- When you start a YouTube channel,
the very first thing you should do
is verify that YouTube channel.
I know that sounds boring
but it will allow you to upload longer videos,
custom thumbnails and live stream.
And you don't need a single view or subscriber to do it.
But after that, what comes next?
Let me show you.
While you can live stream on YouTube from a computer
with zero subscribers,
you will need 50 subscribers
to live stream from a mobile device,
as well as this, YouTube may cap the number of people
who can watch your live streams
until you reach 1000 subscribers.
As you're about to discover,
a lot of these YouTube feature unlocks
are linked to how many subscribers you have on your channel.
So I've got a simple question for you,
how many subscribers have you got?
Let us know in the comments below.
To get a custom YouTube URL that looks like this,
rather than a jumbled mess of characters,
you will need 100 subscribers.
On top of this,
you will need to upload a channel banner, a profile picture,
and the channel must be at least 30 days old.
The Community tab is a fantastic way to engage
with people beyond videos,
as it acts like a status feed
with posts, pictures and polls.
You'll unlock this bad boy at 500 YouTube subscribers.
You can create community posts
either from a computer or a mobile phone
but do allow up to a week for this feature to appear
after you hit 500 subscribers.
And speaking of 500 subscribers,
you can start using this as well.
Within video titles, video descriptions and community posts,
if you start with the @ symbol and type out a channel name,
you can tag them.
This creates an instant link to the mentioned channel,
and you can see who has mentioned you
in the comments section of the YouTube Studio.
So if you do have 500 subscribers
and you wanna give this a try,
well, then mention vidIQ,
and I'll do my best to try and reply to
as many mentions as possible, within reason.
All right, the big one monetization,
not only do you need 1000 subscribers,
but you also need 4,000 hours of watch time,
zero community guideline strikes
and two-factor authentication enabled.
There's also an application process, a review process,
and then you gotta turn it all along.
It feels like this monetization business
could do with a video in itself, to be honest.
But on top of being monetized,
once you're in the YouTube Partner Program,
you also get some extra perks.
One of these is live chat support
through the YouTube Studio.
Now it does start with an automated system
but if you ask for something else,
you'll be put straight through to a human being
you can actually chat to, depending on your language.
You'll also get full access to the Copyright Matching tool
which will show you content ID matches
when creators use your videos.
Now back to some non-monetized features,
which can be a little confusing to unlock
because YouTube doesn't tell you when you get them.
For example, the new YouTube Research tab
might tell you that there are no results
when you look at viewers' searches,
or the Audience Data tab in Analytics doesn't display
because there's not enough eligible data.
Basically to fix this,
you need more people watching more of your content
on a more consistent basis.
But just between you and me,
you roughly need 50 overlapping viewers
watching not only your content,
but other people's videos as well.
So YouTube can start to create connections.
And that will start to happen
when you have roughly hundreds of subscribers
and thousands of views on your channel on a regular basis.
Oh, and if you want even more help
growing your YouTube channel with a title generator,
channel audit and keyword research tools,
download vidIQ for desktop and mobile now, it's free.
Now then, YouTube Stories are just plain weird.
They're basically YouTube Shorts
that expire after seven days.
YouTube Stories have been around for a lot longer
than YouTube Shorts, but the support page
says that it's still in beta
and requires 10,000 subscribers.
So work that one out.
I don't know if YouTube Stories has a long-term future
but what I will recommend
is that if you are a Shorts creator,
repurposing those Shorts as Stories.
Because you can get tons of subscribers for doing no work,
just like Jake Fellman proved.
Also do bear mind that if your channel is made for kids,
is a supervised account or has other restrictions,
you may not have access to all features
such as Stories and the Community tab.
Now beyond 10,000 subscribers,
you're not looking to unlock more YouTube features.
You're looking to earn creator achievements
such as the Silver Play Button at 100,000 subscribers.
You may also receive a verification badge
at 100,000 subscribers
that can be seen on the YouTube desktop experience.
It used to be pretty straightforward
to get a verification badge, but these days,
YouTube will check your channel
for authenticity and completeness.
At a million subscribers,
you'll bag yourself one of these,
which is blooming big and blooming heavy.
Unfortunately, we haven't earned 10 million subscribers yet
so we can't show you the diamond play button,
and the rumor is,
YouTube have canned all of the awards beyond that,
including the custom Ruby Play Button
that was awarded to people like PewDiePie.
But what we can show you
is the custom 500,000 subscriber award we made
because I'm a wrestling fan.
Now let's go back to monetization
because, as well as ad revenue,
you can earn Super Chats during live streams
and rake it in like Emily D. Baker does.
This should unlock at the same time as monetization
since the requirements are very similar.
The same goes for Super Thanks,
which is the non-livestream version
of gifting money to creators.
It's a no-brainer switching this on
if you have access to it.
And then we have channel memberships
that viewers can sign up to for a monthly fee
and get exclusive perks such as channel badges
and exclusive content.
The needed subscriber account
is the same as all of the others,
but there are extra requirements on top.
There's also the merch shelf
where you can sell swag directly to your viewers
through your videos.
The requirements here are a little more challenging.
If you're not an official artist channel,
you will need 10,000 subscribers
and meet all of these requirements.
On top of this, only viewers in these countries
will be able to buy your merch.
And then we have YouTube Giving
where you can set up or join existing fundraising events
and attach them to videos and live streams on your channel.
Some pretty strict requirements on this one.
You'll need 10,000 subscribers
and your channel must be located
in one of just three countries.
Yeah, YouTube monetization can be a bit of a headache
but I know a lot of you are working towards
unlocking that goal.
So if you want to know everything there is
about how to monetize your YouTube channel
in just five minutes, then check out the video over here.