So I just recently purchased a stake in a youtube video producer. He makes commentaries about video games (think call of duty, starcraft etc.) He's pretty good, both at playing and commentating. And he's in his early 30's, so very mature and responsible. (I also trust this person, I've had a much bigger financial relationship with him in the past, and we signed a contract...the deal is costs are recouped, then the profit above and beyond is split 50/50)

His channel however has less then 1,000 subscribers and he's pretty new to the game (3 months).

His part of the arrangement is making 2 videos per week, and my part of the arrangement is fast tracking his channel to more subscribers and paying for recording software + new games etc.

My question is, what's the best ways to grow a youtube channel? Money isn't the issue, so I'm open to both free growth and paid for growth. But I have no idea about how to maximize the "bang for my buck."

Right now the only way he's grown his channel is by doing videos for other channels.

I've thought about things such as dual coms, paying big youtube producers to let us put a video on their channel, paying youtube to be a "sponsored video" when people search for topics such as "starcraft commentary."

Anyone know of a good article/video/anything that might help me out? Anyone out there have a youtube channel of their own that is successful? I would be open to trading free poker lessons for helping me grow this channel.

My budget is $5K, of which $1K has gone to equipment/games/other. So I'm still open to spending $4K more on advertising methods.



p.s. I can't release his name/channel because of two reasons, 1.) it's spammy to do that on 2+2 imo and 2.) I don't want people knowing that I own part of this channel because it's perceived as "uncool" to be in the youtube world for money..****ch like how some bands are "uncool" once they go from doing small little concerts to big "ZOMG I just made a ton of money" type concerts.

Who is your biggest competitor on youtube? How many views do they get, and why? (are they driving traffic from other sources)

slightly off topic but I was looking into this recently so you may know the answer. how does one make money of lots of youtube views?

One of the easiest ways would have to be to have a drawing from amongst subscribers for some decent swag unless that violates YouTube's TOS or something

Huskystarcraft would probably be one of the biggest names out there. He has over 300,000 subscribers and receives over 100,000 views per video. There are also numerous commentators that have over 200,000 subscribers and received maybe 50-75K views per video.

I know several commentators own their own websites, but they generally drive traffic TO the website from youtube...not the other way around.

I know they also commentate in real life, so I'm sure that does receive them some traffic. (which would unfortunately not be an option for my commentator)

The first step is to become a youtube "partner." Basically that allows you to put ads on your videos (those little 15 second ads at the beginning, also those little pop up ads)

After you become a partner (there's no set criteria for becoming a partner...applying to become one is free though, and from what I've found 10,000 views and 1K subs will qualify you)

After that, the standard deal is $2.50 for every 1,000 views. So that means if my commentator can get to the 200,000 subscriber mark, and gets 1/4th of the subscribers to view each video (50,000 view per vid) he'll make $125 per video, or $250 per week. (aka $1K a month)

Assuming the starcraft and youtube world keeps growing, I'm hoping in 3-4 years it'll not be uncommon for "reasonable" commentators to do double that. So I'm hoping for $1K per month profit for myself, and $1K for him after about 3-4ish years.

Paying someone on say paypal for allowing you to put a video on their channel is fine I think. It's also the "easiest" way I see of growing the channel.

Also paying google directly (they own youtube) and paying to advertise, seems another easy way to grow. But obviously those 2 ways cost money, and I'm not sure how effective they are.

I guess I could try them out for a few hundo and see how it goes, but I wanted to create a thread to brainstorm and try to tap into some of the creative minds of 2+2

From a consumer's perspective, I learned of SCLegacy's channel through http://www.teamliquid.net/ iirc, and I've watched every starcraft vod from that channel since

I'm not sure exactly how to use this info but figured it might help

link twitter to YT

make each vid you post a reply for a popular video.
so if there is a SC3 vid that has 15 millinon views and growing, try to set one of your videos as a reply to that video. sometimes author needs to approve, in which case asking polity can help. if any1 can post a reply to the video, then it will get spammed w/ video replys and your video will get lost.

title the videos w/ good key words. you can go on google adwords or something and find common key words associated w/ your niche.

always brand your video so ppl know where it is coming from. many sites stream YT vids. meaning your vids will show up on a bunch of sites not called youtube. ppl will have no clue what your channel is unless they click on the video and it takes them to YT. So start each video w/ a short intro or something w/ your info.

you don't need to be a partner to get paid. some videos will become individually selected as eligible for monetizing. I'm not a partner, yet almost every vid I have posted is eligible. The key is not having any copyrighted content. Audio will get caught eventually if its a famous or semi famous artist. Video, much less likely depending on what your ripping off. YT can close your account for this.

read the comment on the vids. if ppl want X, do a video about X.
post videos on specific days. not just randomly twice a week.
show ppl how to subscribe in the video. most of your views will come from non subscribers. even ppl w/o YT accounts. never make videos 18+ b/c you need YT account to view.

becoming a partner is ideal, b/c you will be able to personalize your YT page even further.

The value in YT is mostly in building up your brand, or marketing a website/product. Making revenue from YT paying you is just a little bonus.

go onto mashable.com and siliconvalleyinsider.com and just search "youtube" and you should find plenty of good advice.

Hiring a cute 18 year old girl to do all the commentary/reviews of games probably wouldn't hurt.

10k views seems a little low for 1k subs. I have a channel with 1k subs and 500k views. I'm not really into monetizing my video's but I looked into the partner program because I hated the 10 minute limit. They also mention other criteria like regularly uploading video's. Like everything with Google it's shrouded in mystery.

I stopped caring about being a partner now that YT is removing the time limit on video's. My account is one of the accounts that can upload video's with unlimited length.
$2.5 for 1k views seems sick high. How did you get this information? Right now I average about 1k views per day but if I put effort into it I can probably do way more than that. If this is really the case I might be interested in the partner program.

The limit is 15 minutes nowadays, not 10. Been that way for a while.

Also, even my commentator's account can upload over 15 minutes now. Most people once they pass 5Kish views get that limitation lifted, even if they're not partners.

Other sites pay up to $5 per 1K views. So youtube is generally cheap

edited to add: Blip tv pays $5 per 1K views

I didn't want to imply that my account is special because of the unlimited play time. I just cited it as the reason for not being interested in the partner program.

If the CPM is indeed $2.5 I might look into it after all.

Sorry if I came off poorly, I wasn't trying to be negative.

It just seemed like you were maybe an older youtuber because what you were saying "used to be accurate."

It used to be getting your time limit lifted was a BIG deal, and you had to have an old/established account.

Nowadays though people get their time limit lifted without even asking (like my case).

Bit OT but you can learn how Youtube likes to operate from this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0bGs-hhenI

Keep in mind that YouTube are ****ing terrible when it comes to communication. If you get trolled by someone filing copyright/flagging your videos and your account gets shut down (3 warnings, they can all come at the same time, anytime!) There is no one to turn too for help really. You can fill out a form and hope that someone looks at it but your chances of ever getting your channel back are super slim unless you are making them money.

Youtube have a very subjective warning system (some jaded dude/girl checks flagged videos) so you always feel a bit paranoid about posting anything that might be a little offensive, unless you are a youtube hotshot ofc.

The number one rule to follow on YouTube is to NOT EVER break any copyright laws.