Two years ago this month, we invited the first users to be part of the YouTube Partner Program. What started as a way for us to help about 20 of the most popular users on the site earn money from their videos -- from Lonelygirl15 to valsartdiary to LisaNova -- is now a platform by which we pay out hundreds of thousands of dollars every month to thousands of people in 10 countries around the world. From Lincoln, Neb., to Long Island, N.Y., to Dallas, Tex., from the U.K. to Australia, users in the Partner Program are some of the most successful partners on the site, earning revenue on tens of millions of video views each day.

Much of their success has come from studying the programming and promotional strategies of traditional media companies. For example, many user partners are bucketing videos into seasons and drumming up publicity in advance, like television networks do. But traditional media companies are also studying users, who in many respects were first to crack the code of building and sustaining large followings online. In fact, the three most-subscribed-to partners of all time -- Fred, nigahiga, and smosh -- are all user partners.

Here are three important lessons large partners can learn from users in the YouTube Partner Program:

• Build your audience by engaging them: The most successful user partners constantly tell us that the more they interact with the YouTube community and create videos in a dialogue with their audience, the more views and subscribers they get. Converting your viewers into subscribers is the key to wider distribution -- it's a solid base of thousands of views for any newly-released video -- which is why the most-viewed user partners on YouTube tend to be the ones with the most subscribers (and ultimately make the most money). To increase subscribers, upload responses to other popular videos, request video suggestions, comment meaningfully on other people's videos, and add annotations encouraging viewers to ask questions and subscribe.
  
  
• Use our tools to maximize exposure and learn what works: Partners can also increase view counts by using our tools to program their channels strategically. Some partners, like VenetianPrincess, have used YouTube Insight to recognize patterns in their views and decide when to upload new videos. Partners can use such waves of traffic to ride out their channel's momentum: surfacing new content to users on days when you have the largest audience accelerates your view counts at a rate more likely to qualify your video as one of the most popular that day or week. Simply uploading a bunch of videos in one day is rarely the best way to increase views; bulk uploads can turn off your audience, making them less likely to watch any of the videos you uploaded at that time.
  
  
• Partner with others and cross-promote: You're not the only channel trying to find your way on YouTube. Team up with others who have similar content and overlapping audiences, and collaborate. Create videos together, have video-to-video conversations, and direct traffic to each other's channel. It works: tens of thousands of people subscribed to both the channels mileymandy and jonmchu during the epic Miley Mandy v. ACDC Dance Off on YouTube in 2008. Users like Michael Buckley are also known to work with other partners to promote their channels.
  

If you have other tips, please comment in the thread below. For those popular users interested in joining the YouTube Partner Program, apply today.

Posted by Shenaz Zack, Product Manager