YouTube - Social Media - Part I

byWallerdog

631 followers

5 years ago

How can we use YouTube to increase our revenue?

That's a great question!

In 2014, after binge watching Casey Neistat Vlogs, I said to myself "I can do that!" So, I started a YouTube channel with vlogging as the main theme. I was also watching then Amy Schmittauer (Landino) to learn as much as I could about vlogging.

You see these big YouTubers with 100s of thousands and millions of subscribers and you think that's easy anybody can do it. Well, when you do that, let me know how easy it was! It's anything but easy. I learned all about SEO and talking to the camera and buying the right gear to no avail. My first YouTube channel was monetized and I was earning a few bucks on ads but it was such hard work. The hours you had to put in to produce a 5 or 10 minute video and the results were pennies.

After about 6 months of doing this almost every day I was about to give up. I think at that time I barely had 100 subscribers. Then, one day one of my co-workers came into the office and was laughing her head off. I'm thinking to myself, "what could ever be so funny?"

Next, I heard her say, "and wake up to a lion's roar" and she started laughing again. OMG! That was a line to one of my videos I made where I was trying to do a "My morning routine" parody. That's when I realized that what I put out on YouTube wasn't just about making a buck. I could actually have a positive affect on people's lives by putting my videos out there.

It was at that point that I decided not to quit but to keep going because I was making a difference. I just would have never known had she not worked in our office.

Well, on that channel I had a couple of successful videos that were earning money; however, YouTube changed their monetization process a while ago. To qualify you now have to have 1000 subscribers and 4000 hours of viewtime minimum over the past 12 months. Currently, I've got about 470 subscribers and about 2500 hours of viewtime.

My most successful videos include a "how to setup turkey fryer" video with 30K views, a "Barcelona Metro" video with 14K views, and a "wild boar drive hunt" video with 21K views. They were earning money until the change in YouTube policy.

I still have ideas on how to grow the channel based on my successes and will be working on that over the summer, I still haven't given up on that channel. I believe I can get the views and subscribers by building on what's working, especially being in Europe. And no, it is not the only channel I have nor is it the most successful.

So, to answer the question up on top we can increase our revenue by making a YouTube channel big enough to be monetized. And, the cost is free! Well, the real cost is your time and labor so I guess it isn't free.

The other way to increase our revenue is making a video that directs people to our web pages or to our affiliate links in the description of the video. What is great about a YouTube video is with proper SEO it can be placed in front of people to see even when you are just starting out. You don't need to be an established authority or have X number of videos to be seen.

The key is just like our web pages in order to be successful you need to be ready for the marathon and not a sprint. So, my biggest recommendation is if you are going to make a YouTube channel be sure you are making videos on something you love doing and don't make it like work, okay?!

In part II, I will talk about the successes and failures of my YouTube gaming channel.

Stay tuned for more!!!

Cheers!

Les