Most people think that uploading a video on the internet is a just a whim, fun, or a form of self-manifestation. In fact, this is also a way of making money on a relatively small investment.
How is it done?
YouTube, the biggest video sharing platform, adopted a policy on encouraging its authors to upload video content of higher quality. The reason to look for such content is that YouTube is interested in keeping the attention of consumers on the website as long as possible so as to show the ads of its advertisers. This way, increasing the quality of the videos leads to an increase in the time spent on the website and the number of views, which respectively results in higher number of advertisements shown and much higher profit for YouTube itself. To realize this strategy, the video portal offered the authors the opportunity to make money, too. Of course, there are numerous requirements that the creators of the videos should meet but yet there is not an easy way to make money and it is better to get used to this idea.
The video portal, which is owned by Google, has set requirements concerning the copyrights of the videos, as well as that of the music used in your videos (if there is any). In addition, before you start making money from your videos, you should realize a certain number of views on your YouTube channel (about 60,000-100,000) and what is most important – to continue uploading more videos. You can reach a huge audience only with a single uniquely interesting video but this will not guarantee you a secure income because sooner or later the traffic to this video will drop and your income will disappear. That is why it is advisable to upload at least one video a week. According to some experts, it is even advisable to make one video a day and thus guarantee that you will reach a much bigger audience, which, on the other hand, is a guarantee for a higher total number of views. There is a sense in this logic – if you make 52 videos a year, even if you reach all of your fans, the total number of views you get will be smaller than if you make 356 videos a year and reach up to 30% of your audience. Sometimes simple maths is of great use – take advantage of it!
Still, what is the concept?
In fact, YouTube uses the AdSense system, which visualizes advertising banners on your video or broadcasts video advertisements before the start of your video. To start generating revenues from your videos, you should enter your YouTube profile and connect it to your Google AdSense profile.
The most frequently asked question about this business models is “How much will I earn?” It is impossible to give a concrete answer. Some video channels earn $1 per every 1,000 views, others – $5 per 1,000 views, while others get no more than $0.25 per 1,000 views. In fact, the number of views is not as important as the topic of the video and the audience it targets. For instance, if you make a video about financial markets trade, stocks, Forex, or other related issues, then probably it will show expensive advertisements of stock intermediaries, while the audience will be more interested in clicking on them because the advertising will be clearly targeted on a concrete audience. In such case, you can earn more than $5 per 1,000 views. Also, things can be quite the opposite – if you make a video on topics that do not attract many advertisers and target an audience with no financial means and no interest in purchasing the services offered by advertisers, then you can be sure of your failure.
With you choose to make money from videos, you should really know what video content you are about to produce, what the audience will be, as well as what possible advertisers you will attract. Of course, it is advisable to be focused on the global market and not to restrict yourself within the local one because the AdSense revenues are different for the different countries and the video content options are not active for all consumers.
If you find this money-making model interesting, you should know that it is advisable for your videos to be integrated into a website that arranges them according to date, topics, titles, etc. This way you will reach an even bigger audience and not only the consumers visiting YouTube directly and then searching for concrete topics. It is also good to have a lawyer at hand, in case your videos are being downloaded by enthusiasts, who will later re-upload them on YouTube or on other alternative websites, even on Facebook, with which you will rather lose than earn money.
It may sound strange but indeed in this case not making money is equal to losing money because the creation of a video requires time, equipment, investments in advertising, or another type of popularization/promotion. All these efforts will go down the drain if someone uploads the video on their Facebook page without allowing people to watch it on YouTube. Here is where the lawyers come in. You should be ready for this because this is the scenario in which a popular American TV series lost more than $60,000 in just one day.
Good examples
Bulgarian vlogger Emil Conrad is one of the popular examples. What he is doing is maintaining his own YouTube channel where he regularly uploads video materials targeting the teenage audience. At first sight, the videos do not seem to be anything special except that they are funny and easily attract the teenagers – to watch more and more… Soon he got his viewers involved in some of the videos by reading the comments from different social networks or by accepting their challenges. This way the viewer is not simply a person behind the screen but a script-writer, director, or participant in the “show”.
When Emil Conrad launched his YouTube channel Bulgaria was not on the list of countries where authors could make money from their video content. In just three years Emil Conrad’s channel gained popularity that was unprecedented in our country – nearly 120,000 subscribers, while each video was viewed by an average of over 100,000 times.
So what since we cannot make money?
What Emil did was an even cleverer move – he published a book. It is relatively short, easy to read, with a pleasant design, well-structured, and properly targeted. The first edition was of 25,290 copies, while its presentation in Sofia resulted in queues of fans waiting to buy it with an autograph. The author enjoyed the same interest during his tour throughout the country and the first edition was sold out in just a few months. Although we do not know what kind of a contract Emil had signed with the publishing house, if we assume that he received at least BGN 1 per each book sold, then he would have earned around BGN 25,000 from the first edition.
When you have your own channel with big and loyal audience, you can attract many advertisers. Every video can contain product placement of certain brand without having to meet the requirements and restrictions of the media watchdog.
