- YouTube is launching paid courses
directly on the platform,
and so education based channels rejoice.
You're getting another income stream on YouTube,
they're expanding creator monetization.
In a recent interview I did
with YouTube's VP of Creator Products, Amjad Hanif.
We talked about the fact that YouTube
is getting into paid courses
that will exist directly on the YouTube platform.
Now while we don't know what the revenue split will be
with this new creator monetization expansion
that they're doing,
and while we didn't get all the juicy details on this
and I know that more announcements
and more things will be rolling out
as time goes on around this, what me and Amjad did discuss
is that initially for the onboarding
at least for the first year or two when it comes to this,
the terms will be very generous.
And so that leads me to believe that it will be even better
than the 70/30 split that we get on Super Thanks,
Super Stickers, Super Chats and channel memberships.
you know that that's a 70/30 split,
and then on ad revenue we get a 55/45 split,
and then on shorts we get a pooled 45/55 split.
This is starting to get a little confusing
in terms of what the revenue sharing is looking like,
but at least initially,
it's gonna be very generous for creators and that sounds
like it's gonna be better than that 70/30 split.
The other thing I've noticed as an education channel
is that they are doing some tweaks on the backend of YouTube
to let you classify your education based content.
And so that means
that the YouTube uploader is likely going to change
and this might be an expanded product category.
If you wanna learn more
about the creator monetization expansion
that's going on on YouTube,
you should definitely watch the interview
that I did with Amjad Hanif,
YouTube's VP of Creator products.
I'm gonna link to it in the description down below.
If you're watching this video on YouTube,
it's also linked in the info card.
Now this is exciting for me
for a couple of different reasons,
one, I think that for a lot of different creators,
people who are in the productivity space,
like you know Ali Abdal and Thomas Frank,
this is gonna be killer
for them in terms of another monetization strategy,
but it's also going to be great for artists on YouTube,
DIY channels, crafting channels,
and people who do tutorial content tech
and general education,
language learning channels are gonna benefit from this,
science channels might benefit from this.
I think that this is a step in the right direction
and it's part of a larger online education initiative
that YouTube is doing.
I am going to try to specifically,
get somebody on the channel for an interview
about this product as it launches and we get more details
because I really want to know
what their thought process is behind this,
but I do have some thoughts of my own.
The online education business is worth billions,
and as it is, some of the greatest people
in the online education space
are homegrown YouTube content creators.
If you look at the success of things like Nebula
and what they've been doing over there
and how that's a creator owned platform
that is based around education
and really solid learning content,
then that's pretty prolific.
And the thing is, that was built
by homegrown content creators who are mostly YouTubers,
great education channels like Sideshow
and like Crash Course
were built directly right here on YouTube.
And YouTube is one of the largest how-to libraries
on the entire internet.
So the thing is, YouTube already owns
a really strong sector of the education market
when it comes to the creator economy,
but what they don't own is the platform opportunities
for structured learning content
and direct compensation that exists outside of ad revenue
for that content from people who are willing to support it,
not just with their eyeballs but with their wallets.
Learning platforms like Kajabi
by themselves have billion dollar plus valuations,
billions of dollars exist in this marketplace
and YouTube wants a cut of it.
And as a result,
there are many creators who are going to benefit
'cause not everyone can afford to launch their own
and host their own online courses on these hosted platforms
like Kajabi and Teachable and Podia,
just to name a few examples.
They're all alternatives out there like Skillshare as well,
and while that doesn't rely on ad revenue,
it also doesn't necessarily
have a direct payment transaction,
it's pooled revenue through a subscription service,
and the payout is based on watch time performance.
What this shift in YouTube does
is very similar to how creators now don't necessarily
have to start their own membership website,
pay for a pump hosting,
or they don't have their audience leave the platform
to do something like Patreon or buy me a coffee,
YouTube is creating something where it can live on YouTube
for people who want that experience
and don't wanna have to go to another platform,
which also makes it easier to just keep the engagement
and connection directly to your audience
and not over complicate their experience.
So YouTube now gets the benefit from this new market sector,
it gets to onboard creators
who had barriers to launching their own courses,
it lets them do it in the ecosystem of YouTube
that they're already familiar with
and their audience
will get what they're mostly accustomed to
if they're willing to support it
no different than they do with channel memberships
and that paid walled content.
And while I know a lot of people
have their criticisms online courses,
the most criticism I've seen
is from people who've never used one or never bought one.
And what I think is that with YouTube doing this offering
and showing how creators can do both free and paid content,
and by the way, this new structured learning content,
there will be free classes that people can make available
so that people can see
what the experience of learning from them is like,
and they could also have paid versions
and they can charge what they like for those.
And I think that that makes a lot of sense
because what it will do
is it will teach consumers on YouTube
how structured content works,
how it's different from the standalone content on YouTube,
which is not the best learning experience
if we're all being honest, it's very distracting,
and right when you get deep into a video,
you get interrupted with an ad
if you don't have YouTube premium,
that's not a great learning experience,
and even if you finish something,
like let's say you're doing a video editing tutorial,
instead of watching another video on editing,
what's in the left hand corner?
What's there distracting you?
Oh, here's the latest viral video,
you know, here is PewDiePie, here is Mr. Beast.
It's not really as great for education
as we make it seem sometimes,
it's just that it's free and it's there.
This is a step in the right direction
when it comes to the benefits of structured learning
and bringing that to YouTube.
This is a step in the right direction
with allowing education-based content creators
who don't want to do overly complicated hosted platforms
to go ahead and keep their audience on YouTube
and still be able to deliver that extra value
and have a new monetization system
that they can take advantage of.
And while we know YouTube
is primarily used by people for entertainment,
especially young people,
again this platform has been the backbone
of online education for a lot of people
because of the accessibility and the great user experience,
but there have been flaws with it that this new program
and monetizing education-based creators
is going to actually address and solve.
I also think that it does solve some of the skepticism,
criticism, and problems people have with online courses
because they'll be able to go
with the creators that they already like,
and the thing is,
they're in a system that they already know, YouTube.
And so personally, I'm really excited for what this means,
the courses that I'm looking at putting on this platform
are things that I wouldn't really
build a standalone thing on my own website for.
I have awesomecreatoracademy.com,
right now we don't really sell courses on that platform,
it's mostly one-on-one coaching calls with me
or the group monthly coaching membership
where we do two live office hours coaching calls every week.
That's my main thing on Awesome Creator Academy
and my digital template bundles.
The courses on YouTube is gonna be interesting
because what I can do is I can address topics
that I wanna do structured learning on
that I normally wouldn't feel like going outta my way
to build a course on that platform for,
because I think it'll be easier to do on YouTube
and it will make more sense for my audience.
A primary example is I've been wanting to do
some kind of course about being confident on camera
and learning how to be a better presenter
when it comes to doing videos.
So I think like that would be an appropriate course
to do as a low ticket item
that could be structured here on the channel.
I also think another one
that I might be interested in doing,
I thought about doing this on Skillshare,
maybe I do it there, maybe it lives on channel,
I have been doing public speaking
for a number of years since 2015
And a lot of you have asked me questions
about public speaking
but those videos don't necessarily
get the most views on the channel,
so maybe if I put together, you know, a complete guide
just public speaking for beginners
or public speaking for introverts specifically,
that makes sense as a niche segment of the viewership
would be willing to pay for that content behind a paywall
and support it with their wallet,
whereas the majority of the audience
would not support it with their eyeballs.
The other important nugget that goes with all of this
is it's one more monetization system added to YouTube,
it's part of expanding YouTube monetization
and the partner program.
And what I like about this is
YouTube is giving us more options
that exist outside of advertising revenue.
And that's important
because it means that creators and their audience
get to decide the direction of their brand
and their content more than the advertisers do.
The more we as creators rely on ad revenue and brand deals,
the less control we have and the less say the audience has
in the direction of our content
if we're gonna produce at the highest value
and the highest quality in any consistent way
and make it sustainable without burning out.
So the more we get weaned off of relying on advertisers
as our primary monetization, the better,
introducing more ways for creators to monetize is better.
And this isn't the only expansion to creator monetization
that is happening right now,
I actually did a recent video
on some new changes when it comes to YouTube
and that also includes YouTube shopping.
I need to do a dedicated video
because there is another announcement coming soon.
Right now it's in beta and it is only applying to I think
channels with 20,000 subscribers or more.
But I think that this new thing is going to be really great
and could completely be game changing.
In the meantime, you might wanna watch this video
on five new YouTube updates you might have missed.
Stay awesome and I will catch you in the next video.
Take care.