Steemit vs YouTube: We're Coming For Your Creators
Post your videos to YouTube, but monetize them on Steemit.
This is the opportunity I hope all video creators will consider. There are no downsides to using both platforms.
Almost 10-years ago, I had my first videos monetized on YouTube. Back then, you had to be invited to the program, and earnings were counted in pennies.
Fortunately, a few years later, YouTube became fully monetized and creators could finally support themselves from their video productions alone.
Everything was going reasonably well until the event known as the Adpocalypse occurred:
In April, 2017, a group of major advertisers pulled out of YouTube after they became concerned that their brands were appearing alongside controversial content.
Earnings for creators tanked, and have since remained suppressed.
But the worst of it is, a heightened fear of YouTube's ambiguous standard for acceptable content. This has led creators to self-censor their work, just so they can remain in good standing with the network.
Do you like to swear? Talk politics? Cover world news events? You can still do it on YouTube, but often you'll be working for free.
This is why so many YouTubers have begun to plug Patreon in every video they publish. But even if they haven't been demonetized, many require supplemental income because YouTube has been paying out so little.
This is my message for YouTubers:
Steemit is a monetization platform on the internet.
Any work that you can put into a blog post, like an embedded video, can be instantly monetized.
How much does Steemit pay?
Your earning potential is largely dependent on how much the community, and most importantly, your followers, value your content.
How does Steemit work?
Imagine if every thumbs up paid out real money. It’s not a fantasy -- that's exactly how Steemit was designed.
But fans aren't paying you directly like they are with Patreon; they're voting for you to receive a share of a daily cash payout that is offered to everyone on the network, including non-creators.
Where is all this money coming from?
To make sense of Steemit's experimental and highly innovative economy, you'll need to do some reading. But to quell your immediate fears, just realize that Steemit is already valued in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The project has plenty of investment, crowd-funded by its own users, and it is just getting started.
Why isn't Steemit in the news?
The reason why you haven't heard about Steemit, is because the platform is in beta and not being marketed. There are still major developments being done to make it a truly mainstream product. But if you're reading this post, you'll already have proof that it's working and that it pays.
And despite Steemit operating in virtual stealth-mode for over a year, word has started to leak out. Recently, the network has experienced rapid growth:
You have nothing to lose.
Steemit does not use ads, like Adsense; nor donations, like Patreon. It is a next-generation solution to compensate content producers.
Don't wait for YouTube to fully sanitize their network, censoring your content and further lowering your earnings.
Those YouTubers who make the minimal effort to create a free Steemit account will be getting in on the ground floor. They will be setting themselves up for maximum earnings when this platform is officially launched. It is only a matter of time before the rest of YouTube understands this opportunity.
But don't take my word for it.
Signup, and take a look around for yourself!
Header graphic contains images of Phil DeFranco and PewDiePie.
Monitor the value of STEEM, the crypto-currency that powers Steemit.
Research Steemit's growth stats from these handy charts.
Spot on! Along with @world5list we also run another channel called "They Will Kill You" with over 850,000 subscribers... since our content is deemed "high risk" by YouTube we've been struggling due to their ridiculous "advertiser friendly" policies that came out as a result of Adpocalypse...we still haven't fully recovered since then :( Cheers to Steemit and the new revolution it's starting! We feel super fortunate to get in this early in the game :)
You know there's something wrong with a platform when you're nearing 1,000,000 subscribers but pulling your hair out trying to make it work again...
Upvoted, resteemed, and followed :)
Tried bitchute? It's webtorrent and it works pretty well! They will kill you hmm they'll sure try, let's see what you've got, following ;)
@nutela, Tell us what you think about the Steemit killer > https://steemit.com/steemit/@blockrush/is-wildspark-the-steemit-killer-blockrush
I've seen the analytics myself. I know how awful it's become :(
Of course, I don't really blame YT for everything. They must remain responsible to their shareholders.
But it's clear that an ad-rev biz model to fund creative content has major limits. It was bound to catch up with creators eventually.
With crypto, we finally have an alternative solution. Even if I didn't believe in Steemit's potential, I'd still be here supporting it on principle.
Wow, sounds like you started around the time we did in 2006! We were even invited to YouTube LIVE in 2008 (they flew us out to San Francisco and put us up in a hotel), around the same time we just started earning some money on YouTube, after two years!
We finally gave up in 2011 when practically one video after another was demonetized and/or removed without any real reason or rationale (basically, what's routinely happening to all YouTubers today, unless you're Katy Perry of course)...
Instead of me rambling on about it, if you're interested, I wrote all about it a month or so ago here: YouTuber's Guide to Re-Monetizing with STEEMIT!
I believe your story. I managed a channel that was shut down last year, without notice or explanation (got a generic response from the appeal).
Only 6-months earlier we were on the phone with YouTube. They were praising our work, and trying to help us optimize the marketing.
I couldn't make this shit up!
Someone who's worth more to YT probably filed a complaint against us. Fair game, it's their business.
But now we have this amazing combo of blockchain + community funding. Hope we can make the most of it!
My feelings exactly @gigafart! Before that it hadn't really been an issue. youtube support would just say, "oh no problem!" and soon after our videos would be live again.
Next thing we knew we're being told if we kept "bugging them" they'd take our whole channel down. And Margaret Healy (head of YouTube "strategic partnerships" at the time), basically said leave her alone too, there was nothing she could do (we had even met her in person multiple times at the Manhattan googleplex).
Some "partnership" it turned out to be! We simply decided there's no way we can keep going under these circumstances. Ever since, we've been looking for a "suitable" replacement... then we discovered "STEEMIT"! :)
Funny how we went from what seemed like "about to break out" to "slammed on our heads" over the course of just a few weeks after we participated in the YouTube NextUp contest...
Perhaps the greatest irony is that we moved away from some of our more "politically-oriented" content to "Naughty Tipples" due to the "resistance" we felt from YouTube's "new owners" (google). So much for that idea...! lol
The success of Patreon and Netflix give me a lot of optimism post ad-rev. But I think ads will be given a great second wind from decentralization.
Someday, we'll have an open platform for creators to p2p with advertisers. This should lead to higher payouts, lower costs, superior targeting.... I'm sure there'll be a steem-based service to make that happen!
yes an soon wwe will have Bitchute or steemq.ccom to UPLOAD videos to as well!
hey man do u have a krakken or bitfinex account? I ned to buy soem EOS tokens and ill send u neough SBD to buy one for yoursellf nd u can hold onto the for me!
Yes, exactly 100% agree!
Pootube. There I said it.
Typical greed at the top. Made by the users, gauged by the owners....
no need to work again, posts are waiting for new activity, just post here and get reward in the dollars. its not difficult for those who have much subscribers on the you-tube or other sites.
If post have worth then it will boost here too.. follow @princekayani
Hey brother!! Yep, tons of people are getting destroyed. I LOVE STEEMIT FOR THIS REASON!!! Check out ONG.Social - I've got a post here. Great place to again double (or triple) monetize your content.... and no censorship! https://steemit.com/socialmedia/@sashadaygame/ico-opportunity-groundbreaking-decentralized-social-media-platform-is-coming-july-17th
Love your vids mate!
Thanks a lot, appreciate your kind words!
@theywillkillyou, Steemit might be under attack! Tell us what your think > https://steemit.com/steemit/@blockrush/is-wildspark-the-steemit-killer-blockrush
Great post! I myself run a channel called "world5list" on Youtube which is slowly but steadily closing in on a million subscribers and I pretty much agree with every letter in this blog!
Resteemed, because everybody should read this :)
Initially, I think Steemit could spread like Patreon on YT. When one creator starts plugging in, the others will take notice. Money opportunities tend to create attention.
Great channel, btw!
yes done it.
I knew about adsense and youtube monetization but never started due to small rewards and lots of complexities. Thanks to steemit that I can do it now with my skills of crypticurrencies and food & health and good thing is that we are still in beta phase.
It's extremely hard to earn money on YT unless you're in a major niche, that advertisers approve.
Steemit operates totally differently. We're going to find out how it compares really soon!
Yeah I am loving steemit. In just 1 week I got 150+ followers in my field of expertise. In addition I got some decent rewards as well. Loving it
Getting loyal and highly-engaged followers is money in the bank. Could be worth more than buying STEEM right now. I'm betting on both, though xD
Great post @gigafart, I used to 100% believe YouTube was a freight train that no competitor could stop. In a sense that still remains true, it is impossible for any competitor to go up against them directly. I never once considered that it would be the conductor themselves to derail the train, and that's exactly what we're seeing here. YouTube is too big to fail, the only way it will go down is if they light it on fire themselves.
We're witnessing a change in the culture. A distaste for centralization, advertisements, and the selling of private user data. Google has lots to worry about.
It might not be great for my own blogging efforts because I always said the blogging difficulty will go up when more people come to the platform.
Some of these users have a huge following but it would be an an awesome promotion for the platform.
I just hope easy signups is implemented in time :)
And the beauty is. There is nothing to lose by posting here at all.
Just a note on sign ups, I've got a friend at work to join through the normal process and it was done in less than 24 hours.
If you enter Steemit in 5 years, and you don't have an existing user base behind u. Then u are in big trouble.
The reason why small bloggers get to earn something here is because this platform is still in it's early stages.
Maybe, but I'll always watch your vlogs xD
right Answer also
I just signed up today and was approved in a couple of hours and it's pretty much a holiday
I follow a really good blogger I've been trying to get onto SteemIt. I need to reach out to him again. He's a professional writer for a news organization, but writes a blog on the side and probably doesn't make much of anything from it. I'm also thinking of one or two people I know that are actively making youtube videos that I need to refer. Thanks for the detailed info about how easy it is to link to youtube content to start monetizing on it.
I think at this point, you just need to mention the platform and a few details that might get them interested. It'll probably take repeated mentions, from a number of sources, before the average person takes action. Fortunately, the people I know in RL get an account whether they want one or not xD
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Do we know how long the beta phase of STEEMIT is going to last? When are they going to release themselves from the Beta shackles and show the world what this platform is truly capable of?
You can read about Steemit's next software upgrade, and their broader plans for 2017.
The training wheels are coming off!
I don't mind to wait a few months, so I have time to build my account.
Steemit will takeover youtube at some point!
Agreed. Especially when newer channels realize they can instantly start making money without having to need a million subs.
True
Brilliantly written article, that clearly articulates the rationale for an existing blogger to join, but how to get it in front of the people who need to see it??? unfortunately they are not yet on our platform.
Resteemed, maybe that will help??
We have to reach out. I leave comments on YT all the time. Make sure to frame it in a way they'll understand. I often mention how little they are earning from Patreon, after checking out their account.
if i feel the need/have the right opportunity, can I quote this post outside of steemit if I give props? or paraphrase?
You can share it any way you like. With credit or not.
It's also permanently recorded in the blockchain, so I'll always have a claim on it :)
LoL, you know that's right. Youtube is a good storage locker for your content, but Steemit is the future for content monitization. Sorry Youtube - You got Greedy and Pushy and now you're done.
There's also tons of niches that just don't have the volume to produce substantial ad-revenue.
Look at what a rather minor YouTuber, @TedCarr, has already been able to achieve on Steemit.
YT might be the most lucrative user base we can tap.