenues disappear as well.

All being said, sponsorships are likely a positive note in what was essentially a very sour year for the YouTube platform as a whole. However, its unlikely most creators will be able to keep afloat with sponsorships alone. Its more likely creators will need both ad revenues and sponsorships in order to survive over the long term, and unless Google stops to rethink its ad crises, YouTube could very well fail.

Many gaming channels have already ditched YouTube altogether and are now streaming on places like Twitch, where censorship doesn’t appear to be as big of a problem. What Google needs to understand is that, taking away hard working creators ability to cut their bills just leaves open a huge gap for alternate platforms to grow and prevail, leaving YouTube in the dust. Even some of the biggest YouTubers like Philip De-Franco have stated they’ve had enough of Google’s censorship and demonetization games, and Philip himself is building his own social network as a result.

So the ball is in Google’s court, but its executives seriously need to wake up and get with the program, as without their creators, YouTube is nothing.

Additional Resources:

More About YouTube Sponsorships:

More about managing sponsorships, including eligibility:

Written and published by Daniel Imbellino — Co-Founder of Strategic Social Networking and pctechauthority.com. Many thanks for reading. Be sure to check out Strategic Social Networking Community on Google+ to connect with tens of thousands of IT professionals and learn effective strategies to grow your social presence online. You’re also welcome to follow Strategic’s brand page on G+ for the latest social media and IT industry news. You’re also welcome to connect with me on Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/+DanielImbellino