Maximizing Your Earnings: How to Monetize Your Stock Footage on Video Sites (RTP)

Maximizing your earnings: How to monetize your stock footage on video sites, hand holding orange Lacie hard drive

Have you ever used stock footage for any of your videos? There can tend to be a bad stigma around using stock, but if the project and budget are appropriate, then there's absolutely nothing wrong with it! If a client has a mega-budget for a completely custom project, then there's a better chance you can afford to film any live-action footage yourself. But a lot of the time, that's just not the case. Editors and producers rely on stock assets to keep budgets down, and sometimes, that's all the client really needs.

There are many popular sites out there that provide stock assets, whether video, audio, or graphics, and it all comes from other creators uploading their creations. And if you have good stock footage, then you can make some bank from it! Stock footage doesn't sell for cheap. Some sites have a monthly or yearly subscription for unlimited use, but most are pay per single use. Below are a few tips and general rules for having your b-roll working for you permanently in the background.

Make sure your footage is clean and trimmed

Stock sites want your footage to be as clean and neutral as possible. This means that it needs to be stable, and it needs to be as true to color as possible. One of the big draws to using stock footage is that it can be manipulated for anyone's project. If you upload a clip that has a strong color grade, then that won't be as universal and easily fit into other editor's projects.

You also want to trim your footage down to a manageable clip. Not too short, but not too long. A sweet spot for clips is around 10 seconds. That gives the editor using the clip enough on the front and back ends to fit it into their project.

The higher the resolution, the more you can charge

The standard for video these days is either 1080p or 4K. Since 4K is higher quality and has more wiggle room to edit with, it costs more on stock sites. This also means you can charge more for it. So if you own a camera that shoots in 4K, it is preferred that you shoot your footage in that, so it can be uploaded to sites for more later.

Mirrorless camera recording, with shallow depth of field

Be sure to upload footage uncompressed

Another component of uploading stock footage is that it's uncompressed. That means that the codec is as raw from the camera as it can be, like .MOV format. A lot of videos that are uploaded to the web are compressed as .MP4 format, and that isn't preferred for stock sites. Most sites still accept .MP4, but you will have a better chance of getting your footage accepted, and bought, if it's as uncompressed as possible because it allows for better manipulation when color grading.

Only include sound if it's completely relevant to the footage

I've had footage denied after uploading because it contained audio. I quickly learned that stock sites only like sound in the video when it is completely relevant and appropriate to the footage. An example of when to include sound would be if you upload a shot of a bee flying around a sunflower, then it's okay to include the buzzing sound from the be because it is appropriate to the footage. An example of when not to include audio would be if you're uploading a slow-motion landscape shot of a field, and the slow-motion rumbling wind audio is attached. That clip will most likely be denied. So be mindful of when, and when not to, include sound in your footage.

Editor using color correcting tools inside of non-linear video editing software

Use strong keywords for tagging

A big piece of the puzzle to stock footage is using the right tags. The more you include, the more it will get lost in the sea of other creative's uploads. The less you include, the more it will show up when that keyword is searched for. Imagine what people are actually typing into the search bar, and try to work off that. You don't only want to use keywords like "landscape" because there are already thousands of other clips using that term. But if you are more specific and tag it as "Clevealnd Ohio field", then you can potentially get someone to find that clip, over it getting lost in the flood of "landscape" results.

For example, if you are uploading footage of a kid playing with a dog in a backyard, then some appropriate tags would be "kid playing, dog in backyard, kids with pets". Some keywords to avoid would be "grass, sunny, daytime, fence, home, animals, etc." Finding a balance between specific, but not too hyper specific, will help rank your footage higher when searching.

Ready to contribute your stock footage?

Try your hand at these sites once you have a batch of footage to upload.

• Getty

• Pond5

• Adobe Stock

• Shutterstock

It takes some time to upload and tag all the footage, but once you do it one time, then it's on these sites for good. The method I use to make the process faster is to make a document, write down each individual upload, along with keywords and locations, then copy and paste across all the different sites. This helps so you don't have to manually type in all the info across five different sites.

Hopefully, this guide helps make you realize that you might have some clips on your hard drive that can be uploaded, and you can start making some passive income from footage you have already shot!