The new guidelines for ad-friendly content: What YOU need to know as a Creator | #youtubepatchrundown

Transcript

YouTube has made further adjustments following the November update, and many people have been complaining. The platform has revised these changes, which will take effect on March 7th. Let’s start with something simple: if you use swear words in your thumbnail or title, your videos will receive a red symbol. This also applies to background music, backing tracks, intros, and automatic music if they contain swear words.

There’s a significant distinction between the first 7 seconds and the rest of the video. Repeated use of swear words is allowed at any time. However, if you use strong swear words like the F-word in the first 7 seconds, you’ll get a yellow symbol (it was a red symbol in the November update). The same applies if you repeatedly say a swear word at regular intervals.

I think these updates make sense, and I believe the average creator will be able to adapt well. Let’s talk about the so-called overlay ads that appear over your video when viewed on desktop. This format is being discontinued because only 130% of users watch on desktop, and the overlays haven’t worked well anyway. A product expert named Peggy Kay released statistics showing that only about 3% of ads were displayed on these overlay spaces, and they had a lower RPM than other formats. Therefore, it’s assumed that reallocating the budget from overlays to other formats will be a win.

Definitely pay attention to which ad formats appear frequently for you, and let me know what you expect when they’re turned off in April. The overlays will also be removed from the Help Center. And while we’re on the topic of sponsor cards: they’re being removed as well. I think it’s reasonable to remove this feature that hasn’t been fully developed yet.

Quickly touching on MLA: It was mentioned in the comments that many people are happy about it. However, we now know that there isn’t even a rollout plan for MLA yet. That means it’s being rolled out, but we still only have a small percentage of users receiving it. So, we’ll have to wait and hope that we’re among the first to get this update so we can offer our content in English.

Moving on to memberships: We have two things we’ve been waiting for. Firstly, membership videos can be tested in early access from March 27th, and on March 31st, creators can use the feature to offer free memberships. In June, the option to offer paid memberships will be introduced. We’ve requested to be included in the first test phase, and there will be a lot to test. I’d love to discuss this further in a livestream.

Let’s talk more about livestreams: In the Live Control Room (the live dashboard in YouTube Studio), it will be possible to set automatic mid-rolls and ad formats for livestreams from next week. There will be separate settings for this, and it’s unclear whether this feature will be enabled or disabled by default.

Finally, let’s discuss comments and the member comment chip…

In addition to top comments and news comments, there will be a third filter option for member comments. This could be an interesting development. I’m not entirely sure yet, but there are some voices saying, “Yes, I’ll pay for my content to be seen.” However, the top comments option will still be the default. So, for those who say, “Okay, I’ll become a member to get my comment higher up,” it absolutely doesn’t help. We don’t know if this will change at this point, but that’s the current status.

Regarding podcasts, we’ve discussed this format, which is now also a podcast, and podcasts are displayed on many services, including the YouTube Music app. I specifically asked, and they will most likely be recommended to people who consume podcast content. This means that if someone listens to podcasts frequently, Google knows this about the user and as a marketing story, and it’s recorded that this person listens to podcasts. Then, these people will be shown corresponding recommendations. An interesting development: Podcasts will have their own batch, as we saw in the thumbnail last or the week before last, with the broadcast tower and two antennas, nicely designed. There will be a dedicated landing page at YouTube.com/podcasts, and there will also be a corresponding shelf in the home app. This is already checked under recommendations for people who consume podcast content.

Additionally, there will be official cards in search queries. Now, I wondered, since I actually didn’t know about this feature: What is an official card? It’s about the YouTube search itself, for example, when there’s a movie or a sports event where two teams meet, and then there’s such a card for this game, this event—like the Super Bowl. Apparently, these info cards will also be available for podcasts. An interesting story, we’ll definitely take a look at how the whole thing looks.

I’m curious to see if everyone subscribes to all the changes we have now and will have in the coming weeks. Feel free to join to stay updated and not miss anything. I’d say we’ll see each other next Saturday for another Patreon build. Until then, take care and keep going!