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DEEP DIVE ARTICLE HOW TO GET MORE VIEWS ON YOUTUBE TIPS & TRICKS YOUTUBE

Which Language is Best for YouTube?

Which Language is Best for YouTube?

The question of which language is best for YouTube is one with no universal answer that can be applied to every YouTuber in every region.

Ultimately, the best language is the one in which you can make videos coherently and comfortably, but there are other mitigating factors that can pull your choice of language this way or that.

In this post, we’re going to lay out all the different factors to consider when deciding what language (or languages) to release your videos in, as well as some alternatives to consider if you don’t speak the language that would be best for your particular videos.

How to Make Money on YouTube Without Showing Your Face

Most-Viewed Languages

Let’s start with the basics.

The raw numbers, as it were.

If you were purely concerned with reaching the largest possible audience on YouTube, you would naturally want to make content in the language that has the largest possible audience bases such as English Spanish and Hindi.

As per Twinword’s analysis of YouTube statistics, we can use the following numbers as a guide for how the languages are spread out on YouTube from the creator’s side, meaning this is the percentage of videos that are made in each language.

Language Percentage
English 66%
Spanish 15%
Portuguese 7%
Hindi 5%
Korean 2%
Others 5%

It’s worth remembering that these kinds of statistics change all the time, but there is unlikely to be a significant change in terms of the share of those languages. For example, Hindi could creep past Portuguese without much fanfare, but Spanish would be very unlikely to overtake English any time soon.

Still, these are the percentages in which YouTube content is made but do not necessarily reflect the percentages in terms of the potential audience. For example, English is a second language in many countries, and while the primary language of a given region may not be English, many people in that region will speak it, which would mean they could happily consume English-speaking content, even if they would be more comfortable with a different language.

From a practical standpoint, this detail doesn’t make much difference. If you are primarily concerned with reaching the largest possible audience, you would make your video in the language with the most potential viewers, even if not all of those viewers consider English their first language.

YouTube Audiences

So what of the audiences themselves? It is all well and good saying that the vast majority of the content on YouTube is made in English, but that is a creator bias and doesn’t necessarily reflect the language of the people who are watching that content.

There are no reliable statistics that we could find on language specifically when it comes to YouTube viewers, but there are statistics on things like region, which we can use to make a few educated guesses about the primary language of YouTube’s overall audience. Here are the top ten countries in terms of YouTube views (source).

Country Number of Views
USA 916 Billion
India 503 Billion
UK 391 Billion
Brazil 274 Billion
Thailand 207 Billion
Russia 207 Billion
South Korea 204 Billion
Spain 169 Billion
Japan 159 Billion
Canada 158 Billion

As you can see from this table, there is quite a diverse spread of nations in the top ten countries viewing YouTube. We can see English, Hindi, Portuguese, and Thai in the top five languages, with plenty of other languages in the rest. Russian, Korean, Spanish, and Japanese.

However, things are not as diverse as they may first appear. For one thing, the three overwhelmingly English-speaking countries in that top ten—the USA, the UK, and Canada—account for 45% of the total views in that table. Granted, 45% is not a majority, but remember that none of the other countries in the top ten shares a primary language. India mainly speaks Hindi, Thailand primarily speaks Thai, Russia speaks Russian, South Korea speaks Korean, Spain speaks Spanish, and Japan speaks Japanese.

Further muddying the waters is the multilingual nature of some nations. For example, India lists both Hindi and English as their official languages, although it is thought that only around ten percent of India’s residents speak English. Still, India is second in our table with over half a trillion views—a potential ten percent bump of that half trillion for English is substantial.

It is also worth noting that, while the vast majority of Canada can speak English, they also have French as an official language, and around a fifth of the population can speak it.

So, what do we take from this? The first thing to take away from all of these numbers is that there is no clear cut statistic or table we can look at that will tell us which language has the most potential YouTube viewers. We can look at the languages which content is made in, but that doesn’t tell us if people are watching content in a language they are not fluent in. We can also look at the nations with the most YouTube viewers, but that doesn’t tell us what language the viewers are watching in.

If you are looking for a single broadest appeal language to make your content in, it is hard to argue with English, which makes sense as YouTube came from and rose to prominence in English-speaking countries.

How to Record YouTube Video Outside 5

Working With What You Got

All of the numbers and statistics on which languages are most viewed on YouTube may be irrelevant to you. If you only speak one language, or you can speak another language, but it is difficult to understand, you will struggle to make content in those other languages.

The first gatekeeper along your road to YouTube success is how watchable your content is. You could manoeuvre your videos to be in front of the largest potential audience possible, but if it is not watchable, you will not succeed. The phrase “content is key” may be cliched at this point, but it is cliched for a reason. It is 100% true.

If you have lofty ambitions for your YouTube channel, you may consider learning a language so that you can make content in that language.

For some people, learning a new language is intuitive. They can pick up the structure of the language relatively easy and, with some time and practice, speak the language with more clarity than even some native speakers of that language. On the other hand, there are people who have moved to a foreign country and lived there for most of their life and still have thick accents that make them hard to understand when speaking the local language.

This isn’t a linguistics blog, so we won’t pretend to know the reasons some people can pick up new languages easily and others cannot, but if you are the latter—if no amount of speaking a particular language makes it feel comfortable on your tongue—you would be better placed putting your energies into making the best possible content you can in your own language.

There are other options, of course, but more on that below.

How Important Is Language to Success on YouTube?

This is an important question to ask yourself because the work involved in making your content available in a language other than the one you are comfortable with—especially if you are going to learn a whole new language just so you can speak it in your videos—is considerable.

It is important to establish a realistic sense of what “success” means for you when starting out on YouTube. If your idea of success is being able to pay the bills and live comfortably with the revenue generated from your YouTube channel, you probably don’t need to conquer the world. If we take the data from the top countries viewing YouTube above, the twenty-fifth country on the list—Romania—still accounts for an impressive 63 billion views. The average CPM (the amount you make per one thousand views) on YouTube is typically around the £2-4 mark (after YouTube takes its cut). If we go for the middle ground and assume you will make roughly $3 per thousand views, and we take the average US monthly salary of around $3,500, we can say that you would need to get around 1,200,000 monthly views to match the average US citizen’s salary.

Without a doubt, 1.2 million views per month is a lot, but it is only approximately 0.002% of the total views coming from Romania. Would it be harder to get that many views from a purely Romanian audience than the much larger English audience? Of course. But it is certainly an attainable goal.

Of course, if your idea of success is to conquer the world of YouTube and overtake PewDiePie as the most successful individual YouTuber, that’s different. You’re probably going to need to make videos in English to do that.

At least, for now.

Translations/Captions

We mentioned alternatives to settling for your own language or learning a new one, so let’s talk about that. Making your content available to other languages doesn’t necessarily mean creating that content in those languages.

First of all, YouTube makes it very easy to caption your videos in multiple languages, even to the point that they have an automated captioning service that, while not perfect, is getting better all the time. There are also many transcription and translation services on the web for very affordable rates—typically a dollar or two per minute of audio. Captioning your videos is a good practice to get into regardless of language because it makes your video more accessible to people with hearing problems, but it also provides a way to make your content more accessible to other languages.

The other option is to have your videos translated and recorded so that you can upload alternate language versions of your videos with the translated voice-over dubbed onto it. There are services that will take care of the translation and voice over for you, or you might choose to have the translation handled separately, such as if you have a particular voice-over person you want to work with, but that person doesn’t do the translation.

If you go down the route of alternative language versions of your videos, it is important to make it clear that you have those alternative versions out there. First impressions tend to stick on YouTube, and if someone comes to your video because the content of the video is exactly what they are looking for, but they land on a version of the video using a language they don’t speak, they may dismiss you entirely because they can’t speak that language. Always put links to alternative language versions of a video in the descriptions of those videos, and it would be wise to have some kind of note in the video at the start mentioning that the video is available in other languages.

Final Thoughts

In an ideal world, you would not be concerned with the global reach of your videos. You would make the content you want to make to the best of your ability, continually looking for ways to improve and grow and let the views pan out how they may. That being said, we understand that reality is rarely ideal.

There is nothing inherently wrong with wanting to reach viewers in the largest markets, but it is important to ensure your content is good. Creating a hard to understand video in English when your native language is Japanese, for example, will not just not help your channel; it may actively harm it. If you get a reputation for creating videos that are hard to understand, the people who would have watched that content in the first place may not come back when you have improved further down the line.

If you are learning a new language, use your time making content in your first language to improve and grow as a YouTuber, and hold off on making content in your additional language until you can speak it fluently and clearly.

And, remember; there are plenty of views out there no matter what language you speak.

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How Do Virtual YouTubers Make Money?

How Do Virtual YouTubers Make Money?

When you first come across the world of virtual YouTubers, it can seem a little strange and exotic, and you might be forgiven for thinking that things work a little differently over in VTuber land (that’s not a real place, by the way). In particular, you may find yourself wondering how do virtual YouTubers make money?

The truth is virtual YouTubers operate in much the same way that regular YouTubers do. Granted, the process of making the content is different, but everything that happens outside of the creation process is more or less the same. We’re going to go over the ways virtual YouTubers make money—bearing in mind that these are also the ways regular YouTubers make money—but there is more to explore here, because while VTubers make their money through many of the same methods, there is a noticeable shift of focus when compared to a typical flesh and bone YouTuber.

But let’s kick things off with those money-making methods.

How Do Virtual YouTubers Make Money?

Virtual YouTubers just like standard YouTubers and influencers make money through the YouTube Partner Program, affiliate marketing, merchandise sales, crowd funding sites like Patreon and brand deals. The only difference between Virtual YouTubers (VTubers) and human influencers is their chosen public persona, avatar or face.

Before we get into the nitty-gritty of VTuber monetisation, we’ll give you a brief overview of the most common methods available to a typical YouTuber. For a more in-depth breakdown, check this post out.

What is YouTube RPM?

The YouTube Partner Programme

The OG, as it were. This method of monetising YouTube content has been around in some form or another since the earliest days of YouTube monetisation. For eligible YouTubers, you simply opt your channel into monetisation, and YouTube will begin displaying ads beside, over, and during your videos. The revenue generated from these ads is then shared with the YouTuber.

In terms of the amount of money you make, the YouTube Partner Programme is hardly at the top of most YouTuber’s list. You generally have to have a lot of views to make any real money, and even then it is an incredibly unreliable method due to the volatility of the advertising market and YouTube’s own constant tinkering with their terms and algorithms. It is also incredibly inconsistent between YouTubers. Due to the nature of online advertising—which is essentially auction-based—one YouTuber could make many times more than another YouTuber, even if the other YouTuber has the same or more views.

Memberships

For YouTubers with loyal audiences who are either invested in the content that is being produced or invested in the YouTuber themselves, memberships offer a great way to cut out the volatility of the advertising space that we mentioned above.

Unlike advertising, memberships involve your members supporting you directly in exchange for perks that aren’t available to regular viewers. This method is more consistent than advertising. Granted, members will drift away from time to time, but if your content is consistently compelling, new members will replace them, and you are unlikely to see a sudden drop in your earnings—well unless you do something to alienate your members.

This also cuts out many of the issues that have been typified by the “Adpocalypses” that YouTube has brought down upon us. As your members are choosing to support you directly, there is no question of whether the content is suitable, so you don’t need to worry about your revenue taking a sudden nosedive because advertisers have suddenly decided they don’t want their brand associated with your kind of content.

Super Chat

Super Chat is a method that streamers can use to monetise their live streams. Essentially, the live audience can donate a little sum of money (or a large sum, it’s up to them) to get their message pinned to the top of chat for a period. In most cases, the message will also pop up in the video, but that is entirely down to the YouTuber.

Like Memberships, Super Chat has the advantage of not being beholden to changing YouTube monetisation policies and the shifting whims of advertisers. The only real downside is that there is no way for a YouTuber who doesn’t stream to take advantage of it.

Brand Deals, Sponsored Content, and Endorsements

For YouTubers who command enough of an influence in a given area, the prospect of brands coming to you directly (or through an agency) may be on the table. This is where a brand pays you to promote them on your videos, cutting out YouTube in the process.

Though each deal is unique, brand deals are typically more lucrative than the equivalent revenue you would get from YouTube. And, in many cases, you can still monetise your sponsored content through the YouTube Partner Programme, essentially letting you double dip.

Unlike advertising revenue, brand deals are not necessarily predicated on the size of your audience. Of course, the bigger your audience, the more likely you are to get offered this kind of arrangement, but the ultimate value of your content is determined by the conversions generated for the brands that sponsor you. If your videos typically generate a higher-than-average level of interest from your viewers, brands will be willing to pay your more to get their products or services promoted by you, even if you have a relatively small audience.

Affiliate Sales

For YouTubers whose content revolves around products and services—such as YouTubers who review things—affiliate sales are a way to earn revenue from your recommendations.

By signing up for the relevant affiliate programs and linking to the products or services you are discussing in your videos, you earn a commission for every viewer who buys a product or signs up to a service through your links.

You also provide your viewers with a quick and easy way to get to things you are talking about.

Merchandise

For those lucky YouTubers who are able to cultivate an audience that is invested in them, merchandise is another monetisation option.

You could do this through a third-party merch retailer or through YouTube’s own merch shelf. Of course, the success of this is determined by your audience’s willingness to buy your merch.

There is a world of difference between dropping a couple of dollars in Super Chat and buying a twenty dollar shirt from your merch store.

Patreon and Similar Services

In essence, this option is the same as YouTube Memberships, though YouTube has certain restrictions in place—such as requiring your to have at least 30,000 subscribers—before you can make use of that option. Third-party alternatives such as Patreon do not have such restrictions, meaning you can offer your subscribers a way to support you directly much sooner than you would be able to through YouTube itself.

Like Memberships, the basic principle is that your Patreons want to support you directly, but you would generally offer them some incentives, such as exclusive content.

What are VTubers?

What’s Different for Virtual YouTubers?

The most significant difference between a regular YouTuber and virtual YouTuber is, of course, their appearance (in the videos, of course). People don’t typically want to buy merchandise with a human face on it; we tend to prefer designs and artwork. For virtual YouTubers, their digital avatar is the artwork. With the majority of virtual YouTubers being Japanese anime characters, they have artwork ready to go by just taking a screenshot of their digital avatar.

The next area of difference is how YouTube perceives them. YouTube has been cracking down on videos intended for consumption by children. This is due to stricter regulations on what data can be collected on underage viewers, which in turn leads to advertisers being less willing to show their ads on children’s YouTube videos because they can’t be as accurate with their targeting.

This can present a problem for virtual YouTubers because most of them are cartoon characters, and even though their content may not be intended for children, YouTube doesn’t have the best track record when it comes to separating out videos that should be demonetised from videos that look a bit like videos that should be demonetised.

The final main difference we’re going to highlight is the fact that many of the top virtual YouTubers are run by agencies like Hololive, essentially creating a team of popular mascots to generate revenue. This doesn’t necessarily affect new entries into the virtual YouTube space—the barrier to entry for creating virtual avatars and content is relatively low—but it is an interesting aspect of this space that is worth noting.

Virtual YouTube Expansion?

For the moment, the majority of virtual YouTube is sitting comfortably around its place of origin; Japan. Most of the YouTubers in this space are creating Japanese-language content and seemingly have little interest in expanding beyond that sphere.

That being said, the few virtual YouTubers that have ventured into the world of English-speaking content are doing very well, and there is a strong interest in Japanese anime culture in the west.

These things would suggest that there is a potential explosion of interest in this scene on the horizon, as more people see the potential of English-language virtual YouTube content.

What are VTubers? 2

The Creation of Virtual YouTubers

There are several programmes and mobile apps out there that can be used to create digital avatars for use in virtual YouTube content. And, if the above prediction of a boom in interest holds true, it would be reasonable to expect the number of applications available to grow, also.

These pieces of software range from applications for making a digital avatar to applications for animating those digital avatars, with a few options straddling this line and offering both functions in one package. The most useful part of these applications, however, is the ability to animate the digital avatars using things like VR controllers, or webcam-based motion-tracking. Without these techniques, it would be expensive indeed to create the videos, as animating by hand is a lengthy process that requires a lot of skill.

Any financial benefit there is to running a virtual YouTube channel would quickly be erased if the YouTuber were forced to animate their avatar by hand. With motion-tracking technology, the YouTuber can mostly just film themselves as though they were making a regular video, while the software takes care of translating the YouTuber’s movements to the digital avatar.

Should You Become a Virtual YouTuber?

All this talk of a potential explosion of interest may have you wondering if virtual YouTubing is something you could try yourself.

The good news is that there is a very low barrier to entry technologically speaking—you can purchase software that will enable you to animate a digital avatar with a nothing more than a webcam for as little as $15, or even free in some cases. There is also no real restriction on what kind of content you can make. The existing popular virtual YouTubers cover quite a broad spectrum of video types, showing that it is more of a fandom-driven thing than a content-driven thing.

In other words, viewers are coming for the virtual YouTuber more than they are coming for the specific content in the video.

To that end, you should ensure you have something to hang your channel’s hat on. This could be informative or interesting content, or it could be an entertaining personality—ideally, it would be both. As long as you have something to draw viewers interest, you will be fine. Of course, this part at least is true for regular YouTubers, as well.

There are plenty of reasons why you might be interested in taking on a virtual persona rather than getting in front of a camera yourself—camera shyness, privacy, a need to express yourself in different ways—but ultimately that part of the equation isn’t important; you could just do it because you think it’s cool.

Final Thoughts

For the most part, virtual YouTubers make their money the same way as non-virtual YouTubers. The primary differences in that respect are where the focus lays, with virtual YouTubers making more of their money from different areas to regular YouTube. More merch and less Patreon. More Super Chat and less YouTube Partner Programme.

It should be noted, however, that while the top twenty or thirty virtual YouTubers generate a very hefty amount of revenue from their content, there is a very steep drop off after those top channels. There were around 30,000 virtual YouTubers at the start of 2020, and most of them weren’t making much—if any—money at all.

Top 5 Tools To Get You Started on YouTube

Very quickly before you go here are 5 amazing tools I have used every day to grow my YouTube channel from 0 to 30K subscribers in the last 12 months that I could not live without.

1. VidIQ helps boost my views and get found in search

I almost exclusively switched to VidIQ from a rival in 2020.

Within 12 months I tripled the size of my channel and very quickly learnt the power of thumbnails, click through rate and proper search optimization. Best of all, they are FREE!

2. Adobe Creative Suite helps me craft amazing looking thumbnails and eye-catching videos

I have been making youtube videos on and off since 2013.

When I first started I threw things together in Window Movie Maker, cringed at how it looked but thought “that’s the best I can do so it’ll have to do”.

Big mistake!

I soon realized the move time you put into your editing and the more engaging your thumbnails are the more views you will get and the more people will trust you enough to subscribe.

That is why I took the plunge and invested in my editing and design process with Adobe Creative Suite. They offer a WIDE range of tools to help make amazing videos, simple to use tools for overlays, graphics, one click tools to fix your audio and the very powerful Photoshop graphics program to make eye-catching thumbnails.

Best of all you can get a free trial for 30 days on their website, a discount if you are a student and if you are a regular human being it starts from as little as £9 per month if you want to commit to a plan.

3. Rev.com helps people read my videos

You can’t always listen to a video.

Maybe you’re on a bus, a train or sat in a living room with a 5 year old singing baby shark on loop… for HOURS. Or, you are trying to make as little noise as possible while your new born is FINALLY sleeping.

This is where Rev can help you or your audience consume your content on the go, in silence or in a language not native to the video.

Rev.com can help you translate your videos, transcribe your videos, add subtitles and even convert those subtitles into other languages – all from just $1.50 per minute.

A GREAT way to find an audience and keep them hooked no matter where they are watching your content.

4. PlaceIT can help you STAND OUT on YouTube

I SUCK at making anything flashy or arty.

I have every intention in the world to make something that looks cool but im about as artistic as a dropped ice-cream cone on the web windy day.

That is why I could not live on YouTube without someone like PlaceIT. They offer custom YouTube Banners, Avatars, YouTube Video Intros and YouTube End Screen Templates that are easy to edit with simple click, upload wizard to help you make amazing professional graphics in minutes.

Best of all, some of their templates are FREE! or you can pay a small fee if you want to go for their slightly more premium designs (pst – I always used the free ones).

5. StoryBlocks helps me add amazing video b-roll cutaways

I mainly make tutorials and talking head videos.

And in this modern world this can be a little boring if you don’t see something funky every once in a while.

I try with overlays, jump cuts and being funny but my secret weapon is b-roll overlay content.

I can talk about skydiving, food, money, kids, cats – ANYTHING I WANT – with a quick search on the StoryBlocks website I can find a great looking clip to overlay on my videos, keeping them entertained and watching for longer.

They have a wide library of videos, graphics, images and even a video maker tool and it wont break the bank with plans starting from as little as £8.25 ($9) per month.

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Do YouTubers Have Scripts?

Do YouTubers Have Scripts? 2

Finding your way on YouTube is generally a trial-and-error type of adventure, but it can’t hurt to know how other YouTubers do it when working out what is best for you.

One of the most common questions in this respect is “do YouTubers have scripts?”, and the answer to that is… sometimes.

Every YouTuber does things a little different, and scripting their videos is no exception to that. There are different levels of scripting, however, and by understanding what they are, you should be better placed to work out which will work for you.

So read on, and we’ll take a look at these different levels, and then we’ll get into some tips and tricks regarding scripting your YouTube videos.

The Different Levels of Scripting a YouTube Video

Saying that a video is scripted can be a little misleading since there are different degrees to how much your video can be scripted.

In this section, we’re going to describe the main levels of scripting you might use when making a YouTube video, as well as give you a few examples of types of videos that might use each level.

Do YouTubers Have Scripts?

What Script?

The first level of scripting is no script!

Of course, this method has its drawbacks, but it works great for those YouTubers with the gift of the gab. Not having a script at all is something of a mixed blessing.

If you can pull it off, it can make your videos considerably easier to make, since you don’t need to worry about writing a script in advance and you don’t need to worry about reading that script when you record the video. On the other hand, if you can’t pull it off, you could leave yourself with a lot of editing to do, or an awkward, stilted video in the end. Perhaps even both.

You’ve probably realised by now that the determining factor for whether having no script at all is suitable for you is your own ability to improvise, remember what you have to say, and be entertaining without a prompt. If you are good at freeform speaking, this will be more comfortable for you.

There are many videos where this type of approach is well suited, such as videos where you are interviewing someone, or videos where you are giving commentary on a topic. Just remember the general rule when creating content that less is more. If you find yourself rambling or going off on tangents, rein yourself in. And don’t be afraid to edit bits out later.

Just an Outline

The next step up from no script is some script, but not a complete, word-for-word write up of what you are going to say. Here you would have the main points you plan to address—almost like a bullet point list—along with anything particularly important you need to remember, such as certain phrases, statistics, or something similar.

Outlines are an excellent option for people who are comfortable talking to the camera without too much prompting, but who are perhaps not quite as competent when it comes to remembering everything they have to say. The outline serves to remind you what you have to cover, allowing you to word things however feels right in the moment.

An outline script is mostly good for anything you might go scriptless for but aren’t confident enough in your ability to hit all the beats you need to hit: interviews, commentary, list videos, retrospectives, and more.

Mostly Scripted

Mostly scripted is a level of scripting that covers anything between an outline and a full script.

With a mostly scripted video, you might start with an outline and flesh out certain details, or fully script parts that you want to ensure are articulated properly while leaving other parts in a more outline form.

Fully Scripted

As the name suggests, a fully scripted video has the entirety of the spoken word content written out in advance for you to read as you record. While this form of scripting is great for those who are not comfortable making it up as they go along, or who are not confident in their ability to remember what it is they have to say, there is a trade-off.

While you do not need to be able good at speaking on the fly with a full script, you do need to be able to read aloud from your script. This may not sound difficult if you have never tried it, but it requires a certain amount of skill to do in a way that doesn’t sound wooden. It may take a little practice to get your live script reading to sound natural. Anchor people are often derided for just reading from an autocue for a living, but you may appreciate what they do a little more after trying this for the first time.

Do YouTubers Have Scripts? 1

Voice Over

From the perspective of the script itself, there is no difference between a voice over script and full script—other than you may write things a little differently for a voiceover video. The difference here comes after.

It is much easier to get a polished, professional-sounding voiceover because you are not recording video of yourself saying it, which means you can edit the audio without it looking weird and disjointed in the finished product. This gives you a little more leeway when it comes to less than radio-ready cadence, mistakes, or accidental noises like sneezing.

Choosing the Right Style of Script for You and Your YouTube Videos

There are many things to take into account when deciding which style of scripted video will work best for you, but ultimately it will boil down to three main aspects.

  • Memory
  • Ability to speak off the cuff
  • Ability to read fluidly from a script

Naturally, if you struggle to remember things the things you are going to talk about, you will need to have some kind of prompt to help you along. How much you struggle to remember your subject matter will determine how much you need to write out in your script, but this is something of a definitive restriction since being able to talk in an entertaining manner off of the top of your head is no use if you can’t remember what you are supposed to be talking about!

Similarly, if you are no good at talking off the cuff, you can rule out having no script at all, and if you are bad at reading aloud in an entertaining manner, you can rule out reading from a full script.

Once you’ve factored those things in, the next big thing to consider is the video itself. Some types of video lend themselves better to being carefully scripted while others don’t. As a general rule, any content that is striving to be professional and informative will likely benefit from being scripted and the additional time and care put into the words used. Meanwhile, videos that are largely personality-driven, such as commentary videos and vlogs, are usually better done off the cuff.

Do YouTubers Have Scripts? 3

Practice Makes Perfect

Though there are some exceptions, it’s worth noting that, most of the time, you can improve on the aspects you are not as competent at with a little practice.

By taking a little time each day to read a script aloud, or to talk in a freeform manner, you should start to see improvements. It can also help to record your practice sessions and watch them back, as that will help you pinpoint areas you need to improve. It may feel awkward and unintuitive to be making conscious efforts to change things like inflexions and mannerisms when you talk, but if you keep doing it, it will start to feel natural.

There are exceptions to this, such as if you have learning disorder like dyslexia that is preventing you from being able to read your script smoothly aloud. If this is something you face, it is crucial not to let it frustrate you. As the somewhat gruesome saying goes; there are many ways to skin a cat. If improvement in a particular area is not an option for you, don’t dwell on it, put your energies into a style of video that you can do, and work on perfecting that instead.

 

Tips for Scripting Your YouTube Videos

Regardless of what level of scripting you choose to go with, here are some tips that can help you deliver the best possible content.

Read it Back

Always read your script back before rolling the cameras.

Ideally, read it out loud and carefully pay attention to how the words sound together. Sometimes, things seem to flow together nicely when written down but sound awkward when read aloud.

As you get more experience at writing your scripts, you will gain a more intuitive feel for how words onscreen translate to words spoken aloud, but even successful, professional writers often read their dialogue out before signing off on it.

Get Second Opinions

While you are still finding your feet as a YouTuber, take every opportunity to get second opinions on things like your delivery and tone. This can be done through a live read to a friend or family member, a pre-upload viewing of the video, or a review of a video you have already uploaded.

The idea of reading your content out loud to somebody in person may be a little offputting at first, but it’s worth remembering that doing so will allow you get valuable feedback on your delivery without going through the long process of recording and editing the video.

Play to Your Strengths

Don’t get hung up on trying to do things a certain way when you are more comfortable doing things a different way.

We mentioned above that informative videos often lend themselves better to being scripted, but that does not mean that you cannot make good, informative videos off the cuff.

In fact, given that most of the battle of succeeding on YouTube lies in standing out from the crowd, finding a way to do things a little differently may actually help your channel.

Do YouTubers Have Scripts? 4

Promotional Content

If you are lucky enough to reach a stage in your YouTube career where brands are willing to sponsor your content, you may find yourself in a situation where you have some pre-written ad copy to read. Essentially a scripted section. Sometimes the brand will allow the content creators they sponsor to do the ad freeform, but that will largely depend on the brand and the reputation of the creator.

If you struggle with things like this, don’t be afraid think outside of the box. You might record your ad copy separately from the rest of the video, allowing you to put a little more time into it, or even get someone else to read it. Just be sure that whatever solution you choose doesn’t violate whatever agreement you have with the brand. For example, some brands may require that the face of the YouTube channel is the one to read the copy, or that the copy be read word-for-word as it was written.

Final Thoughts

One of the most important points we’d like you to take away from this post is that there is no inherently right or wrong way to make a YouTube video. Ultimately, the best method is the one that you are comfortable working with and gets your message across. You should always strive for improvement where possible, and scripting your content (if you don’t already) can certainly help with that, but it should by no means be considered a necessity.

Don’t be afraid to experiment with different levels of scriptwriting, either. You might make a test video where you record a sample of you working with no script, working with an outline, and reading a complete script, and then judge which one you feel works best. Remember, not everything you make needs to be uploaded to YouTube. It is okay to consign things to the editing room floor from time to time.

Get second opinions if you are comfortable doing so, and if you’re not comfortable showing other people your test videos, try to work on that because far more people will see your finished videos if you achieve any success on the platform.

Top 5 Tools To Get You Started on YouTube

Very quickly before you go here are 5 amazing tools I have used every day to grow my YouTube channel from 0 to 30K subscribers in the last 12 months that I could not live without.

1. VidIQ helps boost my views and get found in search

I almost exclusively switched to VidIQ from a rival in 2020.

Within 12 months I tripled the size of my channel and very quickly learnt the power of thumbnails, click through rate and proper search optimization. Best of all, they are FREE!

2. Adobe Creative Suite helps me craft amazing looking thumbnails and eye-catching videos

I have been making youtube videos on and off since 2013.

When I first started I threw things together in Window Movie Maker, cringed at how it looked but thought “that’s the best I can do so it’ll have to do”.

Big mistake!

I soon realized the move time you put into your editing and the more engaging your thumbnails are the more views you will get and the more people will trust you enough to subscribe.

That is why I took the plunge and invested in my editing and design process with Adobe Creative Suite. They offer a WIDE range of tools to help make amazing videos, simple to use tools for overlays, graphics, one click tools to fix your audio and the very powerful Photoshop graphics program to make eye-catching thumbnails.

Best of all you can get a free trial for 30 days on their website, a discount if you are a student and if you are a regular human being it starts from as little as £9 per month if you want to commit to a plan.

3. Rev.com helps people read my videos

You can’t always listen to a video.

Maybe you’re on a bus, a train or sat in a living room with a 5 year old singing baby shark on loop… for HOURS. Or, you are trying to make as little noise as possible while your new born is FINALLY sleeping.

This is where Rev can help you or your audience consume your content on the go, in silence or in a language not native to the video.

Rev.com can help you translate your videos, transcribe your videos, add subtitles and even convert those subtitles into other languages – all from just $1.50 per minute.

A GREAT way to find an audience and keep them hooked no matter where they are watching your content.

4. PlaceIT can help you STAND OUT on YouTube

I SUCK at making anything flashy or arty.

I have every intention in the world to make something that looks cool but im about as artistic as a dropped ice-cream cone on the web windy day.

That is why I could not live on YouTube without someone like PlaceIT. They offer custom YouTube Banners, Avatars, YouTube Video Intros and YouTube End Screen Templates that are easy to edit with simple click, upload wizard to help you make amazing professional graphics in minutes.

Best of all, some of their templates are FREE! or you can pay a small fee if you want to go for their slightly more premium designs (pst – I always used the free ones).

5. StoryBlocks helps me add amazing video b-roll cutaways

I mainly make tutorials and talking head videos.

And in this modern world this can be a little boring if you don’t see something funky every once in a while.

I try with overlays, jump cuts and being funny but my secret weapon is b-roll overlay content.

I can talk about skydiving, food, money, kids, cats – ANYTHING I WANT – with a quick search on the StoryBlocks website I can find a great looking clip to overlay on my videos, keeping them entertained and watching for longer.

They have a wide library of videos, graphics, images and even a video maker tool and it wont break the bank with plans starting from as little as £8.25 ($9) per month.

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DEEP DIVE ARTICLE LISTS SOCIAL MEDIA YOUTUBE

What Programs do Virtual YouTubers Use?

What Programs do Virtual YouTubers Use? 7

Virtual YouTubing has been growing in popularity recently, with many new YouTubers opting to don a digital avatar to make their content rather than record their flesh-and-blood self. Naturally, an increase in popularity in something like this leads to… well, more popularity.

Still, while the reason for exponential levels of interest in virtual YouTubing may be obvious, the way that virtual YouTubing is done might not be. If you are scratching your head about how VTubers make their content, you’ve come to the right place. In this post, we’re going to take a look at the way these videos are made, and then we’ll highlight some of the most popular apps and programs that are used to do it. So, follow us down the rabbit hole!

What are VTubers? 2

What are VTubers?

Let’s start with the basics for anyone who’s landed on this post without knowing what a VTuber is. This is a topic that deserves an entire post of its own, so, we won’t dwell too long here.

VTubers are digital avatars that are animated by someone, with the videos being presented as though the digital persona is the one making the content. VTubers make more or less the same kinds of videos as their meat-counterparts—vlogs, reaction videos, etc.—with the significant exception that they are not constrained by mere physical reality.

They can look, however they want, they can do things like fly around the screen or spawn items out of thin air, and be in whatever setting they wish without having to go travelling.

There are many reasons someone might choose to be a VTuber, such as wanting to keep their real identity private, being camera shy, or just wanting to express themselves as something completely different to their everyday self.

What are VTubers? 1

How Does VTubing Work?

A common misconception by people who first discover virtual YouTube is that the videos are made similarly to the way that, say, a Pixar movie is made—with someone painstakingly animating each frame of the digital avatar to match up with the audio track and any other events that are happening in the clip. This is not the case. At least, not for the vast majority of VTubers out there.

Instead, the software is employed to capture the YouTuber’s movements through a webcam—or, in some cases, a virtual reality headset and controllers—and translate those movements onto the digital avatar.

In this way, the YouTuber is able to film a video relatively naturally, with them doing their part in front of a camera in much the same way a regular video would be filmed, while the software takes care of all the hard work of making the digital avatar copy the YouTuber.

If you have ever used one of those filters on apps like Snapchat that put a silly hat on your digital head or apply digital makeup to your digital face, this is more or less the same kind of technology.

It is possible that there are YouTuber’s out there animating digital avatars by hand. As good as the motion-tracking software that VTubers use is, it is still not perfect, and an experienced animator would undoubtedly get better results doing the whole thing by hand. Unfortunately, even an experienced animator would require a big ol’ chunk of time to do this, which is not practical for YouTube videos, especially when most of them work to upload schedules that include multiple videos per week. The motion-capture programs may not be perfect, but they are usually good enough.

Now, about those programs…

What Program do Virtual YouTubers Use?

When it comes to software for making virtual YouTube videos, there is a surprisingly large selection to choose from. Granted, not everything on this list was necessarily intended for this purpose, but that hasn’t stopped people from using them.

Many of my clients recommend Animaker to make VTuber videos – its easy to install, easy to learn and doesn’t require too much technical knowhow to master.

What Programs do Virtual YouTubers Use? 1

Live2D

Live2D can be a little confusing at first as you might see it pop up in several places. Though there are dedicated applications—such as Live2D Cubism—it can help to think of Live2D as a plugin rather than a standalone application.

This is a way of animating digital avatars using layers of 2D artwork. For example, the eyes would be on a separate layer to the head, and by moving the eyes slightly, the technique gives the impression that the head has turned a little. In doing so, Live2D can create an impression of three-dimensional art without actually requiring a 3D model.

Live2D itself does not include a way to track real movements, such as through a webcam. For that, you will need additional software, or you could use an application that provides motion tracking functionality while incorporating Live2D, such as…

What Programs do Virtual YouTubers Use? 2

FaceRig

If Live2D is the technology that enables the virtual YouTuber scene, FaceRig is one of the applications that utilise that technology, though there is more to FaceRig than Live2D.

Using your webcam, this application tracks your head and facial movements and translates them to an onscreen digital avatar, which can be chosen from a wide selection of 3D and 2D characters. You can put your digital character in front of a selection of backgrounds, or just leave them over something plain or even green for future greenscreen effects. You can also process your voice so that the recorded video comes out with a voice to match your digital avatar.

FaceRig is limited in the sense that you can only control facial expressions and some limited head and upper body movement. That being said, the results are stunning, with some incredibly realistic visuals being possible through the app. There is also a budding community around the software, with many new digital avatars being created and shared.

FaceRig is available for a relatively modest sum—around $15 or £13—though there is a pro version that you will need to upgrade to if you make more than $500 per month from the content you make with the app.

What Programs do Virtual YouTubers Use? 3

VTube Studio

Like FaceRig, VTube Studio is an application that provides head tracking functionality and makes use of Live2D technology. This application only provides the 2D style of digital avatar animation, but where it shines is its multi-platform nature.

VTube Studio is available on Android and iOS as well as Windows and macOS, adding an air of convenience to it. How practical it would be to make full-fat YouTube videos using the mobile app we couldn’t say, but many YouTubers make the occasional video or piece of content using their phone, and with VTube Studio, VTubers can do the same.

The app is free, though there is a watermark on any video produced by the free app. You would have to purchase the pro version to remove that watermark.

What Programs do Virtual YouTubers Use? 4

Wakaru

Wakaru is essentially the same as VTube Studio in terms of features, though it has a different pedigree. Wakaru emerged out of the Japanese culture that brought about virtual YouTubing in the first place, and as such, has a special place in many VTuber’s hearts.

You can animate your 2D digital avatar using a webcam and via several in-app controls that will allow you to make your avatar do things like blink. There is no mobile app, though you can use your phone as a camera with the use of third-party apps that essentially turn your phone into a webcam.

Wakaru is free, though it should be noted that many users feel like the software has been abandoned at this point. That is not to say it is not useful, but don’t expect any cool new features to be added to it.

What Programs do Virtual YouTubers Use? 5

VTuber Maker

The name, VTuber Maker, is a little misleading (and has led to a number of negative reviews as a result). It does not allow you to “make” VTubers—indeed, you have to pay to be able to import your own digital character—but it does allow you to animate digital avatars using your webcam, and it is free (importing avatars aside).

You can switch backgrounds, perform several predefined gestures, and the app even comes with a widget that creates a draggable version of your avatar that you can drop in the corner of the screen on top of whatever you are doing. Perfect for gaming streams.

What Programs do Virtual YouTubers Use? 6

VRoid Studio

Unlike the above VTuber Maker, VRoid Studio does enable you to make your VTuber avatars. It is heavily geared towards the Japanese anime styles of avatar that dominate the VTuber space, but it has an incredibly easy to use interface that makes creating a professional-looking avatar attainable for even the most un-artistic of us out there.

It should be emphasised that this app is just for making the avatar, not animating it, and certainly not animating it with motion-capture technology. Currently, it is in beta and free to download, though we are not sure if it will remain free when it comes out of beta.

What Programs do Virtual YouTubers Use? 8

VKatsu

VKatsu is a solid offering in the realm of animating digital avatars. It lets you create your avatar, choose from several predefined avatars, set the background, and more.

Now for the downsides. It is designed to work with VR headsets for motion-tracking, meaning you will need to own an expensive VR system to animate with your body. Also, it is Japanese-language only, which is fine if you’re Japanese, but most people who read this blog are not. And finally, it is in Early Access, which in and of itself is not a bad thing, but if you check the FAQ about the game, it states that they hope to come out of Early Access in… 2018.

Still, it is free and very capable. If you have a compatible VR headset and speak Japanese (or don’t mind fiddling around with the controls to work out what they mean), this could be a useful application for you.

What Programs do Virtual YouTubers Use? 9

VRChat

As the name suggests, VRChat is a virtual reality chat application, allowing users to assume the digital appearance of an avatar of their choosing and interact with other users in a virtual world.

The useful part here is that it features full lip-sync and eye-tracking functionality, as well as a range of motion-tracking. You can also use a range of gestures. VRChat isn’t designed for VTubers as such, but it can certainly be used that way.

What Programs do Virtual YouTubers Use? 10

Unity

Our last mention is a little unconventional. Unity is a popular free game engine that is used to make video games. Which is to say that it is geared towards video games—it is a very versatile platform that can be used for a wide range of things. The idea behind it is that you can develop your game or application taking advantage of Unity’s built-in capabilities, rather than having to re-invent the wheel, so to speak, be writing your own graphical rendering code. It is not something that the average computer user can just pick up and run with, but if you have any experience coding in C# or Javascript, or you have tried your hand at game development before, there are libraries available to handle things like lip-syncing and head tracking.

This is a niche option, but for those who can make use of it, you will have far more control over your digital avatar than any of the options above, since you will be able to add literally any feature you are capable of coding. It will also allow you to custom-tailor the features you have to suit your needs, rather than making do with the way someone else’s app works.

Unity’s free version is fully-featured, but the licensing states that you must purchase a license if you make over a certain amount of money per year from your projects made in Unity.

Final Thoughts

As you can see, there are several options when it comes to picking out software and apps to help you bring your VTube dream to life. You may notice that most of the options on this list are either free or have a free version, so don’t be afraid to try them all out and find the one that works best for you.

Remember to check any licensing information regarding the software you choose, as the “pro” model—where you can use the app for free as long as you are not making more than a predetermined amount of money from your use of the app—is becoming increasingly popular.

Top 5 Tools To Get You Started on YouTube

Very quickly before you go here are 5 amazing tools I have used every day to grow my YouTube channel from 0 to 30K subscribers in the last 12 months that I could not live without.

1. VidIQ helps boost my views and get found in search

I almost exclusively switched to VidIQ from a rival in 2020.

Within 12 months I tripled the size of my channel and very quickly learnt the power of thumbnails, click through rate and proper search optimization. Best of all, they are FREE!

2. Adobe Creative Suite helps me craft amazing looking thumbnails and eye-catching videos

I have been making youtube videos on and off since 2013.

When I first started I threw things together in Window Movie Maker, cringed at how it looked but thought “that’s the best I can do so it’ll have to do”.

Big mistake!

I soon realized the move time you put into your editing and the more engaging your thumbnails are the more views you will get and the more people will trust you enough to subscribe.

That is why I took the plunge and invested in my editing and design process with Adobe Creative Suite. They offer a WIDE range of tools to help make amazing videos, simple to use tools for overlays, graphics, one click tools to fix your audio and the very powerful Photoshop graphics program to make eye-catching thumbnails.

Best of all you can get a free trial for 30 days on their website, a discount if you are a student and if you are a regular human being it starts from as little as £9 per month if you want to commit to a plan.

3. Rev.com helps people read my videos

You can’t always listen to a video.

Maybe you’re on a bus, a train or sat in a living room with a 5 year old singing baby shark on loop… for HOURS. Or, you are trying to make as little noise as possible while your new born is FINALLY sleeping.

This is where Rev can help you or your audience consume your content on the go, in silence or in a language not native to the video.

Rev.com can help you translate your videos, transcribe your videos, add subtitles and even convert those subtitles into other languages – all from just $1.50 per minute.

A GREAT way to find an audience and keep them hooked no matter where they are watching your content.

4. Learn new skills for FREE with Skillshare

I SUCK reading books to learn, but I LOVE online video courses.

Every month I learn something new. Editing, writing, video skills, how to cook, how to run a business – even how to meditate to calm a busy mind.

I find all of these for FREE with Skillshare – Sign up, pick all the courses you want and cancel anytime you need.

5. Shutterstock helps me add amazing video b-roll cutaways

I mainly make tutorials and talking head videos.

And in this modern world this can be a little boring if you don’t see something funky every once in a while.

I try with overlays, jump cuts and being funny but my secret weapon is b-roll overlay content.

I can talk about skydiving, food, money, kids, cats – ANYTHING I WANT – with a quick search on the Shutterstock website I can find a great looking clip to overlay on my videos, keeping them entertained and watching for longer.

They have a wide library of videos, graphics, images and even a video maker tool and it wont break the bank with plans starting from as little as £8.25 ($9) per month.

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DEEP DIVE ARTICLE MARKETING SOCIAL MEDIA YOUTUBE

What are VTubers?

What are VTubers? 2

There have been several YouTube trends over the years, most following the same basic pattern of exploding onto the scene, being everywhere for a hot minute, and settling down into another corner of the platform. We’ve seen it with everything from Let’s Play YouTubers to Reaction YouTubers, and now we’re seeing it with VTubers, but what are VTubers?

A VTuber—or Virtual YouTuber—is a YouTuber that uses a digital avatar as their main onscreen persona, often using motion tracking software to directly translate their movements onto their digital avatar. This allows the VTuber to film themselves naturally as any regular YouTuber would, while still using the digital persona they have created.

Of course, we’re going to take a much closer look at this YouTube niche, as well as considering the reasons you might want to become a VTuber yourself – including a great way to make videos without showing your face.

What are VTubers?

A Brief History of VTubers

Originating in Japan, VTubers tend to present themselves as anime girls, using the likenesses of popular online artist’s work.

The earliest instance of what would become virtual YouTubing came from visual novel makers, Nitroplus, who started uploading videos that featured an animated 3D version of their mascot. This mascot would essentially make vlog videos about her life while also throwing in mandatory information about the companies upcoming releases and other news. It was a marketing ploy, after all.

However, VTubers were not a thing way back in 2010 when Nitroplus started making these videos, and the official first VTuber is widely considered to be Kizuna AI, who first appeared on the scene in 2016 and was the first to refer to herself as a virtual YouTuber. The main difference between Kizuna AI and the various similar channels that had come before her was that Kizuna AI was operated more like a typical YouTube channel in the content of the video and the fact that she responded to fans. It would take less than a year for her to reach two million subscribers.

The popularity of Kizuna could be put down to the fact that YouTube was wall-to-wall vloggers in front of webcams at the time, but whatever the reason, the immense popularity of the channel naturally led to a lot of similar channels popping up, and thus the VTuber trend began.

These days there are thousands of VTubers, and seven of the ten biggest Super Chat earners were VTubers. Clearly, there is a big market for this kind of video.

Is this sounds a little too weird for you but you still want to make videos on YouTube without showing your face, here are 12 YouTube Channel Ideas without showing your face without needing to be a cute, creepy anime animation.

What are VTubers? 1

How Are VTuber Videos Made?

As touched on above, VTubers do not manually animate their virtual avatars in the way that a company like Pixar might for their movies. That kind of thing had been done on YouTube before VTubers came along, but it is a lengthy process that requires a lot of skill and patience and is really not practical for something like a YouTube video, especially if the video is quite vlog-like in nature and intended to be uploaded on a similar schedule to those vlogs.

The majority of VTubers use motion capture applications like Live 2D, or FaceRig. These applications monitor the subject through their webcam, tracking facial and body movements and manipulating the digital avatar so that it, in turn, copies the movements. In this way, the VTuber can record their video naturally as though they were recording a regular on-camera video and use the footage outputted by the application for their video.

Why Anime?

Even a brief look into the world of VTubers will reveal that it appears to be almost entirely anime characters—a style of animation that originated in Japan. There may be some complicated social or psychological reason for this, but we’re not aware of any studies. Our best guess is that it is a kind of snowball effect—the first VTubers were anime characters, so it appealed to people who liked anime more.

That being said, the definition of a VTuber—if something like this can be said to have a definition—does not necessarily restrict the video content to Japanese anime characters. For example, AI Angel is a VTuber whose digital persona is that of a caucasian woman. AI Angel makes a range of types of videos from the perspective of being a real AI interacting with people on the Internet and trying “human” things, and has, at the time of writing this post, amassed over seven hundred thousand subscribers.

Granted, AI Angel is something of an outlier in the VTuber community, with the vast majority being firmly in the anime camp. But she does help to illustrate the fact that VTubers are not limited to anime if they don’t want to be.

What Kinds of Content do VTubers Make?

The type of content made by VTubers, unlike the visual style of the videos, is relatively open. For the most part, VTubers make videos in the style of whatever is popular—just like regular YouTubers. They do vlogs, reaction videos, gaming videos, etc.

There is, of course, a considerably lean towards the kinds of content that Japanese people are interested in, but that is only a byproduct of the space being predominantly made by and for Japanese people. As AI Angel has proved, you don’t need to limit yourself to that particular box.

Auto Draft 50

Is Being a VTuber Expensive?

When the prospect of specialist software is floating around, the question of cost is never far behind it. In terms of the software itself, the news isn’t too bad. You can find very inexpensive—even free in some cases—applications that will let you animate virtual avatars using your phone or computer. Of course, the more features and quality you want to incorporate into your videos, the more you will find yourself needing one of the more expensive apps. Still, even FaceRig is only around £13, with that price going up to £50 if you make over a certain amount of money per month from the use of FaceRig.

Where the real expense may come from, however, is the required hardware.

Video production is already an intensive thing as far as the required computer power goes, and it is even more demanding if you stream. Adding a layer of realtime motion capture and digital animation can put a real strain on your computer if it was only just keeping up before. This will especially be the case for people who are making gaming videos.

You may find that your recording computer needs upgrading or even replacing. Or you might find switching to a dual computer setup is necessary. This is where one computer handles the streaming and recording side of things, leaving your main computer free to do whatever it is you are doing.

Another area that might cost you is your recording setup. Motion capture software is improving all the time, and the degree to which software can track and replicate your three-dimensional movements from nothing but a flat video is, quite frankly, astounding. That being said, the motion capture software is only as good as the video it is capturing from.

If you have a cheap webcam or poor lighting in your recording space, you will probably find that the avatar animation software you are using struggles to accurately track your movements, and certainly your facial expressions.

It is somewhat ironic that to make videos where you are never onscreen; you may well need a more sophisticated and expensive recording setup to capture your image more accurately than you would need if you were just pointing a camera at yourself and talking to your audience.

How to Make Money on YouTube Without Showing Your Face

Is Being a VTuber the Right Choice for Me?

The first thing you should ask yourself is why you are considering it at all. Making YouTube videos just for the sake of making them will usually end up in failure. The good news is that the scope for what constitutes a good reason to make a YouTube channel is quite broad. You might just like playing with technology like the motion capture software VTubers use, and a YouTube channel could be an outlet for that passion. You could even have very little interest in making videos but like doing something that there is an audience for regardless. For example, there are many successful channels that play video games without any commentary or additional flavour, and people just tune in to watch them play.

Once you have decided what your channel is going to be about, the next step is deciding if the VTuber route is right for you. There are a few reasons you might want to throw on a digital avatar;

  • You are camera shy and don’t feel like you can get over it any time soon
  • You want or need to keep your real identity private
  • You want to express yourself in ways you wouldn’t feel comfortable doing as yourself.
  • You just think it’s cool

As the last point hopefully illustrated, there really is no limitation to why you might choose this method of making videos. Sure, if any of the above reasons apply to you, then you have additional reasons for taking the VTuber route, but, at the end of the day, you don’t need a good reason. It’s an artistic choice. It is far more important you have a good reason for making videos in the first place.

Copyrights and Trademarks

It probably doesn’t need saying, but in the interests of being thorough, we’re going to say it anyway. Trademarked and copyrighted characters and art should be avoided. It will only get your video struck by YouTube in the long run—especially if your videos become popular. This includes artwork by relatively unknown artists online. No matter how obscure the art, if it is not Creative Commons or Public Domain, and you have permission from the artist, you should steer clear.

Remember, the relationship between your digital persona and your audience is very similar—if not perhaps identical—to the relationship they would have with a regular flesh-and-bone YouTuber. If you have to change your digital avatar because of a copyright dispute, it will have a similar effect to how it would go down if a regular YouTuber just gave their channel to someone else and that person started making videos. People become attached to their favourite entertainers, even when those entertainers are digital.

If it is a somewhat unknown artist’s work, you want to use, ask for their permission, and be sure to keep a copy of their email in your inbox. If a large company owns the likeness you want to use, you may as well accept that it is not going to happen. You could still try, just don’t expect a favourable reply—if any.

What is YouTube CPM?

Is This a Passing Fad?

Keeping in mind that this is a guess based on the way things usually go down on YouTube; yes and no. Yes, it is almost certainly a trend that will die down a bit once it has peaked, but unlike a fad, it probably won’t go away once its time in the spotlight has passed. YouTube trends, as we mentioned above, tend to explode onto the scene, dominate everyone’s recommendations for a time, and then settle down into being another sub-community on the platform.

It is unclear how big this trend can get—perhaps it has already reached its peak—but it is worth noting that there is nothing inherently Japanese about the concept of a VTuber, and yet the majority of VTubers are Japanese. Now, this could speak to some sociological reason that western audiences aren’t interested in VTubers, but it would seem more likely that this disparity is because the western audience hasn’t caught on yet, which would, in turn, suggest that VTubing would be in for another big surge when they do.

Given that this is an English-language blog companion for an English-language YouTube channel, we’re going to assume that the majority of the readers are western. So, has this post inspired you to go out and start a VTube channel? Perhaps you could be in the vanguard of western VTubers, cementing yourself as one of the leading channels in the English-speaking VTube space.

Or perhaps you think it’s all a bit silly. Why not let us know in the comments?

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DEEP DIVE ARTICLE HOW TO MAKE MONEY ONLINE YOUTUBE

What is YouTube CPM?

What is YouTube CPM?

If you are new to the wide, wonderful and, let’s be honest, a little complex world of online marketing, you may have been scratching your head at the barrage of acronyms and unfamiliar terms being thrown your way. Fortunately, things aren’t nearly as scary as they can first look.

As you begin your YouTube career and start looking into the possibilities of earning money through the platform, you will no doubt hear the term CPM a lot.

It should be noted that there are many important factors to succeeding financially on YouTube, but CPM is the closest thing you’ll get to a single metric of success since it is possible to have millions of subscribers and still barely make any money because your CPM is poor.

Similarly, someone can make enough money to pay the bills on as little as tens of thousands of subscribers because their CPM is excellent. The new metric RPM may tell you exactly how much you will make but it doesn’t tell you the whole story like CPM.

But what is CPM? And how does it work?

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What is CPM?

CPM is an acronym for “Cost Per Mille”, with mille being the Latin word for “thousand”. In simple terms, it is a unit for measuring how much money a thousand views are worth. As an example, a YouTube video with an average CPM of $2 and a total of 10,000 views would earn its creator $20.

You might be understandably underwhelmed by this figure, but $2 is a relatively common average for online CPM. This is also why many YouTubers look to other means of monetising their content.

One common misunderstanding about CPM is the belief that it is a set unit in the way you might think of currency. The CPM of a video is not something that is determined in advance, but rather something that is calculated after the fact based on how the video performed (or is performing).

What Determines the Value of CPM?

So, with that in mind, what are the factors that go into calculating the CPM of a video? At its most basic level, there are only two significant factors; the value of your video to advertisers, and the engagement factor of your audience.

The first of those factors—the value of your video to advertisers—is largely determined by how lucrative your niche is. Advertisers want to put their ads in front of people who are likely to be interested, so they’re not going to pay to put their ad for solar powered garden lights on your video about vintage cars. Sure, there might be some people who are interested, but the advertiser can’t be sure of that, whereas a video about garden landscaping is a much safer bet.

The more competitive your niche, the more your video is worth to advertisers since the very demand for advertising space in that niche drives the value of the ad up. It is essentially a bidding war, with the advertisers who are willing to pay the most being the ones that get their ads on the video. For niche’s with not much competition, the advertisers can get that space for considerably less, which means less money for the creator.

The other factor—the engagement of your viewers—is probably one of the most underappreciated aspects of monetising YouTube content. It is not enough to simply get a lot of eyeballs on your videos; those eyeballs have to engage with the advertising for you to make money. That is how some YouTubers can be financially successful with a relatively small subscriber-base while other YouTubers with enormous followings barely get by.

Other Factors

Those may be the two most significant factors contributing to how large your CPM is, but there are other things to take into consideration that are also important, such as watch time.

There is a limit to how many advertisements you can cram into a finite space of time, and YouTube is well aware of this limitation. You can bet that the calculations regarding getting the largest amount of ads possible into a video while putting off the least possible viewers is constantly being revised.

Still, regardless of how much time there is between ads, we can take one general rule as a given—the longer someone is watching, the more ads they are likely to see.

YouTube presently has a ten-minute floor on mid-roll ads, meaning your videos need to be at least ten minutes long to have ads sprinkled through the content, rather than just at the start and end of it. This means that, if you can do it without reducing the quality of your content, striving for videos that are at least ten-minutes long is a good way to increase your CPM. But again, remember, having the ads there only benefits you if viewers are watching the ads.

If you needlessly extend your content without adding anything of value, it is highly likely that your viewers will switch off before ever seeing the extra ads you have gained.

It is also worth noting that having longer videos might be better for your CPM on individual videos but not necessarily the best option for your channel as a whole. It may be that your content is better suited to being broken up into smaller chunks, rather than lumped into one almighty video. If this is the case for you, don’t be afraid to do so. Having four ads in a ten-minute video will likely lead to a lower CPM compared to twelve ads in an hour-long video, but all of your content will still get watched, and you may find that you get more views overall when it is delivered in more digestible shorter videos.

The next factor to consider is the content itself. Despite YouTube’s sometimes carpet-bomb approach to categorising content as monetisable, there is still nuance to the system, and advertisers can choose to opt-out of certain types of content. If your content leans into the controversial—such as political or religious—you may find your CPM being much lower—even non-existent—due to advertisers shying away from marketing their brand around those topics.

And, as we have established, the fewer advertisers there are fighting for spots on your content, the less your content is worth.

Do you get paid for YouTube? 1

How to Boost Your CPM

The most obvious way to boost your CPM on YouTube is to take heed of the things we mentioned above. Try to make your videos at least ten-minutes in length without sacrificing the quality of your content! Overall, you want to be aiming for more watch time across the entirety of your videos, and you can’t achieve that by just making them longer without maintaining the quality of the videos.

I you want a deep dive guide into how I boosted my YouTube CPM by 500% in 3 months I have a blog where I step you through my strategy.

Also, try to drill down into your niche as much as possible. The more your content is directed towards a specific market, the more valuable it will be to advertisers in that market. Again, we are talking minor tweaks to your existing content. If you have to change your channel significantly to achieve this, you should put serious thought into whether the pay off is worth the effort.

There are other ways to boost your effective CPM, however. We have been focusing on the YouTube Partner Programme and the money you can earn through YouTube directly. This is typically what people mean when they talk about YouTube CPM, but, if you adopt a looser definition of what makes up your CPM, you can employ other means to get that number up.

For example, if you strike a sponsorship or brand deal, the money earned from those deals can be directly divided by the views you got on the associated videos and added to your CPM total. Another example of how you can boost your CPM from outside of YouTube is through affiliate programs—where you can do it organically, of course. Affiliate programs allow you to leverage related products and services, essentially earning a commission on sales generated through your platform.

There are also options like subscription platforms such as Patreon, and any other way in which you earn revenue as a direct result of your channel’s success. Your effective CPM is the total revenue you make from your YouTube channel through all avenues divided by thousands of views those videos received during that time.

Does YouTube Take a Cut of my CPM?

Going back to the pure YouTube CPM, you might be wondering if YouTube takes a slice of that pie.

The answer is, of course, yes; YouTube has to make money somehow. YouTube’s share (45%, if you were wondering) is not factored in before your CPM figure is calculated.

So, if you were making a CPM of around $10 (which would be quite high, by the way), you would actually be receiving around $5.5 of that $10. This is obviously not an ideal metric, but if you want a more accurate snapshot of your channels earning, you’ll want to take a look at RPM.

What Viewer Behaviours Generate More Revenue?

Other than the differing values of ads in different niches, there are also different types of ads that YouTube display and the way your viewers interact (or don’t) with them will change how much you earn. For example, there are short unskippable ads that the viewer has no choice in watching if they want to watch the content. For these ads, you are paid per thousand views. For the longer skippable ads, the viewer will need to watch at least thirty seconds of the ad to count as an engagement.

There are also overlay ads, which are small banner ads that are displayed at the bottom of your video. These ads only earn you revenue when your viewers click them.

Finally, there are display ads which show up beside your video and can earn revenue per click or per thousand views depending on what the advertiser decides when they set their advertising campaign up.

It is very important to bear this in mind when thinking about your potential revenue because your audience’s interest in products and services that might be advertised on your channel will significantly affect your CPM. If you are making videos on a specific type of product and people are coming to your channel before making purchasing decisions, there is a much higher chance they will be enticed by the ads displayed on your content.

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Niches Matter

Following on from that last point, if you are starting a YouTube channel with the primary goal of making money, you should put serious thought into the niche you go into. As a general rule, the more general and broad your audience is, the less valuable it is in terms of advertising revenue.

To expand on the above example, consider a channel that makes videos reviewing the latest phones. People who come to that channel are likely interested in buying the phones that are being reviewed, and so the advertisements displaying on your content will be more likely to offer products and services around those phones. This is an example of a good niche as far as CPM potential goes since the advertisers can be relatively confident that the audience they are advertising to will be interested in their products.

On the other end of the scale, consider a channel that makes funny videos and has a large and diverse audience. They are undoubtedly successful as a YouTuber, but there is no common theme across their audience from a consumer purchasing perspective. Everyone is there to see amusing videos, and there is no reason to believe they would be interested in a specific product or service just because they are watching this channel.

This is not to say that channels like this can’t be very financially successful, of course, but a channel with a clear niche will often pull off a considerably higher CPM than a channel with general appeal.

Final Thoughts

While a high CPM is probably the most accurate single metric of success on YouTube, it is important to remember that it is not the only metric, and you should not focus on CPM at the expense of all other aspects of your YouTube channel.

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DEEP DIVE ARTICLE HOW TO MAKE MONEY ONLINE TIPS & TRICKS YOUTUBE

Top 5 Ways to Monetise Your YouTube Channel in 2021

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“There are more ways than one to skin a cat.”

It’s a horrible old saying that dates to 1840, but there is another part to the saying that you don’t hear too often —

“so are there more ways than one of digging for money.”

This advice applies to YouTube monetisation too.

There are plenty of ways to make money from your YouTube channel apart from the obvious one of shared ad revenue from the YouTube Partner Program.

This post covers the latest rules for the YouTube Partner Program and offers a high-level overview of some alternative ways you can monetize a YouTube channel in 2021.

Here we go.

How Do I Make Money With the YouTube Partner Program?

The best way to approach making money on YouTube is to create a number of income streams. That way, if one bites the dust you still have others to fall back on.

But one method you should always aim to qualify for is the YouTube Partner Program itself. The YouTube Partner Program is where you earn a share of the advertising revenue YouTube makes from showing the short ads before, during, and at the end of videos.

There are five criteria to qualify, you must ―

  1. Have over 1000 channel subscribers.
  2. Have over 4000 hours of watch time in the last 12 months.
  3. Have registered for a Google AdSense account.
  4. Be in compliance with the content rules that YouTube sets.
  5. Be over 18 years of age (ideally).

Having 1000 channel subscribers is self-explanatory. It perhaps seems like a tough ask when you start, but once you begin to regularly put out good content, your sub-numbers can soon stack up.

4000 hours of watchtime relates to the videos that you’ve uploaded to your channel and had watched by others. Say you upload a 10-minute video and 100 people watch all of it, then you have 1000 minutes of watchtime. Don’t delete any of your videos when you start ― any video you remove also erases it’s watchtime from your account.

To register for a Google AdSense account you have to be at least 18 years old. Though if you are under 18 it may be technically possible to link the AdSense account of a parent to your YouTube channel.

Once you’ve met the criteria for the YouTube Partner Program, you still need to apply as It’s not something that happens automatically. Once you’ve applied you may need to wait as much as 30 days for a response as your account has to undergo a human review.

How much can you expect to earn?

According to Intuit, YouTubers, on average, earn $4 per 1000 video views. So to make $100 a day, you’d need to get around 25,000 video views a day.

YouTube doesn’t have to grant you monetisation, though, even if you meet all the criteria. It’s their platform and their rules. So if you do get rejected, or the YouTube Partner Program isn’t available in your country, there are still plenty of ways you can make money from the platform.

Let’s take a look at a few.

How Do I Make Money on YouTube With Endorsements?

Influencing is not a new thing. Businesses have paid prominent people money to promote their products for over a hundred years.

Once you’ve built up an audience for your channel in a niche that lends itself to promoting a product, you can register with an agency like Upfluence. Upfluence matches businesses with content creators to create influencing opportunities.

You don’t have to have a massive following to take advantage of influencing opportunities. But the amount you’re paid will depend on the size of your audience.

YouTube has launched an influencer hub too, called BrandConnect. Eligibility is restricted at the moment to creators located in the USA with over 25,000 channel subscribers.

It’s a fairly new venture for YouTube, so they may roll it out to new locations and relax entry conditions as time moves on.

Of course, you’re free to set up your own influencing opportunities by proactively approaching businesses yourself. Just make sure you have a large enough audience in a niche that plays well with your target company.

How much can you expect to earn?

Top earners can make thousands of dollars per video. But the cash you earn will depend on the size of your audience and the market niche you serve.

Starting with a small channel will likely mean that you only receive a free sample of the product you are endorsing, like a protein shake or an eyeliner for example.

How Do I Make Money on YouTube with Patreon?

You can make money with crowdfunding on YouTube, where you ask people to send you money directly. This is a method best left for those raising money for a good cause. And it could lead to a fraud claim if you aren’t transparent with what the requested money will be used for.

Much better, and a step away from crowdfunding, is using a service like Patreon.

Patreon allows you to create a page where you can distribute additional content not uploaded to your YouTube channel. You tap your fans for a small recurring monthly payment in exchange for access to exclusive content.

You can set several levels of subscription, and save you juiciest content for your top-level subscribers.

Patreon is like having your own pay-TV channel, and you have full control over the content and the schedule.

If you don’t want to commit to the extra workload that running a Patreon account brings on top of an already busy filming calendar for YouTube, consider using the Patreon pay per content model instead.

This lets you charge people to see bonus content as and when you make it.

How much can you expect to earn?

Patreon subscription prices charged by people are usually around the $4-$5 per month mark. This price is small enough for many people not to have to think too deeply about signing up.

And the recurring monthly payments are likely to continue, at least for a while, as many are too lazy to cancel them!

If you can get 1000 patrons paying you an average of $4 per month, then you have an income that most could live on.

Here’s an example from a small YouTuber with an associate Patreon account. Nate Maingard is a singer-songwriter with a little over 5K subscribers. Nate’s Patreon has three levels of subscription priced from around $5 up to about $100 for his biggest fans.

If you look at his Patreon page it says that he has 151 patrons, at the time of writing. You can’t see how that breaks down across the various levels, but he is making a minimum of $500 per month.

How Do I Make Money on YouTube with Merchandise?

You can sell products branded with your logo or channel identity and sell them on YouTube via a merch shelf.

YouTube says ‘The merch shelf allows eligible creators to showcase their official branded merchandise on YouTube. The shelf appears on the video page of eligible channels, but may not be shown on all video pages.’

To access the YouTube merch program, your channel needs 10,000 subscribers and not make content primarily aimed at kids. Your merch should also be visually appealing and desirable enough for your fans to want to buy it.

Some of the items that are best for branding and selling are everyday items that people are likely to make use of. Baseball caps, reusable water bottles, and mugs are all popular choices and cheap enough for an impulse buy.

Make sure that your designs are of good quality, so hire a designer from Fiverr or Upwork if need be.

You don’t need to buy and stock your merch products. You can sign up with a print-on-demand service that can sync with your YouTube merch shelf. When you get an order, it’s automatically sent to the print-on-demand provider who makes the product and ships it directly to the customer.

If you’re in the UK then Printful has a good service. For those elsewhere, YouTube has a page of recommended retailers.

How much can I expect to earn?

This is difficult to approximate. It all depends on your fans, the design, and how much you promote them in your videos. This Sellfy calculator tries to give you a rough idea. Sellfy reckons that 10,000 monthly video views could earn you between $340 and $1,740 from merch sales.

How Do I Make Money on YouTube with Affiliate Sales?

An excellent way to earn extra money from your YouTube channel is by seeking out affiliate sales.

This is where you act as a middle-man between a product seller and buyer. Basically, you are saying to your audience; ‘hey, I think [this product] is really good, you should go buy it’.

When someone buys a product that you recommended, and they followed a special link that identifies you as the referrer, then you earn a percentage commission on the deal.

The great thing about affiliate sales is that earnings are open-ended ― the sky’s the limit.

You can earn a few dollars when someone buys a cheap item on your recommendation. But you can earn hundreds of dollars per sale for more expensive things like premium training courses.

The easiest way to start making affiliate income on YouTube is by signing up with the Amazon Associate program.

You can pick a few products and highlight them in a video. Then, you link to the item using your affiliate link in the video details section underneath.

When a viewer follows the link and buys it you earn a commission. You also earn a commission if they buy something else too ―all sales are attributed to your referral link for that one shopping cart.

I include links to various products that I genuinely recommend in the video description for each one I upload.

How much can I expect to earn?

It’s impossible to say. How long is a piece of string? But you can easily make a living from affiliate sales only on YouTube, as long as you have enough video views.

Conclusion

Like the poor skinned cat I mentioned at the top of this post ― there are many ways to make money on YouTube.

But, your first focus should always be on growing your subscriber count and adding to your video stockpile. Like many things in life, there is a natural order to things on YouTube. One study from 2018 showed that 3% of YouTube channels had 90% of the total views.

To become a money-making powerhouse on YouTube, aim to be a 3-percenter. After that, you have as many ways as you want to earn money from YouTube in 2021 and beyond.

 

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Why Am I Losing Subscribers?

Why Am I Losing Subscribers?

It’s one of the worst things that can happen to you as a YouTuber, especially if you are a relatively small YouTuber who is still trying to make their mark on the platform. Gaining subscribers in the first place can feel like such an uphill battle, so losing them hits that much harder in the early days. Indeed, it is not uncommon for a new YouTubers to obsess over the loss of a single subscriber, even when their count is trending upwards overall.

As with most things, the first step to dealing with a problem is understanding that problem, so we’ve put together this post to help you identify why you might be losing subscribers and, in effect, how you might be able to put a stop to that loss.

So stop yelling “WHY AM I LOSING SUBSCRIBERS!” at the sky, and read on.

Cheaters Never Prosper

Before we get into the fixable causes of subscriber loss, it’s worth addressing the elephant in the room of any discussion about falling subscriber numbers—paid-for subs.

There are many reasons to steer clear of paying for subscribers, the main one being that they are rarely worth the money they cost in terms of views or revenue. But another big reason to avoid them is that the accounts you pay to subscribe to your channel are often fake, set up by bots specifically for the purpose of selling subscribers. If you just want to see the numbers jump in the YouTube Studio dashboard that might be fine for a while, but YouTube likes to purge their ranks from time to time.

If you have, for example, 23,000 subscribers and you paid for around 20,000 of them, the threat of YouTube implementing a way to detect those fake accounts and remove them from the platform will always be hanging over your account. And if you start to see a sudden, consistent drop in subscribers, there’s a very good chance that that is exactly what happened.

The moral of the story, quite simply, is don’t buy subscribers, views or any other YouTube metric. It is never worth the money it costs.

Reasons Why You Might be Losing Subscribers

While we could never promise a comprehensive list of all of the possible reasons you might be losing subscribers, there are a few common causes that tend to cover the vast majority of dwindling subscriber count situations.

Why Am I Losing Subscribers? 1

Infrequent Uploads

Many YouTubers who stop uploading don’t do so with a single final upload announcement and then silence. For a lot of channels, the end comes slowly, over time. The uploads begin to get farther and farther apart until, finally, the next upload just never comes.

Granted, most viewers don’t actively lookout for channels to unsubscribe to in their feed, which is how many completely dead channels can maintain huge followings long after they have uploaded their last video. But some viewers do look to trim the excess fat, and if they are that on top of their subscriptions, they will know the signs of a fading YouTuber.

If you have been finding yourself struggling to upload at regular intervals, and the time between uploads has been getting longer and longer, there is a good chance that that is to blame for your shrinking subscriber-base. Naturally, there are many reasons why you may find yourself in this situation, and not all of them are as simple to deal with as “putting more effort in”. If you simply can’t find the time to upload more regularly, you may have to ask yourself if YouTube is right for you—or at least if it is right for you at the moment.

If you want to continue, but you don’t have time, it may be better to announce that you are taking a break. Let your viewers know that you fully intend to come back, rather than fight a losing battle to find the time to upload. It’s worth noting that the more you struggle to get your videos up, the more likely it is that you will start to resent your channel, increasing the risk of you burning out and not wanting to do it anymore.

Stale Content

There is such a thing as too much of a good thing. No matter how popular your content is at any given time, even the most fiercely loyal subscribers will tire of it after enough time.

Now, this is not to say you should be looking to overhaul your channel entirely on a regular basis, but rather keep things fresh. Your channel should be in a constant state of evolution—not making drastic changes every so often but making continual small changes all the time. Keeping your content fresh can be as simple as switching the format up a little bit. If you are a YouTube gamer, it might be trying a game that is a little outside of your regular wheelhouse. If you are a vlogger, talk about things that you don’t usually talk about.

The thing you are trying to avoid is your subscribers developing the sense that they are not going to get anything new from your latest video, which is the route cause of a subscriber losing interest in a channel because of stale content.

Why Am I Losing Subscribers? 2

Out of Place Content

The flip side to the above section is making too much of a change to your channel in too short a time. It is possible to transition from one type of content or subject matter to another gradually, shedding subscribers who don’t like the new direction while picking up new subscribers as you go. As you will likely know if you have built up a following—which you presumably have if you are asking “why am I losing subscribers?”—gaining subscribers is a slow process. If you make abrupt and drastic changes to your channel, you will likely find a lot of subscribers jumping ship, but new subscribers will not be so quick to replace them.

Remember what it is that brought your subscribers to your channel in the first place, and try to respect that as much as possible. You shouldn’t be a slave to the type of content your core audience wants, but dismissing that core audience altogether is a quick route to fewer subscribers.

And, if you absolutely must change the direction of your channel, do it gradually. Many of your existing subscribers will stay through the transition if it is done gently, and may even find themselves liking content that they wouldn’t previously have watched. On the other hand, those same subscribers would leave if you made those changes all at once.

Controversy

An unfortunate side effect of the interconnected nature of the Internet and the opportunities it presents is an increase in tribalism and a lack of nuance. Before the Internet, it was necessary to get along with people, and so compromise was commonplace. These days it is so easy to find like-minded people that the need and desire to compromise has been lost, and this has led to what has been called “cancel culture”.

Now, we’re not talking about highly offensive behaviour here—if you get on your YouTube channel as a white person and yell the “N” word, you probably don’t need us to explain to you why your subscriber count might be dropping. But this same mentality is applied to far more frivolous opinions.

Having any kind of controversial opinion can lead to subscribers choosing to leave, and what your opinion is and who your audience is will determine what is controversial enough to affect your subscriber base. For example, if you are the gaming YouTuber we mentioned above and you state that PC gaming is better than console gaming, you may find a significant chunk of your audience jumping ship. On the other hand, if you are YouTubing your comedy show and you have the same opinion, your audience probably won’t be leaving in droves. Some of them might be offended, but generally speaking, your audience would be a comedy audience, not a gaming one.

If this might apply to you, the only thing you can do to stem the tide is to apologise, though it is worth considering what kind of YouTuber you want to be. For something as trivial as comments on which gaming platform is best, it is probably not a hill worth dying on. If it is an opinion on an important issue facing society, on the other hand, it is entirely possible that you would rather stand by your views at the expense of those subscribers. Only you can decide which end of this spectrum you are on.

Why Am I Losing Subscribers? 3

Over-Promotion

While most users understand that ads are how their favourite creators make money, most people also have a point where it becomes too much, and that can be a reason to leave for many. If you are putting pre-roll, mid-roll, and post-credit ads on your video, and then throwing in some brand deal promotion and affiliate links in the description, it might start to feel a bit soulless to your subscribers—especially if you go from little-or-no advertising to a full-bore advertisement cannon more or less overnight.

Finding a balance here is tricky, as every channel is different. But it is worth remembering that having more ads only increases your revenue if the number of people watching stays the same. If adding more advertisements to your videos is going to cause a significant portion of your subscribers to leave, it might work out better from a revenue standpoint to reduce the number of ads.

Unsubscribing is Relatively Uncommon

One thing many YouTubers fail to appreciate is how severe their infraction must have been for subscribers to be leaving in any significant numbers. As a general rule, people rarely unsubscribe from channels on YouTube, which is part of the reason why YouTube has such a torrid time handling its user’s notifications feed.

Regardless of what has caused your subscriber count to start dropping, you should not dismiss it, as it must have been significant to your channel if it is affecting your subs in this way.

Always Maintain a Sense of Perspective

We mentioned earlier how some YouTubers are more affected by the loss of subscribers than others, and this is something that should be carefully watched for in yourself.

There are many innocuous reasons why someone might unsubscribe from your channel. They might have subscribed by accident in the first place. They might have closed their account altogether. Ultimately, you can’t please everyone, and they might have just decided your channel isn’t for them after all. The occasional small drop in subscribers should not be considered cause for concern, especially if it is a statistically small number. A YouTuber with fifty subscribers will notice a single subscriber leaving, but a YouTuber with ten thousand subscribers should not be obsessing over one or two—or even dozens of people leaving.

It is crucial to remember that you will never be everyone’s cup of tea, so to speak, but as long as your average subscriber count is climbing, you should not be overly concerned with the few that have decided not to stick around.

The Best Defense is a Good Offense

Being aware of the potential causes of vanishing subscribers and taking a proactive approach to preventing this problem from happening in the first place is far more effective than trying to stem the tide once people have started leaving. Granted, that won’t be an option for many reading this—if you’ve searched for a post on why you’re losing subscribers, it’s a good bet that you’re already in this situation.

But for those who are not, if you can keep the things we have mentioned in this post in your mind when running your channel, you will be much better placed to retain your audience.

Why Am I Losing Subscribers? 4

Final Thoughts

There is a delicate balance to strike between keeping your audience happy and making the content you want to make.

The most successful YouTubers have an audience whose interests align with their own, and you should strive for that also. If your audience wants to see what you want to make, you don’t have to worry about putting out something they don’t want to see.

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Do YouTubers Have Other Jobs?

Do YouTubers Have Other Jobs?

YouTube has grown to the point that being a YouTuber is now a legitimate career path that one could aspire to, rather than an obscure Internet hobby, or something that only a select few lucky souls could ever succeed at.

Unlike a traditional job, however, there is no corporate ladder to climb when you become a YouTuber, no starting salary. That means that anyone starting out on the path of becoming a professional YouTuber has to lay their groundwork for success without the financial help that that eventual success might bring.

Not earning any money from your channel, in the beginning, isn’t always a problem. Many YouTubers start young, for example, when they are still living at home with their parents and have no bills to worry about. But YouTubers who have more financial responsibility when they get started, on the other hand, will need to cover those responsibilities somehow, and that means finding money elsewhere until YouTube can take over.

In this post, we’re going to be asking the question “do YouTubers have other jobs,” as well as covering a range of related topics.

Do YouTubers Have Other Jobs

Naturally, every YouTuber’s story is different. Some people come to YouTube after an incredibly successful career doing something else and do not need to worry about money in the immediate future. Some are not yet financially independent, like those YouTubers who start while they are still living with their parents that we mentioned above. Some might even take the risk of relying on their savings to tide them over until YouTube takes off.

Side note: YouTube is not the most predictable or reliable source of income, and we would strongly advise against relying on your savings to pay the bills in the hope that your YouTube channel will achieve success before you run out of money.

For some, there may even be an incredibly understanding and supportive partner who is willing to carry those financial burdens for a while while you get your channel up and running.

For many, however, the reality is that they will have to find a way to cover their bills themselves, and YouTube simply cannot do that in the beginning. Unless you come in with a huge following from somewhere else that can be translated to brand deals and sponsored content, you will probably be looking at at least a year before you could even consider quitting your day job. For many YouTubers, it is more like multiple years.

So, yes, YouTubers certainly do have other jobs a lot of the time, but things are not as clear cut as you might expect. Let’s explore a little further.

What Do We Mean by “Other Jobs”?

The lines between occupations have blurred considerably over the past couple of decades. In days gone by, it would often be the case that any given person could answer the question “what do you do for a living” clearly and unambiguously. For some who were particularly ambitious or who needed extra income, they may have a second job that would make the answer to that question a little more complicated, but these days it is becoming increasingly common for people to earn their living through a mish-mash of different ventures.

For example, if a YouTuber makes half of their income directly through their YouTube videos—the YouTube Partner Programme, sponsored content, brand deals, etc.—and the other half of their income from streaming on Twitch, would you consider them a streamer who YouTubes, or a YouTuber who streams? These days a person like that would refer to themselves as a “content creator,” but that kind of removes YouTube from the equation.

When we talk about YouTubers having “other jobs,” we typically mean more conventional jobs. A YouTuber might have a regular nine-to-five office job and make YouTube videos on an evening, or before work in the morning. In this respect, many YouTubers certainly do have other jobs.

So, the next question on your lips probably regards what is involved in going from a YouTuber who has other jobs to a YouTuber who doesn’t need other jobs to pay the bills.

How Do YouTubers Receive Their Money? 3

When Does YouTube Start Paying the Bills?

This is where things start to get a little messy. Unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all answer to the question of how much success you need on YouTube to start earning enough money to live off of. Let’s tackle these different aspects individually.

The Value of Your Audience

For this section, we are referring specifically to money earned through the YouTube Partner Programme. We will get to things like brand deals in the next section. Not every video is worth the same in terms of monetary value, and because of this, you can’t be sure that a million views on your channel will earn the same as a million views on another channel.

The driving force between these differences is the value of your content to advertisers. The more advertisers are willing to pay to target their ads at your content; the more your videos will be worth.

Now, we emphasise “worth” because what your videos are worth and what they earn are two different things. The value of the ads being shown determines what your videos are worth, but the amount of engagement of your audience with those ads is what determines what you actually earn. You could make videos in the most expensive niche on YouTube, but if none of your viewers engages with those ads, your earnings will be severely limited. Similarly, if you could have one of the highest engagement rates on YouTube, but if your niche is saturated, you may that engagement won’t be worth much.

Now, you shouldn’t use this information as a reason to make significant changes to your content. Most YouTuber’s are guilty of at least the occasional video that is “for the views,” but you should not build an entire channel concept around what has the most earning potential.

Do YouTubers Still Get Paid for Old Videos? 1

Additional Earning Power

If you ask any successful YouTuber about earning through the platform, they will likely tell you that relying on the YouTube Partner Programme alone is a bad idea. Earnings from advertisements in this manner can be volatile, unreliable, and subject to the many different whims. Beyond that, YouTube themselves frequently make significant changes to their monetisation policies that have a tendency to drastically cut down the earning potential of many YouTubers, if not remove it entirely.

For this reason, many YouTubers rely on other means to monetise their channel. This includes brand deals and sponsored content, as well as things like affiliate programs. In the grand scheme of things, these methods are no more reliable than the YouTube Partner Programme, but they can offer a little job security in the short terms. For example, a brand deal might pay you an amount equivalent to what you would earn from the YouTube Partner Programme over the same period as the brand deal, but the Partner Programme can fluctuate and is generally inconsistent, whereas a brand deal is guaranteed income for the period it covers.

YouTube as a Promotional Tool

Many creators and entertainers have found YouTube to be an excellent platform for driving audiences to what they would consider their main work. There are many situations where this might be the case, but comedians are one of the most readily available examples of this. In this case, comedians make YouTube videos—often filmed podcasts or sketches—that may make a respectable income in their own right, but whose main purpose is to bring attention to the comedian in the hope that more people will go their shows and buy their comedy specials.

In these cases, the YouTuber has an “other job” in a very practical sense, though they will typically not be looking to make YouTube their primary source of income since their other job is what they want to do.

Advice for “Going Pro” on YouTube

This wouldn’t be much of a YouTube blog if we didn’t give you a little advice on taking your channel from that thing you do in your spare time to your main career, so let’s delve into that topic a little.

The first thing we will always say when talking about moving towards a career as a professional YouTuber is do not go all in too soon. We understand how exciting it can be the first time your YouTube earnings reach a point where you could realistically pay your way using that money, but it is important to remember that YouTube earnings can be volatile for the reasons we mentioned above.

In an ideal world, you would wait at least a year after hitting that remarkable milestone to ensure that your YouTube earnings are going to be consistent enough to rely on as your primary source of income. And, in advice that is more generally applicable outside of YouTube, it would be prudent to ensure that you have a backup plan, often in the form of savings that could cover your living expenses during times that your YouTube earnings aren’t quite enough.

This can also serve as a buffer in the event that you realise YouTube isn’t working out, giving you time to work out what your next move will be.

Advice for Building Your YouTube Channel While Employed

Whether you are working part-time or full-time, living alone or supporting a family, getting a YouTube channel off of the ground around a job can be difficult. Still, there are some bits of advice that transcend your specific situation.

Firstly, if you are not concerned with making YouTube your job, if you are making videos purely for fun, don’t let it become a chore. The only reason there would be pressure to achieve a certain level of quality or meet a particular upload schedule is if you were intending to grow your channel and succeed in the long run. If that is not your goal, don’t push yourself too hard. Just enjoy it.

For the rest of us, there is a balance to strike. On the one hand, if you don’t enjoy your YouTube venture, there is a far higher chance you will burn out and lose interest before you ever achieve success. But, on the other hand, if you don’t treat it with at least a modicum of seriousness, there is a higher chance you won’t succeed. Try to treat your YouTube channel like a job but within reason. If you find yourself neglecting essential parts of your life—work, family, etc.—you will need to reevaluate things and decide what is really important to you. But for YouTube success, consistent quality and uploads matter, and you should find ways to achieve that if you want to succeed.

On the subject of finding ways to achieve those things, you will probably have to accept that there will be some late nights and early mornings in your future—especially if you have a job and a family. There are only so many hours in the day, and you will already have quite a few of those hours spoken for. If the idea of getting up an hour or two early to get some YouTube work in before you head off to your day job is a deal-breaker, you may have to take a long, hard look at yourself and ask if you really want this as much as you thought.

But, hey, the good news is that if you manage to succeed in making your YouTube channel financially viable while also working a regular job, you will suddenly have more free time than you know what to do with when you do finally quit that job to do YouTube full-time. You will also be considerably better-placed to appreciate your new role in life.

Final Thoughts

Many successful YouTubers have tales of toiling away in the unsociable hours of the morning to get their latest video done before the kids wake up.

For the younger members of society, being a YouTuber is something they can aspire to, but there are plenty of people out there—people in their mid-twenties and up, right through to senior citizens—who never had the option when they were growing up, and now that it is an option they are already in a job and have financial responsibilities. For those people, YouTube is no less attainable than for the youngsters.

You just might have to work a little harder to get there.

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DEEP DIVE ARTICLE HOW TO MAKE MONEY ONLINE SOCIAL MEDIA TIPS & TRICKS YOUTUBE

Can You Make Money on YouTube if You Are Under 18?

Can You Make Money on YouTube if You Are Under 18?

With YouTube becoming more and more of a legitimate career path, and with the barrier to entry being so low that anyone can get started from the comfort of their own home or even bedroom, it makes sense that many young people would be eyeing YouTube success before they have even left school.

At the same time, increasing concern over the safety of children online has led to ever more restrictive guidelines regarding what you can monetise on YouTube, which complicates the matter for children looking to make money on the platform.

The only real restriction on children making content on YouTube is the minimum age of thirteen. You have to be at least that age to have a YouTube channel. There are ways to work around this that we’ll touch on later in the post, but that is the only real hard limit, but it is a limit on creation, not on monetisation.

When it comes to earning money on your channel, the content you produce is more relevant than the person making it. You could be fifty years old, but if your content is designed for children, it will be subject to the additional restrictions that apply there.

Similarly, if you are fifteen years old but making content that is primarily watched by adults, you would not be subject to those restrictions.

This may all sound a bit vague, but don’t worry, all will be explained. So, can you make money on YouTube if you are under 18? Let’s find out.

Can You Make Money on YouTube if You Are Under 18? 1

Videos With Underage Audiences

Thanks to COPPA regulations, there are now considerably stricter limitations on the information that can be collected from underage watchers. While this in and of itself is not an issue regarding monetising your content, it has an indirect effect that is an issue.

The fact that YouTube is not allowed to collect as much data on their underage viewers is a significant deterrent for advertisers since one of the most compelling factors of online advertising is the ability to target your ads at increasingly narrow demographics.

If YouTube isn’t allowed to collect the information that will allow them to identify what kind of demographic is watching, advertisers can’t be sure their ads are being shown to the right kind of viewer.

It is not just videos that are marked as “for children” that fall afoul of monetisation denial, however. YouTube’s can determine if a video is primarily made for children—if for no other reason than the audience will be predominately children.

Even if you do not mark your content as intended for children—even if you do not intend for your videos to be watched by children—YouTube will mark it as such if the audience turns out to be mostly youngsters.

Making Videos As An Underaged YouTuber

There are two ways to consider the term “underage” when talking about YouTube. The first is in the legal sense of you not being able to make certain decisions for yourself due to your age. Some kinds of decisions have different age limits (drinking alcohol vs living on your own, for example) and all of them differ from region to region.

The good news is YouTube does not make much distinction here. If you are over the age of the thirteen, you are free to make content and earn money on the platform.

If you are under thirteen, however, you are not allowed to have a YouTube channel under YouTube’s terms of service. That is not necessarily the end of the road as far as your YouTube dreams go, and we’re not just talking about waiting until you are old enough. You’re just going to need a little help.

Officially speaking, your channel won’t be your own, but you can enlist the help of an adult (typically a parent) who will be in charge of the channel, while you make the content. This is perfectly allowed under the terms of service, and many very successful channels have risen to prominence in this manner, both before and after YouTube clamped down on videos by and for underage people.

Being Responsible

Now, it is important to note that we are not trying to give you advice on how to circumvent YouTube’s terms of service here. There can be debate over whether YouTube’s approach is the best way, but few people would disagree with the intent behind it. The Internet can be a dangerous place for children, in both an emotional and physical wellbeing sense.

We are not advocating you get your parents to sign up for a YouTube account and just hand you the login details and leave you to it. And if you’re a parent, we strongly advise against doing this. The adult who officially runs the account should be overseeing the content that goes on it, even if it is just to cast a watchful eye over the final edit before it goes live. They should be moderating any contact the child has with people online, and they should be ensuring the child does not get taken advantage of.

There are always exceptions to the rule, but, for the most part, children need protection, so while we are giving you advice on how to make money on YouTube if you are under 18, it shouldn’t be taken as an encouragement to break YouTube terms of service.

Can You Make Money on YouTube if You Are Under 18? 2

How to Earn Money With an Underage Audience

As we mentioned above, there are restrictions on videos with underage audiences that all but rule out the conventional route of monetising your YouTube content through the YouTube Partner Programme, but that does not mean that you cannot monetise your videos at all.

Here are some ways you can make money with your videos even when your audience puts your channel below YouTube’s threshold for an underage audience.

Patreon

Patreon (and similar platforms) may be something a long shot if your audience is primarily underage since underage viewers are less likely to have money of their own to give. But, sites like Patreon have their own restrictions for who can use it. Patreon, for instance, has a minimum age restriction of thirteen years old to sign up, and eighteen years old before you can sign up as a creator or support another creator. They also allow under eighteens to be a creator or support one with written permission from a parent or guardian.

This means that if you have an audience that is prepared to support you through Patreon, you don’t need to worry about their age because Patreon’s terms of service will have ensured they are old enough or have permissions to do so. And, if you are too young to become a creator on Patreon, assuming you are over thirteen, you can get written consent from a parent or guardian and get started!

Promote Other Ventures

YouTubers with a young audience often build their content on top of something that appeals to that audience, such as video games. If you are able to, there may be a way to translate that appeal into a monetisable thing.

To take one popular example, Roblox—a video game where anyone can create their own mini-games for others to play—is especially popular among young gamers. It also provides the ability for people who create content for it to earn money through in-game transactions. If you have built an audience around such a thing, you could promote the games you create and potentially earn money that way. Another example would be an arts and crafts channel which also promotes an Etsy store where your own arts and crafts can be purchased.

If you go down this route, it is important to remember that the thing you are promoting needs to be relevant to your audience. There is no sense in building a channel around Marvel comic book-related content and then trying to promote a SquareSpace affiliate code. Of course, this is true of any age of audience, but it is especially true of younger audiences.

Can You Make Money on YouTube if You Are Under 18? 3

Target Older Viewers

Not everyone can shift their content in such a way that it changes the average ages of their audience—at least, not without drastic changes to the channel—but for some, it is definitely possible, and it may be the answer to your monetisation problems.

By shifting your content in a more mature direction and ensuring that your videos are not marked as made for children, you should be able to qualify for the YouTube Partner Programme—assuming you have met all the other criteria.

Of course, if you are making content aimed at very young children—seven to ten-year-olds, for example—this kind of shift will not be a practical solution. But, if your audience is a little older—fourteen to seventeen, for example—it may be worth looking into.

Tips for Being an Under-18 YouTuber

Firstly, if you are a parent or guardian reading this, we would recommend familiarising yourself with YouTube’s child safety page as a bare minimum. If you are the child YouTuber, it won’t hurt to read through that page either.

For the success part of YouTubing as a minor, we have some tips.

Don’t Take Things to Heart

There are mean people on the Internet, and they often don’t have much to say in the way of being constructive. YouTube disables comments on videos that are intended for a young audience for this very reason, but if you find yourself in the comments of yours or another YouTuber’s video and people are being mean to you, do not let it affect you.

There is a way of delivering constructive criticism that you may take some time to learn recognise. As a rough example, someone telling you that your videos are too quiet is useful feedback that you should take on board. On the other hand, someone telling you that you are ugly is not useful, since being ugly is a subjective comment and even if it were true, you can’t change how you look.

Learning to separate the useful criticism from the just plain insulting is a skill that will take a lot of practice, but in the meantime, do not let any mean comments you might encounter ruin your day.

Hone Your Craft

If you have dreams of becoming a professional YouTuber, take this opportunity to get as good as you can at making content. There are two important factors for young people here;

  • Their developing brains learn things more readily than when they are older
  • You will likely not have as much free time later in life as you do as a child.

You may be currently trying to balance homework, a social life, and any extracurricular activities you have with YouTube and wondering how that second point could be true. But trust us, while there are always exceptions, most people will have far less free time when they get older, start working full time, have a family, etc. Take advantage of all the spare time you have now to improve your video-making abilities.

If In Doubt, Don’t!

If you are in any doubt that something you are planning might be a bad idea, don’t do it. Or at least get a more experienced opinion before deciding. This can include things sharing personal stories online, expressing controversial viewpoints, and more.

Many people who did not grow up with the Internet (and some who did) have said and done things online that have had a significant and negative impact on their lives. Don’t risk saying something you might regret for the rest of your life this early on.

Can You Make Money on YouTube if You Are Under 18? 4

Privacy Privacy Privacy

We can’t stress this enough, but privacy is crucial, especially for under-18 YouTubers. If for no other reason than the YouTuber will almost certainly be living with their parents or guardians at that age and any privacy violations will affect the people you live with as well.

Don’t share personal information in your videos, and make sure there is nothing in the video that someone might be able to use to work out your home address or phone number, or anything of that nature.

Final Thoughts

YouTubing when you are under-18 is something that can be a fun hobby or a solid foundation for a future career, but you have to be careful. And, if you are a parent, remember that there is a reason you are responsible for your children.

Top 5 Tools To Get You Started on YouTube

Very quickly before you go here are 5 amazing tools I have used every day to grow my YouTube channel from 0 to 30K subscribers in the last 12 months that I could not live without.

1. VidIQ helps boost my views and get found in search

I almost exclusively switched to VidIQ from a rival in 2020.

Within 12 months I tripled the size of my channel and very quickly learnt the power of thumbnails, click through rate and proper search optimization. Best of all, they are FREE!

2. Adobe Creative Suite helps me craft amazing looking thumbnails and eye-catching videos

I have been making youtube videos on and off since 2013.

When I first started I threw things together in Window Movie Maker, cringed at how it looked but thought “that’s the best I can do so it’ll have to do”.

Big mistake!

I soon realized the move time you put into your editing and the more engaging your thumbnails are the more views you will get and the more people will trust you enough to subscribe.

That is why I took the plunge and invested in my editing and design process with Adobe Creative Suite. They offer a WIDE range of tools to help make amazing videos, simple to use tools for overlays, graphics, one click tools to fix your audio and the very powerful Photoshop graphics program to make eye-catching thumbnails.

Best of all you can get a free trial for 30 days on their website, a discount if you are a student and if you are a regular human being it starts from as little as £9 per month if you want to commit to a plan.

3. Rev.com helps people read my videos

You can’t always listen to a video.

Maybe you’re on a bus, a train or sat in a living room with a 5 year old singing baby shark on loop… for HOURS. Or, you are trying to make as little noise as possible while your new born is FINALLY sleeping.

This is where Rev can help you or your audience consume your content on the go, in silence or in a language not native to the video.

Rev.com can help you translate your videos, transcribe your videos, add subtitles and even convert those subtitles into other languages – all from just $1.50 per minute.

A GREAT way to find an audience and keep them hooked no matter where they are watching your content.

4. Learn new skills for FREE with Skillshare

I SUCK reading books to learn, but I LOVE online video courses.

Every month I learn something new. Editing, writing, video skills, how to cook, how to run a business – even how to meditate to calm a busy mind.

I find all of these for FREE with Skillshare – Sign up, pick all the courses you want and cancel anytime you need.

5. Shutterstock helps me add amazing video b-roll cutaways

I mainly make tutorials and talking head videos.

And in this modern world this can be a little boring if you don’t see something funky every once in a while.

I try with overlays, jump cuts and being funny but my secret weapon is b-roll overlay content.

I can talk about skydiving, food, money, kids, cats – ANYTHING I WANT – with a quick search on the Shutterstock website I can find a great looking clip to overlay on my videos, keeping them entertained and watching for longer.

They have a wide library of videos, graphics, images and even a video maker tool and it wont break the bank with plans starting from as little as £8.25 ($9) per month.

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DEEP DIVE ARTICLE HOW TO MAKE MONEY ONLINE TIPS & TRICKS YOUTUBE

How to Make Money on YouTube Without Showing Your Face

How to Make Money on YouTube Without Showing Your Face

There is a fairly pervasive stereotype regarding YouTubers, and it evokes images of fresh-faced young people eagerly greeting the camera with an over the top introduction that would, eventually, be bookended with a gleeful plea to like and subscribe at the end of the video.

There is, of course, a reason that this has become a stereotype—YouTubers certainly did seem to be made up mostly of this breed for a long time—but that is far from all there is on the platform these days. Indeed, many YouTubers have found success on the platform without even showing their faces in their videos.

In this post, we are going to look at some of the ways you can succeed financially on YouTube without showing your face.

In the interests of balance, we’ll also talk about why showing your face is often considered a good thing when making YouTube videos – and if you prefer NOT to show your face I have a list of channel ideas for faceless channels on my blog.

How to Make Money on YouTube Without Showing Your Face

We’re going to split this topic into two main sections—how to make videos without showing your face and how to make money on YouTube.

The reason for this is there is nothing significantly different about how you go about making money on YouTube with faceless videos than with videos featuring your face.

So, that information is relevant regardless of which style of video you are making.

Content is Key

It sounds corny and cliché at this point, but it is a cliché for a reason. Regardless of how you dress your videos up—face or no face, effects or not—the content you produce is what will determine your success as a YouTuber.

There are many different ideas of what successful content looks like, but as long as you are delivering what your audience wants to see, you are on the right path. It is important to find the core of what that is and ensure that it is always there. For example, if the root of your content lies in videos about retro technology, there is a lot of wiggle room for what the videos can be about and how you can format them, but you will need to make sure that that root of retro-tech is always present. Similarly, if you are running a food channel and your viewers come for recipe ideas, it would not be advisable to move away from recipe ideas. At least, not abruptly.

Even if your root content is your own personality—if your viewers come to see what you have to say or what you are doing—the rule is the same. Videos where you are not present or where you are acting differently will put your regular viewers off.

This leads us nicely onto…

How to Make Money on YouTube Without Showing Your Face 1

Personality

Even if you aren’t putting your face on camera, you need to inject some personality into your videos. There is an audience for just about everything, but it is essential to remember that there are a lot of other YouTubers out there, and more than a few of them will be making similar content to you.

In short, the chances of you coming up with a niche that is completely unique are very slim, but that is okay because you do not need an entirely unique niche to succeed. By putting plenty of yourself into the videos—in your humour, opinions, and the way you speak—you give viewers a reason to come to you rather than someone else who is delivering the same kind of content.

Granted, you will invariably give some viewers a reason not to come to you over other people because they do not like your unique take on things, but you can’t please everybody, and you need to stand out to succeed.

YouTube Ideas That Don’t Involve Showing Your Face

Now that we’ve covered some generalised aspects of making videos without showing your face let’s look at some specific ideas for how you would go about making those videos.

  • The Hands-On Approach—If your video is of a tactile nature, such as product reviews, or cooking videos, you could always opt for the hands-only approach. In this kind of video, you would have the camera directed at the subject of the video, and the only part of you that would be on camera is your hands as they do whatever it is you are doing. You might be surprised at how expressive you can be with your hands, and you can inject plenty of personality into your video purely through the way you talk, and what you talk about.
  • Voice Over Content—Voice over content can cover a lot of ground. You might make a “Top 10 Sci-Fi Video Games” video where clips of the games you are talking about are on screen as you talk. It could be a pop culture video where the subject matters you are talking about is onscreen. There are even some successful YouTubers whose content is entirely audio-based, and the visuals they display has nothing to do with the actual content. If you have an existing platform, such as a popular podcast, or even a new podcast with little or no audience, you could just have a still image on your video. That being said, if you’re going to put a podcast on YouTube, it helps to give your listeners a reason to come to YouTube rather than some other audio-only platform.
  • Software Tutorials—There is an almost endless supply of niches within the software world, from simple office productivity to video game development, to music production. If you have expertise in a particular kind of software, you can make tutorials on that software without having to show your face on camera. Not only do you not need your face onscreen, but the software itself will be the focus anyway, and you could find your reluctant mug obscuring parts of the screen that your viewers need to see.

Meditation and Mindfulness Videos

Some people love to tune out of the world and take a moment with their own thoughts. The practice of mindfulness and meditation has been embraced widely over the last few years as a why to help people sleep, study or relax.

Make videos that people can unwind to, feel comfortable with or can meditate to like on the Meditation Mindfulness channel.

How to Make Money From Your Video Ideas

Fortunately, this section of the post is more or less universal, so you should find it useful even if you are happy to put your face on camera. We’ll go over some different ways to monetise your videos, but first, let’s cover some more fundamental truths about earning an income from your YouTube channel.

One crucial point to grasp when monetising your content is that numbers are rarely the be-all and end-all of success. More often than not, the quality of your audience outweighs the quantity, which is why some YouTuber’s with relatively small audiences are able to make a comfortable living from their channel while other YouTubers with enormous followings barely get by.

This is also the reason why “cheating” by buying subscribers and views rarely pays off since those numbers do not represent engaged viewers who are interested in your content, and so do not translate to financial success. The reason it doesn’t pay off is because the advertisers who pay to promote their products and services are doing so because your audience has been marked as consisting of the kind of people who would be interested in those products and services. If you have stuffed your subscriber-base with viewers who aren’t interested, it will not translate to ad engagement.

But what about the different ways you can make money from a YouTube channel? There are a few common methods (and even more less common methods) that can be used to monetise your channel, and many of them can be used simultaneously. It should be noted that, unless you are coming to YouTube with a following in place already, none of these methods are likely to yield immediate success. You will need to be patient.

YouTube Partner Programme

The most common way to earn money from your YouTube channel is through the YouTube Partner Programme, which is the built-in system that YouTube offers for YouTubers who have met specific criteria. The bullet points of those criteria are;

  • Not be in breach of any YouTube monetisation policies
  • Live in a country where the YouTube Partner Programme operates
  • Have at least 4,000 valid public watch hours over the last twelve months
  • Have at least 1,000 subscribers
  • Have a linked AdSense account.

If you meet these criteria and are accepted into the program, you will have the option to monetise eligible videos. YouTube will then show ads on those videos, and you will earn a cut of the revenue generated from those ads. You have quite a lot of control over when and what style of ads are shown on your videos, though you cannot control what ads are shown. In many cases, you can run YouTube ads alongside other means of monetising your content, though it is not always the case.

It’s worth bearing in mind that YouTube regularly changes their monetisation policies in ways that reduce—or even remove entirely—many YouTubers’ earnings.

Brand Deals and Sponsored Content

Essentially this is cutting out the YouTube middleman. Instead of relying on YouTube to serve ads, you deal with the advertiser directly and deliver the promotional content in your videos. For larger YouTubers, this type of monetisation represents a significant portion of their income. There is also a potential bonus in that brands are smart enough to know that numbers are not everything. While they will obviously want to reach a large audience, marketing reps today understand that a quality audience—one that is already interested in what you have to offer—is more valuable than a large audience. This means you may be able to strike a lucrative brand deal much sooner in your YouTube career than you would be able to make an equivalent amount of money through the YouTube Partner Programme.

Crowd Funding and Subscription Models

One of the most popular ways for YouTubers to monetise their work is through sites like Patreon, which allow viewers to opt into giving their favourite creators a regular payment in order to support them. This is popular with YouTubers because it tends to be far more reliable than ad-click-based revenue, and is not subject to the whims of YouTube policy change. It also shows real engagement from an audience, since they have gone out of their way to support you directly.

Affiliate Marketing

If your videos often involve products or services that are associated with affiliate programs, you could supplement your revenue—even form the bulk of your revenue—with affiliate marketing.

With affiliate marketing, you would have a link to a product or service and, should your viewers buy said product or service; you would get a cut.

A popular version of this for review channels involves using the Amazon Affiliates program to link out to products that have been reviewed in the video.

Need help in getting started with affiliate marketing? I have a deep dive article on my blog all about affiliate marketing for beginners and how to really make it work for you in the future.

Why Avoid Showing Your Face?

The concept of starting a YouTube video and not wanting to show your face may seem strange to some, but there are a few reasons someone might want to do this.

  • Shyness—The most obvious reason is shyness. Someone people simply don’t want their face on camera, but that doesn’t mean they can’t succeed on YouTube.
  • Safety—Though it still sometimes struggles with a certain stigma of being a weird thing people do on the Internet, YouTubers can get as famous as any conventional celebrity, and there are inherent safety risks with that fame. For some, those risks may be too much to risk putting their face on screen.
  • Freedom—The world of late has been less than kind to controversial figures online, with more than a few people losing their jobs because of things they might have said on social media or in YouTube videos. If you are planning to make videos on controversial topics, you may want to keep your face out of the video to protect your livelihood, should you upset a large enough group of people.
  • Aesthetic—Sometimes, there doesn’t need to be a significant underlying reason for this decision. Perhaps the YouTuber just prefers to craft their videos in a way that doesn’t involve their face being onscreen. There is no objectively right or wrong way to format a YouTube video, and any reason that makes the creator more comfortable with their work should be considered a good thing. Even if the reason they are more comfortable is just that they prefer the look of the video.
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DEEP DIVE ARTICLE HOW TO MAKE MONEY ONLINE TIPS & TRICKS YOUTUBE

How Do YouTubers Receive Their Money?

How Do YouTubers Receive Their Money? 3

In a little over a decade, YouTube has gone from an interesting online video platform that is fun but ultimately frivolous, to a legitimate career path that surprisingly attainable for almost everyone.

This may feel a bit “icky” to some—YouTube was originally this fun young thing that some people were lucky enough to succeed financially at, but now it’s a mature, grown-up platform with people of all ages eeking out a living, often making content that is far from exciting or creative.

That, unfortunately, is the reality of any career. And, with any career choice, there are a lot of mundane questions to answer. Things like “what is your earning potential”, “how reliable is this career”, and, as the title of this post asks, “how do YouTubers receive their money?”

The how of getting paid on YouTube is one of those small questions that may seem insignificant at first but can be quite important for reasons we’ll get into shortly. The quick and straightforward answer to “how do YouTubers receive their money” is through Google Adsense, who pay either directly into your bank by deposit or via a cheque in the mail.

However, as with most simplified answers, this doesn’t paint the full picture. For example, there are multiple common ways for YouTubers to get paid besides AdSense and a variety of different ways to get paid by those other methods.

Don’t worry; we’re going to go over the most common ways that YouTuber’s get paid for their content; all you need to do is keep reading!

Do YouTubers Pay Tax? 3

How Do YouTubers Make Their Money?

Before you can understand how the money is received, it is important to understand where the money is coming from.

On the Internet in this day and age, there is a seemingly limitless selection of ways to leverage an audience into financial gain, both directly and indirectly.

That being said, the many years of YouTube success across thousands and thousands of YouTubers have allowed a few different methods to rise to the top of the pile in terms of convenience, effectiveness, and popularity.

YouTube Partner Programme/Google AdSense

Let’s start with the obvious. When we gave our simplified answer to the question of “how do YouTubers receiver their money” above, this was the method we were talking about. This is the built-in monetisation option that you can choose to enable when your channel has met the necessary criteria. That criteria include;

  • Have at least 1,000 subscribers
  • Have at least 4,000 hours of watch time over the last twelve months
  • Meet YouTube’s various policies for spam and community guidelines
  • Have an AdSense account

When you are part of the YouTube Partner Programme—and on eligible videos—YouTube will show advertisements that can earn you money. The exact amount earned per video depends on how many ads are served and what your viewer’s behaviour is in relation to those ads. For example, do they watch the whole ad, or do they skip it as soon as they get a chance?

These ads are actually served by Google’s AdSense platform, and any payments are handled through there. That is why you need to have a Google AdSense account before you can join the YouTube Partner Programme. Adsense supports a few different payment methods including;

  • Cheques
  • Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT)
  • Rapida
  • Bank Transfer

You might have noticed the conspicuous absence of PayPal in that list. PayPal may be the largest and most popular online payment processor, but it is not an option for Google’s AdSense.

How Do YouTubers Receive Their Money?

Membership Platforms

Membership platforms allow your subscribers to commit to a small monthly sum to support your content. The incentive usually being that having a more reliable source of revenue compared to YouTube’s standard monetisation system will allow you to put more time into your channel, and thus create better or more content. Of course, there doesn’t always have to be an incentive—sometimes people just want to support their favourite creators.

YouTube offer their own membership option for channels with 30,000 subscribers or more, but the payment is handled the same way as their ad-based revenue. However, another option is to look outside of YouTube for a third party membership platform.

The most popular example of this is Patreon, a platform that allows you to set different tiers of supporters and offer unique perks to each of those tiers. Unlike AdSense, who do not support PayPal as a payment method, Patreon allows PayPal as well as fellow online payment processors, Payoneer and Stripe. Another example of this kind of service is Ko-Fi, which allows you to get paid through either PayPal or Stripe.

Merchandise

Another way to get paid from your YouTube channel is through the sale of merchandise. There are a plethora of services around that can facilitate this, including YouTube’s own inhouse solution for channels with 10,000 subscribers or more. There are dozens, perhaps hundreds of alternatives, however. As a general rule, you can expect to find PayPal and cheque payments as an option for getting your money.

Direct Donations

It is also possible to receive direct donations from your viewers. How you receive this will depend entirely on your own preferences regarding the services you use. For example, PayPal allows you to set up a donation page for this very reason. Ko-Fi is essentially designed for small, one-off payments (the platform is built around the idea of your audience buying you a cup of coffee).

We strongly advise against just giving your bank details out, of course.

Brand Deals and Promoted Content

This monetisation option involves directly dealing with an advertiser. In this case, we can’t offer much insight into what would be involved since every deal will be different. Indeed, you could even request a particular method of payment as part of your deal.

Why is the Way YouTubers Receive Their Money Important?

If you are just YouTubing for fun and you are not concerned with earning money from it, it doesn’t really matter how YouTubers get paid. But for people who are interested in the earnings they could be receiving, and certainly for YouTubers who are looking to make their YouTube journey a career move, it is essential information.

For one thing, the part of the world you are in could determine whether or not you can earn money from YouTube directly. At the time of writing, AdSense is not available to people in the following countries;

  • Crimea
  • Cuba
  • Iran
  • North Korea
  • Sudan
  • Syria

It is also not available to individuals or businesses that are restricted by trade sanctions or export compliance laws. Granted, there probably aren’t a huge number of people who meet any of the above criteria that are looking to start a YouTube career, but it pays to know these things. The regions that AdSense is not available in are not set in stone, for example. Shifting political situations could see countries being removed from that list, or added to it.

The same reasoning applies to payment processors. For example, if you were unable or unwilling to use PayPal or Stripe, you would not be able to get your money out of Ko-Fi.

These are all things to factor in if you intend to make YouTube into a career move, but not necessarily something you should be concerned about when you are first starting out. After all, if you make it big on YouTube, but circumstances conspire to keep you from getting paid, you could always migrate to another platform. It wouldn’t be easy, but it would be doable. And there are always other ways to monetise your channel.

Monetising Your Channel: Diversity is Key

YouTube goes to great lengths to make their platform financially viable. And, even though it doesn’t always feel like it, part of that viability is making YouTubers money, since YouTubers who are earning a decent amount of money for their efforts are more likely to continue putting that effort into the platform. Even when YouTube makes significant changes that seem to harm YouTuber earning potential, it is because they are trying to make the platform as appealing as possible advertisers.

Whether the changes they make are always effective or worth the grievances they cause is a different issue, but the motive behind them is clear enough.

Unfortunately, the ever-changing landscape of YouTube monetisation, combined with the whims of advertisers and shifting trends, makes the YouTube Partner Programme a somewhat unreliable source of income. In fact, not only is it unreliable, it is typically not a great earner for many types of video. YouTube revenue is mostly measured in CPM, which is essentially an amount you earn per thousand views you get. The actual figure is all over the place due to how large a factor viewer engagement plays—a video with a lot of views but where most viewers skipped their ads might earn less than a channel with a fraction of the views, but most viewers watched the ads—but as a rough average, you can expect around $1.50 to $2 per one thousand views.

Assuming you are making $2 for every thousand views you get, you would have to be getting an average of over seventeen thousand views a day to earn enough money to be considered above the poverty line in the United States. That’s a lot of views. It’s not an unachievable goal, of course, but it’s no small feat to reach an average number of views a day that is measured in tens of thousands. It’s also worth mentioning that most people don’t strive to be just above the poverty line. To bring your YouTube revenue up to something more in line with the average income in the United States, you would be looking at around forty thousand views a day.

How Do YouTubers Receive Their Money? 2

Other Options

If you can build up a dedicated enough audience, direct contributions such as PayPal donations, or memberships such as through Patreon or YouTube’s own membership option are a great way to build a solid, reliable revenue stream from your YouTube channel.

Merchandise is also an option but should be considered a secondary option rather than your primary source of revenue. While you can realistically build a large base of people willing to contribute a few dollars here and there to support you, it is far less likely that you will be able to sell T-shirts or mugs with the same consistency, and in large enough numbers. Unless you are a fashion company, merchandise should be considered a side gig.

Brand deals are a little trickier as they typically require a brand to come to you. Pitching ideas to companies is not unheard of, but it is far more common for the company to go to the YouTuber. Sponsored videos and brand deals are by far the most lucrative of the many ways to get paid for your YouTube channel, though the exact amount you can earn will depend on your channel’s content and following.

Final Thought: Tax

There is a multitude of ways to earn money from your YouTube channel, but not quite as many ways to receive that money. The one absolute factor is that you will need a bank account. Whether you receive your money directly from Google AdSense, via a payment processor, or even via a physical cheque mailed to your home, you will need a bank account for the money to go into. The upshot of this fact is that your earnings will always be traceable, and as such, entirely discoverable by any governmental agency that might want to look into your finances.

Neither YouTube, Google, nor any of the payment processors mentioned handle taxes; that is all on you. Of course, tax law is different from region to region, and country to country. If you are not familiar with the law on taxes where you are, you should do some research to avoid getting a nasty surprise when tax collectors start knocking on your door.

In truth, the amount of money received by most YouTuber’s will not be enough to even register on a government’s tax-collecting radar, but that is not a risk we recommend taking. If you should be paying tax on your YouTube earnings, it’s better just to pay them and stay out of trouble!

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BUSINESS TIPS DEEP DIVE ARTICLE TIPS & TRICKS YOUTUBE

7 Tips for YouTubers to Stay Sane When Working From Home During COVID

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Being stuck at home is rubbish.

For many of us, the Covid Pandemic means that we’re trapped at home, trying to get our videos planned, shot, and edited while trying not to go stir crazy.

The line between working and playing gets blurred also. It’s all too easy to get stuck in a rut of doing a bit of work on your channel, then giving yourself ‘a break’ and playing a game or mindlessly scrolling through Instagram for an hour.

There are things you can do to make Covid enforced work patterns more enjoyable, however. A few little tweaks to your working practices can improve your mood and productivity when working from home.

It’s worth experimenting with home working practices too. One estimate reckons that 30% of the workforce will still be working from home regularly at the end of 2021.

So to help you better handle the current do-everything-from-home formula, this post has seven tips you can apply straight away to make working from home on your YouTube channel or any other job more enjoyable.

#1. Get Up and Get Dressed.

I’ve worked from home for myself for several years now, so I can confidently say that watching morning TV in your PJs while pecking away on your laptop is not the path to a healthy working habit.

Similarly, you may think you’re being clever when your all business up-top for your Zoom meeting, but all bedtime down below out of sight of the camera lens.

You need to treat your work like any other job. That means getting dressed in regular daytime clothes to signify that you have ‘left’ rest and relaxation behind and you are now ready to do some work.

The physical act of putting on a pair of jeans/trousers or skirt is a mental signal that your morning routine has started, and it’s time to get stuff done.

You don’t have to dress like you are going into the office, but you need to make yourself respectable enough to meet people outside of your usual home bubble.

A good rule of thumb is to dress smartly enough not to feel embarrassed when you open the door to the Amazon delivery driver.

The same advice applies to showering and brushing your teeth — at the start of the day, make yourself ready for the day.

You can see how I work from home in my own personal account of my own working from home experience.

#2. Have a Space Just for Working.

We can’t all have a desirable ‘battle station’ like the picture below.

Whether you’re planning your next video, working on a side-hustle, or just doing your conventional job, separating your work and play is vital for your mental health.

It’s also best to separate your work time at home from the rest of the household chores that need doing. Doing a bit of work, then tidying the lounge, then getting back to some more work mashes the day together into one confusing mess.

And while you may already have a place to record your videos set up in the corner of a spare room. Aim to have a particular spot in your home where you sit down to work too.

Desks are inexpensive to buy if you have the room. They come in a variety of sizes suitable for most needs, and if you have the budget buy yourself a proper office chair, too. It helps to encourage a healthy back posture while you work.

If your budget is small, keep an eye on the local ads on Facebook and Gumtree, as you can often find bargains on secondhand office furniture or even snag them for free.

If you absolutely do not have the room for a desk and chair, put a ‘work stuff’ bundle of items together. This can be your laptop or tablet and a selection of notebooks you use. At the start of the working day, set them up in the place you’ll be working in, like the kitchen table, for example.

Then, at the end of the workday, pack them up, and put them out of the way to signify that you have finished working and ready to start some household chores or down-time.

#3. Routines and Commuting

Psychologists call the separation of work and play segmentation. Some psychologists also claim that those who segment their work and relaxation properly perform better in each area.

It’s hard to switch your brain between working and relaxing in an instant — that’s why those who commute to work hold an advantage over home workers. The commute is when a worker can shift their focus on the day’s work ahead.

Similarly, at the end of the working day, a commuter has the opportunity to decompress from daily work challenges as they make their way home.

To segment your work and relaxation time effectively in these Covid times means that you need a method of transitioning between work and non-work — you are going to need to get into some routines and create a kind of ‘commute.’

Routines give us structure to our lives. They can make us more efficient and build up momentum to help hit our goals. So try to create your own ‘commute’ at home to ease into your working routine.

It may be as simple as taking a shower, eating breakfast, then 10 minutes of watching the morning news. As long as you do the same routine each day while understanding, you will be ready to start work once you have done everything.

In a few days, your commuting routine will become a signal to your brain that you are about to enter work mode.

It doesn’t matter what your best working hours are for this tip to succeed. You may be a night-owl and do your best work into the wee small hours — do whatever works for you — as long as you set a pre-work routine to help ease you in and out of work mode.

#4. Getting Stuff Done – Cut Out the Distractions.

There is a mental state that some call ‘the zone’ and others name ‘flow.’ It essentially means that you are unaware of anything going on around you while you focus on something. Not time, hunger, or even the need to pee.

You are totally at one with the task at hand.

Getting in ‘the zone’ is easier said than done, but there is no real secret to it. You just need to give yourself space to focus. The enemy of focus is distraction, so you should aim to eliminate all distractions from your workspace.

There is a great book by Cal Newport called Deep Work. It’s all about organising long periods of distraction-free time, so you can enter a flow state and produce your very best work. And it’s worth getting hold of a copy.

What are the causes of work distractions?

One study by a University showed that it could take up to 20 minutes to recover from the interruption of responding to email alerts. So if you are constantly checking your email, you prevent the chance for your brain to settle and enter into the mind frame of a flow state.

What makes the situation worse is having your smartphone within reach when you work as well. People in the US receive an average of 46 push notifications per day on their phones. So, with email and smartphones pinging regularly, it’s a wonder that anyone’s brain can settle down to focus.

Try and cut own as many distractions as you can when you sit down to work. If you don’t need your phone for work, switch it off or at least leave it in another room. There is also a choice of website blocking apps you can install to limit your time spent on distracting websites like Reddit and Facebook.

Another tool that some people find useful to manage productivity is a Pomodoro timer. A Pomodoro timer is a countdown clock that you set to work on a task for a set period. When your selected time session ends, you take a short break before starting the next short working period.

Many people work on a 25-5 Pomodoro system — 25 minutes working, followed by a 5-minute break. After four rounds of 25 minutes, you take a more extended break of 15 minutes. It works because you are only setting the challenge to work for a short time before you take a rest.

#5. Make Time to Exercise and Get Outdoors.

The pandemic has many of us glued to our sofa’s binging on the latest Netflix must-watch program like the Tiger King or The Queen’s Gambit. But, being sat on your backside for hours at a time is not good for your back, bum, or belly.

Doctors have called sitting down the new smoking. Inactivity is really bad for our health and can lead to all sorts of long-term problems like lower-back pain, diabetes, and even cancer.

I live in leafy West Yorkshire, close to some old canals. I take regular walks along the canal to clear my head and give my body some love.

Walking is a good exercise to fit into your ‘commuting’ routine, and most can find time to squeeze in a twenty-minute walk when the work of the day is done.

Walking is also a simple way to remove digital distractions. So, get some fresh air and think about your channel. I get all sorts of ideas for video content while I’m away from the desk having a stroll.

If you’re house-bound during the Pandemic because you’re shielding some who is extra vulnerable, then head on over to YouTube. Jo Wicks has a channel that uploads new home workouts several times a week.

You can do all the workouts with stuff you can find around the home, so there is no excuse not to give your body a little TLC and try to keep in shape.

#6. Make Time to Socialise.

Image Source

You don’t want to end up like Jack Nicholson in The Shining, hunched over your keyboard pretending to work while descending into madness. But it’s also quite easy for the more introverted amongst us not to make time to have other human contacts every day.

So you should try to find some time for your friends and family now and again. But It’s a tricky balance to strike, as the primary way we keep in contact with friends is with our smartphones, and as I mentioned above, smartphones are awful for our focus.

A new approach is to schedule a time for socialising. How about organising a Zoom lunch with your friends? Set an agreed time that you’ll all eat your lunch, and you can have a natter and a catch-up over a video conference.

One way to be more sociable and work on your YouTube channel is to try collaborating with other YouTubers, which will bring more human contact as you plan some joint content together.

#7. Mind Your Mental Health.

Mental health problems are one of the biggest risks we all face as we endure lockdown. Humans are social creatures, so the enforced home confinement naturally takes its toll on our mental wellbeing.

There are a few techniques you can use to improve your mental health.

Try and limit the amount of news you watch. You should keep up-to-date with the latest developments in your area, but becoming obsessed with increasing daily numbers or the length of time until life returns to normal is not healthy.

If you find yourself obsessing, take a news break for a few days. Trust me, not much changes in a few days, and you can turn your focus to learning a new skill.

Practice touch typing, improve your photoshop skills, or learn about those weird camera functions you don’t currently understand. It’s doesn’t really matter. Finding a new project to focus your mind on can benefit your mental health immensely.

Finally, try practicing mediation. Many assume that mediation is sitting in the lotus position and chanting. It’s not. Mediation is really about breathing. Sit or lie in a relaxed position, close your eyes if it helps, and focus on your breath entering and leaving your body.

That’s all. Just focus on your breath.

Meditation is scientifically proven to reduce stress and control anxiety. YouTube has plenty of excellent content around meditation; Headspace’s channel is an ideal place to start, with lots of content to help you learn how to meditate and improve your mental health.

Conclusion

Yes, lockdown and pandemics are rubbish! But don’t use it as an excuse not to work on your YouTube channel.

Surviving the new normal of working from home means you need to take a little care of how you structure your day.

Set a defined working schedule, and ideally, a place to sit where you only do work. Getting into routines can help your body and mind know when it’s time to work or play.

I hope this post has been helpful. Why don’t you try applying a few tips and see if they can help make you a happier and more productive YouTuber during this Covid pandemic?

 

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DEEP DIVE ARTICLE TIPS & TRICKS YOUTUBE

How to Collaborate On YouTube (Even During The Covid Pandemic)

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Collaborations are responsible for some of the best things ever — fish and chips, cheese and wine, even Tango and Cash (ask your dad).

Two complimentary things working together are often better than the sum of their parts. Collaborating with other creators on content for your channel is a great way to grow your subscriber and view count by tapping into the other creator’s audience.

One of the most useful collaboration types is meeting up with another YouTuber in person and recording content together. But, currently, that’s a no-go, as Covid lockdowns are keeping us all home-alone.

Fortunately, you can still collaborate with other YouTubers, and this article sets out all you need to know about how to collaborating with other creators. The best people to approach and how to approach them. Plus, I’ll also cover the different types of collaboration you could choose to do.

Here we go.

Who Should You Collaborate With? (Finding the Right Creator)

It may be tempting to think, ‘I have a gaming channel. I wonder if PewDiePie is up for a collaboration?’

Not gonna happen.

Your ideal collaborator is someone who has a similar-sized audience to you. Why? It’s an unfair transaction otherwise. Both sides of the collaboration are looking to gain a bump in subscribers and traffic from the deal. If one channel has a vastly larger subscriber base, then why would they bother collaborating?

Also, along with finding a creator with a similar-sized channel, their niche should be one that meshes well with your content. You need to find a topic mix that makes sense.

For example, my channel is in the YouTube education niche, which is a topic that mixes nicely with many other subjects. I can collaborate with a gaming channel because I can teach the other collaborator’s audience how to grow their own gaming channel.

Similarly, the gamer can come onto my channel and talk about the three main lessons they learned from launching a YouTube channel. The topics work well together – they have synergy.

If your videos are all about cooking and your friend has a channel about dogs, this is not a happy topic mix.

Take a little time to think about the kind of niches that would blend well with your channel, and think about how a collaboration would benefit you and your audience?

How To Find Collaborators

The easiest type of collaboration is the ones you set up with your friends. These could be real-life friends or be people you’ve met on YouTube and built up a rapport with in the comments section.

In this case, approaching them to suggest a collaboration should be easy. You can brainstorm content ideas together, and there should be less pressure on getting the collaboration right the first time.

As I mentioned in the previous section, the collaboration should make sense from a niche perspective. If none of your friend’s channels mix well with yours, you will have to approach some content creators you haven’t previously had contact with.

The first place to look for potential collaborators is in your subscriber list. From Your Channel dashboard on YouTube, select the list of people who subscribe to your content. You can order your subscriber list by their subscriber count to find people who have a similar-sized channel to you.

It makes sense to try this first. If someone has subscribed to your channel, they like your content already, so organising a collaboration should be easier.

Start by checking out your existing subscribers’ channel pages to see if there are any that might make a good match for collaboration. If you have no luck with your current subscriber base, then you need to hunt down people to work with.

You can search on YouTube or use a third-party tool like vidIQ, which has features to help you track down your competition. But in this situation, your competitors could become your collaboration partner. Just remember to look for channels that have a similar subscriber count to you.

Don’t overshoot and try to set up a collaboration with a much larger channel – it looks like begging.

Contacting Potential Collaborators

You’ve hopefully now identified several channels you want to collaborate with. You will need a good-sized list because finding a collaborator is like being at the Junior disco at school. You are going to have to ask lots of people to dance with you before one says yes!

Next, you’ll need to get a list of contact details for the channels you want to approach. You should also message the person with who you want to collaborate directly. It doesn’t necessarily have to be their email address – a DM via social media is OK – but it’s not the best idea to spam their video comment section.

Consider this comment appearing in your comment feed: ‘dude, nice channel, we should collaborate!’ This approach is unprofessional; they didn’t even take the time to find out your name!

Messages like these most often come from someone who only wants the exposure to your audience because you likely have more subscribers. So, take the time to find out the name and contact details of the channels you want to work with.

Look first in the about section of their YouTube channel page. In the details section, there is a place to enter a business email address.

If they don’t have an email listed, you can usually find contact details for people on other social media sites.

What to Say in Your Pitch to Potential Collaborators

Your email or direct message to a potential collaborator is, in fact, a mini-sales letter. You need to grab their attention, then persuade with your words that you are worthy of their time and attention. Then finish with a call to action, such as asking them to reply to your message.

Just because you reach out to someone doesn’t mean they are going to say yes. They may be in the middle of a pre-planned series of videos or have tried collaborations before, and it didn’t go so well.

Remember, a good collaboration is the right blend of two channels that will benefit both people’s goals. So even if you think that a particular creator is perfect for you, you may need to persuade them that you are also ideal for them.

Start your email pitch by using their name. Using ‘Hey dude’ or some other impersonal greeting might seem friendly. But people respond better when you use their first name. You are also showing them some respect that you took the time to find out their real name.

Keeping your pitch short is also a way to show potential collaborators respect. It shows that you acknowledge their time is valuable, and they won’t want to read a long 1000 word email.

After you’ve greeted them by name, next mention one of their videos and why you liked it. Everyone likes a little flattery, so if you start with some praise, they will likely continue reading the rest of the pitch.

Now it’s time to get to the purpose of your message. Let them know you want to collaborate and mention two or three ideas of videos you could create together. You don’t need lots of detail, just some good enough ideas to spark a conversation.

This is the ultimate aim of any pitch message you send – getting a response and a chance to talk further.

Here’s an example of the kind of message you could send;

You will likely need to send out a few collaboration pitch emails before you get a response, so don’t be disheartened if your first few messages don’t get any – it’s a numbers game.

Once you find a partner to collaborate with, you next need to decide what type of collaboration to do. Let’s take a look at the different collaboration types next.

The Different Types of YouTube Collaboration

With the pandemic stopping you from meeting up with other YouTubers to record a collaboration, what different types of collaboration can you do? Here are four for you to think about.

The Shoutout YouTube Collaboration

This kind of collaboration is the perfect one to start with. It dips your toe in collaboration waters and is the first level of YouTube collaboration.

Giving a shoutout is a simple as mentioning another channel during one of your own videos. Say why you like the creator’s content and why you think your audience should head over to their channel.

Your collaboration partner will return the favour, and both of you should hopefully see a bump in subscribers and a spike in video watch-time.

I did a shoutout with Desiree Martinez. She has a channel all about content marketing that compliments my YouTube education channel nicely. As you can see below, I inserted an image from her into my video. I also linked to her channel homepage in the video description.

When you organise a shoutout, agree on up front where you will place the shoutout segment in your video. Positioning a shoutout near the start of a video is more valuable than ones that appear near the end.

Videos viewership drops as the video goes on. So an agreed shoutout near the start of your video should mean more viewers get to see it.

Video Clip Swap Collaboration

The video clip swap collaboration is a natural progression if you and your collaborator have found the shoutout collaboration useful. This type of collaboration involves you recording a clip and inserting it into each other’s video.

You might choose this one for when you want to cover a topic in one of your videos that your collaborator has more experience in. For example, let’s assume I’m going to do a clip swap collaboration with Desiree Martinez.

I could film a segment for her audience about video content marketing. At the same time, she could film a clip about promoting a YouTube channel via Facebook. In this situation, both of us are playing to our strengths, and the audience should find a fresh face helpful.

Here’s an example from Brian G Johnson’s channel with someone he often collaborates with; his friend Nick Nimmin. In the video shown below about growing a YouTube channel, Nick Nimmin, with his 700k subscribers, can offer his valuable expertise. So Nick recorded a short clip for Brian to insert into his video.

The Channel Swap Collaboration

This type of collaboration is a bit like a more extended version of the clip swap. This time, though, your collaboration partner takes over most of a video.

You will want to record a short intro/outro to sandwich their clip and let your audience know what’s going on, but in the main, your collaborator takes over.

When you channel swap with someone, they can bring you in as the guest star to talk about your expertise. Alternatively, you can also record content on the topic of the other person’s channel but from your perspective.

I did a channel swap a while ago with Sarah Sunbeams. Sarah has a Booktube channel, so her audience is more interested in all things bookish rather than my usual content of YouTube education.

I’m a big fan of listening to audiobooks, so I took over her channel to talk about my thoughts on all things Amazon Audible. Sarah recorded a video in return for my channel that was all about launching a Booktube channel.

We both got to talk about each other’s specialties and get our faces in front of a new audience.

The Pandemic Option

With the pandemic preventing close contact, you can’t appear on camera sat next to a collaboration partner.

One alternative you might try if you want to appear on the screen at the same time is to record a video call. Nearly everyone must have had a Zoom or Skype video chat in the last few months.

Why not try recording a Zoom meeting with a collaborator? There is a feature in Zoom to record a video call, though you may want to use proper screen recording software to have more control over the end product.

OBS Studio is free screen recording software that works on either Mac or Windows. Why not set up your video camera to shoot you from a different angle simultaneously so that you can edit it into your video later, as well?

Conclusion

The Covid pandemic shouldn’t stop you from collaborating on YouTube just because you can’t physically meet up with another YouTuber. Now that many people are either working or learning from home, technology makes it easy to collaborate with anyone anywhere in the world.

When you look for a collaboration partner, make sure to choose one that will compliment your channel’s niche. Search your current subscribers to see if they have a similar-sized channel that could have collaboration potential.

But, you should try to find a few possibles, because not everyone will want to collaborate – it’s about finding the right people at the right time.

When you have your list, send out a pitch message. Greet them by name, keep it short, and say something nice about their channel.

When you find a collaborator, decide which type of collaboration to do. It’s OK to start small with a shoutout or two, and later on, work your way up to a clip or even full channel swap. Good luck.

 

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Does YouTube Have an Affiliate Program?

Does YouTube Have an Affiliate Program?

Affiliate programs are one of the most popular ways of earning money online; whether it is as a nice side-hustle for a little extra cash or the backbone of a five-figure a month income, they provide a way to earn revenue while doing the things you are already doing.

They can invisibly add additional revenue streams that, in some cases, can even add value for your viewers.

With all of this in mind, it is natural to wonder; does YouTube have an affiliate program of their own.

After all, being profitable is a serious concern for the platform, not to mention the added incentive it would give to content creators.

Does YouTube have an affiliate program? – No, YouTube does not have an affiliate program, but you can monetize your channel with the Partnership Program if/when you meet the 1K subscribers and 4K hours of watch time requirements. However you can still use external affiliate programs to make money on YouTube with click through traffic.

Through using YouTube marketing for your channel, you can grow awareness and drive traffic to your affiliate account.

We’re about to take an in-depth look at affiliate programs and how you can use them on YouTube, so let’s get comfortable.

How Many Views do you Need to Make Money on YouTube?

What is an Affiliate Program?

If you’ve made it this far into the post without knowing what an affiliate program is, don’t worry; we’ve got your back. An affiliate program is a system whereby you can earn a fee in exchange for actions taken by your viewers. With the most popular forms of affiliate programs, this fee often comes in the form a commission of a product or service sale. In some cases, it can be a fixed fee in exchange for a user signing up to something.

By far, the most popular affiliate program for individual YouTubers—and many other content creators—is the Amazon Affiliate program, which allows you to generate a unique link for any product on the Amazon marketplace. If one of your viewers clicks through your link and buys something, you earn a small percentage of the sale.

The other way in which affiliate programs are typically run is when a service that is looking for members will reward people who refer new users to them. Fiverr is an excellent example of this with its affiliate program explicitly designed to reward people for driving traffic to their service.

If you want a hugely in-depth deep dive into how to get started with affiliate marketing, best ways to leverage affiliate marketing and my 10+ years of experience in generating income with affiliate marketing – check out my Affiliate Marketing for Beginners blog post.

Do YouTubers Get Paid Monthly?

Why YouTube Doesn’t Have an Affiliate Program

Once you understand how affiliate programs work, it should be easy to understand why YouTube doesn’t have one.

First of all, they don’t sell any products, so they can’t offer a commission on the sale of those products. But secondly, there is no paid service to subsidise a traffic-driving affiliate program like the one Fiverr has. Granted, there is YouTube Premium, but that is a very narrowly focussed product that would not have much re-use value for any given YouTuber.

With a platform like Fiverr, there are dozens and dozens of different services available, so one person could theoretically want to keep going back, which in turn means there are far more ways in which an affiliate link can be worked into the content that is being created.

As for the non-YouTube Premium content, it doesn’t make much sense for YouTube to incentivise people to drive traffic to their platform, given the sheer number of people who are on that platform attempting to drive to traffic to their own videos already.

YouTube is all about retention—once a new person lands on their site, they aim to keep them there as long as possible, and they’ve gotten very good at that over the years.

It doesn’t matter if it’s a popular YouTube who drives millions of unique views a day to the site, or an unknown YouTuber who is just starting out who might bring three new sets of eyeballs to the platform, YouTube will work to keep those people on the site viewing videos, and that retention just as valuable—if not more so—than bringing in new viewers who might not be so interested in sticking around.

YouTube Tips for Teachers 4

Tips for Using Affiliate Marketing with your YouTube Channel

So, YouTube doesn’t have an affiliate marketing program, that much we’ve made clear.

But what we also made clear was the fact that this doesn’t stop you from running affiliate marketing programs through your YouTube channel in order to increase your revenue, so let’s talk about that.

The strength of affiliate marketing lies in invisibility—when you can provide a link to a service or product that fits seamlessly into your content and provides your viewers with something of value to them, you are on to a winner.

To help you achieve affiliate success, we’ve put together some of our top tips for using affiliate programs in your videos and on your channel.

Full Disclosure

We live in a cynical age, borne of many web services and content creators taking advantage of their audience, more and more people assume that anytime something is hidden from them, it is for negative reasons.

To that end, you should always be upfront about any affiliate links you use, even if all you do is put “(PAID)” next to the link in your description. YouTube viewers are generally accepting of the fact that their content creators need to make money somehow, and will not go out of their way to stop that from happening.

But including affiliate links without disclosing this fact can breed bad blood with your audience—especially if you are reviewing a product or service that you are linking out to through an affiliate program.

Keep it in Context

Google puts a lot of time and effort into figuring out the best ads to show a particular individual at any given time.

This is because merely showing the ad is only part of the battle—if nobody ever clicked those ads, advertisers would stop paying for them.

The same approach should be taken for affiliate links. There is no sense in making a video about guitar building and then including an affiliate link to an eBook on making money online.

Sure, some of the viewers of that video might be interested in the eBook, but it is such a shot in the dark, it would hardly be worth the effort of typing the link.

While we’re not saying there is never a good time for an out of context affiliate link, the best use of these links is within the context of your video. If you are doing a video on the top five sports cameras, have affiliate links to each of the cameras on Amazon in your description. The people watching that video are far more likely to be in the market for a new sports camera than viewers on other videos, and your video might just be the thing that pushes them to pull the trigger.

By including a link to the product, you are saving them the effort of going off and searching for it themselves.

And, as affiliate programmes are almost never more expensive—if anything you can often get a better deal through affiliate links—you are not inconveniencing your viewers in any way.

As an additional note, being in context doesn’t necessarily mean the product or service relates to the subject matter of the video directly. A

s an example, a channel whose content is primarily about how to make better YouTube videos might list off the equipment they use in the description, along with affiliate links to where that gear can be bought. This is useful to that channel’s viewers since “what equipment do you use” is one of the most commonly asked questions that successful YouTubers get asked.

10 Best Tools to Grow Your YouTube Channel 3

Pick Something you Believe In

I am a huge fan of services like Rev – They help me add captions and foreign language subtitles to my youtube videos at a time fee per minute. I use them personally so I know they are good and that is why I promote them using an affiliate program. It is this personal edge that helps my audience understand that if I use it, its a god product and not just a huge list of products you could grab from Amazon in a blind blog post.

Not every channel creates videos of the top ten latest gadgets that can be easily linked to on Amazon, but that doesn’t mean those channels should miss out on the affiliate marketing train.

Firstly, remember that Amazon—and direct product sales in general—are not the only options when it comes to affiliate marketing. Many digital products and services have affiliate marketing options attached to them. Indeed, services like Clickbank specialise in finding digital products that can be marketed through affiliate linking. There are also services, such as Fiverr, as we mentioned earlier.

Ultimately, if there are no affiliate products or services that you can tie into your content directly, you could go on the hunt for a product or service that you truly believe will be beneficial for your viewers, and promote that instead. For example, for a programming channel, you could promote an ergonomic desk chair. For a yoga channel, you could promote a particular type of yoga mat.

It’s a little like being sponsored by that product, only the people behind the product are not involved. And on that note, you should be careful not imply that you are sponsored, as that can cause problems with the company behind the product or service.

The important thing here is that the product or service you are promoting has some usefulness to your audience, even if it doesn’t directly relate to the content of your video. Again, you might find some people in the audience of a fishing channel who are interested in a mechanical keyboard, but it would be blind luck, and that’s no way to run a business.

Do YouTubers Pay Tax? 1

Don’t go Overboard

Regardless of the exact method of incorporating affiliate links into your content you choose, it is a universal truth across all mediums that overdoing it will have negative results.

This can be because your affiliate content is overwhelming your actual content, or simply because your audience feels it’s a bit crass.

But, whatever the reason, if you stack your description full of affiliate links and hand out promo codes every two minutes in your video, you’ll almost certainly turn large portions of your audience off.

And affiliate programmes only work when you have an audience to click those links.

Will Affiliate Links Harm my Video?

To answer this question, we first need to understand a few things about the way YouTube works.

Firstly, affiliate links are very much allowed by YouTube, which is one of the main concerns YouTubers tend to have when first venturing into the world of affiliate marketing.

However, merely being allowed to do something does not mean it can’t have negative effects on your channel.

As we touched on above, YouTube is very concerned with viewer retention. Now, we’re not saying they have no interest in bringing new eyeballs to the platform, but they are more concerned with keeping those eyeballs on YouTube once they are there. This is why average watch time is one of the most crucial metrics of a video’s success in the eyes of YouTube because more watch time means that people are spending longer on the site because of that video.

With that in mind, there is no direct association that YouTube will admit to between external links—affiliate or not—and the YouTube algorithm deciding to recommend a video less often. But there may be an indirect association.

YouTube wants people to stay on the site as long as possible. The longer a viewer is on YouTube, the more chance there is to serve them ads, and the more money YouTube can make. But if a lot of users are coming to your video and then leaving the platform altogether and not coming back, that will reflect negatively in the eyes of the algorithm.

It’s something of a catch 22—you need plenty of viewers for your affiliate links to be useful, but if your affiliate links are too effective, YouTube might see that as users coming to your video and then leaving YouTube, which may lead them to recommend your video less, which means fewer viewers to click your affiliate links. Unfortunately, there is no way around this problem, and YouTube is typically quiet about the exact way that they handle things like this.

That being said, affiliate marketing is a game of percentages—you bank on a large enough percentage of your viewers clicking your affiliate links to make it worthwhile while accepting that the overwhelming majority of them won’t.

Many YouTubers have had a great deal of success through affiliate marketing on YouTube, so there’s no reason that you can’t, too. Just remember not to overdo it, and keep the subject of your affiliates in line with the content of your videos.

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YouTube Tips for Teachers

YouTube Tips for Teachers 2

YouTube has proved to be an invaluable resource for people who are looking to learn new skills, as well as people who want to impart their wisdom to the world.

This typically takes the form of life hacks and DIY videos, but YouTube is just as useful for educational purposes as it is for people who just want to know how to bake a cake and don’t want to take cooking classes or spend a fortune on recipe books.

Whether it’s through using YouTube videos as part of a lesson plan or making YouTube videos to help your students, YouTube can be an invaluable resource for teachers; you just need to know how to use it.

So, in an effort to do our bit for education, here’s our top YouTube tips for teachers!

There are two main ways in which a teacher can use YouTube to assist in their teaching, as we briefly mentioned above.

They are using existing videos to show your students or creating videos to show your students, and some of our tips are specific to one method or the other. To that end, we’ve broken the next section of this post into two parts;

YouTube Tips for Teachers

Tips for Teachers Using YouTube in the Classroom

One of the good things about a platform as large as YouTube is there is already an enormous amount of content out there in just about any topic you can think of, which has obvious advantages if you are looking for learning aids to help your students.

Let’s get into some YouTube tips for teachers looking to use the platform’s existing content in the classroom.

At the end of this section, we’ll list off some of our favourite educational channels that you might be able to make use of in your classroom.

Vet Your Choices

We’re sure that, as you are a qualified teacher, this doesn’t need saying. But in the interests of covering all of our bases, we’re going to say it anyway.

Always vet videos that you intend to use in class.

Though it doesn’t necessarily make them wrong, many of the content you will find on YouTube is made by people who do not necessarily have any formal qualifications in the thing they are creating videos on.

Again, it doesn’t automatically make them wrong or unsuitable, but you should give any video you plan to use in a class some thorough scrutiny before adding it to your lesson plans.

This is especially true for younger children, as you will also be vetting the video for inappropriate language and themes. Seeing as you will be showing the video in class, the video doesn’t necessarily have to be perfect.

You can always interject to correct or clarify on particular points, but if the video is quite a way off the mark, outdated, or just inappropriate for a classroom, you don’t want to be the teacher that accidentally plays because they weren’t paying attention.

YouTube Tips for Teachers 1

Look for Entertainment

Finding a video that teaches the right methods is only part of the battle. If you are going to go to the trouble of pulling up YouTube content in class, it should be entertaining for your students.

After all, you could stand at the front of the class and recite text directly from a book if the only goal was to convey information.

The goal is undoubtedly to engage the students so that they take an interest in the topic, and have a much better chance of retaining the information. Look for educational channels with large subscriber counts, as that is usually an indication that they are entertaining.

You can then check out their videos to ensure they suitable from a content standpoint.

YouTube Tips for Teachers 3

Go Bitesize

Some very informative and detailed educational videos on YouTube can run into hours in length. As a general rule, we would advise not using these videos.

It is not that they are not good, it is just that your students can watch hours of YouTube at home, they shouldn’t be doing it at school as well.

If you stick to videos that are 3-10 minutes long or use longer videos but break them into smaller chunks, you can incorporate them into your lesson, rather than have them be your lesson.

This also gives you more opportunity to make your mark as a teacher. Many people can recall at least one teacher that made a significant positive impact on them as a child.

You don’t want your chance to be that teacher for someone taken away by YouTube.

Pay Attention to Feedback

You will no doubt want to check that your students have understood what they watched, and helping them wrap their brains around anything they were unsure about is a natural part of teaching.

Beyond that, you should be on the lookout for signs that a particular YouTuber is not meshing well with your class.

If a few students struggle with a particular concept, it is probably just those students and that concept.

If, on the other hand, a lot of students regularly struggle to understand things in a certain YouTuber’s video, it may be that the YouTuber’s method just doesn’t work for your students.

Educational YouTubers: Our Picks

As promised, we’ve put together a list of educational YouTubers in a variety of topics that you might find useful for your classroom. We don’t expect you to agree with every suggestion we make, of course, but if you don’t like a particular YouTuber we suggest, be sure to pay attention to the recommended videos sidebar.

There should at least be some recommendations of a similar nature by other YouTubers for you to try.

  • Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell – Ideal for younger students, Kurzgesagt covers a variety of topics within science in videos that rarely run longer than 10 minutes, and are beautifully animated with a distinctive art style.
  • Veritasium – Run by Derek Muller—a man with a PhD in physics and a healthy curiosity about, well, everything—Vertitasium covers a huge range of topics across many areas, from videos on where the Sun gets its energy, to videos on the most radioactive places on Earth. There is even a helpful playlist for people who are new to the channel.
  • Tibees – Toby has an undergraduate degree in physics and maths and makes videos on physics, maths, and astronomy. Her content often has a quirky spin on it, such as explaining complicated mathematical premises in the style of the famous painter, Bob Ross. She has also been known to make videos breaking down past exam papers.
  • English With Lucy – The name of the channel tells you all you need to know. Lucy is a teacher herself and makes videos on a range of things to do with the English language, such as comparing British, American, and Australian English, or how to use certain words correctly.

YouTube Tips for Teachers 4

Tips for Teachers Making a YouTube Channel

One of the beautiful things about YouTube is that it is open to almost anyone, and there is nothing to stop you making your own content if you can’t find what you need on the platform already.

Or if you just feel like you could do it better than what is already available.

If this notion appeals to you, keep reading for some more YouTube tips for teachers who want to make videos.

Public or Private?

Before you start making videos for your students, you should take a moment to decide exactly who these videos are for.

If you are specifically making videos for your class, and you don’t necessarily want people outside of your class seeing them, you should upload them as unlisted, and share the link to the video with your students. Of course, there would be nothing to stop your students sharing the link, but that is, unfortunately, one of the limitations of YouTube.

Another reason to make this decision before you start filming is that it could make quite a difference in how you put your videos together.

If you are making videos for just your students, that is a relatively small audience and one that you can get immediate feedback from.

If, on the other hand, you are making your videos for wider public consumption, you will need to put serious thought into how your videos are put together. It is not enough to merely be accessible to everyone in the world; there has to be a reason to choose your video over one of the alternatives. Try to make your videos entertaining and, above all, clearly explain the subject matter.

Avoid “Cringe”

A trap many people fall into on YouTube is doing things they are not comfortable with for the views. This can happen in many ways, but as a teacher, you should avoid letting this happen to you.

Children today are constantly connected to the Internet and, as a result, each other.

There are many benefits to this, but it also means they are very aware of things and, to be frank, quite blunt about what they see.

If you make a YouTube video where you are trying to be “hip” and “cool” while teaching maths, your students are as likely to make your life miserable over it as they are to learn from it.

Be Careful About Involving Your Students

Involving your students can be a great way to get your class engaged in the process and help them absorb the subject matter more readily.

However, parents can be very twitchy about their children being filmed and posted on the Internet, even if the video is unlisted.

We’re not saying don’t do it, but you should certainly seek the permission of your student’s parents or legal guardians before putting them in a video.

Have Local Backups on Hand

Making videos isn’t easy, and if you go to the trouble of making a YouTube video for your students, you’re going to want to use it. Many schools don’t allow YouTube through their firewall, and even in today’s connected world, Internet dropouts can happen.

If you plan to play your videos in class, have them with you on a local device, such as a memory stick so that you can play them regardless of what the situation with the Internet and YouTube is at your school.

Film Entire Lessons

If you are a particularly entertaining teacher, it might be worth filming your lessons in their entirety.

This would also serve as an excellent way to help students to catch up when they have missed school for whatever reason. Rather than giving them notes, you can send them the entire lesson as it happened.

Granted, you would have to be a very entertaining teacher—or teaching an incredibly interesting topic—for this kind of video to have a broader appeal beyond your immediate students. Also, given the number of school days in a year and the number of lessons in a day, it would very quickly run into a lot of videos, so you might have to consider only keeping the latest lessons.

However, this kind of video would also be the easiest to make, as there would be no need for editing. You could simply press record at the start, stop at the end, and upload the result.

Try to Make Your Content Evergreen

If you are not just recording your lessons in full, as suggested above, we strongly recommend making your videos evergreen.

Evergreen content is content that holds relevance long after it has been uploaded. For example, a video on a clever method to work out the multiples of nine would be evergreen, as it would be as relevant in ten years as it is today.

However, a similar video but using fleeting cultural references to help get the point across could well be outdated in a year. Or less given the half-life of some celebrities these days!

By making your content evergreen, it becomes a valuable resource for you to use to help your students for years to come, not just the students you have when you make it. And, if you choose to make your videos publicly available, the same logic applies.

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DEEP DIVE ARTICLE HOW TO MAKE MONEY ONLINE TIPS & TRICKS YOUTUBE

Do YouTubers Get Paid Monthly?

Do YouTubers Get Paid Monthly? 2

YouTube can be—and often is—a labour of love.

Many people harbour a dream of paying the bills with the success of their channel, but only a small proportion of those people succeed in achieving that dream.

Still, success on YouTube—particularly modest success—is a very attainable goal, which has led to YouTube being seen as a legitimate career choice by many.

With any career choice comes a lot of, frankly, boring questions of a logistical nature. If you are just starting out and have no real financial goals, or, on the other end of the spectrum, if you are an enormously successful YouTuber who makes money faster than you can spend it, you don’t need to think about things like how often you get paid from your YouTubing ventures.

The reality of earning a living through YouTube is a little more grounded, however. There are far more people earning their living through YouTube who are just getting by or perhaps using YouTube to supplement other revenue sources. These people are rarely wealthy, and for them, YouTube is as much a job as any traditional employment you might care to reference.

Still, making an average salary through YouTube is often preferable to a lot of jobs out there.

Do YouTubers get paid monthly? – YouTubers who are eligible for the YouTube Partner Program will accrue income which is paid out a month in arrears. However, you must reach a total of £60 ($100) in the AdSense account to be paid for that month. YouTubers might also have external affiliate arrangements that pay on other terms.

In this post, we’re going to be looking at how often YouTubers get paid, which is a messy, sprawling topic that we can’t give a straightforward answer to since there isn’t one.

Keep reading, and we’ll go over all the ways a YouTuber typically gets paid, along with how often those payments come, and how much flexibility there is in this area. We’ll even through in a little financial advice for anyone just getting started.

How Do YouTubers Get Paid?

To properly understand the messy and complex nature of YouTuber payment schedules, it helps to first understand how they get paid. It is not, as many people seem to think, a single revenue source coming directly from YouTube.

YouTube does offer a monetisation system for which they pay you directly, but the money earned through this method is not typically enough to quit the day job over. In fact, you would have to be getting tens of thousands of views a day to make anywhere near a decent living from this method alone.

That being said, there is more than one way to convert the success of a YouTube channel into earnings… which is also why the topic of how often YouTubers get paid is messy and complicated. Here are some of the most common ways YouTubers earn money;

  • YouTube Partner Programme
  • Memberships
  • Direct Donations
  • Brand Deals and Sponsorships
  • Merchandise Sales

YouTube has created opportunities to leverage memberships and merchandise directly through the platform for channels that meet certain criteria—10,000 subs for merch, 30,000 subs for memberships—but the main way that YouTube pays you is through their Partner Programme.

Outside of YouTube, sites like Patreon can provide you with a way to offer membership style functionality to your viewers, while there are more merchandise platforms than you can shake a branded stick at!

And, speaking of branding, brand deals and sponsorships are possibly the most lucrative option but are only a feasible option for channels with a significant audience.

How Often Do YouTubers Get Paid

Now that you have seen just a sample of the many different ways a YouTuber can get paid, you should be able to appreciate how difficult this question is to answer.

Fortunately, we do have a common theme among the most popular earning methods, so let’s take a look at that theme;

Google’s Adsense—the vehicle through which YouTube pays you—and Patreon, both utilise a monthly payout system whereby you can choose to be automatically paid every month.

There is a caveat, however. Both platforms have a minimum threshold you must reach before you can be paid. This amount comes to $100 in the United States, and a rough equivalent in other countries. If you work on the average CPM of a YouTube video, that means you would need to hit 50,000 views a month to reach the AdSense payment threshold every month.

Patreon is a different animal. The threshold for getting a payout there is a much more modest $10, and your earnings are not directly tied to your views or audience size. In both cases, you can opt to hold your payments until a later date. In the case of Patreon, this allows you to set payouts to manual and take care of the exact payout times yourself.

AdSense is less flexible, their system allows you to hold your payments for up to a year, but you are stuck with their monthly payouts and payment thresholds if you want to get your money out of your Patreon account and into your bank account.

It is worth noting that many merchandise companies work on a similar system to Patreon—where you have to reach a certain payment threshold, but you can withdraw your money anytime once you have reached that threshold.

Do YouTubers Still Get Paid for Old Videos? 1

Payment Processors

Things are a little different for money that finds its way into your payment processor.

This could happen because you are accepting direct donations from your subscribers, but more likely it will be because you have opted to have your membership or merchandise platforms pay into a payment processer (like PayPal) rather than send you a physical cheque.

With payment processors, there are usually no restrictions on when you can withdraw your money and how small an amount you can withdraw, but there may be charges associated with withdrawing your money.

This is especially the case if you reside in a different country to the company who sent the money. For example, at the time of writing, Patreon can payout in USD ($), GBP (£), and Euro (€).

If you live in a country—or, more accurately, your bank resides in a country—that does not use one of these currencies, there will likely be a conversion fee from your payment processor in order to get that money into your bank account.

Do YouTubers Get Paid Monthly?

Financial Advice

If you are asking questions like do YouTubers get paid monthly, you are probably looking at YouTube as a potential career move or at least one piece of your financial puzzle.

After all, there is no law that says you have to make your entire income from YouTube or not at all.

But if you are looking at YouTube as a potentially serious income source, it’s important to plan carefully and be smart.

We could fill an entire post with an in-depth look at this topic, but for now, here’s a quick rundown of the key points.

Build Up a Buffer

YouTube is not the most reliable source of income, particularly if the bulk or entirety of your YouTube revenue is coming directly from the YouTube Partner Programme.

If you choose to make YouTube a significant part of your financial situation, be prepared for the lows that come with those highs.

Never let yourself be in a situation where you are relying on a particular amount from YouTube to pay the bills or meet any other financial obligations you have. YouTube is notoriously unreliable when it comes to making a consistent income, and if you are living paycheck-to-paycheck with YouTube revenue, you could find yourself in serious trouble the next time an adpocalypse hits, or during a month when revenue drops for reasons beyond your control, such as seasonal behaviour.

You can’t necessarily avoid these things, but if you have a reserve of cash, you are at least protected from the immediate damage they can cause.

At the very least, you should have a few months worth of money stored up in the event your earnings dry up, though conventional wisdom states this figure should be closer to six months, if not a year.

Having this cash gives you a bit of breathing room should something happen to severely impact your earnings, and will allow you to figure things out without the axe of defaulted bills hanging over your head.

Diversify Your Income – How To Make More Money on YouTube

Another way to protect yourself against the unreliable nature of YouTube revenue is to not have all of your eggs in one basket.

If the entirety of your income is coming from the YouTube Partner Programme, you are completely at the mercy of the next significant changes YouTube make to their platform, and YouTube rarely make changes that boost everyone’s earning potential.

Making use of things like membership platforms, direct donations, merchandise sales, and any other ways of bringing the money in will protect you against your income being wiped out by one company making changes to their policy.

If at all possible, try to diversify further so that your income sources are not directly tied to your YouTube channel. For example, a Patreon page for your YouTube channel is a good way to diversify your income, but it is still built upon your channel. If your channel were to be taken down for some reason, your Patreon earnings would soon follow.

If, on the other hand, you had a blog running alongside your YouTube channel, earning revenue in its own right, you are further protected from the adverse effects of YouTube changes. Other examples include selling online teaching courses or running sponsored podcasts.

The critical factor being that, even though they may be linked to your YouTube channel by content or branding, these other ventures would be able to exist on their own, should anything happen to your channel.

Do YouTubers Get Paid Monthly? 1

Plan Plan Plan

We can’t understate the importance of proper planning when you first start out. The first year or being financially independent with YouTube as one of—or the main—income sources is especially critical.

We would recommend setting up a spreadsheet and putting in everything you have going out on a monthly basis.

We mean everything.

Make sure the entirety of your financial obligations are covered so that you can clearly see whether you are making enough money.

Hopefully, you will have taken our advice about having a buffer in place, so you’ll have a bit of a safety net to right the ship if you are not pulling in enough money, but you don’t want to get three months into your new career and find you’ve been losing money and didn’t know about it.

One particularly important aspect of this process is to account for everything. It sounds over the top, but it works. If you spend a dollar buying candy, make a note of it. If you buy a video game on sale for only a few bucks, make a note of it.

Small purchases can be the undoing of a move to become financially independent—they add up in the background while we mentally dismiss them as insignificant.

Don’t Rush Into It

The final piece of advice we’re going to impart here is to take your time with the decision to “go pro”.

Too many YouTubers rush to quit their day jobs when they have a good month or two, only to find those month’s earnings were a bit of an exceptional spike, and then they struggle to pay rent the following months.

When you first hit that magical moment where you are making enough money from your online activities to pay all the bills, wait. At least give it a few months.

Put the excess money you are earning into the backup buffer fund we mentioned above. Once you’re sure that level of income is sustainable, pull that trigger!

Do YouTubers Pay Tax? 3

Summing Up

Do YouTubers get paid monthly? Yes. Sometimes… if they want.

The exact frequency of payments to YouTubers depends entirely on whether they are successful enough to meet the criteria for joining the YouTube Partner Programme or making money through other avenues that also require a good deal of success.

It also depends on whether that YouTuber is consistently making enough money to meet the various payment thresholds many companies have in place.

That being said, “monthly” is as close as we can get to a typical payment schedule for your average YouTuber.

Most companies work on a monthly basis and, while some YouTubers may get paid far less frequently, very few—if any—YouTubers will be getting paid more frequently on a consistent basis.

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DEEP DIVE ARTICLE HOW TO GET MORE VIEWS ON YOUTUBE TIPS & TRICKS YOUTUBE

YouTube Shorts Explained [What, Where, How, When & Why?]

YouTube Shorts Explained [What, Where, How, When & Why?] 2

YouTube shorts is the first new and large feature to be added to the YouTube app and platform for years.

This could be the start of a land grab for attention that we all need to pay attention to as Youtube positions itself to take on the vertical video format platforms like TikTok, SnapChat and Instagram Reels.

Quickly, what are YouTube Shorts? – YouTube Shorts are vertical format videos like TikTok. 0-60 seconds in length, uploaded using the YouTube Shorts App or uploaded as a normal video and tagged with #shorts in the title or description. These can be displayed on the stories shelf under suggested videos on mobile devices.

YouTube has even started a YouTube Shorts Creator fund to monetized YouTube shorts (something I deep dive into here).

This could be the next big land grab in the YouTube platforms history so in this article I am going to step you through all I know about the new feature.

What Are YouTube Shorts?

TikTok has rocked the digital world by grabbing the attention of the younger generation who want to share their videos and express themselves – and where the youth goes, so does the potential future of digital media.

We have seen this play out time and time again when a platform ages up too much that something new and “cool” comes along for the younger generation to play with.

MySpace was killed by the new Facebook.

Facebook got too widely used with even your grandma having a profile so people started to take selfies on Instagram and Snapchat.

Instagram got swamped with professionals and people worried that it was “too late to start a  YouTube Channel?” and so TikTok was the new home of the younger up coming demographic of content creators.

YouTube saw this trend and understood that if they want to stay on top of the video creation wave, they will need to win over the next generation of video makers back from TikTok – enter YouTube Shorts!

How To Make YouTube Shorts

Initially the YouTube Shorts tool is a closed beta in India to capitalize on India’s ban on TikTok leaving a very large gap in the market for YouTube to convert into new users.

How do I make a YouTube short? – You can make a YouTube short in the YouTube Mobile App by clicking the + icon at the bottom of the screen and choosing “create a short”. If you can’t see this feature you can upload vertical video under 60 seconds in length and tag it with #shorts in the title or description.

When using the feature via mobile tool (as of Oct 2020) it has very limited tools to assist with content creation but you can speed up your footage and set a timer for hands free recording.

While uploading the video as a normal video might give you a little more flexibility to record a vertical video and then edit it just like a normal video with overlays, music, transitions etc

  • Create: Creation is at the core of short-form video, and we want to make it easy and fun to create Shorts. We’re starting to test just a few new tools for creators and artists with our early beta in India:
    • A multi-segment camera to string multiple video clips together,
    • The option to record with music from a large library of songs that will continue to grow,
    • Speed controls that give you the flexibility to be creative in your performance,
    • And a timer and countdown to easily record, hands-free.

Why make YouTube Shorts?

You have been on the YouTube platform for years and you have always been told to stick to horizontal rather than “ugly looking vertical£ videos – why start making vertical videos now?

YouTube wants to win the new young creator demographic away from TikTok and to do that they are pushing the feature very hard to viewers.

Your videos could show up under the first suggested video on the mobile app giving you a large boost of views. Adopt it early and you could see great results before EVERYONE uses it! Make eye catching relevant videos and you could get featured against established large youtube channels.

Imagine if you could be one of the first people on YouTube all those years ago. Or one of the first people to grow an audience on Twitter and Instagram… this is your chance at a fresh new medium, but this time its supercharged by YouTube!

Even YouTube is exited about the tool

Get discovered: Every month, 2 billion viewers come to YouTube to laugh, learn and connect. Creators have built entire businesses on YouTube, and we want to enable the next generation of mobile creators to also grow a community on YouTube with Shorts.

I have been testing YouTube shorts and seen huge jumps in views even when the channel has only 65 subscribers!

YouTube Shorts Explained [What, Where, How, When & Why?]

Where Can I See YouTube Shorts?

YouTube shorts are currently curated by YouTube and displayed under videos on the mobile app.

It has its own shelf that you can swap through and the youtube shorts normally match the topic of the main video above – for example if you are watching a tech tips video you might see tech related short stories.

YouTube Shorts Explained [What, Where, How, When & Why?] 1

What is YouTube Shorts sizes? ratio?

The standard aspect ratio for YouTube Shorts 9:16. YouTube may add more padding for optimal viewing. The padding is white by default, and dark gray when Dark theme is turned on.

Recommended resolution & aspect ratios for YouTube Shorts.

For 9:16 youtube shorts aspect ratio, encode at these resolutions:

2160p: 2160×3840
1440p: 1440×2560
1080p: 1080×1920
720p: 720×1280
480p: 480×854
360p: 360×640
240p: 240×426

Can I monetize YouTube Shorts? YouTube Shorts Monetization

As with all video platforms people want to know if they can monetize it – because what’s the point of a large audience if you can’t make some pocket money from it.

Can you monetize YouTube Shorts? – YouTube has start to monetize YouTube Shorts with the YouTube Shorts Creator Fund. This is decided by YouTube selection the best shorts created per month. This fund will expand overtime to more creators, content and countries.

YouTube Shorts FAQs

Does YouTube Shorts watch time count towards monetization?

I the YouTube Short is viewed as a short from a YouTube Shorts shelf under a view then the watch time does not count towards monetization totals. However, if the short is watched on the YouTube channel as a native standard video then it does count towards channel totals.

Do I Have To Pay To Make YouTube Shorts?

No, YouTube Shorts are free to anyone. You can make them using the mobile app by clicking the “+” icon at the bottom of the screen and clicking “Make A Short”. Alternatively, you and upload the vertical video that is under 60 seconds as a standard video and tag it with #shorts in the title or description.

Top 5 Tools To Get You Started on YouTube

Very quickly before you go here are 5 amazing tools I have used every day to grow my YouTube channel from 0 to 30K subscribers in the last 12 months that I could not live without.

1. VidIQ helps boost my views and get found in search

I almost exclusively switched to VidIQ from a rival in 2020.

Within 12 months I tripled the size of my channel and very quickly learnt the power of thumbnails, click through rate and proper search optimization. Best of all, they are FREE!

2. Adobe Creative Suite helps me craft amazing looking thumbnails and eye-catching videos

I have been making youtube videos on and off since 2013.

When I first started I threw things together in Window Movie Maker, cringed at how it looked but thought “that’s the best I can do so it’ll have to do”.

Big mistake!

I soon realized the move time you put into your editing and the more engaging your thumbnails are the more views you will get and the more people will trust you enough to subscribe.

That is why I took the plunge and invested in my editing and design process with Adobe Creative Suite. They offer a WIDE range of tools to help make amazing videos, simple to use tools for overlays, graphics, one click tools to fix your audio and the very powerful Photoshop graphics program to make eye-catching thumbnails.

Best of all you can get a free trial for 30 days on their website, a discount if you are a student and if you are a regular human being it starts from as little as £9 per month if you want to commit to a plan.

3. Rev.com helps people read my videos

You can’t always listen to a video.

Maybe you’re on a bus, a train or sat in a living room with a 5 year old singing baby shark on loop… for HOURS. Or, you are trying to make as little noise as possible while your new born is FINALLY sleeping.

This is where Rev can help you or your audience consume your content on the go, in silence or in a language not native to the video.

Rev.com can help you translate your videos, transcribe your videos, add subtitles and even convert those subtitles into other languages – all from just $1.50 per minute.

A GREAT way to find an audience and keep them hooked no matter where they are watching your content.

4. Learn new skills for FREE with Skillshare

I SUCK reading books to learn, but I LOVE online video courses.

Every month I learn something new. Editing, writing, video skills, how to cook, how to run a business – even how to meditate to calm a busy mind.

I find all of these for FREE with Skillshare – Sign up, pick all the courses you want and cancel anytime you need.

5. Shutterstock helps me add amazing video b-roll cutaways

I mainly make tutorials and talking head videos.

And in this modern world this can be a little boring if you don’t see something funky every once in a while.

I try with overlays, jump cuts and being funny but my secret weapon is b-roll overlay content.

I can talk about skydiving, food, money, kids, cats – ANYTHING I WANT – with a quick search on the Shutterstock website I can find a great looking clip to overlay on my videos, keeping them entertained and watching for longer.

They have a wide library of videos, graphics, images and even a video maker tool and it wont break the bank with plans starting from as little as £8.25 ($9) per month.