YouTube Invests Millions To Keep Its Top Stars Home

New plans include a shift in payment strategy, new video formatting, and partnerships with Hollywood producers.

YouTube wants to retain its stable of digital stars and is planning to invest millions of dollars to do so. The video-sharing website is pursuing new deals that would pay popular content creators–like Fast Company cover woman Bethany Mota–to create shows that will come with promotional guarantees and the possibility of working with Hollywood producers, Re/code reports.

These shows are not slated to appear until next year, but YouTube’s Alex Carloss, who will spearhead this project, wrote on the company’s blog, “We’ve decided to fund new content from some of our top creators, helping them not only fulfill their creative ambitions but also deliver new material to their millions of fans on YouTube. … We’ll experiment with new formats and ideas.”

The new strategy should help some of YouTube’s most popular content creators make more money. Many have lamented the difficulty of generating revenue on YouTube through product endorsements and Google ads. It should also garner them more fans, as the new shows will be promoted heavily on YouTube.

In addition to making more money, this is also an attempt by YouTube to triumph over rivals like Vimeo, and the not-yet-available video service Vessel (read more at Re/code). These services can’t match YouTube’s reach but are still trying to lure YouTube’s stars away with talk of more money from subscription fees and advertising income.

 


Fast Company

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