What's the point to joining a Multi-Channel Network?

Yomarz

Yomarz

Liking YTtalk
This is a question that I have had for a while now and I have asked around in other places but can never really get a clear answer. Not even my friends who are partnered with these things can tell me. They say things like "custom thumbnails" or "monetization" but Youtube's internal partnership program already allows for these things.
And even when I visited an MCN website for more information (Maker/RPM, since it's conveniently linked at the top of the page), I still couldn't get any specifics. On their page's benefit section all they have is this:

"We provide a wide range of specifically designed tools and programs to help you achieve your personal career goals, avoid the usual pitfalls, and develop a creative, personable, and lasting relationship with your fellow creators..."​

It's not really much to go on. But so many people are partnered with these companies so they've gotta have something going for them. So why would someone want to join an MCN? What is the incentive? Do they really help promote your channel?

And if there's a better place to post this on YTtalk please let me know. Thanks!
 
Benefits aside from the general ones that you listed that I get from RPM include

- Music / Sound effect libraries with Audiomicro
- Support with unjust copyright/content ID claims and with botting attacks
- Newsletters that keep me up in the loop on Youtube Policy changes
- RPM forums to talk with other partners (those forms blow though)
- Pretty good customer support team
-Instant monetization (for the time being)
 
Don't be expecting any "special" features on YouTube, it doesn't make sense that MCNs should profit of something that YouTube is providing for them for free.

For most MCNs who take the strategy of "lets partner next to everyone".
It will be mostly general features but then again some are costly without an MCN so it depends whether you use them or not.

- Support (sounds basic but with all the changes, all the time on YouTube, MCNs are usually among the first to know and will therefore be able to give you better support with these). Among other issues like revenue/taxes and maybe some optimisation help.

- Music, most MCNs or well most of the top MCNs, now provide partners with access to Audiomicro.com's library for free, which is pretty expensive if you buy it alone, so that's a pretty good perk if you use alot of music and need more than the 5 or so songs the YouTube library has.

- Optimisation and Uploading tools, what I mean by this is something along the lines of what VidIQ or VideoLC provide, so tools and applications to help you better optimise for SEO, tell you the best time to upload, help you with descriptions, bulk annotations etc. Fullscreen would be one MCN that provides alot of these tools.

- Lower payment threshold, alot of MCNs will now pay you out via Paypal at a $1 threshold and $50-100 for bank transfer which is pretty low considering Adsense needs $100+ in all cases, so if you want to monetize as a smaller channel this may be a nice perk, the ability to be paid by eg Paypal is also a nice touch.

- Community, this is one that isn't anything massive as a forum like YTtalk will likely do the same thing but MCNs do for the most part have some sort of forum for you to talk with other partners. Fullscreen which is probably the best MCN for tech recently went as far as implementing a sort of directory/ dating-site setup to help you find creators to collab with based on certain preferences.

- Other, some MCNs may help with production, post-production, branding, funding, the whole talent manager job (managing appearances, holidays, trips etc) but these would only be offered to select channels.

- Increased Revenue, then we come to this, I say that because from what I can see, 75% of MCNs (probably more) don's raise the CPM at all for channels out of their top 50 or so and maybe not even those. Not even taking into account that the MCN will take a cut on top of that including YouTube's sales.
You may get some out-side revenue deals such as Fullscreen's Gorilla programme but most of these are not suited to the majority of channels, like 80% of opportunities on the program listed above are "shoutout this channel for a $10 CPM" and alot of the channels will be no way similar to yours.
 
@Shane.C tbh You should be in the staff. You are helping a lot of people when I see people need help with something.

Shane.C said:
Don't be expecting any "special" features on YouTube, it doesn't make sense that MCNs should profit of something that YouTube is providing for them for free.

For most MCNs who take the strategy of "lets partner next to everyone".
It will be mostly general features but then again some are costly without an MCN so it depends whether you use them or not.

- Support (sounds basic but with all the changes, all the time on YouTube, MCNs are usually among the first to know and will therefore be able to give you better support with these). Among other issues like revenue/taxes and maybe some optimisation help.

- Music, most MCNs or well most of the top MCNs, now provide partners with access to Audiomicro.com's library for free, which is pretty expensive if you buy it alone, so that's a pretty good perk if you use alot of music and need more than the 5 or so songs the YouTube library has.

- Optimisation and Uploading tools, what I mean by this is something along the lines of what VidIQ or VideoLC provide, so tools and applications to help you better optimise for SEO, tell you the best time to upload, help you with descriptions, bulk annotations etc. Fullscreen would be one MCN that provides alot of these tools.

- Lower payment threshold, alot of MCNs will now pay you out via Paypal at a $1 threshold and $50-100 for bank transfer which is pretty low considering Adsense needs $100+ in all cases, so if you want to monetize as a smaller channel this may be a nice perk, the ability to be paid by eg Paypal is also a nice touch.

- Community, this is one that isn't anything massive as a forum like YTtalk will likely do the same thing but MCNs do for the most part have some sort of forum for you to talk with other partners. Fullscreen which is probably the best MCN for tech recently went as far as implementing a sort of directory/ dating-site setup to help you find creators to collab with based on certain preferences.

- Other, some MCNs may help with production, post-production, branding, funding, the whole talent manager job (managing appearances, holidays, trips etc) but these would only be offered to select channels.

- Increased Revenue, then we come to this, I say that because from what I can see, 75% of MCNs (probably more) don's raise the CPM at all for channels out of their top 50 or so and maybe not even those. Not even taking into account that the MCN will take a cut on top of that including YouTube's sales.
You may get some out-side revenue deals such as Fullscreen's Gorilla programme but most of these are not suited to the majority of channels, like 80% of opportunities on the program listed above are "shoutout this channel for a $10 CPM" and alot of the channels will be no way similar to yours.
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Thanks a lot! I noticed that you didn't mention handling copyright claims, @Shane.C, while @SwingPoynt did. Is this something that would differ depending on which MCN you were partnered with? I always assumed that all MCNs pretty much operated the same way but are you saying that some are better suited to certain types of content and channels than others?
 
Yomarz said:
Thanks a lot! I noticed that you didn't mention handling copyright claims, @Shane.C , while @SwingPoynt did. Is this something that would differ depending on which MCN you were partnered with? I always assumed that all MCNs pretty much operated the same way but are you saying that some are better suited to certain types of content and channels than others?
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Well that probably falls under what I named as support but no MCN will be able to get rid of a strike if it was legitly placed even if they have lunch every day with the YouTube CEO :p
 
@Kleineganz I also have instant monetization just through Youtube's partnership program so that's why I was curious about why people choose MCNs. All the websites' info seemed really vague and honestly kind of shady.
 
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