What’s really going on with these suspended accounts?

Hi all, I have been hearing all sorts of news about YouTube suspending several accounts that are related to the Internet Marketing Niche.

Many of them are my own marketer friends. Several of them High-end marketers.

Needless to say, this makes me nervous. Not just for you, me, my friends, but also for YouTube. If Youtube is doing this intentionally, then they are potentially shooting themselves in the foot. Who would want to risk loosing all of their video content?

Think about this…people with 300 videos, suddenly canceled…ouch!!!

I had a similar experience happen to me last year. Youtube, without warning, canceled my account. All of those YouTube videos were original tutorial videos, without third party music. They asked me to join the revenue sharing program, and then the next day a warning email, 2 hours later, complete suspension without an explanation. I tried to get in touch with YouTube, but just like Fort knocks, they were hard to crack.

I was distraught and dumbfounded as to why it happened. However after it did, it made me think.

Why did I just rely so heavily on YouTube’s platform?

(At the time I was writing my YouTube Revealed book. So I transitioned into writing a portion of it about how to avoid getting your account suspended and ways to use video on YouTube, but also video on your own site.)

I had to scramble to get all 60 videos that I had hosted with YouTube on my site, replaced. So after 3 days of having to re-upload all of the original video folders to now Amazon S3, It was finally done. Why did I use Amazon S3? Because it’s a cloud sever that you control-that you pay for. When I say pay, I mean literally pennies to use.

(Learn More About Amazon S3 Here.)

I realized that putting all my eggs in one basket (ie. YouTube ) created a big problem. Don’t get me wrong, I love YouTube. Well, love it and hate it. I have the capacity to use YouTube to gain access to the first page of Google within a particular niche. Some of my channels have videos that get thousands of visitors a day, that then filter that traffic back to my sites. But what I want you to do is think about this….Are you paying for YouTube?

Also, are you paying for Facebook? ( another topic onto itself)

You’re not paying a dime for use of the social media sites, so why do you think they own you anything? (I wish they did-I wish YouTube and Facebook were not free)

Even if you’re paying for promoted advertisement, you can still get your account removed. Either in Facebook or in YouTube. No one is safe.

So the bottom line is…

Don’t place your whole world into the huge social media sites without first knowledge and then protection, because your channel or account could be slashed next.

(You can learn how to exporting Facebook contacts here )

I created a small list of things that might help avoiding YouTube suspension and cancellation. This is for marketers, entrepreneurs, etc.

1. Avoid using anything that has to do with Money in the title of your channel. Or ‘making money online’—or ‘MARKETING’. Youtube hates claims. So if your channel is all about claiming that you can make someone 5000 in a minute , YouTube will see that as spam/scam.(even if it’s true)

2. Mix up your videos on your channel. If you are an internet marketer, try to vary your channel content. Don’t just have screen capture tutorials. Show yourself on screen. I know some of us are deathly afraid of doing this, but believe me, you want YouTube to see a person behind your channel. Put up family videos, impromptu videos directly to YouTube, Fun videos, etc. MIX IT UP.

3. If you are using automation software or are buying views. Stop!!! YouTube can tell when you buy views. Now some people think they can’t, but I am thinking it is best to avoid that issue. Automation software is best to avoid if you don’t know how to use it responsibly.

4. Avoid keyword spamming. Try to have your video keywords relevant to your video. Don’t have a video about kittens and then throw in a long tail keyword about ‘making money online’. That’s a bit obvious!

5. Don’t over keyword ‘make money online’, ‘how to make money’, ‘internet marketing’ , ‘online marketing’…The reason I say this is because if there is/are, Rogue Spammers out there creating dummy channels in the thousands, using automated flagging software to purposefully remove marketer’s accounts, the way they are doing that is through specific keyword targeted videos. So, lighten those keywords up, because if it they are targeting your keywords then your account could be next.

6. If YouTube asks you to join the revenue sharing program, think before you leap. If you are a marketer, once you allow YouTube to dig deeper into your videos and business, that increases your chance of getting canceled. Even if you have never done anything even mildly suspicious, occasionally, you are clumped together into that ‘con-artist’ mentality that Marketers, MLMer’s and Networkers get a bad rap for which dates back to what happened during the “Dot-Com” era. (come on guys that was like 10 years ago, enough already). If you have videos that are doing well, and YouTube asks you to join the revenue sharing program, think about what happened to me. Be careful. The only thing you get out of the partnership program (unless you have 10 million visitors and 100k subscribers ) is a cool clickable banner. (Ok, you also get better customer service and the chance to be featured more, but for marketers…do you want to take that risk). Also the revenue sharing is not great, especially not great enough to where all of your valuable video real estate can be wiped away without a second glance. Please be aware that only until this blows over, or I get in touch with YouTube and they ease my concern on the subject of marketer targeting, my stance remains the same-Caution!

7. Finally, today I’ve decided to close up some of my well performing videos that are associated with online marketing and make them private. If the public can’t see my videos, then a potential sofware can’t scour and flag them. (at least I hope that’s the case)

Sometimes when there are riots in the street, best thing to do is pull down the metal gates and close shop…

Good luck everyone. Please let me know what is happening with you on this subject and comment here and on facebook with your experiences.

Questions, I also welcome them.

Cheers,

Casey