If you are new on YouTube, you must have heard from everyone about the significance of 4,000 watch hours.
It is the eligibility criteria for the YouTube Partner Program (along with 1000 subscribers). If you meet it, you can make money from YouTube through ads.
The problem is that it is not as simple as it sounds, as 4000 watch hours are way too much to achieve, especially for the young budding YouTubers. So, how to get 4000 watch hours on YouTube?
You can cross the 4,000 watch hours threshold on YouTube by identifying your target audience and creating engaging content they can resonate with. Similarly, your content must be immersive enough for your audience to stay hooked until the end. Additionally, promote your video through different mediums, post longer videos, and be consistent and interactive.
Everybody who dreams of making it big on YouTube must face the first hurdle of reaching the milestone of 4,000 watch hours. Everything will surely start making sense after that. Let us teach you how to achieve this!
YouTube Partner Program – Road To Make Money on YouTube
If you are new to YouTube, note this term down: “YouTube Partner Program (YPP).” This term is significant as it can realize your dreams of making money on YouTube.
Once you become eligible, you can earn revenue from different monetization tools:
- Through Ads, you can earn a share of ad revenue from viewers watching your videos.
- You can also offer channel membership and make money from the subscription.
- Super chat and super stickers during live chat.
- Revenue from YouTube Premium subscribers that watch their content.
To be eligible for this program, you must meet the following criteria.
- You must have 1000 subscribers.
- You must have at least 4000 watch hours in the last 1 year (12 months) or 10 million public views on YouTube Shorts.
- Additionally, you must also live in countries where YouTube allows monetization.
- Your videos must be public.
Tips To Get 4000 Watch Hours on YouTube
As you must know by now, 4,000 watch hours is significant on YouTube. It means that 240,000 minutes of your content must be watched to get you eligible for the YouTube monetization program.
It is more challenging than it sounds and requires a lot of patience (unless your channel blows up and the entire world starts seeing).
Hey, don’t lose hope, as it is not impossible! Let’s give you some tips to help you achieve this dream.
Tip #1: Identify Your Target Audience and Create Content for Them
You must clearly understand your target audience, and then you can only choose topics based on their interests. If you do not know your target audience’s wants and needs, you cannot pique their interest (rather anyone’s) with your content.
The objective of your content must be clear. For example, suppose it is a beauty channel, and you are making makeup tutorials but talking about the latest games you played. In that case, this kind of content will never keep the interest of your target audience.
Do market research. Search your desired topic keywords on YouTube and find the most popular videos related to that. Now, create your video related to that topic to cater to the audience watching such content.
Tip #2: Engaging Content & Audience Retention
It goes without saying. If your content is not engaging and people don’t watch it to the end, your dream of 4,000 watch hours will remain a distant reality. Always research what your audience wants and learn from the work of others.
Interact more with your audience to create a sense of community building. You can do live streams and podcasts to be more interactive and organic.
Remember: Audience retention is imperative. If your audience does not see the whole video and gives up on it within a few minutes, it will adversely affect your video’s perception of YouTube, messing up the YouTube algorithm. In simple words, YouTube will stop showing your video to more people.
Tip #3: Promote Your Videos
Like any business, YouTube also needs your investment – time, energy, and even money. You must promote your videos so that people know your content exists.
You can promote it on other social media platforms. Similarly, you can play your ads. Alternatively, you can collaborate with other creators to promote yourself to their following or pay them to give a shoutout to your channel.
You can also use SEO optimization techniques to optimize your video and make it pop up when someone types the desired keyword/s. You can optimize your video description, file name, and script (if you go by the script).
Tip #4: Increase Your Video Length and Post Daily
If you want to achieve the goal of 4000 watch hours fast, you can try increasing your video length, provided you know your audience will watch it fully.
It is very important to keep the length of the video enough to keep the audience engaged and not urge them to leave your video midway after getting bored. It will reflect badly on the YouTube algorithm.
Make sure to post consistently (like daily) to keep yourself on YouTube’s radar and get organically promoted by YouTube.
Tip #5: Buy YouTube Watch Hours
This should be your last resort, but it will work well for impatient people. You can obtain services from third-party services or even freelancers to buy YouTube watch hours. Ensure the service is reliable (not shady) and you get what you paid.
Round Up
For all those who want to make money on YouTube, the first threshold they must cross is 4000 watch hours.
You can do this by creating engaging content for your target audience, being more interactive with your audience, and optimizing and promoting your content through different mediums.
Also, it’s important to be consistent on YouTube and post longer (but entertaining) videos. If nothing works, try any third-party service to buy 4,000 hours of watch time on YouTube.
