YouTube Network Fullscreen Launches Platform To Help Creators Track And Grow Their Audiences

Some YouTube networks are designed to provide production help to their creators or connect them to others that they can collaborate with on videos. Then there’s Fullscreen, which stands apart due to the technical tools that it provides creators.

The company’s Creator Platform combines these tools to provide creators who distribute through its network better ways to track viewership and manage their videos. The dashboard provides channel analytics with earnings reports — showing creators exactly how well each of their videos fared on YouTube. It also shows viewership patterns and traffic sources and gives users an idea of how widely their content is being shared on social networks like Facebook and Twitter.

The platform gives creators ways to manage their video libraries, including a scheduler to preset publish times. Fullscreen also has a tool to help creators easily license music for their videos — and since so many of its creators are musicians themselves, they can use the platform to make their own music available for licensing.

In addition, the company has rolled out Fullscreen Gorilla, which is a tool for participating in branded sponsorship campaigns from advertisers. That’s one way that Fullscreen is helping creators to better monetize their channels through its network.

“As a creator today, you’re expected to be your own media company,” Fullscreen CEO George Strompolos told me. That includes shooting, editing and uploading videos, but it also includes stuff like working with advertisers and finding other creators to collaborate with. The Creator Platform was designed to help make that all easier to do.

But it’s not just for creators who participate in Fullscreen’s network. The startup is increasingly working with brands to manage their YouTube videos and help them gain insights into how viewers are interacting with their content. For brands, the platform can also provide competitive analysis comparing their channels with competitors, and to help find top influencers on YouTube to help spread their messages.

That’s resonating with companies like NBCUniversal and Ryan Seacrest Productions, both of which have used Fullscreen for video management and analytics. The company has grown quickly since being launched in 2011, with more than 15,000 channels on its platform today. It is also one of the biggest networks in terms of viewership and subscribers, with more than 2.5 billion video views a month and more than 200 million subscribers across all its creators.

Fullscreen recently closed a round of funding led by The Chernin Group, with participation from Comcast Ventures and WPP’s investment arm, WPP Digital. The company was expected to have raised about $30 million in that round. It has more than 150 employees, primarily based in Los Angeles.