"I have been approached by a handful of networks and I'm not sure how to find out if signing
a contract is worthwhile."
I'm guessing this is going to be first for you, Austin.
"Are all networks just looking to sign as many channels as possible?
I was hoping to find a site where other YouTube creators who have signed on with a network
are posting about their experiences.
She's got a lot of questions in here for you.
Can a network really help increase my traffic?
If so, how?
Can you give me a high and low regarding percentage of networks, what they take from partners,
red flags."
Feel like, she's like, "Whoa.
Hold on cowboy.
What do I do here," All these different things to consider and talk about when it comes to
networks.
What do you got for her, Austin?
Those are all great questions.
One thing, I work here at Fullscreen, but I'm also a YouTube creator myself and I signed
with Fullscreen about a year ago before even, I didn't even know what Fullscreen was and
they sent me an email.
I was like, "What is this?"
I looked at them and I was asking all the same questions.
The first question was, "Are networks just looking to sign as many channels as possible?"
Some are but for instance, with what we look at, when we partner with channels we look
at two things.
We look at statistics but we also look at content.
There's a lot of times where we'll sign channels that from a statistical standpoint, maybe
our return on investment wouldn't necessarily be there but we believe in these channels
and we know that they have great content, so we want to bring them on and help them
grow.
You mentioned looking for a site where other people are talking about networks.
There are a few different forums.
One forum is YouTube talk.
A lot of people go on there and talk about stuff?
YouTube Talk is YTtalk.com, right?.
Yes.
YTtalk.com, we go on there.
We try to have presence as well to make sure that the right information is out there and
whatnot.
Can a network really help you increase traffic?
Yes.
We have a lot of different ways.
We have different promotional tools, we have different sub-networks within the Fullscreen
network.
For instance, we have the network called Blog Union where we print all of our blogs.
What that does is it allows, within all of our channels, it allows a small amount of
channels that are all like-minded to come together to have their own community, to interact
with their own forums, to have opportunities to be featured on our hub channel on the blogging
YouTube channel.
All kinds of collaborations are always taking place.
We feature them on our Facebook, Twitter, all that jazz.
She wanted to know about the contracts, right?
I think that the first thing that everybody should always do is when they get their first
drafts of the contract, really just to hire a lawyer to look over it.
I know it costs us money but regardless of how much it costs I think maybe it'll cost
you maybe a couple hundred bucks to have a lawyer look over it.
Honestly, it's worth it.
In the end it isn't like your career that we're talking about so it's really important
to have somebody that has the experience to look over things and maybe possibly make some
changes that maybe will help you for the long term.
In regards to, "are YouTube networks out there to sign as many talents as possible?"
I'm not saying that every single network is doing that, but from an advertiser's standpoint,
technically the more numbers the better, right?
Let's say if I have a YouTube network and I sign 10,000 creators and then I can say
we get 40 million views a month.
Then I can just go ahead and pitch to advertisers and be like, "Advertise with our network.
We get 40 million views a month."
Essentially, yes.
It does, from a numbers standpoint, maybe make sense to sign a lot of creators because
then your network's a lot bigger.
Not every network.
Big Frame, for example, their strategy isn't to sign on a boatload of channels but instead
they're saying, "We're strategically picking channels and we're going remain small but
every channel we bring on it's because we have a specific plan in mind of what we're
going to do with your channel."
Mostly, I assume, around brand integration into their videos.
Every network does things a little bit differently so it's really hard, I think, for us to make
sweeping generalizations.
One of the things I've been approached by a couple of different networks, and so far
I've said no to all of them because I have specific goals for my channels that I'm working
towards and so far none of them have really given me ways that they can help me achieve
those goals.
Those goals aren't just like more views or more money.
I think views and money are more of a symptom or a metric to use if you're meeting something
bigger.
That's not the end in and of itself.
I haven't signed on yet, but not saying I wouldn't be open to that, but I'm looking
for a partner.
There are lots of different reasons why you would sign and why you shouldn't sign.
I think also kind of like Benny was saying, looking into your contract and really making
sure that it's the best fit for you.
While we like to think we have the best overall package to offer we also understand that certain
creators are going to look for more specific things that maybe we don't really offer as
much.
It's about weighing the pros and cons of what's best for your channel and what your overall
goal is for your channel and seeing which network fits the best with that.
We want to work with our partners.
I think sometimes people get this idea that because of certain bad things that have happened
with networks, networks are just the devil and out to get you but it's our job to make
sure that you're all succeeding.
When you succeed, we all succeed.
So we want to help and accommodate and if things come up or you have issues, that's
what our partner managers and our 24/7 support are there for.
I've been in a two year contract with Verizon for my cell phone for the past 11, 12 years
and I keep renewing it because I love it.
Just because you're locked into a contract doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad thing.
Sometimes that works out better for all parties, too.