Business Tips for YouTubers

YouTube can be a very lucrative business if you have good ideas, an engaging personality, patience, and dedication. It is certainly not easy (I would know…), but if you put the time and effort into consistently putting out informative, interesting, or entertaining content, there is certainly a potential to hit it big. If you dream of becoming a famous YouTuber, or if you already are one, here are some tips for properly running your new “YouTube Business.”

1. Do You Own Your Videos? If you have hired a videographer to film your videos, be aware of who is going to actually own that finished product. Have a contract with the videographer and make it clear right from the start that you own all of the filmed content. This also applies if you collaborate with other YouTubers; make sure you talk about which of you is going to own that video. Who’s channel will the video be posted on? Can you both share those videos on your websites, social media, etc.? Are you going to share the revenue that the video generates? Work out all of those details ahead of time so that fantastic collaboration video doesn’t turn into a nightmare because you and the other YouTuber are not at odds about who actually has rights to that video.
2. Advice and Endorsements. Take special caution if you are endorsing products or services or giving advice or information in your videos.  Use disclaimers. It’s very rare, but in some instances if you endorse a product, and one of your viewers uses that product and somehow gets hurt, there is a very small possibility that the liability can come back to you because you endorsed that product. Same goes when giving information or advice.  If a viewer relies on the advice you’ve given and it doesn’t work out for them, that could come back to bite you.
3. Copyright Infringement. Make sure you aren’t infringing on other’s people rights when you make your videos.  YouTube is very strict with its copyright policies. If you are going to have music playing in your video, you need to make sure you aren’t improperly using somebody else’s music. A failure to follow YouTube’s licensing requirements could result in your video being removed from YouTube, if not worse.
4. Be Informed Before Joining a YouTube Network. After 6 months or so of making YouTube videos, I started getting inquiries for these network partnerships for YouTube channels. (I still don’t really understand what they are because I don’t join them.) The YouTube networks are meant to help you promote your videos to increase your subscriber base. If you do decide to join a network, make sure you carefully read the network’s partnership contract.  Many of these networks will impose restrictions or limitations on how you can distribute or produce your videos. And of course, all of those relationships come with some sort of a profit sharing. If you are okay with that, make sure you are clear on how those profits will be split and what profits you will be able to keep and the profits that the other party will be able to keep.

Want some YouTube inspiration? Here are a few of my favorite YouTubers:

Jenna Marbles

Marie Forleo

CR Conversations

Entrepreneur

MyHarto

The Small Things Blog