- There are five new updates to YouTube
that you absolutely need to know about,
and the first one involves YouTube monetization.
Yes, another YouTube monetization update.
A lot of you may be familiar with the fact
that YouTube updated the Merch Shelf to YouTube Shopping
and that now you get that at 1,000 subscribers,
as long as you're in the YouTube Partner Program.
But, they've added a new twist to this,
and now you can add more than one shop
to the YouTube Shopping feature
so you can have more than one store.
That means that you could have Spreadshop and Shopify
at the same time,
and select products from both,
feature those on your YouTube videos
in what used to be the Merch Shelf,
which is now the YouTube Shopping tab,
and, wait, there's more,
you also not only can select the individual products
from both stores and display them,
and it's not just limited to two stores,
you can have more than two stores.
I have not experimented with trying to do three or more,
I think that's a little bit much,
but, the beauty of this is also if you do live streams,
you can tag products from both stores
in the YouTube Merch Shelf
when tied to YouTube Shopping,
as tagged products when you live stream.
So this allows YouTubers with regular long-form videos,
and with their live streams,
to potentially make more money
and have a variety of products
that they can sell to their audience,
so if you have more than one store
you can now merge them under one account
with YouTube shopping.
This is a great update.
It's gonna make creators a lot more money
and give them a lot more options.
By the way,
since it's hoodie season, apparently,
you can feel free to get some of my merch
linked in the description down below
and in the YouTube Shopping tab.
The second important update is YouTube handles
and now you can get a different YouTube URL.
Remember those clunky URLs,
like, you know, youtube.com/robertoblake2
or youtube.com/c/robertoblakepsd?
Uh, yeah.
We don't have to do that anymore.
Now it's just youtube.com/@robertoblake.
And so now I have a clean URL for my YouTube channel,
finally,
and I think this is gonna be a great update
for live creators who got stuck with names
that they came up with when they were goofy teenagers,
or things that, you know,
you've updated your branding,
you've changed the name of your channel,
or maybe you got married and you changed your name
or whatever reason you want to rebrand your YouTube channel,
you can have a clean YouTube channel URL.
It's now gonna be much less complicated,
and if you want to mention it
in the description of other videos,
or you wanna tag other YouTube creators,
you can now use this consistent YouTube handle and name
in order to reference the channels.
So, I think this is gonna just solve a lot of headaches.
I don't think it does much about impersonation and spam,
but I do think it at least gives us a cleaner way
to have different YouTube URLs,
have some consistency on the platform after all these years,
and I think that it's a nice little update
for all of us creators.
Also, you no longer have to have 100 subscribers
in order to change and have this custom URL.
YouTube might have these five huge announcements,
but I actually have one of my own
that I'm throwing in as well.
Some of you already know
that I've become a bestselling author
on top of a YouTube content creator,
so now my book,
"Create Something Awesome:
How Creators are Profiting from Their Passion
in the Creator Economy"
is out in Kindle paperback and hard cover,
and it is a bestseller in both Kindle and paperback.
The audiobook is coming soon,
probably before the end of the year.
This book is the book that I wish I had had
when I started my creator journey.
I don't just give you the typical YouTube tips,
I actually talk about podcasting and live streaming a lot,
but I also give you the real experience
of what you can expect as a content creator
and talk about ways to deal with burnout,
staying authentic to your audience,
and also a lot of different things around monetization
and really turning this into a career
and more than a hobby or just a side hustle.
So, if that's something you're interested in
you should definitely check out the book.
Also, if you just wanna support me,
this is a great way to do it
and I really do appreciate it.
It helps out a lot.
Thank you to everyone who's already bought it
and reviewed over in Amazon.
And now, back to the content.
Some of you already know
that YouTube Shorts is getting monetized
and that they've also started adding Super Thanks to Shorts.
This is in beta and the beta is expanding.
They are also rolling this out to even more countries,
giving more creators the opportunity
to monetize with Super Thanks donations
on their YouTube Shorts.
Now, we do know that there's going to be a lower tier
of YouTube monetization called YouTube Fan Funding.
I do have a dedicated video plan
that will come out about that.
We are also looking for more details on the requirements,
but I may do a video before then about this,
just so you understand it a little bit better.
However, Super Thanks on Shorts is a big deal
and I would encourage more people to start creating shorts
if they wanna be a part of that.
Some of you have already seen it added
to your existing shorts content.
A reminder that if you already are monetized
and in the YouTube channel Partner Program,
that what's going to happen when Shorts are fully monetized,
you're gonna get access to that monetization
without meeting new requirements
if you're already a YouTube partner.
So, this just means that more creators
are gonna start making money on their content,
which is always a good thing.
We have an aesthetic update to YouTube
on the mobile app for Android and iOS,
but also on the desktop.
A lot of you may have noticed on your phones,
that YouTube is looking a little bit different.
It's looking a little bit sharper these days,
it's looking a little bit cleaner,
and that's because of these new updates.
I'm really excited about this
because I've just never had a better YouTube experience,
both on the YouTube app,
but also in the Creator Studio app.
There will be more updates to this as time goes on
and an aesthetic update that is planned,
is a separate tab for YouTube videos,
YouTube live streams and YouTube Shorts,
so that it cleans up our feed as creators
and it can can be just more aesthetically pleasing.
I'm very happy about this change,
'cause let's face it,
when we click over to the Videos tab,
it's not been looking pretty lately.
So, I really think that this is something
we all are looking forward to,
and I can't wait for more updates like this
to all of the platform,
whether it's mobile or desktop.
Last but not least,
the Community tab has an update in YouTube.
YouTube's Community tab is now gonna be available to you,
even if you do not have 500 subscribers.
So they are hooking small YouTubers up,
as my friend Nick Nimmin would say,
with this new feature,
and so, this is something
that you are gonna have to qualify for,
'cause there is a small catch.
To be able to get certain features in YouTube,
you have to verify with a phone number.
Now, to get the more advanced features
you're gonna have to verify with a form of ID
or with a video confirmation.
So this is gonna unlock more features for you in YouTube.
Normally that would be,
you know, gate kept behind a subscriber count,
you're just gonna be able to verify your identity,
and then be able to access those features.
A lot of creators are gonna be very happy with this
because they won't have to reach certain sub counts
to have access to their community
through the Community tab and these other features,
and I think this is a change
in the right direction for YouTube,
because I think that the subscriber count gatekeeping
has made small YouTubers feel very excluded,
it made them a little bit more insecure
about those subscriber counts,
a little bit more desperate,
and I think that this is just something
that makes people feel more like they are a part of YouTube
and that as long as they make the, you know,
verification requirements,
that they're going to be a fully fledged creator
with the same access and resources as everybody else.
This is huge.
I also like that they did lower the requirements
for things like the YouTube Merch Shelf down to 1,000.
They've, you know,
eliminated the requirement for a custom URL.
This is all a step in the right direction
in terms of making every creator
feel a lot more like they're part of YouTube.
That's it for this update.
There are more features and things
that I wanna cover that are coming out.
I do want to help give you guys a rundown
on something new coming from YouTube.
They're gonna be launching the ability for you
to have and launch your own paid courses on YouTube,
which expands YouTube monetization even further.
I will have a dedicated video about that coming pretty soon,
so make sure you're staying tuned
and that you are subscribed to my YouTube channel.
Stay awesome and I'll catch you in the next video.
Bye.