YouTube Super Chat is a feature that allows fans to pay for pinned comments on the chat sections of their favorite content creators’ Youtube channels when they go live. This article will highlight all the details you need about Youtube Super Chat, why it was created, how it works, and how you can go ahead to make money using it.
Video Tutorial
What is YouTube Super Chat?
In January 2017, YouTube went ahead to announce the launch of a new tool. They called this new tool “YouTube Super chat.”
This is a fun feature that allows fans to interact with YouTube content creators. This enables creators on YouTube to make money from their interactions with their fans when they go live on YouTube.
YouTube Super Chat is a feature that allows a fan to post a highlighted message on the comment section of a live YouTube feed. The highlighted message is pinned for an amount of time allowing the fan to get more attention from his or her favorite content creator.
This feature was meant to replace the previous “fan funding” tool that allowed fans to pay content creators. The amount of time that the highlighted post stays pinned on the cat section is dependent on the amount of money that the fan has paid to have it posted.
How It works
A viewer makes a “donation” through super chat. The comment can be pinned for a range of a few minutes up to a maximum of 5 hours.
You can use this to interact with the content creator or discuss with other fans better than with ordinary comments. This is because with YouTubers who have many followers hundreds of comments fly in within seconds when they are live on YouTube.
This makes it difficult to get your comment or views heard. Your idea is likely to be missed and end up going unread. This is why YouTube decided to unveil this tool.
It is meant for the “super fan” who would be willing to pay some money to comment, interact and ensure that his or her views are heard on his favorite content creator’s chat section when he/she is live.
When someone is live on YouTube, you will see a dollar sign or a cash symbol in the chat window.
Clicking it will slide or drop down a menu which has an area where you can set the amount of money that you would like to pay for your pinned post.
The currency used is in Dollar amounts, and you can pay from as low as 1 Dollar to as much as 500 Dollars for your pinned post.
The more you pay, the longer you will have your comment pinned to the top of the chat. The comment will be highlighted to differentiate it from comments from other fans.
Because there are obviously some fans who will have paid for their comments to be pinned, your comment may be pushed by other comments from the top.
However, that is no cause for alarm because the content creators can select and view all the pinned comments that have been paid for and highlighted at once. This assures you that your interaction with your favorite YouTuber is guaranteed.
The following instructions outline the complete procedure of paying for a YouTube Super Chat pinned comment.
- Join the live stream of your favorite content creator.
- Within the live chat section, notice the Dollar sign and click on it.
- Select the option written, “send a super chat.”
- Type or drag the slider to enter the amount you want to send to YouTube.
- Select buy and click send.
You can make the purchase from a personal computer or mobile devices with the YouTube application as long as you are over the age of 18 and have a valid credit card. A receipt for your purchase is then emailed to you, and your comment is sent and can be viewed publicly on the chat section of the live stream.
For content creators
For content creators, earning money on Youtube is a dream come true. It is a new way for them to monetize their content. They get to benefit from their fans’ desire to get noticed in the comment sections of their live streams.
How much money do content creators receive from the amount paid by their fans?
From whatever amount in the range of a Dollar to 500 dollars that a fan decides to pay for their comment to be pinned YouTube takes 30 percent.
The rest of the money is left to be received by the content creator. That is of course after taxation and minor charges from Apple or whatever platform the content creator is using during his or her live stream.
Content creators with a huge following have been reported to make up to 2,500 Dollars during an hour of a live stream.
This means that YouTubers with millions of followers stand a chance to benefit from this feature.
Does it mean that if you do not have a million followers, you cannot make money from YouTube Super Chat?
No.
Even if you are a small YouTuber, there are some ways you can maximize on this tool and make yourself some money from the content that you stream on YouTube.
The following are a number of ways that describe how you can make money with YouTube Super Chat.
1. Promote your live stream sessions
The more people watching your live stream, the more they are likely to pay to have their comments on your chat section. Regardless of the content that you are sharing, be it a sermon, a lecture, a tutorial, an interview or even an entertainment piece, the goal of you sharing it on YouTube is for the public to view.
When you go the extra mile to promote your content, you get more viewership and more people with similar interests are likely to subscribe to your channel in anticipation of similar content in future. This helps you to grow your fan base.
You can promote your content by a number of ways and through a number of platforms. For instance, you can pay to promote the content as sponsored content on YouTube, such that it appears automatically to viewers who are in your geographical range or subscribe to pages that have similar content.
You can promote your content using your social media pages or directly through the platform by paying for them.
You can also promote your content by backlinking your YouTube page to websites and blogs that have similar content. The number of viewers is directly proportional to the number of comments and more specifically pinned comments. By sponsoring your content, you are setting yourself up to get more money.
Consider promoting your Livestream on your website with a pop-up offer using optinmonster or Convertkit.
2. Interact directly with your fans during the stream
The reason that fans would pay to pin comments is because they want to be heard. They want to interact with their content creator directly because they are a fan or they want to share their thoughts on the content that is being aired.
When you as the content producer interact with them by either reading their comments or asking them questions during the live stream, you foster communication and encourage engagement.
This engagement brings about a rapid flow of comments, and the fans who have the most desire to be heard are most likely going to pay to have their comments highlighted and pinned to increase the chances of them getting read.
Having a Q&A session during a live stream is a perfect way of fostering good relationships with your fans because it makes them feel heard and recognized.
When you ask and answer the questions that the fans put forward to you in the chat section, it encourages them to comment, ask and provide more detailed answers.
This builds your traffic and increases the chances and number of fans that would pay to have their comments highlighted.
3. Provide Incentives
It is in human nature to respond to the opportunity of getting an incentive. When you mention the possibility of being provided with an incentive for performing a task or answering a certain question posed during the live stream, the viewers would automatically rush to put their comments.
This will make the ones with the greater desire for the incentive pay to have their comments pinned so that they are seen before the others.
A good example is when a musician during a live stream session asks a question and offers free tickets to his/her concert to a random fan in the chat section.
Another example is if an author or a motivational speaker offers his free book to a fan in the comment section. The number of comments that appear would increase because of the incentive promised.
Again, the more comments, the more the sponsored comments and hence more money that one would make from a live session with YouTube Super Chat.
4. Create more content and have more sessions
Is there a difference between making a hundred and forty Dollars in a week and making twenty Dollars every day for one week? No, there is no difference between the two.
If you are looking to increase the amount of money you make from YouTube Super Chat, you can choose to increase the frequency with which you have your live stream sessions.
This would mean that you provide your viewers with more content than before.
The advantage of having more sessions is that you reach out to more people and you generally increase your fan base. Make sure that you fluctuate the time of the stream so that you get to reach a wide variety of people.
You can maximize on the time or days that are more convenient for your target audience so that you capitalize on the resources that you use to provide the live stream.
Considering the nature of content that you supply your fans with, you can try to be flexible and create content that would also capture the attention of people other than your current audience. This would boost your fan base and increase the interaction in your chat sections.
5. Consider combining sessions with an associate
Another great way of boosting your earnings from YouTube Super Chat is to have a combined session with a colleague who produces content that is similar to yours.
This is the same as co-hosting a show on TV. The fans are more excited, have more questions and are more interactive when you have a co-host.
The stream can be live on both of your YouTube pages and you will both benefit from interactions from each other’s fan base. This will encourage engagement and a constant flow of comments.
More fans will have the desire to get their voices heard, and this will motivate them to pay for the YouTube Super Chat feature to present their comments.
Sharing shows from time to time increases you and your associates’ fan base.
YouTube Super Chat is a beneficial feature to content producers regardless of the nature of the content they produce. YouTubers with a considerable following stand a chance to benefit the most from their fans, but content producers with fewer followers still stand to make some money from this feature.
The only conditions put forward to content producers for them to enjoy the feature is that they have to have more than a thousand subscribers on YouTube and be a partner with the YouTube partner program where they air ads before, during or after their content videos.
With the daily rise in the cost of living, it is time you started making passive income from your online reputation to complement your main source of earning!
How to Claim Superchat Money
The money you make will appear in your YouTube Analytics account. You receive the money for Superchat just like you would with ads through Google Adsense.
FAQ
Superchat doesn’t cost the channel owner anything to use. The person sending Super Chat money can choose the demonimation. Google keeps around 30% of the earnings.
Super Chat is real money. It’s collected by Youtube and around 70% of it is paid out to the channel owner after Google takes it’s commission.
When are you 18-years old and have an approved monetized channel through the partner network, and are in an approved country, you can receive SuperChat.
