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.
Facebook pages can easily be seen as Facebook’s attempt to break out of the personal headspace that Facebook occupied for so long, and, if that was Facebook’s goal, it’s been quite effective. Pages have become an almost essential part of any online presence, be it an individual, company, or brand. But, like any too for promoting something, Facebook pages are only effective if they are used correctly.
Simply creating a page and calling it a day might be the kind of thing someone with millions of followers on other platforms can get away with, but if you are trying to build up a following from, shall we say, more modest numbers, you’re going to have to work a little harder than that.
This brings us to the purpose of this post. We’re going to look at a number of methods to grow Facebook page followings, but before we do, we’ve got a little crash course on Facebook pages for you.
What Are Facebook Pages?
The easiest way to think of a Facebook Page is as a public-facing profile alternative. Now, if you are a public figure and make no attempt to keep your Facebook profile private, this may seem a little strange to you, but you should try to remember that Facebook is mostly used as a platform for keeping in touch with friends and family.
The vast majority of Facebook users have a friend list full of people they know in real life, such as colleagues, friends, and family members. They don’t necessarily want their posts and comments to be visible to the wider world. Especially if they have any kind of notability. This is why a large number of Facebook users make their profiles and content only visible to people they are friends with.
Facebook pages allow those users to maintain that separation between the wider world and their private lives, but still have a public presence on Facebook—the largest social media platform in the world.
Do I Need a Facebook Page?
If you’re a reader of this blog, there’s a good chance you need a Facebook page. If you’ve stumbled here from a search engine looking for information on Facebook pages and are not looking to promote anything or boost your online presence, you probably don’t need a page.
For the people who are promoting things—perhaps a YouTube channel, or a podcast—we would recommend having a Facebook page even if you don’t feel the need to separate your private life from the public eye. You may feel that way now, but things can change. And there’s nothing stopping you from sharing anything you would have put on your Facebook wall onto your page as well.
That’s the key element here. You will be making a conscious choice to share something publicly, and that should protect you from unintentionally sharing anything that you wouldn’t want public, such as personal matters, or controversial opinions.
10 Tips to Grow Facebook Page Followings
And now to the meat of the article. Please note that our tips are in no particular order. Let’s go!
1. Post Regularly
One of the biggest tips we can offer for growing a Facebook page’s following—or any following on a social media platform—is to post regularly. This is especially true for smaller pages.
There are two main reasons that regular and consistent posting helps grow your Facebook page. The first is that it will mean anytime a new person arrives at your page, they are going to be seeing relatively recent content. If they get to your page and the last thing you posted was eight months ago, they might understandably conclude that the page is inactive and move on.
The other reason is that every post you make on your page increases the chances of someone new discovering your page. Whether it’s through your content being shared or through Facebook organically showing it to users, the more posts you have, the more things there are for people to stumble across.
Just be careful not to let your drive to post regularly affect the quality of what you’re posting.
2. Share Inherently Useful Content
Continuing on nicely from that last sentence, it’s not enough to just post anything on a regular basis, you also need to make that content worthwhile for your potential followers. For most of us, that rules out just posting links to your latest show/video/song/book/etc.
Of course, if you are already an established personality or brand with a huge following, just having a Facebook page that posts updates like that is useful and will get plenty of engagement. If you’re trying to grow a brand, however, you need to give those users a reason to come to your page other than… well, you.
An example of this might be an author who writes books on interior design. They could post tips on interior design, giving people a reason to follow your page for that content. Then, that author has a new book out, they’ll not only have a following but one that is primed for that product.
3. Focus on a Niche
Once again following on nicely from the end of the last point, we have your niche. While this may not be possible for everybody—it’s hard to stick to a niche if you’re a pop musician, for example—if you have an area that your content or services revolve around, make sure the posts on your page stick to that niche.
Being more focused with your content will undoubtedly lower the number of potential users coming to your page, but it will ensure that the users who are interested in what you’re posting are more likely to find it. It will also make those users far more likely to stick around, and increase the chance of them engaging with your posts because they are truly interested in the subject matter.
The trick is finding a balance between narrowing you’re niche so far that the audience is minuscule, and broadening it so far that your page has too much competition to make an impact.
4. Invite People to Like Your Page
We often don’t like to bother people, but inviting people to like your Facebook page is something that not only yields good results but can be done with the click of a button thanks to Facebook’s “Invite People to Like This Page” button. The like invite will show up in their notifications, and they will be free to ignore it if they don’t want to.
5. Promote Your Page Outside of Facebook
Facebook is big. It can be easy to forget there’s a whole Internet out there, and it’s important that you don’t neglect to use that Internet when you’re trying to grow your Facebook page.
Obviously, we’re not suggesting you start spamming comment sections or tweet threads, but promote responsibly wherever you can. Sometimes simply letting followers know you have a Facebook page is enough.
6. Use Facebook Live
If you have it in you to make video content, Facebook Live is an excellent tool for garnering more interest in your Facebook page. These videos not only get put into various feeds when they are live, but they also remain up (if you allow it) after the fact, acting as lasting content for your page.
As per our above tip about niches, try to keep this content in line with the subject matter (or matters) that your page represents. There’s no sense attracting people who won’t be interested in what you do.
7. Run Giveaways and Other Promotions
There are no hidden tricks here, this is exactly what it sounds like. If you are in a position to run competitions or promotions… or just give stuff away, it’s an effective way to generate interest for your page. Just be careful not to violate any local or international laws with any contests you run. Always check the law.
8. Join Relevant Facebook Groups
We’ve talked about getting off of Facebook to promote your page, but what about on Facebook? Finding relevant groups and participating can be a great way to generate interest. Like with anywhere else, be sure not to spam, and adhere to the rules of any group you join.
9. Utilise Calls to Action
If you’re writing blog posts, recording podcasts, posting videos, or generally making content elsewhere on the web, don’t be afraid to use a call to action. It could just be a line at the end of your article, a polite nudge at the end of a video, or really any mention. You’d be surprised how much of a difference it makes.
10. Advertise
You can advertise away from Facebook, but we’d suggest using Facebook’s own advertising platform if you want to advertise a Facebook page. It is more likely to land in front of a user who will be interested, as the very fact that they are seeing it means they are a Facebook user, whereas a Google AdSense ad could easily wind up in front of a person who is not on Facebook and has no intention of joining.
Facebook remains something of an untapped resource for many when it comes to making money from your video content. YouTube is obviously the most well-known option for regular video content, Twitch might be your go-to if you’re a streamer, and there’s a myriad of other places to check out, like Vimeo, Instagram, and more. But Facebook has an understandable reputation as a platform for keeping in touch with your friends and family.
And Facebook is great for that. But there’s a lot more you can do with it.
Facebook has been making serious inroads into the video content space and a natural part of becoming a platform for releasing video content is giving content creators a reason to put content out on their platform. The main incentive, of course, is the ability to generate revenue from your content.
Can You Make Money on Facebook Videos? – Facebook has a monetization system that will run adverts on videos and offer branded content on pages. There are multiple levels and various requirements to qualify.
Let’s dive in.
Video Content on Facebook
There are a few ways to get video content on Facebook, and each one has very different use-cases. There is, of course, the standard method of posting a video to your wall or page. Facebook supports video files up to 10 GB in size with a maximum length of 240 minutes, so it should be sufficient for the vast majority of content creators. Video resolutions are limited to 1080p at the time of writing, however, so if you are looking to put 4K content out, you will need to look at other platforms. In most cases, however, even 4K content producers will be able to put a 1080p version of their videos on Facebook without it negatively affecting things.
Another way to get video content on Facebook is by using Facebook Live. This is Facebook’s live broadcasting solution and allows users to instantly start streaming to their followers (and other Facebook users) with hardly any setup needed. Facebook Live is heavily geared towards people switching on their phone camera and holding what could be termed as intimate live streams with their followers, but it is certainly suitable for more traditional live streams. Facebook is even taking steps to make this side of things more accessible for a wider range of live streamers, such as their Facebook Gaming push.
There are also Facebook Stories, which are Facebook’s answer to Snapchat—short videos that only exist for a brief period before disappearing off into the ether.
Monetising Video Content on Facebook
There are many ways to monetise your Facebook video content, and we’re going to start with Facebook’s own mechanisms. As with any platform, Facebook’s monetisation has certain criteria that you will need to meet, but don’t worry, we’ll give you all the information you need.
In-Stream Ads
In-stream ads are probably the most recognisable way to monetise video content, so it makes sense that Facebook would offer this on their platform. These ads can show up in a number of ways, including before the video (pre-roll), and during the video (mid-roll).
For the most part, these ads will work exactly how you’d expect them to, though mid-roll ads work slightly differently for Facebook Live videos. As Facebook want to cause as little disruption to the live viewing experience as possible (but, obviously, still show the ads) these ads will take over the main video window, but the live stream will continue playing in a smaller floating window, so the viewers don’t miss any of the action.
As per Facebook, these types of ads are suitable for longer content and content that is “suitable for advertisers”, meaning you’ll probably miss out on that ad revenue if you are making content about controversial topics. Facebook will automatically look for natural breaks in the content to insert ads, and your pay is determined by things like how many views the video gets, and who is advertising on it.
Fan Subscriptions
If you are familiar with services like Patreon, or features like YouTube Membership, you will understand Facebook Fan Subscriptions. This feature allows Facebook users to support you by contributing recurring monthly payments. In exchange for these payments, as well as supporting content they like, these users will get a special badge, as well as other perks and discounts.
This option is not limited to video content, of course, as anyone on Facebook with a big enough following can enable fan subscriptions, but if you are producing video content on Facebook, this is certainly a way to monetise that content, as well as any other content you happen to produce.
Branded Content (Brand Deals)
Branded content is Facebook’s version of what you might call a brand deal in other places. Essentially, you, the content creator, strikes a deal with a brand where they will pay you to promote them. These are different from sponsored videos in that they will typically cover a period of time, or set a number of videos.
Facebook facilitates these deals for eligible channels, aiming to bring suitable brands and content creators together… and taking their cut of the deal, of course. That being said, there is nothing to stop you from striking up brand deals yourself. This can be a little trickier, as you will need to be able to market yourself to the brand, and any legalities will have to be taken care of, but for those that can do it, it will often mean more money than going through Facebook.
Subscription Groups
Subscription groups are essentially a group version of fan subscriptions, and allow fans to join smaller, more exclusive groups with the creators they want to support. Like fans subscriptions, subscriber group members will get special perks.
Selling Merchandise
Moving away from Facebook specifically, there will always be ways to monetise your content if there is a big enough following, whether that content is on Facebook, YouTube, your personal website, or anywhere else. One such method is selling merchandise.
Granted, this doesn’t work for every type of content creator, as not every niche lends itself well to merchandise. If you are a content creator in a niche that does lend itself well to merchandising, however, you can certainly monetise your content this way.
Third-Party Subscriptions
Facebook may offer fan subscriptions, but you are in no way obligated to use them if you want to offer this kind of option to your viewers. Indeed, with Facebook’s eligibility criteria (more on that below), many content creators don’t even have the choice in the first place.
Services like Patreon do not have any eligibility criteria regarding the number of views you get, how much watch time you have over a given period, or how long you have been on the platform.
Now, we’re not saying that signing up for a Patreon account will automatically lead to the money rolling in. You still need to have a decent following to take advantage of this kind of service, and in most cases, people who don’t meet Facebook’s eligibility criteria probably aren’t missing out on much in the way of revenue. But there are always exceptions, and if you are such an exception, don’t feel like Facebook’s monetisation solutions are your only options.
Promoting a Product or Service
In this day and age, many content creators have other things on the go. This might be the aforementioned merchandise line, some kind of product or endorsement, an online course, or even public appearances, such as professional speaking, stand up comedy, or music gigs.
If this applies to you, try not to see your video content as a single entity that has to be worth your time in its own right. Consider how many of your viewers might become customers or fans of your other ventures as a result of your videos, and don’t discount that value.
Of course, you will need to take steps to make sure your viewers know about your other ventures.
Facebook Eligibility
Eligibility for the various Facebook monetisation options we have mentioned varies a little depending on the specific type of monetisation you are going for, but, for the most part, you should expect to have to meet the following criteria if you want to take advantage of Facebook’s native monetisation;
Adhere to Facebook rules, standards, and guidelines
Have at least 600,000 watch-minutes over the previous 60 days
Have at least five active videos
Have at least 10,000 page followers
Reside in an eligible country
Other criteria include at least 60,000 of the 600,000 watch minutes being live video minutes if you want to monetise live videos.
Final Thoughts
Facebook seems committed to making it as easy as possible for content creators to monetise their video content on the platform. And it makes sense—the more money you make, the more they make. That being said, you should never feel as though Facebook’s monetisation solutions are your only option. As long as you have an engaged following for your videos, there will always be ways of monetising that content.
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.
The prevalence of social media in our lives has opened many doors to success that would scarcely have been dreamed of in the past. And, by “the past”, we could be talking as recently as fifteen years ago. But, while there is an abundance of success stories from platforms like YouTube and Instagram, Facebook rarely is rarely brought up in this regard.
Sure, Facebook is an important tool in getting success on other platforms—you have to promote those YouTube videos somewhere, after all—but what about a more direct approach? Can you make money on Facebook?
The short answer is yes. There are several ways to make money through Facebook, ranging from “a little extra cash” to “this is my job now!”. In this post, we’re going to outline a number of ways in which you can start earning cash through Facebook. So let’s dive in!
How to Make Money on Facebook
With well over two billion users and a well-established advertising platform, there is certainly plenty of money floating around Facebook to be shared. Here are nine ways for you to get your hands on some of it.
Become an Influencer
We’re starting here because this is probably one of the most common ways in which people want to start making money online these days—the influencer route. Making content for an army of fans and making money from that content is the present-day version of being a celebrity, though much more attainable than being the next Tom Cruise or Lady Gaga.
It’s not nearly as well advertised as things like Facebook’s advertising platform, but Facebook does have a system in place for content creators to make money directly, and it comes in three parts.
Brand Collaborations
Brand Collabs Manager is Facebook’s system for bringing together popular content creators and brands in a managed environment where everyone can feel safe from… well, safe from being ripped off.
Essentially, Facebook ensures the brand is getting a legitimate content creator with an active audience while making sure the content creator gets paid for their collaboration efforts.
In order to qualify for this, you need to have at least 1,000 fans on your page and at least one of the following; 15,000 post engagements or 180,000 minutes watch time over the last sixty days.
That being said, even if you don’t qualify for Facebook’s system, you can always make brand deals directly with brands if you have the audience and negotiation skills.
In-Stream Ads
Much like YouTube, if you are creating video content on Facebook and you are seeing high enough levels of engagement, you can benefit from in-stream ads, earning you a small amount of cash per impression or click.
The criteria for monetising your content in this way is to have a fan or business page with at least 10,000 followers, at least 600,000 watch-minutes across live, on-demand, and replayed videos, five on-demand or previously videos published, and you must meet their policy guidelines.
Fan Subscriptions
Fan subscriptions are essentially Facebook’s answer to services like Patreon, and other platform’s solutions like YouTube Memberships. The criteria for this is a little simpler than the other options; you need to have at least 10,000 followers and at least 250 returning weekly viewers.
Once you meet those criteria, your fans can choose to pay your a regular fee for exclusive content.
Promote Your Services or Business on Facebook
Moving on to more indirect ways of making money through Facebook, if you have a service to offer or a business you are running, Facebook is an excellent platform for advertising your wares.
Like any good advertising platform, Facebook puts a lot of effort into making it so you can get your ads in front of exactly the right kind of people because paying to show an ad to someone who is not interested in what you are offering is a waste of money. Their rates are competitive compared to alternatives like Google Adsense, and you can generate a lot of traffic using this method.
Crowdsource Your Blog
If you run a blog—or you are thinking of starting one—Facebook can be an invaluable resource for researching your posts. Now, we’re not suggesting you start ripping posts directly off of Facebook and claiming them as your own. That would be wrong.
Facebook is full of groups put together with specific purposes in mind, and those groups are populated by people who are ready and willing to give their opinions and advice. If you are a little stumped for ideas, you can always ask questions in a relevant Facebook group. As long as the group is active and has plenty of members, you’re practically guaranteed to get answers.
Sell Things on Facebook Market
If you’re more interested in selling goods—or even if you just want to have a clearout of some of your old stuff—Facebook Marketplace is an effective way to do so.
Facebook Marketplace is heavily location-based, making it easier to find things that are local to you. This lends itself well to sellers who are perhaps looking to move on something like furniture they no longer need, or electronics they have outgrown. If you are running a business, it can also be a good way to build a local customers-base.
Become a Facebook Marketplace Re-Seller
Facebook Marketplace works both ways, of course, and you can buy just as easily as you can sell. You will often find things cheaper on this platform because of the local nature. Sellers have more of a “garage sale” (or car boot sale if you’re in the UK) attitude towards their items.
This presents an opportunity for someone interested in selling items because you can often find things on Facebook cheaper than those same items would be on something like eBay, or Amazon. You can then buy those cheaper items from Facebook Marketplace and sell them on platforms like eBay and net yourself a little profit!
Find Bugs
The technology behind Facebook is obviously critical to the success of the platform. And, with so many people’s data being at stake, Facebook knows how bad something like a data breach or fatal error could be for business. For this reason, Facebook has a “bug bounty”, where they essentially offer a reward for users who can find problems with the platform.
You will need some technical expertise for this—we’re talking security flaws and other vulnerabilities in Facebook’s systems, not simply reporting a link not working. The above link contains all the details about what Facebook considers a legitimate vulnerability, but if you find one, the minimum reward is $500!
Become a Social Media Manager
If you have a flair for social media—and, of course, your talents extend to Facebook—you could market yourself as a social media manager. Companies, and even individuals, are increasingly willing to pay people to take care of their social media presence for them, growing audiences and keeping them out of trouble. If this is something you would be good at, Facebook presents a huge opportunity to make money. And you wouldn’t be limited to just one client in this line of work.
Create a Popular Facebook Group
If you have an area of expertise—whether it be a professional thing or an area of deep interest on an enthusiast level—you could start a Facebook group centred around that subject matter.
This will require plenty of active participation from you, sharing your expertise and encouraging others to do the same. Once the group has reached substantial numbers, it can be a powerful tool for promoting things. And you, as the founder and established expert of the group, will be in a prime position to take advantage of that.
Become an Expert
Of course, you don’t need to create a group to establish yourself as an expert in something on Facebook. Posting helpful content on your area of expertise will likely garner interest from those people who seek that knowledge, and that can be parlayed into something more profitable.
It could simply be a way to funnel traffic from Facebook to your website or business, but it could also be the start of something. For example, you could start out answering questions on Facebook, and then move onto a podcast or YouTube channel with your already-established user-base.
Final Thoughts
Like all platforms on the Internet, Facebook is an invaluable tool for making money. And, like most platforms, there are several ways to go about making that money. The trick is finding the method that suits you the most.
For example, if you do not like dealing with people directly—and especially if you are not a fan of negotiation—you should probably steer clear of selling things through Facebook Marketplace. Similarly, if you do not have expertise in developing online systems like Facebook, you probably shouldn’t put much hope in the Facebook Bounty program.
And, most importantly, remember that nothing happens overnight. With a few very lucky exceptions, Facebook success takes time and effort, so don’t be discouraged if you’re not rolling in money by the end of your first month!
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.
VPNs—virtual private networks—are a great way to ensure privacy when using the Internet, as well as gain access to region-restricted content that you would not otherwise have been able to view. When it comes to using a VPN with YouTube, there are many questions arise. Things like “is watching YouTube through VPN allowed?”, and “can I inflate my view count using a VPN?” We’re going to touch on those questions in this post, but first, let’s tackle the title question.
YouTube can certainly detect VPNs, though it is not an immediate process. Detecting VPNs involves the tracking of multiple data points across many users, but it can be done, and it is in YouTube’s best interests to do it.
How VPNs Work
This being a site primarily for YouTubers, we won’t try to explain VPNs in technical detail (nor are we qualified to!) so feel free to search yourself a more detailed explanation, but a base understanding of how VPNs work is necessary in order to understand how YouTube can detect VPNs in the first place.
Essentially, a VPN is an encrypted network within the wider network that is the Internet. The data travelling back and forth in that VPN is only visible to users who are part of the VPN. Think of it as similar to entering the subway, tube, or another underground transport network of your choosing. A person watching you come out of the transport network knows you have exited at that point, but has no way of knowing where you entered.
This allows users to get around things like geographical restrictions on content since their connection is routed through the VPN and emerges at a node that is in a geographical region where the content is available. This can also help users to have a greater degree of anonymity. While you can use things like “incognito mode” in Chrome, there will always be ways in which your online identity can be guessed at—if not outright locked in—because you are still accessing the web from your computer in the same geographical location. VPNs can throw any interested parties a little further off your scent by masking your geographical region.
How YouTube Can Detect VPNs
One of the key points about using a VPN is the IP address you appear to be connecting from. That is, the IP address that YouTube thinks is yours. Many VPNs—especially free ones—use the same IP address for several users. Depending on the popularity of the VPN, there could be thousands of users connecting through the same IP address. For YouTube, this would be a big giveaway, especially if many of those users are logged in.
This can be avoided by using a VPN that will grant you a dedicated IP address, meaning you will always be connecting from the same remote IP address and you will be the only one using it. This isn’t the best option for anonymity, but it’s great for getting around regional content restrictions since YouTube can’t reliably distinguish between your dedicated VPN IP address and a regular IP address.
If you are using a free VPN service—or a paid one that uses shared IP addresses) and YouTube (most likely YouTube TV specifically) is blocking you, you can always try another service in the hope of finding one that YouTube hasn’t cottoned on to yet, but the only way to be relatively sure that YouTube won’t catch you VPNing them is if you get a dedicated IP address.
Why Use A VPN For YouTube?
The main two reasons to use VPNs to view YouTube content are regional restrictions and anonymity. Regional restrictions we’ve covered—some content is made unavailable in certain parts of the world, mostly because of licensing but also sometimes because of political matters. Whatever the reason, using a VPN can allow you to access that content. Whether you see this as an unethical practice will depend entirely on your own worldview. We’re not here to judge.
There is also a version of regional restrictions which is almost the precise reverse of what we have just described. In some parts of the world—such as China, North Korea, Iran, and more—YouTube is blocked by the government. Again, where you stand on the ethics of this is your business, but using a VPN can enabled citizens of countries that block YouTube to get around the censorship.
Anonymity is pretty self-explanatory. Some people value their privacy, or perhaps have a pressing reason why they need to ensure they remain anonymous. In any case, using a VPN will make it considerably harder to identify that person when they are using sites like YouTube… assuming they don’t log in to their account, of course.
Using VPNs To Inflate YouTube Views
If you peruse threads about YouTube and VPNs, you’ll invariably find someone asking about using a VPN to boost their view count. This is a non-starter for a couple of reasons.
Firstly, it is one hundred percent not worth the time it would take to make any meaningful boost to your view count. If you had thousands of people working at it, you may be able to make a meaningful difference, but if you can get thousands of people to do that, why not just get them to watch your video legitimately?
Secondly, even if you fool YouTube regarding your VPN access, the platform still has ways of ensuring that every view is legitimate. If you watch your own video a thousand times, even if you do it through a VPN, YouTube will likely scrub those views from your view count, meaning you’ll have wasted your time.
Final Thoughts
Ultimately, YouTube is only concerned about VPNs when they affect the platform’s ability to generate revenue. Thousands of users coming from the same IP address makes it harder to track individual users, and thus display relevant ads. A dedicated IP address gives YouTube something to track, meaning they can advertise to you even if you are technically anonymous, so they’re not likely to clamp down on that kind of VPN access.
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.
A very common question that gets asked about YouTube is whether or not the platform can ban you from commenting on videos, and it can be a very misleading question for one simple reason; it is YouTube’s platform, they can do what they want. The more appropriate question, then, is does YouTube ban you from commenting on videos? And the answer is a little complicated.
Firstly, YouTube does not seem to be openly banning people from commenting. They may ban people from the platform entirely, but that’s a different matter. Of course, if you are banned from YouTube, you are banned from commenting.
Now, onto the trickier side of the topic.
Censored Comments
YouTube has been caught actively removing comments with specific words in them. This process appears to be automated and does not seem to carry any other penalty with it. That is, nobody seems to be getting banned or even warned about their comments. The comments just… disappear.
Crucially, however, those commenters can go on commenting after YouTube has decided to take one of them down. Not a ban, then. Of course, the phrases that YouTube has targetted here seem to be mostly bot-fodder, so maybe they are banning those accounts but no one is complaining about it because the banned accounts aren’t real.
Blocked Commenters
YouTube may not be banning people from commenting overall, but individual YouTubers can certainly ban you from commenting on their videos. Of course, this only affects you if you try to comment on that specific YouTuber’s content, and saying it affects you is being a bit loose with the term.
In reality, a YouTube block is more what is known of as a “shadowban”. In other words, your comments will be hidden from the YouTube channel and no one else will be able to see them, but you will still be able to make them and will have no way of discerning that you have been blocked other than guessing from the lack of engagement. Well, unless the YouTuber explicitly tells you, that is.
Shadowbanning (also called “muting” on other platforms) is an effective way to stop troublesome commenters because they don’t know they’ve been blocked. In contrast, if YouTube told you that you were banned from commenting on a specific channel, you might go and make a new YouTube account so that you could comment from there instead.
Disabled Comments
The other way in which your commenting abilities may be curtailed is when comments for a particular video are disabled entirely. YouTubers have the option to disable comments when they upload a video, but don’t worry, this isn’t just you. If comments are disabled, it’s affecting everyone the same.
Of course, a video with disabled comments may not be down to the YouTuber not wanting discussion of their content. YouTube will automatically disable comments on videos that are either made for children or prominently feature children. In these cases, the YouTuber will not have a choice about the comments, as YouTube’s terms state that content for children has to be treated in this manner.
I’ve Been Blocked, What Now?
As with any situation like this, the first thing to consider is whether the blocking reflects poorly on you. Sure, some YouTubers are just very easy with the block button, and the fact that you were blocked by them may say more about them than you. That being said, it can’t hurt to take a moment to truly think about how things unfolded. If, on balance, you find that the YouTuber was probably justified in blocking you, it may be something you will want to work on in future.
There are other possibilities, however. For example, you may conclude that the YouTuber was justified in blocking you, but you are still comfortable with the way you handled the situation and do not feel the need to change your behaviour. In this situation, there is little to be done but move on. You do not wish to change and the YouTuber does not wish to engage with you.
You may also conclude that you were being perfectly civil/reasonable and that the YouTuber was entirely out of line in blocking you. Once again, there probably isn’t much to be done. If you are a YouTuber of a similar size and you consider the point of contention important enough, you could perhaps open a dialogue that way, but the chances are you will once again have to put the situation behind you and move one.
One final note in this regard; if you are not sure who the reasonable party was, there is no harm in telling the tale to someone who can be unbiased and getting their opinion. Just remember that you will have to represent events fairly if you want to get a useful answer.
When I Should I Block?
That was all well and good for someone who has being blocked, but what if you’re the one doing the blocking? If you’re a YouTuber who is dealing with a commenter you would rather not be dealing with, when should you hit that block button?
The first thing to consider is whether the commenter is being disruptive or creating a negative experience for other commenters, or if they are just rubbing you the wrong way. It might be that they get on with your other viewers but you don’t like them, in which case we’d suggest leaving them be and just ignoring their comments. If they are making the experience bad for everyone, however, drop the banhammer!
The other thing to consider is what kind of community you want to foster. For example, if you are trying to run a family-friendly channel and a particular commenter repeatedly swears or says unsavoury things, it may be worth asking them to tone it down. If that fails, block.
For channels with large followings, this would obviously be an impractical approach, but if you set these ground rules early on when your channel is small, you will usually find that your community becomes self-policing once you start hitting the kind of numbers that are impossible to manage alone.
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.
