It has been over 10 years since the inception of YouTube. What started off as a humble home video playground is now a massive $20 billion industry that not only has individual YouTubers but also brands and multi channel networks under its umbrella! If you go around and ask a few people, most would not even remember life without it! It has changed the way we consume entertainment and information.

It has radically transformed the idea of celebrities and pop culture for the generation of today. For every pop celebrity (movies, music, politics and sports) out there, there are dozens of YouTube celebrities! According to a survey conducted by Variety, YouTube Stars are more popular than mainstream celebrities among teens in the US!

Creators and artists finally have a platform which treats them purely based on their merits and not on the strings that they can pull. But becoming a YouTube celebrity is easier said than done. Building a loyal fan base takes a lot of effort and a lot of time. It not only requires constant content creation, but also a solid distribution strategy to reach people across different platforms. And most importantly, a sustainable revenue inflow to keep the boat afloat for the creators. Creating high quality content with good production value requires that kind of money. And that kind of money usually comes with a well-rounded business strategy.

YouTube partner program of course is a very important source of revenue; but there are other ways that a creator can mint money. After a certain point, taking care of all this becomes almost impossible for a small team. And that’s where Multi Channel Networks come into the picture.

Related Read: Top YouTube Networks from Europe

How MCNs help content creators earn more?

As I stated in the last paragraph, one of the fundamental advantages that an MCN brings to the table for creator is – more money. Here’s how they do it:

– Monetization on YouTube can be confusing for creators since its effectiveness depends on CPM (Cost Per Mile or the amount of money generated per 1000 ad view impressions) which fluctuates based on seasonal demands and geographies. To solve this fluctuating revenue problem, MCNs usually make deals with creators guaranteeing them a flat CPM rate.

– Getting access to YouTube’s Content ID is relatively difficult for an individual creator. But, MCNs can utilize the content ID system and generate some extra revenue from videos that are owned by the creators but used by others knowingly or unknowingly. A great example for this is how Just For Laughs Gags does it – it has over 3000 prank clips on its YouTube channel but it monetizes over a 100 thousand videos of other users.

– MCNs act as intermediaries and get brand deals for creators. Most brands reach out to MCNs for support and guidance when they want to work with creators for their product integration/placement in their content. Most of the tech and beauty channels rely more on deals like this than on the adsense revenue that they get from YouTube.

How YouTube MCNs help creators manage their operations

Besides helping creators to earn more revenue, MCNs also help them in other areas of operations and management like – Optimizing their YouTube channel, helping them distribute their content better, growing their audience and managing the intellectual rights of their content.

– A creator who is a part of an MCN can concentrate more on creating quality content rather than worry about tiresome legal and technical stuff like copyrights and intellectual property.

– Spreading word about the creators and their videos on websites and platforms other than YouTube is another area where MCNs help. They get into licensing agreements with other video platforms and websites and redistribute the content there.

– MCNs also provide technological support to creators by giving them applications and video analytics software (like Vidooly) which can help them grow and scale their business.

– While it is definitely possible to become a big YouTube star even if one has zero production cost, the chances of becoming successful increase multifold when the content has a high production value. People love watching neat and crisp videos don’t they? This is another area where MCNs can help out creators – they can offer them production facilities and technical staff (like editors, sound engineers etc) to make the videos look studio quality.

Related read: Top YouTube MCNs in the world

Joining an MCN – is it worth it? Benefits to join an MCN

If you do a thorough online research about the topic, you would find that there a lot of negative sentiments about MCNs too! But don’t lose heart. Reviews like them can’t be the perfect indicators to gauge the value of MCNs. Even YouTube’s rights management and copyright policy has been thrashed by thousands of YouTubers. That doesn’t necessarily make YouTube evil now does it?!

There are thousands of creators out there who have benefitted by partnering with MCNs. So; when the going gets tough and you need a helping hand to run your online video business – look for the best MCNs in your niche, do a thorough research about them and reach out to the best ones.

P.S: If you are a YouTube network and need an MCN management software, we have world class technology solutions to manage your network seamlessly. Email to us at sales@vidooly.com