Title: Views versus subscriptions: which one matters to a YouTuber's monetisation success?

Authors: Bo Han

Addresses: College of Business, Texas A&M University-Commerce, 2600 S Neal, Commerce, Texas, 75429, USA

Abstract: The critical factors to a video monetisation success have gained tremendous interests from YouTubers. However, there has not been a rigorous study testing the effects of video view factors and channel subscription factors on a YouTuber's revenues. We introduce a new empirical model to address this knowledge gap. Validating our model by a panel dataset of 116 most viewed YouTuber channels, we find that the new daily views, the daily view growth rate and the existing total views of a YouTuber's videos are significantly positively associated with her daily revenue. The subscription variables do not directly contribute to a YouTuber's daily revenue. Our study is the first of its kind that establishes a clear definition on the term 'YouTubers'. The monetisation model introduced by this study can provide several practical implications to YouTubers and users of other web communities, when they attempt to derive business values from video sharing.

Keywords: monetisation; YouTuber; video sharing; web community; social media business; YouTube.

DOI: 10.1504/IJWBC.2018.096243

International Journal of Web Based Communities, 2018 Vol.14 No.4, pp.325 - 334

Received: 23 Nov 2017
Accepted: 30 May 2018
Published online: 19 Nov 2018 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article