I suppose everyone has heard that many people earn money on YouTube videos, but not everyone realizes how monetization actually takes place.
Do YouTubers really get paid for likes? Or our likes and dislikes do not play a significant role in their earnings?
I think you will agree with me that answers to these questions can be given only when you realize what video creators are paid for.
This article will shed you light on the basic methods of earning money on YouTube videos and explain the role of thumbs up and down in this process.
Do YouTubers Make Money From Likes?
One of the ways people evaluate videos on YouTube is clicking Like/Dislike button. You can avoid this activity and simply watch video pieces you are interested in. However, some people are confused by thump up and down buttons located below the video screen prescribing various functions to them. Some viewers believe that Likes and Dislikes influence the amount of money video bloggers can get and either ‘help’ them to earn or ‘deprive’ them of their future income. In reality, everything is absolutely different.
Here’s the kicker: neither thumbs up nor thumbs down have a direct impact on making money on YouTube.
The main role of these buttons, as well as comments and shares, is to express viewer’s attitude to the video watched. People can enjoy or be disappointed with it pressing a button respectively. At the same time, your likes and dislikes may be helpful to people who make profit shooting videos for YouTube and influence their income indirectly, so keep on reading and find out in what way.
Read also: Can YouTubers see who dislikes their videos?
How Do YouTubers Get Paid?
It became clear from the upper paragraph that influencers do not get paid for likes. However, you would probably like to learn how they manage to get from several to thousands of dollars on their videos. All the money received by YouTubers come from the following services:
- Advertisements;
- Sponsored Videos;
- Promotional videos of certain products and services;
- Affiliate marketing;
- Funding given by fans;
- Call to Action buttons followed by viewers when they watch ads.
Naturally, if you do not shoot special videos for other companies and brands, the main source of your earnings is an advertisement. They can be of several types: display, overlay, skippable, non-skippable and bumper ads, but the main aspect connected with them is a necessity to make your viewers watch them. You earn money on the basis of viewers’ engagement with advertisements, and this engagement is measured in two ways:
- Cost per Click: you get money on the basis of the number of clicks made from your YouTube page;
- Cost per View: the advertiser pays money for the number of views. It means that a viewer should watch the ad for 30 seconds or at least, half of the total ad time.
Advertisement is the most popular way of channel monetization used nowadays. The only thing required from the influencer is to produce quality videos and encourage more people to watch them. The more viewers visit your channel regularly and watch videos, the more companies will address you to place their ads and reward you for that.
How Do Likes Help YouTubers?
If influencers are not get paid for likes, why are they interested in the bigger number of positive reviews, comments, and thumbs ups? The reason for that is the fact that both likes and dislikes may influence the earnings of bloggers indirectly.
When you have watched a video and expressed your viewpoint about it by clicking one of the buttons or leaving a comment, each of your actions is considered to be a signal for the YouTube algorithm about how engaging that video is. As a result, it will immediately make changes in the rating of videos suggested in the search results and improve or vice versa worsen the video position in YouTube search. Positive comments, shares, and likes contribute to the video success taking it to the better position in the search results and, thus, attracting more viewers to it. As a result, more people watch not only the video itself but also ads included and make video creator’s profits grow.
Conclusion
Now you will never doubt whether you should press Like/Dislike button after you have watched one or another video piece. Despite the fact that thumbs up do not help the creators of high-quality videos get profit directly, their significance should not be underappreciated. Each time you click ‘Like’, you not only allow others to enjoy this video too but also increase chances of this video creator to get a financial reward for his or her efforts.
