Stop YouTubing your Videos for Free!!!

So, you’ve finalized the scripts, put together an awesome crew, got an amazingly talented cast and are all set to launch your own web series! The next step ahead, definitely is to digitally distribute your videos and make some money. YouTube certainly looks like a perfect option here and I assume you have probably started the entire activity considering YouTube as your final distribution platform. And why not? It free to use, has immense popularity (being the second most popular search engine worldwide), which will eventually help your webisodes gain better viewers and make money.

All your plans here are driven by the idea of that big fat cheque YouTube is going to send you at the end of every month by streaming ads on your videos. And I am definitely in no intention of bursting your bubble coming out of what looks like a perfect plan here. Let’s rather talk about the real face of all those compromises you’re going to be making for your brand’s identity by choosing a FREE service.

No doubt, YouTube has sustained long enough as the sole platform hosting online videos. But it comes at a big cost. It is indeed very painful to see YouTube taking a big bite out of your business and revenues (sometimes as high as 45%!). Most importantly, you lose your brand identity and are compromising on the real monetization value of your content when you ask your viewers to come to your “YouTube Channel” as you go about promoting it in Print, Online, Radio and Digital medium as – “www.YouTube.com/yourbrand”. It is even as more difficult to gain enough video ads and make meaningful revenues with YouTube as it’s plagued with low fill rates and dwindling CPM rates. Unless you plan an exceptionally well paid campaign and bet on the viral organic growth and spread of your videos, the chances are, you are still staring at huge loss. Even with this FREE platform, YouTube itself in 2015 earned $9 billion revenue, and is still operating in loss.

Do you still believe this free platform is the best bet to run and monetize your work?

I believe, Industry today has reached a level where the viewers have diverse taste in content and are no longer hesitant paying some bucks watching quality AD-FREE content. Creating and maintaining a brand identity for Content Providers has become imperative. If we are spending fortune creating online video content to reach a mass audience, we would also want to be differentiated easily from the competition.

Let’s discuss more on how choosing YouTube is blocking your road to become the best ever video content provider.

YouTube Dilutes your Brand Identity

It is evident that YouTube takes away more than half of all your brand credit. You will be creating your own “channel” but the channel will always reside on YouTube.com/channelname kind of url, which means for a viewer it’s always YouTube First, your brand second. You can even brand your logo on the YouTube video player, but this is always overshadowed by YouTube’s strong branding splashed everywhere on the page, which is definitely hard to ignore.

You’re spending in sending traffic to YouTube, not Your Service

Your entire marketing campaign is based on driving your potential viewrs to YouTube.com/YourBrand. When you market your YouTube channel, you actually send FREE traffic to YouTube. Your viewers will go to YouTube first and then search for your content/channel, which means YouTube getting free marketing on your expense! Are you sure you want to promote someone else’s brand for Free?

Your Subscribers are Not Yours!

Alas, your viewers and subscribers are also not yours, it’s YouTube’s. When you ask viewers to “Subscribe” to your channel, they are in fact signing into their Google accounts or creating a new Google account, to be able to subscribe to your channel. All you get is a +1 increase in your list of “subscribers” and some general stats; the real subscribers details like email, name or any personal contact details will always remain hidden with YouTube. So, all your efforts of driving subscribers to your channel, leads to YouTube gaining more users, literally leaving you empty handed.

Not only that, YouTube gives you no way of communicating with your audience. You can’t email them, send notifications, no updates, no newsletters, nothing. All YouTube does is to send them a very general notification whenever you upload a new video.

You can only Monetize through Ads (Better Content can be paid for.. in many other ways)

Are you sure your content is worth what YouTube decides to sell (CPM) it for? I doubt.. Isn’t it fair for you to choose, what how and when to charge your videos for..

Youtube only gives you one monetization option for your content and that is ad-supported and a complex CPM driven logic. YouTube will run banner/video ads on your content and shares your revenues (unless you are selected for YouTube RED or you’re eligible to sell your videos on PPV).

You are not even in control of what CPM rate your content is to sell for. It is entirely up to YouTube and Google Bidding algorithms to decide the value of your content. This is a sheer disadvantage for a video content owner that has good audience and wants to monetize using different monetization options. With YouTube you can’t sell your content for a premium or decide a rate, or even offer it to certain specific advertisers who want to pay you direct for it.

Is being paid a mere $3-4 (After rev share) for 1000 ad-views on your content better Vs asking for $1 on a Pay-per-view model for each video view from your audience?

Read one of our earlier Blogs to know What is the Best Revenue Model for your Business.

You are even sharing your Content Rights with YouTube

When you upload your video content on YouTube, you are virtually signing off your content rights to YouTube, which means YouTube has rights to reuse your content anywhere on YouTube based on its algorithms. This is why when your video ends, YouTube decides what to play next, sending your viewers to an altogether different channel, rather than continuing with your channel’s flow. YouTube also provides suggestions and recommendations from other channels and videos, when you’re watching, which eventually dilutes your channel’s brand value and makes your viewers (which you’ve actually spent money bringing in) to wander off to other content, giving you little or no control over the content behavior.

Do you still believe this is the best way forward? If not ….

What’s the solution then?

I’m sure, given a choice, you’d want to switch off from YouTube and instead put your videos to a platform where you are in control and where you get a great deal of flexibility in terms of choosing how what when to showcase and how what when to monetize in order to make sense doing business.

But yes, you are a storyteller, a dreamer and you don’t want the hassles of all the IT, Coding, Technology jargons to put you off and pull focus from your core work of creating great content!

What if I tell you about a platform that just requires you to Sign up, upload your content, and get going?

Muvi.com is an all-in-all platform that has gained success by providing white labelled, instantly ready, end-to-end Video Streaming Platform for Content Owners. It LITERALLY allows video content owners to create and launch their own platform across web, mobile and TV, INSTANTLY! Choosing your own theme, uploading your logo and syncing with your brand identity is also super easy and pays off well with Muvi as you have your own domain and can choose your monetization options. Muvi has an assorted range of Interesting Features to help you create the best ever video streaming platform.

Let’s leave YouTubing for those Cute Cat Videos that have no other choice but to gain viewers by expecting them to jump onto their channel after they finish watching a competition video.. 🙂

Sign Up for a 14 days free trial with Muvi or Let’s catch up over your favorite Coffee to understand your custom requirements..