Creator glossary
The words YouTube, TikTok and creators use, explained in a sentence or two, with what each means for your channel.
All terms
Inauthentic content
YouTube’s name for mass-produced or repetitive videos: content that looks made from a template, with little difference from one video to the next.
OpenReused content
Videos built mostly from someone else’s material (clips, audio, text) without significant original commentary, editing or educational value.
OpenYouTube Partner Program (YPP)
The program that lets a channel earn from YouTube: ads, memberships and more, once it meets the thresholds and is accepted.
OpenRPM (revenue per mille)
What a creator earns for every 1,000 views, after YouTube’s share: the number that turns views into money.
OpenCPM (cost per mille)
What advertisers pay for 1,000 ad impressions. It is not what the creator earns: that is RPM.
OpenFaceless channel
A YouTube or TikTok channel whose creator never appears on camera: narration over footage, images or animation.
OpenHook
The first line or seconds of a video, written to make people stay for the rest.
OpenAudience retention
How much of a video people watch. YouTube Studio shows it as a curve and as average view duration.
OpenCTR (impressions click-through rate)
The share of people who saw your thumbnail and title on YouTube and clicked to watch.
OpenAI disclosure (altered or synthetic content)
YouTube’s rule that creators say when a video contains realistic altered or AI-generated content that viewers could mistake for real.
OpenB-roll
The footage or images shown over narration to illustrate what is being said.
OpenEvergreen content
Videos about topics that stay relevant for years, so they keep getting views long after they are posted.
OpenYouTube Shorts
YouTube’s vertical short videos, up to 3 minutes long, watched in a swipeable feed on phones.
OpenWatch time
The total time viewers spent watching your videos. YouTube uses it to rank videos and to decide Partner Program eligibility.
OpenContent ID
YouTube’s system that matches uploads against files from rights holders, and can block a video, send its ad money to the owner, or just track it.
OpenNiche
The one topic a channel is about, and the audience that comes for it.
OpenThumbnail
The still image that stands for a video before anyone clicks it; with the title, it decides the click.
OpenVoiceover
Narration recorded or generated separately and played over a video’s images: the voice of a faceless channel.
OpenAspect ratio
The shape of a video, written as width to height: 9:16 is vertical, 16:9 is wide, 1:1 is square and 4:5 is the tall feed format.
OpenContent repurposing
Turning one piece of content into others: a long video cut into short clips, a podcast into Shorts, a video into another shape.
OpenCopyright strike
What YouTube gives a channel when a copyright owner has one of its videos removed with a legal takedown request. Three active strikes end the channel.
OpenEngagement rate
How much people interact with a video compared with how many saw it: likes, comments, shares and saves divided by views, or by followers.
OpenText-to-speech (TTS)
Software that reads written text aloud in a generated voice: how most faceless videos get their narration.
OpenYouTube algorithm
The recommendation system that decides which videos YouTube shows each viewer: on the home page, next to other videos and in the Shorts feed.
OpenEngaged views
The Shorts views that count for money: plays where the viewer kept watching instead of scrolling straight past. Plain "views" now count every start.
OpenShorts Creator Pool
The part of Shorts feed ad revenue YouTube sets aside for creators each month, split among channels by their engaged views. Each keeps 45% of its share.
OpenFacebook content monetization
Facebook's invitation-only programme that pays creators for how their public reels, photos, stories and text posts perform. It replaced in-stream ads.
OpenTikTok Creator Rewards Program
TikTok's programme that pays for original videos over one minute long. It is open in 8 countries and asks for 10,000 followers and 100,000 views in 30 days.
OpenInstagram Gifts
Virtual gifts viewers send on your reels with Stars they buy. Instagram pays US$0.01 per Star, in 49 countries, from 500 followers.
OpenSRT file
A plain-text caption file: numbered lines, each with a start and end time and the words shown then. YouTube takes it as a basic subtitle format.
OpenClosed captions
Captions kept apart from the picture: the platform draws them over the video and viewers can turn them off. Burned-in captions are called open captions.
OpenFair use
A rule of US copyright law that allows some use of copyrighted material without the owner's permission. Only a court decides it, case by case.
OpenYour next video starts with an idea
Write it, and in a few minutes you have a video ready to post. Your first one is free.