YouTube's challenge to TikTok continues: it offers $100 million to creators who make Shorts on the platform
YouTube takes a new step in its challenge to TikTok and incentivizes creators to produce Shorts on its platform by offering a $100 million fund for the 2021-2022 biennium. This is Google's announcement to encourage users to publish content on its new service.
A move that follows the one made by TikTok, which in July 2020 allocated a $200 million fund to pay its creators. Even Snapchat, after launching Spotlight for short videos, offered $1 million a day in November 2020 to incentivize the use of the new feature among its users. Now it's YouTube Shorts' turn, which is currently available in India and the United States. Creators who make the short videos, or Shorts, will be able to earn on a monthly basis for content uploaded to the platform, which must be original and meet YouTube's community guidelines.
YouTube Shots: the fund for creators
YouTube's goal is clear: to promote the new Shorts platform to beat the challenge to TikTok and incentivize creators to upload original content and short videos. The fund allocated by Google for the platform is $100 million and will be available until 2022. At the moment, the feature is available in the United States and India, but the company has made it known that as the service is extended to other countries, the pool of creators who can receive payments will be expanded.
YouTube Shorts: how to become a creator and earn
Shorts are short videos from 15 to 60 seconds that can be made by any user of the platform. To become a creator, therefore, all you have to do is create original content that respects the guidelines of the YouTube community.
Unlike payments for youtubers, who must be enrolled in the YouTube Partner Program to earn money on the platform, the only condition required of creators is to publish their Shorts and share them. Each month, YouTube explains, the creators whose videos have garnered the most views and engagement from the rest of the community will be eligible to receive a contribution from the fund set aside by the platform.
YouTube and Shorts Monetization
The introduction of the creator fund outlines YouTube's intention to create a monetization model for the Shorts platform. For this reason, they explain in the platform's official blog, creators who receive contributions for their videos will be asked to send feedback. In this way, YouTube will be able to develop a long-term program for Shorts monetization, so that it can offer its support to the next generation of creators and artists who populate the platform and form its community.