YouTube is a popular video sharing platform that is used by millions of people around the world. It’s a great way to watch, share, and learn from videos. There are many benefits to using YouTube, including the following:
Access to a wide variety of content – YouTube has a vast library of videos covering almost any topic you can think of. Whether you’re interested in learning about a new hobby, catching up on the news, or watching music videos, there’s likely something on YouTube for you.
Convenience – With YouTube, you can watch videos anytime, anywhere. All you need is an internet connection. This makes it easy to watch videos on the go or at home on your couch.
Opportunities for creators – YouTube is a great platform for creators to share their work with a wider audience. Many creators have built successful careers by creating and sharing videos on YouTube.
However, there are some countries that have decided to ban YouTube for various reasons. Here’s a list of some countries that have banned YouTube:
China – China has a strict internet censorship policy and has banned several websites, including YouTube. In order to access YouTube, people in China need to use a virtual private network (VPN).
Iran – Iran has a history of censoring the internet and has blocked several websites, including YouTube. In order to access YouTube, people in Iran need to use a VPN.
North Korea – North Korea is known for its strict internet censorship policy and has banned several websites, including YouTube. It is difficult for people in North Korea to access the internet at all, let alone YouTube.
Turkmenistan – Turkmenistan has a strict internet censorship policy and has banned several websites, including YouTube. In order to access YouTube, people in Turkmenistan need to use a VPN.
Syria – Syria has a history of censoring the internet and has blocked several websites, including YouTube. In order to access YouTube, people in Syria need to use a VPN.
It’s worth noting that the list of countries that have banned YouTube may change over time. Some countries may lift their ban on YouTube, while others may impose a new ban. It’s also worth noting that while YouTube may be banned in some countries, it is still widely available in most parts of the world.
In conclusion, YouTube is a popular platform that offers many benefits, including access to a wide variety of content, convenience, and opportunities for creators. However, there are some countries that have decided to ban YouTube for various reasons. If you live in one of these countries, you may need to use a VPN in order to access YouTube.
Knowing who has been looking at your social media profiles is one of those things that just about everyone wishes they could do at some point or another.
At least, if they’ve been on social media for a while. Whether you’re checking to see if the ex you’re pretending not to think about has been lurking on your timeline, or, from more of a marketing perspective, you’re just curious who’s been looking at your posts.
This applies to just about all social media platforms, but perhaps more so to Instagram.
Perhaps it’s the nature of the average post (there doesn’t tend to be quite as many bikini pics on Twitter, for example) or maybe it’s just that people on Instagram are more open about wanting to see who’s looking at their feed.
So, can you see who looks at your Instagram? The answer is… it depends. Sorry. Keep reading and we’ll elaborate for you.
Defining Instagram
The problem is “your Instagram” is too vague a premise to accurately answer the question. For the most part, there is no way to see who has been looking at your Instagram, but there are some instances where it is possible. Let’s dive into the differences.
Your Instagram Profile
Probably the most common way in which people want to know if someone has been lurking in their profile itself, by which we mean can you see who has been looking at your main profile page on Instagram. Seeing who has been reading your bio, looking through your pics, watching your reels, etc.
In this case, we can give a resounding “no”. It is not possible (yet) for Instagram users to see who has been looking at their profile. Users could spend all day deep diving into your photo history and you have no way of knowing.
Your Instagram Posts
What about specific posts? Again, the answer is no. Instagram does not currently provide a way for users to look at a list of people who have viewed a particular post.
Your Instagram Stories
Here things get a little more interesting. You can see who has been looking at your Instagram stories… for a limited time. Simply tap the burger menu (the three horizontal lines) in the top right, tap on “Archive”, and scroll to the appropriate story. When you’re on the story, swipe up and you can see who has viewed that story.
As you will no doubt be aware if you use Instagram, stories are not permanent. They sit on your profile for 24 hours and then they are gone. Well, almost. As the person who uploaded the story, you can continue to view it for another 24 hours, along with the information about everyone who has viewed it. After that total of 48 hours from the time of posting, the information is gone.
Your Instagram Direct Messages
DMs are a little more complicated—though not by much. You can see if a person you are in a conversation with has read your direct messages because Instagram will explicitly tell you with a little message in the chat window saying something like “just seen”.
This doesn’t apply if you send a message to someone you haven’t spoken to in DM before, however. Or, rather, it can apply, but the person you are messaging has the option to ignore your message, and you won’t get any notification if they do. Only when they accept your request to chat will Instagram let you know if they have read your messages.
Other Ways to Know
That’s it for the official ways you can tell if someone has been looking at your posts, but there are other ways you can assume or infer that someone has been looking.
Comments
If someone comments on a particular post, it’s safe to say they have been looking at that post. The same goes for liking it. But, on the subject of liking…
Likes
A like on a recent post may tell you that a particular person has viewed that post, but a like on an old post can tell you so much more.
Instagram isn’t big on pushing older content, so when you a like on an old post, it’s usually a good indicator that that person has been doing something of a deep dive on your Instagram profile. This tends to be a little unnerving, as it shows someone is paying a lot of attention to you.
To paraphrase Ed Sheeran; try not to double-tap from way back.
Should You Care?
The next question worth pondering is whether or not you should care if someone is looking at your Instagram profile or content, and the answer is no.
We understand it can cause a bit of a start to suddenly start getting dozens of likes on posts from years ago but, ultimately, you posted that content online for people to look at. You can take posts down or lock your profile, so you are in control of what people can see on your Instagram. As with any social media, you have to accept that a wide range of people will see your content, even people you might not want looking at it.
Your choices in this regard are either to not put the content up in the first place, take it down if you already put it up, or lock your profile so you can control who can and can’t see it. Or, of course, just live with it.
Final Thoughts
While other services like TikTok make it possible to know who has been looking at your profile, Instagram has remained steadfastly in the anonymous (to each other) browsing camp.
Ultimately, it is their platform and their prerogative over how they run it. That being said, if your interests are purely marketing-related, you can always start advertising on Instagram. You won’t be able to see specific names of people who viewed your content, but you will be able to see analytics on the type of people who are looking.
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.
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.
TikTok is a social media platform that lets users easily create, share and discover short-form videos. It’s been around for about 5 years now, and it has over 1 billion users worldwide. TikTok is one of the most popular apps in the world, but most people don’t know how much money you can make by creating content on TikTok.
Can you make money on TikTok? – Yes! Many people make a living on TikTok with the TikTok creator fund and brand deals.
In this article, I’ll explain how much Tiktokers earn from their work on the app and show you some of the top stars who are making big bucks off their TikTok channels.
TikTok is a short-form video-sharing platform.
TikTok is a short-form video sharing platform. It was founded in 2016 by Bytedance, and it currently has over 1 billion users.
TikTok is a free app that you can download for iOS or Android. Once you’ve downloaded the app, you can post original content to your feed or watch other people’s videos and react to them with “hearts” or comments.
When you watch videos on TikTok, though, the app will still show sponsored posts from brands in between them (these are called “ad breaks”).
TikTok launched a Creator Fund in 2019, which pays content creators.
TikTok launched a Creator Fund in 2019, which pays content creators. The goal of the program is to encourage people with large followings to keep producing videos on TikTok and help them grow their audiences.
The Creator Fund gives users who have high view counts and follower counts (based on either their overall following or the number of views they’ve received over the past month) access to paid features like Super Broadcasts and Super Chat.
It’s not a profit sharing program; instead, it pays out when you meet certain thresholds based on how many followers you have. (source)
Top TikTok stars include Addison Rae, Charli D’Amelio, Loren Gray, Zach King and Spencer X.
TikTok is a free app that allows users to make short videos or vlogs. The platform is home to millions of creators who post content daily and share it with their fans.
How much can you make on TikTok? – The best TikTok stars are able to earn hundreds of thousands of dollars per month from their channel, while others make a living by posting sponsored content (i.e., paid advertisements).
Here are some top TikTok stars:
Addison Rae (1M followers)
Charli D’Amelio (2M followers)
Loren Gray (2M followers)
Zach King (11M followers)
Spencer X
TikTok’s most popular users make the bulk of their income from sponsored posts for other brands.
How much can you make from sponsored posts?
TikTok’s most popular users make the bulk of their income from sponsored posts for other brands. These are called brand deals, product placements, and influencer marketing—and it’s an increasingly common way for YouTubers to earn money online.
On TikTok, there are two types of brand deals: ones that require payment up front or in advance (also known as pay-to-play) and those that don’t require any upfront payment but only take a cut based on views (referred to as pay-to-view).
A sponsor may request that their content be shown first in your video or at the end of it in exchange for offering you compensation. If you’re interested in pursuing branded partnerships with brands on TikTok, check out Promoted by TikTok for tips on how to set up your account correctly so you get paid correctly when someone watches a video with their logo in it!
The top stars can earn thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars for a single sponsored post.
In the past, many of the top TikTok creators have made thousands or tens of thousands of dollars per sponsored post. Some have even made millions!
These days, it’s much harder to make this kind of money on TikTok because advertisers are less willing to spend big bucks on influencers. But it’s still possible—if you’re one of the top creators in your category, you might be able to make a few thousand dollars per post.
If you’re just starting out as a creator and haven’t built up an audience yet, expect to earn between $0-$100 per month until then. If your videos catch fire with viewers and build up momentum over time, however, you could eventually earn more than $1k per month for posting content regularly and creating compelling videos that get lots of views (and attract sponsors).
Today, you can only give tips during live broadcasts.
Now, you’re probably wondering how to earn tips on TikTok. The answer is that you can only give tips during live broadcasts. This means you have to be broadcasting an original video or a reaction video at all times in order to collect your rewards.
Tips are not a reliable source of income on any social media platform. They’re not even much of a reward all the time! If someone likes your content and wants to show their appreciation, they will likely follow you instead of tipping you money (which is what coins and hearts are).
The amount of tips that one receives varies depending on several factors: whether they have enough coins/hearts saved up; how many people watch their videos; if the user is popular enough; etcetera…
Josh Richards has been able to negotiate several deals based on his audience size.
Josh Richards is an example of how a TikTok user can make money. His channel, JoshRichardsTV, has over 1 million followers and he’s been able to negotiate several deals based on his audience size.
“It’s pretty common for myself and other creators like me to be approached by companies who want us to do sponsored content,” says Richards. “Sometimes it’s paid upfront, but most often it’s a revenue-share deal where I get paid 50 percent after the video hits certain viewership milestones.”
Tipping as a feature could bring in even more money for creators.
TikTok is a social video platform with over 200 million monthly active users. In 2019, the company launched a Creator Fund to pay content creators. Creators earn money from the ads that run on their videos through the app’s revenue-sharing system, which works similarly to YouTube’s Partner Program.
But could TikTok make even more money if it offered tipping as a feature? Tipping is already used on some apps like Instagram and Reddit (both owned by Facebook).
With enough followers on TikTok, you can earn real money.
You can earn money on TikTok by purchasing ads and sponsored posts. But the best way to make real cash is by creating your own content, which you can then sell through the platform. This is where things get more complicated; TikTok will take a cut of your ad revenue, but it varies depending on how popular your account is. You’ll also have to pay for post production costs like editing software, camera equipment, etc., as well as any other expenses associated with making videos (music rights costs).
So how much can you expect to make? It depends on how many followers you have and how often people watch your videos. On average, users earn about $4 per 1,000 views—which means that if 10 percent of viewers clicked “thumbs up” or purchased an item from one of our sponsored ads (like hot sauce), we’d be looking at approximately $40 in earnings per video!
Conclusion
If you’re looking to make money on TikTok, you need to put in the work. It won’t happen overnight and it won’t be easy. But if you want it badly enough and are willing to put in the time, then there’s no reason why you can’t make some decent cash from your videos.
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.
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.
Like many social media success stories, TikTok seemed to come out of nowhere and just, well, take over. And, like most social media success stories, TikTok has allowed lots of content creators to shoot thanks to their popularity on the platform.
But, while similar platforms like Snapchat and Vine are either dying or are already dead, TikTok doesn’t seem to have found a solution to one of the problems that plagued these other platforms; user monetisation.
Attention spans are not what they were, so we’ll save you some time; yes you can get paid on TikTok from the creator fund, but it’s not as simple as signing up for a partner programme as with YouTube. So, if you’re interested in learning how to get paid on TikTok, keep reading!
What is TikTok, Exactly?
If you’re reading this blog, you almost certainly know about TikTok. That being said, just because you know about it doesn’t mean you know it. Especially if you’re over the age of 30. So, for those of you who have resisted the allure of this Chinese behemoth, here’s a quick rundown of what you get from TikTok.
TikTok is a video-sharing platform that focuses heavily on collaboration. Users can easily “stitch” other users’ content into their own, as well as use the audio from other users’ videos over their own content. Much of the platform is built around this dynamic. For example, clicking the sound link of a video will immediately bring up all the videos that have used that sound, as well as the original video that the sound came from.
Videos are created in a portrait aspect ratio and can be up to 10 minutes in length. In practice, the majority of the videos on the service are a minute long or less. There is also a wide range of filters and special effects, similar to what is found on Snapchat.
What is the Monetisation Situation on TikTok?
So, about the problem we mentioned above. Much like similar platforms such as Vine, Snapchat, Instagram, and even YouTube if you focus exclusively on YouTube Shorts, TikTok does not have a way of directly monetising user content.
What we mean by this is there are no ads being shown against any particular videos. And that’s probably a good thing—these videos are generally very short, and it would likely kill viewership to force people to watch an ad before each video as YouTube does.
The solution is to monetise the platform in a more general sense, inserting ads into the feed every now and again, and then coming up with ways to pass that money onto content creators. In TikTok’s case, its method of choice is through its Creator Fund, more on that in the next section.
How Can I Get Paid on TikTok?
With the way TikTok makes its money established, let’s take a look at how you can make money on the platform.
TikTok Creator Fund
The Creator Fund is how TikTok compensates the creators on its platform. A variety of factors are considered when determining how much a creator is paid, so it’s not as simple as “more views = more money”. TikTok claims that its performance metrics are dynamic, meaning you could receive different payments even though your views and levels of engagement have not changed.
There is no cap on how much you can earn from the Creator Fund, though we know TikTok has committed a fixed amount to the fund ($5.8/£2.3 million over 3 years) and we know their userbase is measured in the billions, so don’t expect to become a millionaire through the Creator Fund alone.
There are some minimum requirements to make money on TikTok, of course. To be considered for a Creator Fund payout, you must be;
At least 18 years old
Be based in the US, UK, France, Germany, Spain, or Italy
Have at least 10,000 followers
Have at least 100,000 video views in the past 30 days
Keep your account in line with TikTok’s community guidelines and terms of service
Brand Partnerships
Brand deals work pretty much the same way on TikTok as they do anywhere else. This method of monetising your content does not involve the platform itself, but rather you enter an agreement with a brand directly (or through a third-party agency), and they pay you to raise awareness of their brand or promote their products on your channel.
There are no hard and fast rules for how brand deals work. Generally speaking, the bigger your audience and engagement, the more options you are likely to have regarding brand deals. That being said, content creators with small audiences can still get brand deals if their niche aligns with a particular brand.
Selling Your Own Products
This one is pretty self-explanatory, but if you have something of your own to sell, you can leverage your success on TikTok to sell it. The product could be music, books, video games, or anything else you create. If you create content on another platform where you make money (such as YouTube), you could attempt to funnel some of your TikTok viewers there.
If you don’t have anything to sell but you have built a large following on TikTok, you can partner with one of the dozens of merch companies to sell your own merchandise, like hats and mugs.
Is TikTok a Valid Source of Income?
TikTok is like any other short-form social media platform. It is possible to make money through the platform, but the number of people who make enough through TikTok alone to call it their “job” is so vanishingly small that nobody should have “TikTok creator” as their goal.
Instead, think of TikTok as another tool in your arsenal. You can make money from it, sure, but use its potential as a promotional tool to bolster your overall revenue. And, in doing so, add a little more diversity to your income streams.
Of course, if you just want to make funny videos or dance to the latest trends, that’s fine too.
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.
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.
YouTube Shorts monetization is finally coming in 2023. A New York Times leak has hinted that YouTube Shorts will finally be added to the YouTube Partner Programme and creators will get a 45/10/45 split on all revenue with 10% going to musicians and 45% going to the platform.
Starting in early 2023, Shorts-focused creators can apply to YPP by meeting a threshold of 1,000 subscribers and 10M Shorts views over 90 days. These new partners will enjoy all the benefits our program offers, including the various ways to make money like ads on long-form and Fan Funding.
We also want to support creators who are even earlier in their YouTube journey, from gamers showing off their speed runs to trendsetting DIY makeup tutorials. A new level of YPP with lower requirements will offer earlier access to Fan Funding features like Super Thanks, Super Chat, Super Stickers and Channel Memberships. To reward creators across a range of formats, we’ll have paths for long-form, Shorts and Live creators to join this new tier in 2023. Stay tuned for more details.
To be clear, nothing will change with our existing criteria—creators can still apply to YPP when they reach 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours. But these changes reflect the diversity of our growing creator community. Creators can choose the one option that best fits their channel while we maintain the same level of brand safety for advertisers. You can learn more here.
What are YouTube Shorts?
You might be reading this and wondering “what the hell is a YouTube Short?”, but don’t worry, we’re going to fill you in.
YouTube Shorts are essentially YouTube’s answer to Instagram and Facebook Stories. They are short videos—less than 60 seconds to be precise—that are intended for continuous consumption. In essence, YouTube wants viewers to sit and watch several Shorts one after the other, with the ultimate aim being to keep those viewers on the website for longer.
Many of us will happily sit through a 10-15 minute video, and if YouTube can put the right Shorts in front of a viewer, that 10-15 minute window could see them viewing 15-30 Shorts (many Shorts are much less than 60 seconds). These videos are primarily made for mobile viewing, something that is evident when you look at the portrait aspect ratio.
While regular YouTube is the kind of experience you can set up in front of your computer or laptop head off down the rabbit hole, YouTube Shorts is more of a “kill five minutes at the bus stop” kind of experience.
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!
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.
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 grey when Dark theme is turned on.
Recommended resolution & aspect ratios for YouTube Shorts.
For 9:16 youtube shorts aspect ratio, encode at these resolutions:
It wasn’t that long ago that making YouTube videos were created just for fun. But now, it’s one of the highest-paying jobs on the planet. Content creators are making a living out of ad revenue, sponsorships, and using their influence to branch out to other business ventures. The competition is high, but here are the 20 of the richest YouTubers dominating the video-sharing platform right now.
Top 20 Wealthiest YouTubers of 2022:
1. Jeffree Star – $200 Million
The makeup artist and former musician is on the top of the list as he is a master of promoting his own brand, Jeffree Star Cosmetics, using his YouTube channel. He makes beauty content and shares his opinion on confidence, self-image, and fame.
Jeffree made money before YouTube by doing various makeup and modeling gigs. He also joined Myspace and gained a large following. He later started a YouTube channel to endorse his music. But when it didn’t work, he launched his own business.
With 16.1 million subscribers, he is far from being the most-subscribed YouTuber, but it’s enough to make him the wealthiest. His company alone makes him over $100 million yearly. Combine that with his other income sources, and Jeffree gets a $200 million estimated net worth.
2. PewDiePie – $40 Million
Felix Kjellberg, also known as PewDiePie, is dubbed by many as the king of YouTube. He has been on YouTube for a long time, popularizing commentary and reaction videos relating to video games and other pop culture topics.
PewDiePie was always passionate about gaming in his youth, so he recorded himself playing his favorite games. It wasn’t easy at first as YouTube didn’t have the monetization feature yet. He supported his lifestyle by selling artwork, working in the harbor, and running a hot dog stand.
He had the biggest YouTube channel for a long time until T-Series dethroned him after their rivalry. Still, he remains the most popular individual user on the site with 111 million subscribers and a net worth of approximately $40 million.
3. Markiplier – $35 Million
Markiplier is a YouTuber who makes comedic sketches and gameplay videos. Like PewDiePie, Mark has a long history on YouTube. He is a pioneer of the sketch style of playing every character involved.
He has created multiple YouTube channels throughout the years because of different reasons. The first time was when his Adsense account was banned. So, he made MarkiplierGAME. He is also a part of the now-deleted Unus Annus channel.
Now, his self-titled main channel has a subscriber count of 32.3 million. Mark has also found success in other ventures, such as podcasting and voice acting. He has a net worth of around $35 million as a result of his endeavors.
4. DanTDM – $35 Million
Originally referred to as TheDiamondMInecraft, DanTDM is another content creator who got most of his fame and fortune by playing video games. He primarily plays Minecraft, but he also tries other games, like Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Pokemon.
In the category of dedicated Minecraft YouTube channel, he set a Guinness World Record for the most views. Dan also broke the record for the most goals scored by a Rocket League squad of two or three players in a single game.
Dan has acquired a total of 26 million subscribers. With this following, he wrote the book titled Trayaurus and the Enchanted Crystal in 2016. He did a book tour and starred in a YouTube Red series the following year. He has a net worth of nearly $35 million.
5. Ryan’s World – $32 Million
Ryan’s World is one of the most recognized YouTube accounts for children. In this channel, a child named Ryan Kaji reviews toy products, performs DIY science experiments, and completes numerous tasks.
It was previously known as Ryan ToysReview, but it was later renamed to its current moniker as Ryan tried new things. The 10-year-old’s mother had given up her full-time career to work with her son for this channel.
They currently have nine total channels, but they garnered 32 million subscribers on their main account. There’s a Spanish and Japanese version of Ryan’s World. They also sell merch, which is mainly toys and clothing. This gives Ryan a $32 million net worth at a young age.
6. Dude Perfect – $30 Million
Cody Jones, Tyler Toney, Garrett Hilbert, and twins Cory and Coby Cotton make up Dude Perfect. They gained popularity by making trick shot videos. Now, they are also doing other wild challenges and fun video series.
The five members were all roommates in college at Texas A&M University. They started by recording trick shots at Tyler’s ranch. When their videos became viral, ESPN called them and asked to feature them.
Dude Perfect has amassed 57.3 million subscribers. Players from several professional sports leagues have collaborated with them. They also created a mobile game with the same name as their channel. Now, the group has a total of $30 million in net worth.
7. MrBeast – $25 Million
This may come as a surprise to some, but MrBeast is not the wealthiest YouTuber alive. He just likes to make philanthropy and challenge videos in which he gives away thousands, and sometimes millions, of dollars to random people and organizations.
Jimmy began posting on YouTube as MrBeast6000 when he was 13 years old. He started getting mainstream attention in 2017 when he made unique vlogs and rigorous challenges.
MrBeast is now close to getting the Red Diamond Play Button as he racked up 91.8 million subscribers. This fame also helped him launch other ventures such as Finger on the App, MrBeast Burger, Feastables. That’s why it’s not surprising that he has over $25 million in net worth.
8. VanossGaming – $25 Million
Evan Fong, popularly known as VanossGaming, is a Canadian online figure, creative director, gaming commentator, and disc jockey. He showcases most of his talents on his YouTube channel.
He created his YouTube channel around the same time he went to college to study economics. When he began to devote more time to content creation, his parents became concerned. But everything worked out in the end for Fong.
He is regarded as a key character in the expanding video game commentary subculture. This is how he got 25.6 million people to subscribe to his channel. He also makes money as a DJ called Rynx. It eventually gave him an estimated net worth of $25 million.
9. Ninja – $25 Million
Ninja, whose real name is Richard Tyler Blevins, is a professional gamer known for streaming Halo 3, Fortnite, PUBG, and more. Team Liquid, Cloud9, Renegades, and Luminosity Gaming were among the teams he played for.
He never went to a university and started streaming in 2011. He was slowly getting viewers at first. His mainstream media debut came in March 2018, when he streamed Fortnite with Travis Scott, Drake, and JuJu Smith-Schuster.
At the time of writing, Ninja’s subscriber count is hidden, but it’s known that he reached 23.9 million in the past. Apart from YouTube, he has many fans on Twitch, even becoming the most-followed channel on the platform in late 2021. He now has a net worth close to $25 million.
10. Rhett and Link – $24 Million
Rhett James McLaughlin and Charles Lincoln “Link” Neal III are a comedic pair that dubs themselves as the “Internetainers”. They have made several comedy projects together, but perhaps their most successful one is the web series Good Mythical Morning.
The duo met in first grade at a North Carolina elementary school. They went on to share a dorm room at North Carolina State University. They both worked in their respective fields for a period while also creating skits.
Their Rhett and Link channel has 4.99 million subscribers, while Good Mythical Morning has 17.5 million. They run five channels in total. They are also the current owners of another comedy group called Smosh. With this, the two have a combined net worth of $24 million.
11. James Charles – $22 Million
As a creator who thrives in the beauty genre, James Charles Dickinson is known for his makeup tutorials. He has stated that cosmetics is a creative expression and an art form for him.
He got into beauty by assisting a colleague with her makeup for a school dance. He eventually taught himself how to do it alone and began doing it professionally for others. James started his channel while working as a small makeup artist in New York.
James has about 24.2 million subscribers currently. After a tweet displaying his makeup made headlines, he was named CoverGirl’s first male brand ambassador. He’s over $22 million after releasing his own makeup line.
12. Jake Paul – $22 Million
Jake Paul is a vlogger who has turned his focus to celebrity boxing. His YouTube channel is known for its pranks, controversy, and music. He is a part of Team 10, who dropped the song, It’s Everyday Bro, which received mixed reactions from listeners.
He first became known on Vine and then for his role as Dirk Mann on the Disney Channel show Bizaardvark, which he played for two seasons. Paul has been the target of numerous controversies during his career as a result of his actions.
Even with the disputes, Paul has gained 20.4 million subscribers. As of his professional boxing career, he has a 5-0 record. Content creation and boxing made him one of the most prosperous YouTubers today, worth $22 million.
13. KSI – $21 Million
JJ Olatunji, alias KSI, is known for posting hilarious reactions and gaming commentary videos on his YouTube channel. He is also involved in celebrity boxing, and he releases his own music. He is also a member of the British influence group Sidemen.
In 2008, he began publishing gaming videos on YouTube, and most of them were about FIFA. He drew a large number of viewers and quickly increased his material coverage.
The JJ Olatunji channel, where he uploads his vlogs, has 14.8 million subscribers while his music account, KSI, has 23.7. JJ was the first rival of Jake Paul in their amateur boxing career. It ended with a draw, and both turned pro later on. This contributed to KSI’s current net worth of $21 million.
14. Preston Arsement – $20 Million
With multiple gaming channels, Preston Arsement is one of the leading content creators in his category. He mainly plays Minecraft, and he’s a part of The Pack, a Minecraft community he started with his friends. He also makes videos from the Minecraft server he runs.
Like many gaming creators, Preston has been a video game lover since childhood. He eventually decided to skip college and create the TBNRfrags channel with two of his friends, TBNRKenWorth and ChocoTheChocobo.
TBNRfrags has reached 7.53 million subscribers. But later on in Preston’s career, he decided to make a channel of his own. It now has 19.3 million subscribers. Arsement’s online pursuits have earned him a net worth of over $20 million.
15. Like Nastya – $20 Million
Like Nastya is the second children’s channel to make it on this list. The channel stars a little Russian girl named Anastasia Radzinskaya, who often does toy unboxing, reviews, and travel vlogs.
At birth, Anastasia was diagnosed with cerebral palsy. Her parents both worked and owned businesses that they eventually sold. They devoted all of their time to caring for their daughter, eventually making a YouTube channel dedicated to her.
Fortunately, the girl is doing well now, and their efforts have earned them 89.2 million subscribers. They translated their videos into different languages. It helped Anastasia gain a net worth of approximately $20 million at eight years old.
16. David Dobrik – $20 Million
As a long-running social media personality, it’s not a shock to many that David Dobrik is one of the most affluent content creators on the planet. His YouTube channel featured individuals with whom he had previously collaborated on other platforms.
David started out on Vine. Before Vine was shut down, he had over a million followers. Because of this, he was able to shift to YouTube faster than most other influencers.
The Slovakian personality continues to grow with his 18.3 million subscribers. He made a second channel, David Dobrik Too. He uploads challenge videos and blooper clips there. David also has a podcast with Jason Nash. All of this amounts to a net worth of around $20 million.
17. Lilly Singh – $20 Million
Formerly called Superwoman, Lilly Singh is an accomplished comedian and actress. Her YouTube channel is full of skits and crossovers with well-known celebrities.
Singh had planned to obtain a degree as her parents had wanted but instead chose to make YouTube videos. She decided that if her YouTube career did not take off, she would return to grad school. But her YouTube channel exceeded her expectations.
She now has 14.7 million subscribers and has been involved in projects outside of YouTube to improve her wealth. She got the chance to make music, host a talk show, and tour the world. Though she still studied for a degree, she also has a net worth close to $20 million.
18. Logan Paul – $19 Million
Logan is the big brother of Jake Paul. The siblings have a similar career and content, consisting of pranks, challenges, and vlogs. Both of them have been involved in several controversies and have dived into the world of professional boxing.
At ten years old, Logan was already making videos. In 2015, he was the most famous Vine creator. He moved on to act in some television programs and even write a screenplay.
He now has 23.4 million subscribers. Aside from his typical content, he’s a frequent guest at boxing, mixed martial arts, wrestling events. He also hosts a podcast titled Impaulsive that adds a lot to Paul’s $19 million net worth.
19. Blippi – $16 Million
Blippi, also referred to as Stevin John, is a popular children’s entertainer who can be seen on a handful of streaming platforms. He depicts a lively and curious character in his informative videos so that kids can relate to him.
Stevin didn’t start out as Blippi. In fact, he was far from child-friendly in his early days of playing characters. He portrayed Steezy Grossman, a child born as feces.
Switching to a different look is perhaps the best decision he’s made now that he has 15.1 million subscribers on YouTube. He also makes foreign language videos and releases them to various platforms. That’s why Blippi is worth $16 million.
20. Roman Atwood – $14.5 Million
Roman Bernard Atwood was known initially for his prank videos. However, he ultimately transitioned to another content style. He made vlogs, in which he chronicles his daily activities.
While still in high school, Roman Atwood began filming and making videos. He even made The Nerd Herd DVD series. In Columbus, Ohio, he’s also worked on a number of films and commercial gigs.
His original prank channel earned 10.3 million subscribers until he stopped posting there in 2016. Now, he is active on his second channel. Overtook the first one with 15.5 million subscribers, giving Roman Atwood a 14.5 million net worth.
Social media platform Pinterest (PINS) makes money from advertising. Shares started trading on the New York Stock Exchange on April 18 under the symbol “PINS.”
Founded in 2010, Pinterest went public on on April 18, 2019. Its initial public offering (IPO) price was at $19 per share and it raised $1.4 billion, giving it a valuation of roughly $12.7 billion including restricted stock and options. As of Dec. 3, 2021, the company had a market capitalization of $23.3 billion. Roughly 431 million users, or “pinners,” use the bulletin board-like platform every month to browse and share images and other content in the form of “pins.”
Key Takeaways
Pinterest makes its money via advertising, specifically, promoted pins. These promoted pins are ads that look similar to user-generated pins (posts).
The company has integrated a “buy it” button which permits users to buy pinned products directly from Pinterest, rather than visiting a separate merchant site.
In 2021, the company generated $2.57 billion in revenue but posted a net loss of $316 million.
Opportunities for increasing revenue that Pinterest plans to pursue include greater international expansion, focusing on video and increasing ad capabilities, as well as pursuing its own e-commerce efforts.
Pinterest History
The company, which grew out of an app called Tote that dated from 2008, received $100 million in financing when it was valued at $1.5 billion in 2012. The funding firms included Rakuten, Goldman Sachs (GS), and Andreessen Horowitz. It was valued at $12.3 billion during its last round of funding in 2017. The company has a dual-class structure.
When it was founded, Pinterest seemed to follow the model of social network sites like Meta Inc. (FB), formerly Facebook—meaning that it aimed to develop a massive network of users first and then to install means of generating revenue later on. Pinterest $756 million in revenue in 2018, a jump of 60% from the previous year. The company generated $261 million in revenue during the second quarter of 2019, a 62% year-over-year increase.
“Our advertising products help businesses reach Pinners across their decision-making journey,” said the company, which cited a Talk Shoppe survey that said 68% of weekly active users discovered a new brand or product on Pinterest.
“We address various advertiser objectives through our Promoted Pin ad format, which contains either a single image, a carousel of images or video. Our ability to develop new and improve existing advertising products will be an important driver of our future growth.”
So just how has Pinterest come to be one of the most-hyped social media companies among investors and what is a promoted pin?
Monetizing Pins on Pinterest
Before looking at more traditional means of generating revenue, it’s worth looking at how Pinterest has utilized its unique pin system to create opportunities for monetization. The company has integrated a “buy it” button which permits users to buy pinned products directly from Pinterest, rather than visiting a separate merchant site.
Merchants participating in BigCommerce, Shopify, or Salesforce Commerce Cloud are allowed the opportunity to partner with Pinterest; it’s unclear whether Pinterest charges any commissions from these partners.
Promoted Pinterest Pins
Pinterest’s primary source of revenue is what it calls “promoted pins.” These special pins are effectively advertisements, paid for by identified sponsors. As with Facebook’s timeline feature, promoted pins look very similar to (but not exactly the same as) standard pins. Pinterest utilizes user data to target advertisements based on user interests and searches, as well as other demographics. Given that users pin items that they are interested in already, this process is relatively straightforward for the company.
Pinterest’s revenue is driven by interest and use of its platform, which is increasingly popular among fashion and beauty brands. Given that the users of Pinterest are overwhelmingly female and have above-average incomes, using its platform as an e-commerce gateway is more than ideal.
Next Steps
Pinterest’s user base has grown over the years, where it’s carved out a niche that allows it to not directly compete with the likes of Facebook. Pinterest’s leadership has adopted a much less aggressive approach to growth than its competitors. Revenue has grown since the company has gone public, but so has its net loss, as the company has ramped up spending on sales and marketing and research and development.
One big future opportunity is being able to tap the international markets, where Pinterest currently has little reach. Beyond that, Pinterest is interested in building out its e-commerce efforts (what exactly that looks like remains to be seen), as well as continuing to develop advertising tools— including video capabilities—for advertisers.
When getting started on YouTube—or even when you’re established—it can sometimes be tempting to engage the services of one of those “10,000 views for $10!!!” offers you find on places like Fiverr. And, if you seek the advice of any knowledgeable YouTuber, you will likely be told to stay well clear of those bought views for a variety of reasons.
Ultimately, however, the damage done by fake views is mostly one of disappointment. You pay for thousands of views only to find that your revenue doesn’t change because none of the fake viewers are legitimately engaged with your content. Where things get a little dicier is when it comes to YouTube terms of service, since breaking those can get you kicked off of the platform. Of course, for YouTube to penalise someone for fake views, they first have to be able to detect those fake views. So, can YouTube detect fake views?
Yes. To a certain extent, YouTube can detect fake views and will take action to nullify those views, as well as potentially take action against any YouTubers who are suspected of wrongdoing.
What do We Mean by “Fake Views”?
As with many things in the English language, the wording can get confusing when dealing with fake views. One of the main points of confusion is the use of “fake views” interchangeably with “buying viewers”, which may be true to some extent, but it is perfectly possible to buy viewers in a manner that YouTube deems acceptable.
We are, of course, referring to advertising. At the end of the day, paying advertising and other forms of promotion in which you pay money to promote your channel are forms of “buying views”, but YouTube does not have a problem with this. Not least because they hope you will use their advertising platform to promote your work
No, when we say “fake views” or “bought views”, we are referring to views that have been bought by the amount. Paying money for a guaranteed number of views will almost always fall afoul of YouTube terms of service, which takes a hard line against anything that artificially increases the number of views, likes, comments, or any other metrics you might care to pad out.
The use of the word “artificial” in that sentence is important. You see, if you just went out and paid 10,000 people to watch your video, like or dislike as they deemed fit, and drop a comment based on their actual thoughts about the video, YouTube probably wouldn’t have a problem. Those users would be engaging with the content and the fact that you paid them to do it wouldn’t be an issue.
The reality of fake views is not that, however.
Fake views are nearly always either bots or a captive audience, such as users who are being paid pennies to watch thirty seconds of video. These views are not worth anything to YouTube since they are not going to click on ads or dive further into the site where they can accumulate value for the platform.
This is not just bad in the sense that the fake view isn’t earning YouTube any money, but it’s also bad in the sense that it skews their advertising performance metrics. The more views that don’t result in clicks through to advertisers, the less appealing YouTube becomes for said advertisers.
Needless to say, it’s in YouTube’s best interests to crack down on fake views.
Can YouTube Detect Fake Views
So, with all of that in mind, can YouTube detect fake views? We said in a somewhat cagey fashion that they can, but what does “to a certain extent” mean?
Simply put, YouTube can make educated guesses about views based on a variety of factors. Things like IP addresses and their watching habits, how long views last, the views per hour ratio of a video or channel, and where the traffic sources for these views are.
All of these things and more are considered and allow YouTube’s systems to paint a picture of the user viewing a video. If there is a high probability that a view is fake, YouTube will treat it as such.
Will I Get Banned for Buying Fake Views?
You may get lucky. YouTube has been known to erase fake views without taking any action against the YouTuber whose videos were viewed. It is likely YouTube factors in the magnitude of fake views and whether a channel has a history of getting fake views. If you buy a few thousand fake views once, you will probably be safe from the ban hammer. If you buy tens of thousands every week, you’re going to get caught.
That being said, always remember that YouTube’s terms don’t specify an amount. Fake views are fake views, and you could have your channel erased if you buy them.
Do Fake YouTube Views Work?
The golden question then becomes; is there any benefit to fake views. And is that benefit worth the risk? Unfortunately, we have to come down on the side of no, there is no worthwhile advantage to fake views.
As mentioned, these views do not engage with your content, meaning they don’t earn you ad revenue or click your affiliate links or sign up to your Patreon. Worse still, they negatively affect your channel. Having a high volume of views with a poor engagement rate reflects badly on your content in the eyes of YouTube, and this could lead to your videos getting recommended less!
Final Thoughts
There are many shady things that can be done to increase your chances of success online, including on YouTube. But when the negative impact of buying fake views is weighed along with the risk of getting caught and suspended from the platform, it’s hard to make a case for buying fake views.
Building your audience organically will ensure that your viewers are engaged, there for the long haul, and, above all, you will be safe from being caught out by YouTube!
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.
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.
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.
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.
Privacy on the Internet is one of our bigger concerns in today’s interconnected world, and YouTube is not exempt from those concerns. Given the sheer volume of YouTube videos that are watched at any given time, and especially by any individual person, there is a wealth of information that can be gleaned from knowing someone’s YouTube viewing history.
Unfortunately, the answer to “can YouTube history be tracked?” is a resounding yes, it most certainly can… assuming you are using YouTube as a logged-in user. YouTube will still track your usage when you are not logged in, of course, but there this data will be anonymised. This is not to say it’s not tracking you in a way, but more on that shortly.
YouTube Viewing History
The first thing to be aware of when considering YouTube’s tracking abilities is that it is baked into the platform. YouTube makes its money through advertising, and the biggest selling point for online advertisers is the fact that ads can be targeted to very specific demographics because of all the information YouTube has. YouTube knows your age, gender, geographical region, interests, and more, allowing advertisers to make sure their ads are being shown to people who are likely to be interested. Naturally, that system doesn’t work if YouTube doesn’t collect information about you.
Your viewing history is the most obvious thing, of course. You yourself can view your viewing history if you wish, a particularly useful tool for finding videos you’ve enjoyed in the past but can’t find now. Of course, in order for this feature to be available, YouTube needs to keep a record of what you have watched.
Your YouTube viewing history is private, and cannot be viewed by anyone else. If you don’t want certain videos logged to your viewing history, you can always log out of YouTube before viewing them. There are some limitations to this method, however. For example, YouTube will not allow you to watch videos it has deemed inappropriate for younger viewers unless you are logged in. This is mostly to prevent children from getting around content restrictions by using YouTube logged out.
You can also clear your viewing history if you’re worried about someone using your computer and stumbling across your obsession with videos of capybara playing with dogs, but that will only affect the viewing history you see—the data that YouTube uses to decide what to recommend to you will still be there.
Non-YouTube Tracking
It is possible for your YouTube history to be tracked by non-YouTube parties, but in the vast majority of cases, this would require you to have either agreed to something or been hacked by someone.
For example, if you are using YouTube through a device that has been opted into something like Nielson tracking, all of your online activity will be tracked, including your YouTube use, but this is something you will have actively sought out and agreed to beforehand.
It is also possible for your device to become infected with malicious software that will monitor your YouTube usage, but you should be able to avoid this with common sense security measures, such as having up to date anti-virus software and not clicking on untrustworthy links.
There are also perfectly legitimate (in the legal sense, not necessarily the moral one) ways to track your usage, such as Facebook’s “Off-Facebook Activity” settings. These can be disabled by you, but if they are not, Facebook can track a number of things you might be getting up to online.
Your Online “Fingerprint”
We often worry about our identity being out there because all of the scariest sounding forms of hacking and online fraud involve stealing our identities for something. It is possible to track you without your identity, however.
When you use the Internet, including websites like YouTube, there is a wealth of information that those remote servers have access to. These include things like the operating system your device is using, the browser, what screen resolution you have, even what fonts are installed.
While none of these things inherently give away your identity, there are sufficient variables to reliably identify a returning anonymous user. In this manner, a remote server can build up a tracking history for a user, even if that user never logs in or gives their name or any other personally identifiable information. Essentially, they can create a “digital fingerprint” corresponds to you and you alone, even if they don’t know who you are.
Now, if YouTube uses this method, nobody is being particularly open about it. However, we do know that they use browser cookies to keep track of what you’ve been watching.
Browser Cookies
Browser cookies are essentially little packets of information that are stored on your hard drive. The next time you visit YouTube anonymously, YouTube can check these cookies and see what you were looking at the last time you were there.
If you’re not comfortable with this, there are two options. You can either regularly clear your cookies so that there is no record, or you can browse YouTube in incognito/privacy mode. With cookies being stored on your computer, you are in complete control of whether they stay or go, as long as you know how to do it.
Final Thoughts
Your YouTube history can certainly be tracked, but, for the most part, the entity doing the tracking is YouTube. It is possible for nefarious parties to get into a position to track your viewing history, but in most cases, if they are in that position, your viewing history will be the least of your worries.
It should also be noted that, from a privacy standpoint, YouTube is a very different platform for children. COPPA regulations mean that YouTube cannot track nearly as much data on underage viewers as they can with adults.
For the most part, however, protecting your privacy and identity on YouTube requires the same common-sense approach that should be used whenever you are browsing the Internet or using connected apps.
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.
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.
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.
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.
YouTube and blogging are two powerful ways to earn a fairly passive income online. YouTube is a visual platform that relies on video content while blogging gives you a little more licence to deep dive into ideas with writing, images and videos blended into a comprehensive article.
But how can you monetize your youtube channel and blogs, and what one is more profitable?
Lets look into making money online in the first place. You can make your site a profitable business by monetizing it in the following ways:
Affiliate Marketing
It’s one of the most popular ways that bloggers use to make money. with this type of marketing, you need to promote certain products that belong to other businesses. So, every time a person buys the product through your affiliate link, you earn a commission.
Some of the most popular affiliate programs include:
Amazon associates
Commission junction
ShareASale
Publish Sponsored Blog Posts
You can get paid to write and publish a blog post on your site. This is simply sponsored content, and it offers one of the best ways to improve your blog monetization strategy. A business organization, company, or individual can pay to create content about their products. In some instances, they might prepare the content themselves and then give you for publication. Some of the best blogger networks that can provide you with such opportunities include:
BlogDash
ValuedVoice
Sell Ad Space
If you have ad space on your site, you can sell it at a set price to an interested buyer. This sounds better than getting a small amount of money every time someone clicks on your ad, and you simply charge a flat rate.
Write Product Review
Once you have built your site and become a reputable writer, you can get paid to write reviews. You can try out a sponsored product, write a product review about it, and get paid to do that job. But it’s important to find a niche that you understand and products relevant to your audience. For instance, if your blog is about health and fitness, it will make sense to review supplements, smartwatches, wellness applications, and fitness apparel.
Get AdSense
When you start writing and publishing content for income, advertising is usually at the back of your mind since you want to profit from your work. The easiest way to monetize your blog is by using Google AdSense, i.e., an Ad Network run by Google. AdSense usually displays adverts on websites, and when a visitor clicks on it, you make money.
YouTube.
Just like blogging, there are several ways you can use to monetize your YouTube channel. If you are in the YouTube Partner Program, then you can earn money through:
Ads
If you meet YouTube’s advertiser-friendly content guidelines, then you can turn on ads. You can check your eligibility by checking out the self-certification examples and guidance found on this platform.
But understand that choosing to turn on adverts doesn’t mean they will automatically appear on your video. Your content must go through the standard ads process that includes human and automated reviews to determine if it meets the guidelines. Besides that, you need to have all the rights to the audio and visual elements in the video. YouTube has two types of ads options; hence you can turn on ads for:
Individual videos
Multiple videos
Merch
YouTube has a merchandise shelf that allows interested creators to sell their branded merchandise on this platform. Note that this feature usually appears on certain video pages that are eligible channels.
Memberships
Allow viewers to join your channels via monthly payments. However, you should be ready to give them members-only perks such as emojis, badges, and other types of goods. YouTube has policies and guidelines to help eligible account holders.
Chat and Super Stickers
You can turn on this feature and connect with your fans during live chat. Making super stickers and chat content can earn you up to$500. Viewers can purchase the super chats option to highlight your message in the live chat.
Premium Revenue
YouTube premium revenue will automatically turn itself on. If a viewer is subscribed to YouTube Premium, then every time they watch what you publish, you will earn part of the fee they pay for their premium account.
In this blog vs YouTube earnings overview, it’s clear that both platforms offer multiple channels of earning money. However, more people prefer to watch videos rather than read blogs, and this is because they have a better chance to view content in a “live” way.
Q: When to get AdSense
If you are a blogger, you can apply for AdSense once your site starts receiving at least 100 unique visitors daily. Blogging rules have changed, and it may be quite difficult to get accepted, especially if your site doesn’t generate a reasonable amount of traffic every day. Besides that, you need to have a Google account, e.g., Gmail, to use AdSense. With YouTube, you need to have at least 1000 subscribers with a total of 4,000 watch hours.
Q: Does AdSense Pay Per Bloggers Per View?
Blog: No. AdSense doesn’t pay bloggers based on ad views. Instead, people get paid using cost-per-click (CPC). This is an established payment system that allows you to receive a portion of your payment when a person from your target audience clicks on the targeted ads by Google AdSense. So, if one of your users clicks on your ad, you should receive 68% of the payment as the publisher.
Q: How Much Does AdSense Pay Per Click/View?
Blog: Your commission is 68% of the total click amount, but this can go down to 51% in AdSense for search. Generally, the amount you get in terms of the commission depends on the existing competition on the Google Search engine platform and the CPC in that niche. The commission per click usually ranges between $0.20 and $15.
YouTube: according to various sources, you can earn between $0.01 and $0.03 per view with YouTube AdSense, but this amount usually averages out at around $0.18 per view. Like blogging, Google will pay you 68% of the generated AdSense revenue, and so for every $100 that the advertiser pays, you get $68 as the publisher.
Q: How Can You Improve Your AdSense Earnings?
For bloggers, AdSense earnings matter. To maximize your AdSense revenue after monetizing your website, here’s what you need to do:
Craft High-Quality Content
Your content is what will make you stand out. Valuable content will always get more clicks, which will organically raise your revenue. This is because it will generate more traffic and leads. By doing so, your chances of getting more clicks will increase, making your site attractive for product or service advertisers.
When crafting content for a specific niche, look at what your competitors are doing first, including their writing styles. This way, you will know what’s expected of you and how you can uniquely craft your content for your audience.
Use the Right Keywords
A combination of engaging, high-quality content with the right keywords will be highly effective in revenue generation. Look for those keywords that people commonly use when searching for specific content. Optimize your keywords so that search engines can easily crawl on your site and rank your content on top of search results.
Of course, more traffic will lead to more clicks, and the result will be more earnings from Google AdSense.
Consider Best Ad Placement Best Practices
Ad placement is important in maximizing your earning. On your homepage, you can increase the click-through rate (CTR) by:
Using 728 x 90 leaderboard ad image unit just right above your homepage’s fold and below the main bar navigation.
Consider testing different ad units, i.e., 300 x 250 medium rectangle or 160 x 600- a wide skyscraper in your sidebar.
On your main blog page, use:
A 336 x 280 large rectangle image for your ad unit right on top of your article.
Consider using a similar type of ad unit before the comments section at the end of your post.
Ad size and style all matter in boosting a blogger’s AdSense earnings. This gives your visitors several chances to notice and then click on your ads. When considering ad style, understand that the goal is to make them more visible while simultaneously reducing ad blindness.
That’s why google usually recommends that you consider using different colors for your links and ad text to make them stand out.
There are three main ad styles that have been proven to be technically effective, and they include:
Color contrast: use ads with colors that easily stand out against your website’s background.
Blend: ensure that your ad units are the same color as your site’s borders.
Complement: use colors that preferably already exist on your website even though they don’t exactly match with the borders or background but easily blend.
Use a Plugin for Ad Management
Ads that generate good revenue must be managed. This makes it possible to group ads depending on the content and where they can be inserted. Some of the useful features of an ad plugin include:
Ad rotation: you can opt to use a timed or on-page rotation for your site’s ad group
Adblocker: it checks if the browser has an ad-block software and then issues notification for it to be disabled.
Expiry date: you can set an expiry date for your ads.
For YouTubers, you can only make money with your YouTube partner account to get AdSense Revenue. The best way to increase your YouTube earnings include:
Publish Quality Videos
In content creation, quality will always sell. There is more to creating videos, which means creating content that can easily captivate the viewer. There are already several other creators in your niche; hence, you should create videos that people can watch. But how can you effectively do this?
Create videos that meet YouTube guidelines
Create a schedule for your video posts- it is important to upload videos to create a schedule that your audience will be in-tune with. Do you want to upload videos twice weekly, 5x monthly, etc.? You can learn more about scheduling here
Create your Thumbnails. Even though YouTube offers you the thumbnail option, it’s great to create your own since you can customize it to meet specific user preferences. You can use a graphic editing app to do this.
Briefly describe what happens in the video in the description area. Note that the summary of the information you provide here should be accurate, and you can even add blogs or websites that you are affiliated with.
Ensure that you sparsely use the relevant keywords to fill out all the details outlined in the title, tags, and description. SEO is also relevant in YouTube.
Create a quick but captivating intro that highlights what the viewer should expect.
Manage your Channel
Only a great channel with a reliable number of viewers will earn you a good income. YouTube success doesn’t come easily, so you must build and manage your channel. Ensure your channel’s description, including colors and logos, matches your niche and user profile. Besides that:
Fill in all your profile information
Customize your site’s color scheme and background
Use a captivating cover photo
Use a captivating cover photo
Channel management also requires you to vary the presentation of your videos. There are those subscribers that love short videos while others love longer versions. Analyze the performance of different videos based on the length and use that information to create relevant content. This way, you can:
Publish video content of varying lengths to cater to the different needs of your target audience
Create your playlist featuring a series of various videos
Lastly, consider your community in content management. There isn’t any successful YouTuber who doesn’t have a community. How can you build your community?
Directly interact with your fans by replying to comments
Ask them to give you their opinions
Make them feel like they are part of your content creation journey
Improve your AdSense Ads
Use your YouTube partnership account to improve your AdSense. Do keyword research to drive more traffic and result in better showing ads. The more traffic you get and the better the quality of the ads, then the more money you will earn.
In this case, consider the type of tags you use. Tags should be ideally used to connect videos with similar characteristics. So, the more connections you get, the better your chances of getting more views.
Market Your Channel
It would be nice for your channel to get more exposure on YouTube and other platforms. A high level of exposure guarantees you more leads and traffic, which leads to more views that generate revenue.
Q: How Many Views Does a Blogger/Youtuber Need to Get Paid?
Blog: There isn’t a specific fixed number you need to get paid. You can get paid with as little as 100 visitors. However, you should understand that every page view generates $0.01 and $0.25. That means that you would earn $1 -$25 monthly.
If you want to make money from blogging, you need to get around 10, 000 views unique visitors monthly. This way, you can monetize your blog easily and use it nicely for a revenue stream. However, the biggest challenge for most people is getting these numbers. For a YouTuber, the views you need can be equated to 4,000 hours of watch time.
Q: What Kind of Blogs/Channels Make More Money?
You can flourish in any niche and earn a modest income if you put in the work. However, there are niches that if you invest in, you are guaranteed more revenue. This is because such niches are popular, and their content is highly demanded.
We “interact” with money almost every day. Whether it’s buying food, transport, paying for accommodation, or even accessing the internet, so, money is an important factor for the sustenance of our livelihoods, and that’s why starting a finance blog will put you a step ahead in ensuring you earn more.
People are always looking for effective ways to handle money, and finance blogs are the best in providing actionable insights that the user might need. Whether it’s a busy professional, a retiree, or a young college student, finance content will never go out of style as it appeals to most people. Some of the aspects of finance you can focus on. Include:
• Passive income – blogging is one of the best ways to earn a passive income or use it as a side hustle.
It is currently one of the best niches to focus on since most people are actively looking for ways to make passive or active income through marketing.
With your marketing blog, you can help your target audience learn how they can master e-commerce skills before starting a business. Some of the areas that seem to be attracting big numbers include:
• SEO
• blogging
• Email marketing
• E-commerce marketing
Travel Blog
Travel blogs have become a necessity in this era, with more people keen on exploring their locals, regions, or even international areas.
Travel blogs are quite popular, and you can always make good money, regardless of the zone you decide to focus on. You can make money through affiliate links, accommodation reviews, etc. Additionally, you sell travel apparel on your blog.
Food Blog
If you are a foodie, this is a new area for you to flourish. Food blogs are popular currently, and you can make yours the online recipe book. Teach your target audience how to prepare different tasty dishes, and you can even use some nice photos from your kitchen.
Besides that, you can prepare specific meal recipes that target a certain group of people e.g.
• New moms
• Those struggling with weight loss or weight gain
• Diet time limits
• Fitness enthusiasts
Some of the other areas you can focus on include:
• Restaurant reviews
• DIY meals
• Food and traveling
• Affordable outdoor dining
Fashion Blog
You don’t need your clothing line to write a fashion blog. You can still express your unique sense of style on your blog through product reviews. There are new fashion trends almost every month, and this means that people are always trying to keep up to date with what’s happening in the fashion world. The best thing about being a fashion blogger is that you can link your site to your social media page, become a social media influencer as well, and add affiliate links.
Not all YouTube videos are the same, and there are certain types of videos that tend to perform better than the others, regardless of the publisher. These videos generate more income, and they include:
How-to videos
They are quite popular since people are always looking for popular solutions to fix and do things. How-to videos top the charts since they are better off than instructional manuals. You can cover a wide range of topics ranging from education, travel, and photography.
Product Reviews
These are videos that involve a YouTuber testing out a product then giving the target audience a review, including the downsides and pros, based on their personal experience. According to Google, product reviews have generated more than 50,000 years of YouTube watch time in the last couple of years only.
Vlogs
These are videos that cover a wide range of niches depending on the creator. You can vlog about basically anything but lifestyle topics, including music, comedy, and entertainment
You can learn more about YouTube side hustles here
Q: What’s Easy Monetize, YouTube Channel or a Blog?
It depends on your content and the effort you put in. it takes about six months to start earning from your blog. With YouTube, your channel needs to have t least 1,000 subscribers and a total of 4,000 watch time hours within the last 12 months.
It will take you roughly a year to get to 4,000 watch hours, i.e., 240,000 minutes, if you maintain an average watch time of 20,000 minutes per month. But YouTube divides watch time across the whole channel, and so you can achieve the watch hours in less than a year if you produce a few high-quality videos.
To get quickly monetize your channel and get up to 4,000 hours of watch time, here’s what you can do:
Create fresh content
To be discovered on YouTube can be easy if you upload fresh content that appears on top of YouTube’s search results. Your goal should be to publish videos that remain relevant all year round, and this means that you can continue to earn revenue from the same video for months to come.
The best way to make evergreen content include:
• Interacting with your viewers and asking them about which content they prefer
• Answering their questions as much as you can
• Consider trending topics and offer valuable information regarding them
• Create videos that offer solutions or give deeper insights
Do Livestreams
Of course, your community of fans wants to know and interact with you on a one-to-one basis. The best way to boost viewership and improve your target audience’s confidence is by hosting live stream sessions. Understand that the numbers might be small at first, but the more you do, the better your chances of growing your channel and earning more revenue.
consistently Upload Your Videos
More hours mean that you need to have more videos under your belt. Create viral videos that will quickly give your channel the needed boost to attain those 4,000 hours. Don’t forget to be consistent. There’s a lot that goes in during video creation. Hence you must be ready to put in the work.
Go for Quality
The length of your YouTube video matters in attracting and retaining your target audience. But sometimes, to hit those high numbers, you need more quality content than quantity. A popular video with your audience will generate more traffic, and your channel will quickly hit those hours.
Q: Blog vs YouTube Earnings: Which One Should You Consider?
It all depends on what you have in your hands at your interests. There is a whole blog vs YouTube earnings debate that never seems to go out of style. But here are a few tips to help you consider the right type of platform that suits you:
Rate of earning income
A blog will quickly earn you a reasonable income, especially if you can monetize your ads and work with affiliate links. While YouTube has a better-earning potential, it’s more volatile and only seems more profitable for people who have fully established themselves with short- to medium-term goals. Overall, getting your foot in the blogging field seems easier, and you can get the job done within 3-4 months.
SEO Benefits for Growth
You stand a better chance to grow exponentially if you start with blogging. Blogging can help your YouTube channel to grow. Some of the benefits of starting a blog before a channel include:
• Understanding keyword research and its benefits in content creation
• Improving click-through rates
• Content length and what appeals to your audience
• How to describe photos and videos
With this information, you can create SEO-friendly videos that increase watch-time and more audience retention, leading to more revenue generation. Besides that, you will learn the importance of creating longer videos because they give you more watch time, a better chance of retaining viewers, and provide your target audience with more values. Lastly, you can use your blogging skills to caption and describe your videos using the right keywords. You can learn more about YouTube captions here
Startup Costs
Before you start blogging or vlogging, you need to invest a sustainable amount of money. While there are cheap ways to do this, it remains a fact that you need to put some money aside for content creation.
Blog costs
You will mainly invest in services. Here is a brief overview of blogging costs:
• Hosting: you need a host for your website. Expect to pay at least $60 annually, but this depends on the host you choose.
• Domain name: your blog needs a unique identifier in the form of a domain name. a basic domain name will cost you around $13.00. remember that you should choose a unique domain name that complements your site’s profile.
• Paid theme: while this isn’t a requirement, remember that you want to use your blog to generate revenue. Some bloggers may avoid this and opt to use free themes with limitations. To be on the safe side, ensure that you get a paid theme, and this can cost you around $30.00
YouTube Costs
You need a camera and a good microphone to start a YouTube channel. However, some may argue that you can use your smartphone. However, your success with a smartphone is quite limited based on the 720p to 1080p standard. You will be disadvantaged if you don’t produce high-quality content because your competitors are, and that’s why they are earning more revenue. On average, here’s what you need:
You can find more information regarding the tools from alanspicer.com
Starting a blog is cheaper, and you can leverage that to create a good YouTube profile. You will probably have better deals initially as a blogger, and the whole setup process is cheaper.
Selling Your Work
If you need a platform with a good exit strategy, you should probably consider blogging. People sell their websites all the time, which can generate up to 50x of the platform’s monthly average profit. Overall, it’s easy and quite profitable to sell a blog.
Meanwhile, how many times have you heard a person sell their blog? This is because it’s highly unlikely for that to happen. In fact, if you do so, then you will be going against the terms and services of YouTube/Google.
This doesn’t mean that people don’t sell their YouTube channels, but the whole process is complex and involves many backdoor deals.
In conclusion, if you want to grow your target audience quickly with a moderate income, then you should consider starting a blog. But if you are patient, want to build a community, and earn a significant amount of money in the long run, then YouTube should be your go-to solution. To learn more about starting a YouTube channel, here’s what Alan Spicer, a certified YouTube Expert, offers.
Facebook Groups are rapidly emerging as a powerful tool for promotion, revenue generation, and social interaction, of course. Still, while that last point may be obvious, and most people will be able to see the promotional potential of Facebook Groups, monetisation is a little less intuitive.
Can you monetize facebook groups? Yes! In fact there are so many little tricks to monetize a facebook page we’ve made a list!
That’s why we’ve put together this post to illustrate the many ways you can monetise your Facebook Group, as well as a few ways to ensure your group succeeds.
Let’s dive in.
10 Ways to Monetise Facebook Groups
It should be noted that some of these suggestions will only work if you are an admin of a group. Now, in no particular order;
Promote Products
If you’re a member of a popular group (and, of course, if you are the admin of one), you could use it to promote any products you sell. Of course, you will need to make sure the group in question allows promotion, and if it does, there will probably be guidelines you will have to adhere to.
Remember to participate in the group beyond just promoting things. People tend to react poorly to someone who only ever contributes to a community for selfish reasons, and you will likely find you get better results if you participate.
Build a Reputation
If you have an area of expertise that you plan to turn into a career of some sort, you can start laying the groundwork for that future in a Facebook group! Let’s say for argument’s sake that your area of expertise is something technical like machine learning. You could find an appropriate group and start helping others with their problems, gaining a reputation as an authority in the subject matter. Then, when you decide to try your hand at something a little more professional, such as freelance work, or even a YouTube channel, you will already have a group of people who know you are the real deal.
Remember, the Internet has made it possible for more people than ever to try their hands at things that would normally have needed a formal education. But there will always be a place for people who know what they are talking about and are willing to offer a helping comment.
Charge Membership or Subscription Fees
If you are running a Facebook that is particularly useful to its members, you could start charging membership or subscription fees to join. Bear in mind that your group will have to be something special, offering things that your prospective members wouldn’t be able to get elsewhere.
In order to do this, you will have to set your group to private and invite only, and then set up your own way of handling payments, as Facebook does not currently offer this option.
Earn Advertising Revenue
On a similar note to the previous suggestion, a popular group will likely be of interest to advertisers. Those advertisers could go through Facebook’s own advertising platform, of course, but that platform does not currently offer a way for advertisers to target specific groups. As the admin of a group, you can provide that option for your group.
Again, you will have to deal with the mechanics of this one by yourself, as Facebook does not provide the tools to do it.
Collaborate With Brands
One-off advertisements are fine, but striking up a deal for ongoing collaboration with a brand or company offers much more stability in your revenue stream. Once again, this is something you’ll have to arrange yourself. You will need to be able to show any potential brand that your group is worth collaborating with. It can also be useful to have some ideas to present to said brand for how the collaboration could go, such as running competitions.
Dabble in Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing allows you to make money from product or service promotion in much the same way that advertising does but in a less intrusive manner. Affiliate links and promotions will typically fit into the general flow of the content in a group, offering the members something of value. An example of this might be providing an Amazon Affiliate link to a product that’s been discussed in the group. The members will not have to pay anything extra (indeed, many affiliate programs offer special deals for affiliates), and you will make a little extra case from each sale.
Accept Donations
It may not be the most reliable way to monetise your Facebook group, but if you have enough members and they are engaged and active enough, you could consider accepting donations.
Of course, this suggestion assumes you are an active participant in the group and that the members can see the value you bring. If you just started the group but don’t really do much from day to day, you may struggle to find anyone willing to donate.
Offer Consultancy Services
If you establish yourself as an authoritative figure on a particular subject, you could parlay that reputation into a career in consultancy work. With today’s fast-paced world of development and creation, people and companies are often branching out into areas they aren’t necessarily familiar with. In these cases, they might not want to hire an expert, but that doesn’t mean they won’t benefit from an informed opinion.
Network
Whatever your intended career going forward, you can probably benefit from a little networking. Whether it’s just people in the same niche as you or people in positions of influence who can be of direct help to your career, getting involved in communities like this can present opportunities that you wouldn’t otherwise have had.
Sell Your Group
Now, this is explicitly against Facebook’s rules, so we have to say that we do not recommend you do this, but selling popular groups is a thing that happens, and it can be very lucrative. Especially if you develop a knack for building popular groups and can do this on a regular basis.
Again, this is against Facebook’s rules, so you take a risk by doing this. That being said, there’s no way for Facebook to catch you unless you make a big deal out of it.
5 Tips for Helping Your Group Succeed
We won’t dwell on this section too long because advice for making your Facebook group succeed deserves a post of its own, but here are some tips for making sure your Facebook group thrives.
Keep Engagement High
Engagement is the lifeblood of a successful Facebook group. Regardless of what your ultimate goal for the group is, you’re going to want active members who are commenting and replying and reacting to the content.
One way to ensure engagement stays high is to post engaging content yourself, as well as draw attention to popular posts by other members.
Promote The Group
If you want the group to succeed, you need to get the word out. You could advertise if you’re prepared to throw some money at the problem, but if not, you’ll need to do the leg work and get out there yourself.
Other groups are a great place to promote (as long as the group in question allows that kind of thing), but you can also take it off Facebook and get the word out that way. Just remember not to spam, as that will almost always have the opposite of the desired effect.
Foster a Welcoming Atmosphere
If you want people to join and participate in your group, you need to foster the kind of atmosphere that encourages it. What kind of atmosphere that is will heavily depend on the type of group you are running. You can enforce the atmosphere you want with things like rules, temporary (and permanent) bans, and, of course, comments.
Be an Active Participant
We’ve already touched on this in the “keep engagement high” section, but it’s important enough that it deserves its own section. You should be active in the group, encouraging conversation, drawing attention to good posts, and generally keeping everything going.
Encourage Members to Invite Others
Promoting a Facebook group doesn’t have to be a one-person operation. Once you start to build a membership base of engaged users, you can gently encourage them to do a spot of promoting themselves.
We’re not suggesting you demand they go on a full advertising campaign, of course, but things like sharing the link with friends they think will be interested and other low-effort activities.
Final Thoughts
Facebook Groups are not the most obvious thing that springs to mind when you think about options for generating revenue online, but they are certainly an option.
That being said, we have to admit that the biggest monetisation potential for Facebook Groups involves them being used in conjunction with other things. For example, using your Facebook group to drive traffic to affiliate links or services you offer elsewhere or promoting products or services within the group. The options for monetising a group using official Facebook channels is extremely limited, but there is every chance that will change as the platform evolves.
Whether you are considering starting a YouTube channel for business or pleasure, the allure of that big red play button can be hard to resist. YouTube is proven to be a great medium for expanding a brand, bringing attention to your business, or just connecting with an audience over something you are passionate about. And it is for these reasons that so many people want to start a new YouTube channel, even now when there are so many channels out there.
In this post, we’re going to look at some of the mechanical aspects of starting a channel, as well as some tips for how to go about getting those first views, but we wanted to start off by reaffirming your desire to start a channel (we’re assuming you do want to if you’re reading this!)
Is It Worth Starting a YouTube Channel?
One of the main roadblocks to a successful YouTube channel is a reluctance to pull the trigger on that “create channel” button. This can happen because of a variety of reasons—most of which we’ll cover in more detail in a moment—but the important thing to remember is that new channels are being created all the time, and plenty of YouTubers who are successful today started out recently or were shy to begin with or thought their chosen topic wouldn’t get much interest.
Ultimately, the majority of YouTube channels do not achieve the kind of success their creator hopes for, we can’t deny that. Whether they want to achieve financial independence through their content, become an internet megastar, or just find a small audience that is interested in what they are interested in, most don’t make it. But the one thing you can be certain of is that if you don’t start a channel at all, you definitely won’t succeed.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at some of the biggest reasons why people don’t start YouTube channels at all. And then tell you why you shouldn’t let those reasons stop you!
“I’m Too Shy”
Many would-be YouTubers love the idea of starting a channel, but when faced with the prospect of sitting in front of a camera and speaking to strangers on the Internet, they soon find themselves wilting away from the idea.
We’re not going to tell you that the shyness just goes away—though it does get less severe if you stick at it—but we can tell you that you don’t necessarily have to fight that shyness to run a YouTube channel.
There is more than one way to make a YouTube channel, and not all of them involve showing your face. In fact, it’s entirely possible to run a successful YouTube channel without showing your face or speaking! Granted, the style would have to work with your content, but many popular channels are clips shows, use virtual characters in place of on-camera appearances, and make use of text-to-speech technology.
“My Interests Are Too Niche”
Okay, we won’t lie and say there is no such thing as a “too niche” topic when it comes to an entire channel. You can certainly limit your potential audience to the point that you’re never going to hit those YouTube Partner Programme goals if you choose something extremely obscure.
That being said, assuming your interest is not so niche that you could start a support group for it and get everyone in a single room, being niche is actually a good thing!
Having a niche subject matter makes it easier to get noticed and build an audience when you are first starting out. It’s generally better to be laser-focused at the start of your YouTube career, build a small audience, and then gradually expand your niche to broaden the potential audience. So your niche interest could actually be the thing that makes your channel succeed.
“I’m Too Late to the Game!”
YouTube is easily the most popular platform for user-generated video content at the moment, and that popularity can make it a little intimidating to dive in yourself. With so many people already on the platform publishing videos, how can you hope to make a splash of your own?
It’s true that it can be hard to make an impact on YouTube when you’re just starting out, but it is far from impossible. In reality, the vast majority of successful YouTube channels got started under these circumstances. Whether there are two million or twenty million other channels, you’re still going to be trying to make your mark in a very crowded room.
Ultimately, if you release good content on a regular basis, you stand a good chance of succeeding on YouTube, regardless of how many channels are already taking up space on YouTube’s recommendations page.
How to Start a YouTube Channel
So, hopefully, we’ve convinced you that the excuses you’ve been making to yourself for why you shouldn’t start a YouTube channel aren’t valid, now let’s get to how you actually go about it.
Create a Channel
We said we’d cover the basic mechanics of starting a YouTube channel and we weren’t kidding. The first thing you need to do is create a YouTube account if you don’t already have one. There are no stringent requirements for creating an account; as long as you have an email address, you should be good to go. After that simply follow these steps;
Sign in to your YouTube account and click on the user icon at the top right-hand corner of the page.
Click the gear icon to open up your YouTube account’s settings page.
Click “create new channel”.
Choose “Use a business or other name”, enter the name of your channel and away you go!
Choosing Your Channel’s Name
The last part of that list—entering the name of your channel—obviously requires you to know what name you’re going to use. It’s worth putting a good deal of thought into this part of the process before getting started, as changing your channel’s name after it is established can be a bit of a headache.
Now, we want to stress that, while this decision is important, it should not be a decision that keeps you from starting a channel. There is a fine line between giving something due consideration and using that consideration as an excuse to not get started at all.
If you are starting a channel as part of a business or an existing brand, that should make naming a little easier. If you are starting a channel as an individual, it’s important to consider what you want for the channel’s future. For example, if you have plans to one day grow your channel to the point of having a team working on it, perhaps bringing other content creators on board, you will want to steer clear of using your own name, as that links the channel to you specifically, making it a little weird when other people are on there.
Alternatively, if your plans don’t involve anyone but you being in front of the camera, you should consider using your name in the channel name, as it will make it easier for you to parlay any YouTube success into success in other areas.
Set Up Your Channel
With your channel made, you need to spend some time setting up your channel. This means adding things like profile and header images and filling out your about section. You can also arrange how your channel page looks, but don’t worry too much about this until you have a few videos uploaded.
In your about section, make sure you explain what your channel is about, but try to keep it as clear and concise as possible. Many viewers won’t even click to expand the about section, so try to get the basic premise of your channel into the first sentence, but in a way that grabs the reader’s attention.
If you are tying your YouTube channel to something larger—such as a business, brand, or other personal projects—be sure to put links in your information. These should show up in the top right-hand corner of your channel pages, just below the header image.
Start Making Videos
The most important part of being a YouTube is, of course, being a YouTuber! Simply picking out a good name and creating a channel isn’t much use if you don’t then create content for it, regularly.
There is a veritable cornucopia of excuses to not make videos, and we’re not saying they’re all bad reasons. But, as with the channel name choosing, you should not let this become a crutch that you use to stop yourself from doing the deed. Remember, the quality of your video can always improve. The quality of you can always improve. But there’s no reason you can’t be improving while you make content, and there is no better practice than doing.
Just make the best content you can, and always strive to improve.
Keep Going
Once you’ve gotten over that initial hurdle that so many people fall at, you just need to worry about sticking with it. This is one area where bloody-minded persistence isn’t necessarily the best road to take. You should be persistent, yes, but in a smart way.
By ensuring that your channel grows, you will find it much easier to stay motivated and keep putting out new videos. Here are some tips for ensuring that happens.
Work Your Niche
We touched on this before, but a good way to get started as a YouTuber is to really drill down into a niche, finding an audience through the simple act of providing them something that not many others are. And if it’s something nobody else is providing, all the better!
The problem with such a tight niche is that it can severely limit your growth potential. To give an extreme example, if you start a channel based around talking local news for a small town with a population of 700 people, you’re going to struggle to find millions—or even thousands—of viewers who are interested in your content.
As you grow, try to expand your niche slowly and organically to widen your potential audience.
Take Advantage of Search Engine Optimisation
You don’t have to become an SEO expert (though it will certainly help if you do), but you should familiarise yourself with the basics of optimising your videos for being found in YouTube search and even other search engines like Google or Bing.
We’re not going to tell you that you need to upload new videos every day or week to be successful—many popular YouTube channels have upload schedules that involve months between videos—but you do need to be consistent.
If you start off uploading weekly videos and then abruptly don’t put out another video for a few months without warning, it will be a turn off for your viewers, and it will cause YouTube’s algorithm to question whether you are a reliable content creator.
Build a Community
Playing an active role in the community that arises around your channel will ensure you have some degree of influence over how that community develops. It will also give your viewers a strong sense of connection with your content.
You can do this in a number of ways, such as regularly replying to comments, or setting up and actively participating in a Discord server or subreddit.
Monetise Your Channel
When you reach a stage where monetisation is an option (whatever form that comes in), you should strongly consider doing it. YouTube doesn’t need to be about the money, of course, but it is hard work, and it’s much easier to motivate yourself to make time for it if you’re getting something tangible back.
Final Thoughts
YouTube continues to be the premier video platform for user-generated content, and there is still plenty of opportunity there for those willing to put the effort in.
People today understand more than ever the importance of diversifying when it comes to your source of income. After decades of financial crisis’ and global pandemics, younger generations are acutely aware of how risky it is to put all your eggs in one employment basket.
This has always been the case for YouTubers, of course. Since the beginning of YouTubers making money from their content, it has always been the advice for smart YouTubers not to rely solely on YouTube to pay their bills. Adpocalypses, changes to personal situations, and much more can make YouTube earnings evaporate in no time.
Of course, telling you that it’s important to spread your wings a bit financially is all well and good, but we want to go that extra step and give you a few ideas on where you can spread your wings!
A side hustle is defined as any job or occupation that is not your main job or occupation. In a traditional sense, an example of this might be someone working in a factory through the week and then doing a few shifts tending bar on the weekend. In this case, the bar work would be a side hustle.
Of course, things are a little more fluid these days, with the lines between side hustles and a “main job” being a little blurrier, but there is an emotional component that is strong these days than it once was. It is not uncommon for people who make their money online to have something that they consider a side hustle actually be their primary source of income!
Still, whether you classify something as a side hustle based on the money it makes you or how important that activity is to you, the basic premise remains the same; it’s a way of earning money that you consider secondary to another way of earning money.
How Much Money Can You Make With a Side Hustle?
The amount of money you can make with a side hustle will, of course, vary tremendously depending on several factors, such as what the side hustle is, how good you are at it, how much time you put into it, and more.
As mentioned above, how much money it makes does not necessarily affect its status as a side hustle. If you consider YouTube your “primary” hustle, you may well find one of your side hustles overtaking as your largest source of income. Our advice would be to not think too much about things like the exact amounts. As long as you’re making enough (whatever “enough” means to you), it doesn’t matter which hustle is making the most money.
Don’t Think of it as a Side Hustle!
While you should get too hung up on the specific amount being made by any form of hustle, it’s important not to think of things as secondary, or unimportant. If your job involves making money on the Internet, you should consider all of it your job, whether it’s making the most or not.
If you start thinking of legitimate income sources as unimportant, you run the risk of letting them slip until they stop being legitimate income sources. You may think of yourself as a YouTuber, but if you have half a dozen side hustles, they will quickly amount to a significant portion of your income, so you probably literally can’t afford to neglect them.
Top 10 Side Hustles for YouTubers
That’s enough about what side hustles are, it’s time to get to our top ten side hustles for YouTubers. Of course, if you simply searched for side hustles and found this post, you aren’t a YouTuber, don’t stop reading. We’ve picked these ten side hustles because they work well with YouTubing, but they are perfectly viable side hustles for other walks of life, too.
In fact, if you see your main hustle on here (blog writer, or podcaster, for example), just swap that one out for “YouTuber” and keep on reading!
Oh, and a little side note about the YouTube Partner Programme, we haven’t included that in this list because we assume that if you’re looking to add side hustles to your resume, you’re already making money from YouTube.
#1 Affiliate Marketer
Affiliate marketing is perhaps one of the most well-established means of making money on the side for YouTubers. This is the process of promoting something in the course of your usual content and making a little money on the actions taken by your viewers.
The most well-known example of this is, of course, Amazon’s affiliate program. When enrolled as an Amazon affiliate, you will be able to get a personal affiliate link from any Amazon product. Viewers who happen to buy that product will not pay any extra—indeed, they wouldn’t even know it was an affiliate link if you didn’t tell them (more on that in a second)—but you will make a small commission on anything they buy through your links.
There are many forms of affiliate marketing available, as well as services designed specifically to facilitate linking companies with people like you. It should be noted, however, that you should always give some sort of indication to your viewers that a link you have put in the description or a product you are promoting in your video is something you are promoting as an affiliate. It’s not hard to find out, and viewers will be turned off by this kind of dishonesty. It could also get you in trouble with YouTube.
#2 Merchandise Seller
Whether you have some kind of merchandise that exists independent of your YouTube channel, or you start releasing merchandise that ties directly in with your YouTube channel, having that channel can be a great way to promote it.
Naturally, if your merchandise is tied to the channel (for example, t-shirts with the channel logo on them), you’re going to want to promote it from that channel. Alternatively, if you want to start (or already have) a small clothing line, you sell artwork, or you sell pretty much anything on a site like Etsy, you can leverage the popularity of your YouTube channel to give that side hustle a bit of a kickstart.
#3 Course Instructor
Many YouTubers have some area of expertise, even if their channel is not about imparting that expertise. These days, the administrative side of creating and hosting an online course to teach other people things is relatively painless. There’s still a lot of work in putting the course together, of course, but there’s a lot of work in running a YouTube channel, as well, and you’re not letting that stop you… are you?
Of course, if your channel is centred around educating, such as a DIY channel, or tutorials on coding, it will be much easier to translate that audience into an online course. But even channels that are not about teaching viewers something can take advantage of this side hustle, as long as the course is teaching a skill that is on display when you make your videos.
#4 Channel Manager
If you have a particular flair for handling YouTube channels, you might consider turning your attention to becoming a channel manager. Essentially, you would take on the management of other people’s channels, and handle almost everything except for the content itself.
Many people don’t have the time or desire to effectively manage their channel themselves, but proper channel management can make an enormous difference. As you will no doubt be aware of this is a side hustle you are considering.
The main thing to beware of here is letting this side hustle take over. A good channel manager will typically have several clients. And, while managing a channel doesn’t take nearly as much time as making content for it, it all adds up if you keep adding clients to your roster.
#5 Blogger
Bloggers may resent seeing their profession listed as a side hustle on a YouTube blog—especially since blogging was a viable source of income before YouTube—but don’t be mad; YouTube can just as rightly be called a side hustle for bloggers. And the good news is this makes sense whichever way round you look at it.
Essentially, you have something to share with an audience, and you are currently doing it in video form. By translating that content to written form, you can reach a whole new audience. Or you can make it supplemental, giving your YouTube audience something else to consume.
#6 Podcaster
In a very similar vein to being a blogger, you can get more of your message out in audio-only form through podcasts. And, again, if you are a podcast, you can easily look at this suggestion in reverse, with YouTube being the side hustle.
This suggestion works best for channels that already have a podcast-like feel, such as panel show channels, or interview channels. If you regularly put out hour-long videos that are mostly talking, you’re going to miss out on a lot of viewers purely because of the time requirements. Not everyone has that much free time to sit and watch YouTube.
Those same people might have an hour’s worth of commuting to do every day, or regularly go for a job and like to listen to something while they do. They might just want something to put on while they do a bit of cleaning around the home. If your content is already podcast-like, putting it out as a podcast will involve negligible work. And, if it succeeds, it could drive more traffic to your YouTube channel.
Of course, you can still make a podcast if your channel isn’t the kind of channel described above. As long as you have something interesting to talk about, you can find an audience.
#7 Produce Video Content
This one is a little trickier. As we mentioned above in the channel manager section, creating content for a channel is the most time-consuming part, so the idea of producing video content for others might not seem like the best plan.
While you could certainly produce video content for other YouTube channels, we’re suggesting something more specialist, such as making animations idents, or infographic clips. If you have a skill for this kind of thing, there will undoubtedly be plenty of people and companies that are happy to pay for your services.
#8 Stock Trader
This one doesn’t really tie in to you being a YouTuber unless your YouTube channel revolves around you being a stock trader, or talking about stock trading in some form. If this isn’t you, you can still get into stock trading (or currency trading), to earn a little (or a lot) extra on the side, just be sure you know what you’re doing. We categorically do not recommend anyone dabbling in the stock market without knowing what they’re doing beforehand.
#9 Become a Consultant
You don’t have to make content to take advantage of your expertise. Consultancy work is a great way for you to exploit your own knowledge while helping others. One example of this could be helping other YouTubers grow their channel (assuming you have proven yourself able to do this in the first place of course!), but it could just as easily be any other area of expertise you have.
#10 Champion a Cause
This one is kind of cheating. You won’t necessarily make any money from championing a good cause, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. Whether it’s planting trees or donating to charities, you have the power to make an impact.
Final Thoughts
YouTube is undoubtedly a great platform for launching other projects, whether they are passion projects, side hustles, or even new careers. The list above is a relatively small selection of the possibilities for adding new hustles to your game, so don’t worry if none of the above work for you.
Of course, if all else fails, your side hustle could always be other YouTube channels.
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.
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.
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.
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.
YouTube is a veritable cornucopia of informative and educational content, with much of it having the added bonus of being entertaining at the same time. It’s no wonder, then, that many people are looking to use YouTube videos in their online courses, but is that allowed?
As always, the answer to this question will be dramatically different depending on the circumstances in which you are using a YouTube video. There is no rule in YouTube’s terms of use that specifically prohibits the use of YouTube videos in online courses… but there are rules that indirectly make it impossible to do so.
We’re going to get into this, so make yourself a beverage and get comfortable.
Online Courses?
Online courses. They are a great way to impart knowledge and generate some extra revenue. If you are already sharing your wisdom on YouTube, putting together an online course is a natural extension of that, and one that can be very lucrative.
That being said, putting together an online course can be a lot of work, so it will make things a lot easier if you can use some of the content you have already created.
According to Mordor Intelligence, the online courses industry was worth $6,845 million last year.
Using My Own YouTube Videos In Online Courses
There is absolutely no conflict here. You own the copyright on any videos you upload to YouTube, and you are permitted to download your own videos from the site without breaking any of YouTube’s terms, so you can still use your YouTube videos even if you have lost the original files and the only copy exists on YouTube.
If you have the original files, however, YouTube needn’t be a factor at all. You own the rights to the content and you have the files already. In this case, it has nothing to do with YouTube.
Should I Use My YouTube Videos In Online Courses?
So, we’ve established that you can use your YouTube videos, but the next question is should you use them? We can certainly recommend leveraging your existing content to make life a little easier, but you need to consider what you’re putting in your online course.
If your course is just a collection of your existing YouTube content, it will severely reduce the potential revenue your course can generate since users can head over to your YouTube channel and watch it for free. You could take the relevant videos down from your channel, but then they would no longer be generating YouTube revenue for you. Every case is different, of course, but we’re willing to bet that if you’re considering turning your YouTube videos into an online course, they were doing pretty well on your channel.
Using Other People’s YouTube Videos In Online Courses
Here’s where things get a little trickier. Firstly, if you don’t have the permission of the YouTuber whose content it is, there is no way to use that content without breaking a YouTube policy or, more importantly, a law.
YouTube does not permit you to download YouTube videos unless it is through the YouTube app as part of YouTube Premium’s offline watching feature. While it is possible to download YouTube videos using third-party apps, this would be a violation of the terms of use and could see you suspended or banned from the platform if caught. This means that the only way to use the videos without breaking YouTube’s terms is to have the original video files from somewhere. The most obvious place, of course, being from the original creator… which will be hard to do if you do not have their permission to use the video files.
If you decide to go ahead and download the video files regardless—or if you were able to obtain those video files through some other means—and you use the content in your online course without the explicit permission of the creator, you could find yourself on the wrong end of a lawsuit.
The best-case scenario if you do this and the original creator notices is that they put in a copyright violation against you with the service that is hosting your online course and that course gets taken down. However, as we mentioned above, online courses are very lucrative, and if the original creator suspects you have made a good amount of money from their content, they may decide to pursue you for their share.
Realistically speaking, this shouldn’t be a concern. While there is a lot of money to be made in online courses, the vast majority of course creators will not be making the kind of money that warrants legal action. It simply wouldn’t be worth the legal expenses. But they probably would get your course taken down, putting an end to any earning potential, and they might even make the matter public, dragging your reputation down. This can be a serious problem if you are a successful YouTuber with a brand to look after.
Linking to YouTube Videos
What we have discussed so far is concerned with including the YouTube content itself in your course, but what about linking from your course to other videos? This is a perfectly acceptable way to incorporate YouTube content since you are only linking to it. It is then up to YouTube and the creator what they do with that incoming traffic. If the video is publicly available, the creator can’t complain about people watching it. And, if it is not publicly available, the incoming traffic will simply be told that the content is unavailable.
Final Thoughts
Online courses represent a great way to share your wisdom while getting paid for the privilege. They are a form of passive income since you make the course once and it will continue to generate revenue as long as it has relevant and valuable information for potential students to learn.
Using your existing YouTube content is a good way to lighten the workload, but be wary of putting too much of your YouTube content into your course, as it will just leave students wondering why they didn’t just go to your YouTube channel and save some money.
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.
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.
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.
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.
There have been several seemingly unlikely types of content that have found a home on YouTube, and perhaps one of the more unlikely of those is the Reddit comment video. These videos follow a simple formula whereby the YouTuber reads out a selection of interesting, funny, or weird Reddit comments. Essentially it’s a highlight reel of Reddit comments.
The obvious question that arises here is, of course, are you allowed to just use other people’s Reddit comments in this manner? And, in typical copyright-related and YouTube fashion, the answer is a little messy. In the simplest sense, you cannot legally use Reddit comments in your YouTube videos without permission from the author of those comments. That being said, the chances of repercussions are almost non-existent, hence why there are so many Reddit comment videos.
Who Owns Reddit Comments?
Ultimately, all questions of this nature come down to ownership. In the case of Reddit, the person who writes the comment is the owner of that content, with Reddit holding rights to use any content on their platform for things like promoting the service. This means that in the eyes of the law, you would be stealing if you started using Reddit comments in your videos without the express permission of the author.
The exception to this is, of course, when the Reddit comment in question was not created by the author, such as a quote, excerpt, or image. In those cases, the original owner still retains their ownership.
In either case, the owner could lawfully request your video be taken down for copyright infringement, and could even attempt to take you to court for damages!
Can You Be Sued For Using Reddit Comments Without Permission?
Okay, dramatics aside, the chances of you being sued over using a Reddit comment without permission are pretty slim. It is not a matter of rights—the owner of the Reddit comment absolutely has the right to pursue you in the courts if you use their comment without permission—but there is an issue of practicality.
In order to actually take someone to court for damages, there has to be damages. Reddit does not presently offer a way for commenters to make money from their contributions directly, and very few users would be able to plausibly claim that their Reddit posts form a substantial part of their income.
The upshot of all this is that the commenter in question would likely be suing you for pennies, maybe dollars. Certainly not enough to make the legal costs worth it.
Now, with all that being said, it’s worth remembering that this is a risky strategy to adopt. Essentially banking on intellectual property owners to decide that suing you is not worth the hassle may work in a lot of instances, but the one time it doesn’t work could be very bad. Needless to say, this is not a legal blog, and the only legal advice we would propose here is don’t break the law!
Asking Permission
The most practical way around this hypothetical problem is to seek the permission of the Reddit commenters whose comments you want to use. Of course, “practical” in this case is a very relative term. Sure, it is more practical than being sued, but Reddit comment videos will typically have dozens of comments in them, if not more. If there is a time-sensitive element to the Reddit comment videos in question, that makes it less practical to get permission from every commenter you want to use.
Using Reddit Content On YouTube
So, where does this leave you? Again, we are not going to advise you to do anything illegal—you should always seek the permission of a content creator before using their content—but if you decide not to seek that permission, we would certainly recommend attribution.
Ensuring that the authors of the comments you are using are clearly attributed—such as in the video itself and also in the description—will likely be enough for many Reddit posters. As we mentioned there is little-to-no money in Reddit for the vast majority of its users, but there is a lot of social prestige to be earned. Indeed, the entire premise of YouTube is built around posting content that other users like, and your video brings more attention to a particular Redditor, it’s unlikely that they’ll complain about it.
Reddit Content Video Ideas
Once you’ve worked out how you are going to handle the legal side of things regarding using Redditor’s posts, you can then start looking at how you will present your video. Fortunately, there are a few options to choose from.
It should be noted that a common theme with these kinds of videos is that the YouTuber themselves does not appear in the video. Often each comment will be accompanied by relevant imagery (such as the comment itself), but, for the most part, the YouTuber’s face does not appear. That being said, this is not a hard rule, and you may want to do something different.
Straight Laced
Some YouTubers opt to play this pretty straight, reading out the comments as evenly as possible, not offering any additional commentary. This style suits YouTubers who are not especially charismatic in front of a microphone.
Straight Laced and Computer Generated
Another option for YouTubers who just want to let the Reddit content speak for itself is to use computer-generated dialogue to read out the comments. This essentially means the YouTuber has no need for a camera or microphone, and the quality of text-to-speech has improved remarkably over recent years.
Colour Commentary
If the YouTuber in question is a charismatic presence—and especially if they are quick witted—they might want to narrate the commentary themselves and, in doing so, inject their personality into the video.
Final Thoughts
Using Reddit content on YouTube is an increasingly popular style of video, and, while there is plenty of rough edging when it comes to the legal side, if you can navigate your way through that potential minefield. it, there is an unending supply of content for you to make!
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.
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.
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.
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.
Privacy is obviously a major concern these days, and something we have talked about on this very blog, but how private are your comments? After all, it’s one thing to be told your expectation of privacy is limited if you are going to upload videos to YouTube, but entirely another to be told your offhand comments could be traced.
Can YouTube Comments Be Traced? – Yes, the reality of this kind of situation is that everything can be traced to some degree, it is more a matter of how badly the unseen party wants to track your comments.
Random users who are perhaps upset with something you have said have no plausible way of tracing your comments. If you have said something that breaks YouTube’s guidelines, they can report your comment to YouTube, but that will result in YouTube taking direct action (if they take any action at all), and will not see the reporting party learn your whereabouts or identity.
Can YouTube Trace Comments?
In order to leave a comment on a YouTube video, you have to be logged in to YouTube. This ensures YouTube have a good amount of ways to track you, from your viewing history to the IP address you routinely log in from. Obviously, then, if you are leaving a YouTube comment, YouTube can trace that comment to you.
Now, there are things you can do to limit what that tracing means. YouTube can view your IP address and, with it, they can estimate your geographical location. They will also have a specific address if you have saved any payment details, such as for YouTube Premium (or at least the billing address of the person whose card was used). If you don’t save payment details and you access YouTube using a VPN, YouTube will have no practical way of tracing your comments to a real person or location.
Why Would Traced Comments Be Bad?
There are many reasons why someone might not want their comments to be traced and, if we’re being honest, the majority of them are not particularly savoury. If someone was making illegal comments (mainly hate speech) or making comments that incriminate them in some illegal behaviour, they would naturally not want their comments to be traceable, as that could lead to legal action being taken against them.
That been said, there are some more noble reasons to be concerned about YouTube comments being traced. For example, if you are living in a country that takes punitive action against people who criticise the government, you would naturally not want your comments criticising the government to be traceable. In this situation, most (at least most in our neck of the woods) would probably agree that it is a good reason to hide your real identity and make your comments harder to trace, as opposed to wanting to throw racial slurs around without facing any consequences.
Can Police Track YouTube Comments
When law enforcement gets involved, things get a little trickier. First off, most law enforcement agencies need to have a good reason to go demanding private information from companies like YouTube, so you’re not likely to have the police tracing your whereabouts in this manner over a comment admitting you stole a magazine once. The other side of this point, of course, is that if the police are attempting to trace you through a YouTube comment, they will really want to find you.
And they will have YouTube’s full cooperation.
YouTube is required by law in just about all countries to cooperate if local law enforcement is able to prove they have good cause to be tracing someone. Of course, YouTube’s full cooperation is still limited to what they themselves can find out. If YouTube doesn’t have any information that can be used to trace you, they can’t give that information to the police.
That being said, crime on the Internet is often an international affair, and it may well be a government agency that is interested in your whereabouts, rather than the local police department. In that case, it is hard to say how secure your anonymity is. The movies tend to inflate reality to make it more interesting, but it’s reasonable to assume that an organisation like MI5 or the CIA will have some advanced toys that the likes of YouTube are not in possession of.
Should You Worry About Your Comments Being Traced?
As you have probably already gathered from above, traced comments is only really a problem for people who are doing something wrong in the eyes of the law. YouTube may not be able to trace you back to your home, but they don’t need to know where you live to ban you from the platform if you are doing something against the terms of service. Law enforcement agencies are a different kettle of fish, however.
Of course, the fact that you are worried about being traced does not automatically make you a bad person, such as in the case of the countries with over-zealous laws about criticising the people in power. Ultimately, this blog is here to explore all aspects of YouTube, not judge people. Our default state, however, is to advise you not to break the law.
Social Engineering
This is probably not something that pops into your mind when thinking about being “traced” on the Internet, but social engineering is a very real way to find out more information about someone. Of course, it is also a way that is very to prevent.
Social engineering in this sense might be following the links on someone’s YouTube page to other social media accounts, or figuring out what your username on other platforms might be from things you have said in the comments. Whether an interested party could figure out who you really are or where you live in this manner would depend on what kind of information you have publicly available online, but this also means that it is entirely within your control to prevent.
Of course, being polite and friendly online and not breaking any laws is also a very good way to avoid attracting the attention of anyone who might want to trace your comments…
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.
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.
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.
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.
Any kind of potentially copyright-related YouTube usage can get murky, that includes educational use.
Unfortunately, while many services and laws make exceptions or allowances for educational use, copyright law is not inherently one of them. This does not mean that YouTube is off-limits for educational use, but it is important to understand what constitutes a breach of copyright.
Of course, it wouldn’t be murky if we could just tell you exactly what constitutes a copyright violation in all cases. The reality is far too messy, and often on a case-by-case basis. It is not unusual for certain examples of copyright infringement to remain questionable until there is a court case to settle it.
Fortunately, it is entirely possible to use YouTube for educational purposes in such a way that the question of copyright infringement never needs to rear its ugly head.
What Constitutes Educational?
It is important to understand the word “educational” in a copyright/license sense before grabbing YouTube content, as some YouTubers permit the use of their content for educational purposes.
The first thing to note is that if you are making a profit from the content itself—such as selling an online course and including the content in the course—you are unlikely to get the benefit of the doubt from any content creator. To be considered legitimately educational, you would need to be part of an educational institution, such as a school or university. In almost all cases, if you are working outside of those institutional frameworks, you will struggle to convince any copyright holders or service providers that you are educational.
YouTube Terms of Service
Another important thing to consider is the YouTube Terms of Service, which apply regardless of how you use the content. One particularly relevant point is YouTube’s stance on downloading their content, which is don’t. It is not allowed to download videos from YouTube for any purpose, which means it is not permissible to download videos for educational purposes.
This may not seem like a problem at first, but when combined with the fact that it is also not permitted to broadcast or display YouTube content, it starts to put a bit of a roadblock in the way of using the platform for educational reasons.
Essentially, it means you would be breaking YouTube terms of service by playing a YouTube video to a class of students, but you would also be breaking the terms of service by downloading the content you wish to show and playing that to your class.
How to Use YouTube for Educational Purposes
So, with that in mind, how do you use YouTube videos for educational purposes? The chances of you being caught playing videos in a primary school classroom are pretty slim, but we wouldn’t advise taking chances like that. No matter how slim the risk of being caught is, you are still breaking the terms and conditions.
In all likelihood, the worst YouTube would do is ban a user for violating their terms of service (though legal action is not impossible). However, if you are breaking the terms using an account that represents the educational institution you work for, you could end up getting the entire school in trouble with YouTube, which could see your employer take disciplinary action against you.
So let’s talk about how you can use it.
Sharing YouTube Videos
If the reason you are sharing the videos does not require them to be watching in real-time together, you can always just share the link to the video with your students in the same way you would share the video with friends. There is no rule against sharing the content (as long as you’re not charging people for the link), and anything your students do with the content after that would be their responsibility.
Getting Content From the Source
It may be against YouTube’s terms to broadcast YouTube or play it to large groups of people, and it may be against their terms to download content from YouTube, but the restrictions only refer to the platform, not the content itself.
If there is a piece of content that you think would serve your educational purposes, consider contacting the owner of that content directly and asking them about using it. If they are okay with this, you can also ask them if it would be possible to send you the content directly, so you can play the media without using YouTube.
It should be noted that there is no practical way for YouTube to catch you downloading their content in the vast majority of cases, especially if you have the permission of the creator to use that content. But, once again, it is against their terms of service, so you are taking a risk if you do that.
Most YouTubers are already putting their content out for “free” in a sense and should be open to the idea of their content being played in an educational setting, even if they would not be getting views for it.
Create Your Own Content
In much the same way that the above suggestion gets around the various problems with YouTube’s terms, so too does creating your own content. And, in creating your own content, you can ensure that it shows exactly what you want it to show.
You will still be subject to YouTube’s terms about broadcasting and playing YouTube to groups of people, but you will also be in possession of the original files, so you won’t need YouTube. And, as a nice aside, your content could be made publicly available and, eventually, monetised.
Final Thoughts
While YouTube doesn’t make any special concessions for educational use, the restrictions it places on the use of its platform should not pose any significant hurdle to someone looking to use YouTube to educate. Whether you are a teacher looking to use informative content that is already there, or someone looking to create the informative content for others, there are ways to make it all work!
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.
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.
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.
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.
Given the size and reach of TikTok in today’s Internet-centric society, you could be forgiven for thinking the video-sharing platform had been around for much longer than the four years it has. And, like most social media platforms that centre around video-sharing (YouTube, Instagram, Vine, etc) TikTok has made many stars and a lot of money for its more successful users. It makes sense, then, that YouTubers would be looking to expand their brand to this relatively new upstart.
Of course, making content for YouTube is already a lot of work, so adding a new platform to create content for may feel a bit like an overwhelming task. The next logical question is “can I use YouTube videos on TikTok?” Doing allows YouTubers to get a footing on TikTok by leveraging their already significant body of work, exposing them to a new audience in the process.
But, is it allowed? Can you use YouTube videos on TikTok?
Yes, you can use YouTube videos on TikTok. There is no rule on the platform about not uploading content that exists elsewhere online. That being said, it should be your content.
Using Other People’s YouTube Videos
TikTok may not have a specific rule against uploading duplicate content to their platform, but they are subject to the same rules regarding copyright as every other user-generated content platform on the web. This means that they have a mechanism for reporting copyright infringement.
If you upload someone else’s YouTube content without permission, that YouTuber could get your TikTok taken down for copyright violation. Furthermore, while it is highly unlikely in this type of situation, that YouTuber could decide to sue you for damages.
Now, being realistic, the chances of someone going through the hassle and expense of suing you over a TikTok video are very slim. But it could happen, and you have to accept that risk if you decide to use someone else’s content in your TikToks.
Of course, you could ask that YouTube for permission to use the content, removing all of the risks in the process. You could also rely on fair use, but as we’ve talked about both on this blog and on the YouTube channel, fair use is a tricky thing to wield effectively, and can easily backfire on you if you rely on it to avoid ending up in legal trouble.
Using Your Own YouTube Videos on TikTok
Using your own YouTube videos eliminates this risk, of course. As we’ve mentioned, TikTok does not have a rule against uploading content that exists elsewhere on the web, and you own the content you’re uploading. So, unless you plan to put in a copyright complaint against yourself, you should be good to go.
The question then turns from can you do it to how do you do it.
The important thing to remember when cross-posting content across different platforms is that no two platforms are the same, and you need to tailor your posts to suit the platform they are being published on.
This can come in the form of hard limits, such as the length of the video. TikTok videos have an upper limit on the length of 60 seconds. In contrast, unverified YouTube users can upload videos as long as 15 minutes, and verified have no upper limit (though there is a limit on size).
Clearly, then, just uploading your YouTube videos wholesale to TikTok will not be an option in most cases. But beyond the hard limitations, there are other things to consider, such as the fact that TikTok users consume content differently from YouTube users. Or, more accurately, people go to TikTok for a different experience than they expect at YouTube.
TikTok is primarily a light-hearted platform where the content is humorous and entertaining. It is not impossible to succeed with more serious content, but it is less common. If you can make your TikTok video fit that light-hearted mould, you will stand a better chance of success.
You will also need to determine what your goal is. If you are just looking to grow a following on TikTok, you can focus on succeeding on TikTok alone. If you are looking to use TikTok to drive traffic back to your YouTube channel, you will have to find a way to balance your content between being entertaining and engaging enough to draw TikTok users in, while still leaving something for them to want that they will be prepared to head over to YouTube for.
Can You Make Money on TikTok?
An ideal scenario in the world of content creation is one in which you can earn revenue multiple times for the same content. In this case, that would be uploading a YouTube video and earning revenue there, and then uploading that same content (modified as per above) to TikTok and earning more money there.
Well, good news! You can make money directly through TikTok in a very similar fashion to the YouTube Partner Programme. The TikTok creator fund shares a huge pot of money to its top performing content.
The bad news is that the barrier to entry is quite steep. In order to make earn revenue through TikTok, you have to be at least 18 years old, have at least 10,000 followers and have had at least 100,000 video views over the last 30 days. No small feat. Still, if you can reach those levels using your YouTube content, you will be growing your revenue disproportionately to the additional effort you’re putting in.
Final Thoughts
Like other popular video-sharing platforms, TikTok represents an excellent opportunity to expand your brand, drive additional traffic to your YouTube channel, and generally increase your skillsets when it comes to creating content.
The important thing is to remember that every platform is different, and what works on YouTube isn’t guaranteed to work on TikTok (or Instagram or Snapchat, etc). Always try and spend some time on the platform before uploading content to it. Get a feel for what works so that you can apply that to your own TikToks.
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.
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.
![YouTube Shorts Monetization is HERE! [Huge New York Times Leak]](https://i0.wp.com/alanspicer.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/youtube-shorts-monetization-is-here-huge-new-york-times-leak.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&quality=85&ssl=1)
