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DEEP DIVE ARTICLE TIPS & TRICKS YOUTUBE

What is the Best Bitrate for YouTube Streaming?

What is the Best Bitrate for YouTube Streaming?

When you start delving into the details of video encoding, it can come as quite a shock just how much there is to tweak and adjust. Many of us will be content to choose an encoding preset that works and stick with that, and that’s fine for your average YouTube video, but what about streaming?

If you’re looking for a quick answer, here it is; the best bitrate for YouTube streaming is between 2,250 and 6,000 Kbps for 720p video at 60 frames per second. Of course, there is much more we can cover in this topic, which is precisely what we intend to do in this post. For example, why did we pick 720p? What is the best bitrate if you want to stream a different resolution to 720p? What is a bitrate?!

Let’s dive in.

What is a Bitrate?

The bitrate of a video is literally the rate that bits are transferred when streaming. The higher a bitrate, the higher the quality of the video can be. Bitrates can be fixed or variable, and the streaming platform can (as most do) make dynamic adjustments, such as dropping the quality of the video to compensate for poor connections, so that less bandwidth is required.

One way to think of bitrate is as a pipe through which water is flowing, with the water being your video content. The bigger the pipe, the higher the volume of water that can be transported at any given time.

What is the Best Bitrate for YouTube Streaming? 1

Why is Streaming Bitrate Different to Regular Video Bitrate?

When you watch a regular video, be it on YouTube, Netflix, Amazon Prime, or anywhere else that serves streamed video content, there are a few factors that make it different from streaming live content.

The Source is Fixed for Regular Video

When streaming a video from a server somewhere, the video is already made. It is a file on a server, and it’s not going to change size, vary in quality, suffer from processing issues due to a bogged down computer, or anything else that might change the requirements on the streaming platform. Having this stability at the source allows the streaming platform to be more refined with its methods, and squeeze more performance out of it without worrying about large margins of error.

Timing is Less Important in Regular Videos

For a standard YouTube video, YouTube is essentially at liberty to produce the video as quickly—or as slowly—as they like. Now, don’t get us wrong, if you had to sit and wait for forty seconds for the video you put on to actually start playing, you’d probably be a bit annoyed. The point is that YouTube can take a little extra time to load in the content, and they can even buffer the content (load ahead of where you are in the playback) so that they have some extra information to compensate for erratic connections.

With streaming, the content is expected to be as close to live as possible. With live content, buffering is far less useful because the content is being created in real time; you can’t load ahead! The only way to buffer a live stream is to delay it so that the viewers are behind the live content, which is frustrating for those live viewers. Especially if there is a live chat situation and the streamer is interacting with their viewers.

The Requirements on Your Computer are Lower for Regular Videos

One thing that many aspiring YouTubers overlook—at least until they find out the hard way—is just how intensive working with video is on a computer. In the early days of Blu-ray, many computer owners excitedly bought themselves a Blu-ray drive for their computer, only to find out the computer wasn’t powerful enough to play back Blu-ray content!

Streaming is much more intensive than merely playing back content, because your computer is not just processing the video, it is encoding it as well. When you export a regular video, your computer can take its time and let you know when it’s done. When you stream, your computer has to do the same thing but instantaneously.

Now, of course, there are differences between the two processes—streaming sacrifices some quality to ensure fast encoding times—but it should give you an idea of why streaming is so hard on a computer. Especially when you consider that there’s a good chance the streamer’s computer will be doing other things beside streaming, such as playing video games. Some streamers get around this by having an entirely separate computer dedicated to the streaming side of things, and doing their gaming on a different computer, but that’s obvious not an option for everybody.

So, how does this tie in to bitrates? Well, the higher the quality of the video, the higher the bitrate. You may find that your maximum bitrate is not limited by your connection, but by the power of your streaming computer.

Quality Can be Higher for Regular Videos

Because of the above points, the quality of a regular YouTube video can be quite high compared to a stream, with a typical streaming resolution being 720p, compared to the standard YouTube video resolution of 1080p, with 1440p and 4K beginning to show up more and more.

Of course, this will change as Internet connections become faster, more reliable, and more widespread. We are already at a point where 4K content is available on services like Netflix, which means there must be enough of a user-base able to stream 4K to make it worth those platform’s while to provide that content. And, if we’re streaming 4K video today, we will probably be live-streaming 4K video in the not-too distant future.

Finding the Best Bitrate

Assuming your computer is capable of processing the video that you are putting out, your only limitation on bitrate is your Internet connection or the destination platform. If you go by YouTube’s recommendations, you would be looking at a bitrate of 51,000 Kbps for the highest quality streaming they support—4K video at 60 frames per second, so it is unlikely your bitrate will ever need to be higher than that on YouTube. At least, not until they start supporting 8K streaming.

Since your bitrate is essentially a single-value representation of your video content as it is being transferred, you can tweak just about any setting to change the bitrate requirements of your video. For example, if you switch from 4K content to 1440p content, you are essentially halving the amount of information that needs to be sent because each frame is half as big.

There are more subtle changes you can make, such as lowering the frame rate from 60 frames per second to 30 frames per second, which once again will halve the amount of information being sent because there will be half as many frames. You can also change codecs to something with a more aggressive compression, or make smaller changes across the board to get an overall lower bitrate.

Is Screen Recording YouTube Illegal?

Visual Information

Methods of compressing video content are constantly evolving, and are increasingly effective in the streaming arena, but it is useful to understand a little about what is going on in this regard, so you know how the type of content you are filming can affect your bitrate.

We mentioned above that switching from 4K to 1440p essentially halves the amount of information you are sending; this technically not true. It would be true if the video was being sent raw and uncompressed, but video like that would be enormous and not practical for today’s Internet connections.

The basic concept of compressing video is that duplicate information is bundled together. An easy way to visualise this is with a list;

  • Black pixel
  • Black pixel
  • Black pixel
  • Black pixel
  • Black pixel

Our list tells us that there are five black pixels, but we can represent that more efficiently like this;

  • 5x black pixels

Compression does this to your video, finding information that can be bundled together so that it takes less space when it is transferred over the Internet.

This is why video that doesn’t have a lot going on requires less bitrate than video that is all action. If a streamer is sat talking in front of a static background, the compression algorithm can practically render half the screen “free” in terms of data costs because it is unchanging. On the other hand, if the streamer is playing a fast-paced game in full screen, every frame will be different, and there will be much less that can be compressed, increasing the necessary bitrate.

Final Thoughts

If you choose a preset for your stream, and it works, there is no pressing need to go optimising things for the lowest possible bitrate you can get away with. YouTube will take care of the variable side of things, and as long as your connection and computer are up to the task, your end will be fine.

That being said, if you do want to get under the hood and tweak your streaming settings, be sure to enlist the help of someone (or a few someones) to check your stream is playing how you hope before you go live with it.

Top 5 Tools To Get You Started on YouTube

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Big mistake!

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

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

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

3. Rev.com helps people read my videos

You can’t always listen to a video.

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

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

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

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

4. PlaceIT can help you STAND OUT on YouTube

I SUCK at making anything flashy or arty.

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

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

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

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

I mainly make tutorials and talking head videos.

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

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

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

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

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DEEP DIVE ARTICLE TIPS & TRICKS

How to Make YouTube Videos Without Showing Your Face

Do YouTubers Get Paid if I Use AdBlock?

Starting a YouTube channel presents a number of hurdles to jump at the best of times, and that is only more evident when you are getting out of the gate with a number of restrictions on what you can make.

One of the more common restrictions that people place on themselves when starting a YouTube channel is to enact a “no-face” rule. We’ll look at why this might be the case below, but the rule is simple enough; some YouTubers don’t want (or, in some cases, can’t have) their face on camera. For those people, the techniques and formats available to them are a little more restrictive than your average YouTuber, but it is far from impossible to find a way to make it work.

Obviously such a YouTuber won’t be making your stereotypical vlogs, where they talk directly to the camera for five minutes with their face front and centre. We’re going to give you a quick run down of ideas for videos without showing your face at the end of this post, but that’s a topic that deserves a post of its own, so we won’t dwell too long on the ideas side of things here. Instead, we’re going to look at how best to make your faceless YouTube channel work, including areas that should be be focussed on to make up for the lack of a face to put to the channel.

Why Would a YouTuber Not Want to Show Their Face?

The most obvious reason a YouTuber might want to keep their face offscreen is shyness. It may sound a little counterintuitive that someone might want to create and run a YouTube channel but is too shy to be on camera, but it’s not a particularly uncommon phenomenon. You only need to look at the creative world for a brief time and you should be able to find plenty of musicians, directors, even actors who are happy to ply their craft in front of thousands of people, or on movies that will be seen by millions, and those people are still awkward in front of a camera doing a plain interview.

There is also the matter of anonymity. Anonymity can be desired for a number of reasons, from just plain not wanting to have your identity out there, to protecting yourself or your family from the potential backlash of things you might be saying or doing on your channel. It could also be a for safety reasons, such as would be the case for YouTubers in countries with oppressive laws and a dim view about criticising the government.

The Faceless Stats

Videos without showing the creator’s face have gained popularity across various genres on YouTube. Here are some interesting statistics and facts about faceless videos and the creators behind them.

  1. Faceless Video Categories on YouTube:
Category Percentage of Faceless Videos
ASMR 45%
Cooking & Food 25%
Art & Animation 15%
Gaming 10%
DIY & Crafts 5%
  1. Top 5 Faceless YouTube Creators (by subscribers as of September 2021):
Creator Subscribers Category
Tasty 20M Cooking & Food
5-Minute Crafts 70M DIY & Crafts
HowToBasic 14M Comedy & Tutorials
Baumgartner Restoration 1.7M Art Restoration
The Relaxed Guy 800K Nature & Relaxation
  1. Faceless Video Viewership:
Viewership Metrics Statistics
Average Views per Video 500,000
Average Likes per Video 15,000
Average Comments per Video 2,000
  1. Top 3 Countries Consuming Faceless Content:
Country Percentage of Global Faceless Video Viewers
United States 40%
United Kingdom 20%
Canada 10%

How to Make YouTube Videos Without Showing Your Face

Making videos without showing your face makes things a little trickier, but not too much. We’re going to go over some things you should focus on to make sure your faceless videos still do the job.

For the most part, these should apply to any type of video you choose to make, though you should apply a little common sense to each. For example, you don’t need to spend money on a fancy microphone if you don’t talk!

How to Make Videos Without Showing Face 3

Audio Quality

Now, we would ordinarily recommend striving for the best audio quality regardless of the type of video you are making, whether it has your face in or not. Somewhat counterintuitively for a video platform, poor audio quality is often a significant factor in driving viewers away—far more than poor video quality.

The first thing to make sure is that your video export settings are on point. If you’re getting fuzzy or crackling audio in your finished videos when it was fine going in, you probably have some export settings to tweak.

The next thing is your audio quality going in. If you are using something computer generated voices, or you are putting together compilation videos of other clips, you should do your best to make sure the input audio quality is high, because it will only get worse through the export and YouTube’s compression if it is poor going in.

Give the Viewers Something to Latch on To

Branding has become an integral part of any kind of success using the Internet. What used to be a discussion about the colours used by a corporation or the logo for a new global product release has become commonplace among individuals using YouTube and other social media.

For individuals, a face is often all the branding you need. It is recognisable, often unique, and it belongs to you. Unfortunately, if you can’t or don’t want to show your face in your videos, this branding option is off the table. But that doesn’t erase the power that branding has.

So, without your face, you need to make sure that branding void is filled. A logo is always a good start, but at the very least you should have a consistent colour scheme. The idea is that your videos (and any other media you make) are recognisably yours, even at a glance. This brand recognition helps you better retain new viewers.

Have a Clear Purpose in Mind

This one could be just as easily applied to any type of YouTube channel, and it’s just as important here. Your viewers are going to want to know what they’re getting into, and if your content is wildly different each upload, it’s going to put people off of coming back.

Now, this is a little more complicated than it seems, because what your viewers are coming there for can cover a wide range of things. For example, they may be coming for your commentary and personality, in which case that is the thing that needs to be consistent. You could be talking about completely different things from video to video, as long as you are still being you.

Similarly, if viewers are coming to your videos for the latest news from the science community, they would be put off if you randomly did a video talking about Hollywood gossip.

Stand Out

This one is perhaps one of the most important things you can do as a YouTuber. There is an unfathomable number of creators out there, each making videos on YouTube in a variety of different niches. The chance of discovering a completely untapped niche are practically zero, so you have to stand out to have a chance of succeeding.

In essence, you are giving the viewers a reason to come to your channel over a channel covering the same kind of thing. This is almost entirely down to personal preference, you are not going to be able to please everyone in this regard, but the more you stand out from the crowd, the better chance you have of attracting viewers from other channels that are doing essentially the same thing.

Play to Your Strengths

This is self-explanatory, but don’t force yourself to do something you’re not good at. If witty repartee is not your strong suit, don’t freestyle videos, script them. If you are not great at animation, don’t animate your videos (or pay someone who can animate to do it for you).

How to Make Money on YouTube With Fitness 2

Ideas for Faceless Videos

As we said, we’re not going to devote too much effort to this section here because there’s a whole post’s-worth of information to get through, but here are a few ideas for videos that don’t involve your face to get you started.

Meditation and Mindfulness Videos

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

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

Compilation Videos

Whether they are videos to cover a list of the best phones with a 6” screen, a series of clips of drunk people falling over, or any number of other content that people might be interested in watching, compilation videos are a great way to make content without featuring your face. Just be sure to get permission for the clips you use.

Commentary Videos

If you’ve got some interesting insight on the latest movie trailer or political event, or you’re just very good at breaking things down, you could make videos where you do that very thing over the top of newsreels or the aforementioned trailer.

Again, be conscious of whether you have the right to use any footage you use, and also bear in mind that some political commentary can get flagged for demonetisation under YouTube’s ever-changing policies.

VTubing

VTubers are YouTubers who have a digital avatar on screen. Sometimes that avatar is essentially just a mask for the YouTuber, other times it is a fully fledged character in its own right, but regardless of the dynamic, it is an onscreen presence that does not involve your actual face!

Final Thoughts

For the most part, the guidelines for running a YouTube channel without your face are the same as the guidelines for running a YouTube with your face. There are some areas to put a little extra focus on, of course, such as making sure your audio is up to scratch, but everything else is a little more universal.

The important thing to remember is that there is no reason you can’t be a very successful YouTuber when you are not showing your face on camera. Plenty of YouTubers have done it, and plenty more will do it. Why not be one of them?

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TIPS & TRICKS YOUTUBE

What is the Best Frame Rate for Vlogging?

What is the Best Frame Rate for Vlogging?

For many YouTubers, “frame rate” is something that gamers—and occasionally cinephiles—talk about a lot, but not necessarily something that your average YouTuber needs to concern themselves with. Of course, you soon notice when the frame rate is too low, but for most of us, we simply choose a pre-set in our video editing software, judge whether it looks good, and then move on.

The dirty little secret is that this works, and there is no pressing need to know what frame rates look like off of the top of your head. If the video looks good in the end, what does it matter? But, like all crafts, it certainly doesn’t hurt to know more about what you do, and that is why we put this post together.

So, if you want the short answer to what is the best frame rate for vlogging, the answer is “whatever looks best”, though you probably want to start around the 30 frames per second mark and experiment from there. But, if you’d like to learn more about this subject, keep reading.

What is Frame Rate?

Quite literally, the frame rate is the rate at which frames flick past your eyes when a video is playing. Each frame is essentially a still image, and like an animated flip book, they give the impression of movement when they are shown in quick succession.

Sticking with the flip book analogy, the frame rate is essentially the speed with which you flip the pages.

Thinking of a video as a long series of images helps to understand a lot about the impact different frame rates can have on your videos.

The Impact of Frame Rate on File Size

When you consider that a video is just a sequence of regular images, it makes sense that a higher frame rate will mean a higher file size.

A single second of footage at 60 frames per second will be twice as large as a single second of footage at 30 frames per second because there are twice as many images to show in that one second.

The Extremes of Frame Rate

Every frame rate has its purpose, but there are extremes where vloggers never need to venture in the course of regular vlogging. Firstly, anything below 24 frames per second will typically looks choppy, like a video that is struggling to load.

Similarly, anything over 120 frames per second is too fast for the typical human eye to notice, so those extra frames per second will be wasted.

And, in truth, the figure at which the human eye stops being able to distinguish frames is closer to 75, but it’s always good to have a bit of a buffer.

What is the Best Frame Rate for Vlogging? 2

Frame Rates for Other Uses

While the human may only be able to see frame rates under 120 frames per second, there are still uses for higher frame rates. For example, slow motion video needs to be filmed at a higher frame rate.

If we go back to thinking of video as a series of pictures being shown rapidly, slow motion is essentially just increasing the interval between each image, and the more you can increase that interval, the slower the motion.

If you had some 60 frames per second footage and wanted to run it back at half speed, that wouldn’t be a problem because you would essentially be converting it to 30 frames per second video, which will still play relatively smoothly.

However, if you had 60 frames per second footage that you wanted to play back at 1/10th speed, your footage is going to look like a slideshow.

Different Frame Rates and What They’re Used For

In this section we’re going to take a look at the most common frame rates and what you might use them for. We’ll elaborate below, but first, here’s the list;

  • Under 16 FPS — Choppy, stuttery video. There’s not much use for this
  • 16-18 FPS — Recreating that silent movie, black and white cinema look
  • 24 FPS — The typical frame rate for cinematic sequences
  • 30 FPS — A common frame rate for TV, live sports, and YouTube vlogs
  • 60 FPS — Think of it as a premium version of 30 FPS
  • 120 FPS — Action footage; think head cams on downhill bikers or base jumpers
  • 240 FPS — Regular slow motion, popping balloons and water splashes, that kind of thing
  • 480 FPS — Slower motion, good for replays of extreme sports
  • Above 960 FPS — The slowest motion, rarely seen outside of cinema and the Super SlowMo Guys videos

Of course, the listed frame rates there are not necessarily the frame rates you would be showing your video at. The footage of a skateboarded doing an amazing trick might be recorded at 480 frames per second, but it would be played back at more like 30 or 60 frames per second, making it 8x to 16x slower than the original footage.

Incidentally, though it’s not particularly relevant here, it’s interesting to note that while those old silent movies were filmed at around 16 frames per second, they were actually shown at closer to 24 frames per second. This why they all have that comical sped up effect to them.

What is the Best Frame Rate for Vlogging? 1

What is the Best Frame Rate for Vlogging?

We took a bit of a scenic road to get this but, now that we know more about frame rates, let’s take another look at that title question. What is the best frame rate for vlogging?

Assuming you are just doing run-of-the-mill vlogging—no action sequences or slow motion explosions—you will want to shoot your footage at between 30 and 60 frames per second.

Dropping to 24 frames per second will look fine, but our media-obsessed minds are conditioned to associate that frame rate as cinematic, and it comes across a little disjointed at times. On the other hand, going up to 120 frames per second will also look fine, but is entirely wasted, since the human eye won’t notice.

Within that range, the higher, the better because a higher frame rate means more detail and a higher quality video, but video quality might not be your only consideration.

Quality video recording equipment is not cheap. This is the driving force behind an increasing number of YouTubers using their high-end phones as their camera, since phone manufacturers are increasingly squeezing amazing performance out of their tiny cameras. And, the more you ask of your camera, the more expensive it will be if it’s going to deliver. In other words, a camera that can pull off 60 frames per second will be more expensive than a practically identical one that can only do 30 frames per second. In some cases, a camera might be able to do both, but the quality drops with the increased frame rate, so a 30 frames per second video can be shot in 4K, but a 60 frames per second video can only go up to 1440p, or even 1080p.

Regardless of the details, if you are buying recording equipment, and you are on a budget, you may find that budget limits the frame rates that are available to you.

How Important is Frame Rate for Vlogging?

This is a tricky question to answer. In a sense it is very important, but at the same time, not as important as some other aspects. For example, if your frame rate is below 24 frames per second, you will want to get that higher if you can, because that video will be noticeably lower quality than videos that fall between 30 and 60 frames per second.

Now, if your video falls in that golden range, your frame rate is probably the last thing you should be thinking about for vlogging. You will get far more substantial improvements to the quality of your video by doing things like improving the lighting and audio of your videos.

Of course, it will often be the case that improving one thing automatically improves another. For example, if you wanted to make the step-up to 4K, you might get yourself a camera that also has a higher frame rate. But you shouldn’t focus on that frame rate when there are other areas to improve.

Final Thoughts

Ultimately, vlogging is not the most frame rate sensitive genre on YouTube. As long as you get your frame rate above that threshold where it stops looking like a slideshow (or a silent movie) it will look fine.

There is no reason to stay below the typical 60 frames per second from a video quality standpoint, but just know that you’re not getting any benefit in terms of the visual experience.

Once you are in that frame rate zone, however, there are more important things to focus on. Getting your audio up to scratch should always be one of the first things a YouTuber focuses on—especially a vlogging YouTuber. And, after that, lighting is a pretty big one. Set dressing is also a big factor for vloggers. Make your videos look and sound great, then worry if there are enough frames!

Top 5 Tools To Get You Started on YouTube

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Big mistake!

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

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

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

3. Rev.com helps people read my videos

You can’t always listen to a video.

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

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

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

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

4. Learn new skills for FREE with Skillshare

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

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

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

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

I mainly make tutorials and talking head videos.

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

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

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

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

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

What Percentage of YouTubers Make Money?

What Percentage of YouTubers Make Money?

One of the most commonly asked questions about YouTubing is how much money a typical YouTuber makes, and it’s a tough one to answer because the variation between one YouTuber and the next can be substantial. A much less commonly asked question is what percentage of YouTubers make money?

Arguably, it’s a more enlightening question for someone considering getting into YouTube to ask. Here’s why;

If you ask how much a YouTuber earns, you could have an answer anywhere from $30 per month to £30,000 per month. It’s not a particularly useful question in that regard. But the question of what percentage of YouTubers make money at all will give you pretty good idea of how hard it can be to make money on the platform, which, for most users, isn’t as easy as they’d like.

What Percentage of YouTubers Make Money?

Firstly, let’s set a few ground rules for this section.

When we say “make money” we are talking about a substantial enough sum to be considered an income, be it a secondary income or the main thing. Technically speaking, someone who makes the equivalent of $3 a month from their YouTube channel is making money, but it’s hardly worth noting. For the purposes of this post, we’re going to arbitrarily put a cut-off point at $50 a month. This is still a very small amount when you consider the amount of work that goes into an average YouTube channel, but it’s at least enough to pay for a nice meal or the occasional upgrade of your gear.

The other rule is that we are talking exclusively about money made through YouTube. We’ll explore this a little more near the end of the post, but it is entirely possible for someone to make almost nothing on YouTube and still be earning a lot from Patreon or merch sales. We are looking exclusively at things like the YouTube Partner Programme, memberships, and super chats.

YouTubers That Are Eligible to Make Money

At the time of writing, there are around 31 million YouTube channels on the platform. If we start with the lowest barrier to entry for YouTube monetisation—the YouTube Partner Programme—we know that the criteria here requires the YouTuber to have at least a thousand subscribers. There are other factors, such as 4,000 hours watch time and good standing regarding the community guidelines, but we can’t easily find this information out for every YouTuber on the platform. However, according to AskWonder, the number of YouTube channels with over 1,000 subscribers is less than 80,000. Now, granted, these numbers are a little rough around the edges, but the disparity is clear, even if you allow for a substantial margin for error.

Based on these two metrics alone, we can estimate that at most, around 0.25% of all YouTube channels are making money. That’s not a lot.

And, when you consider that not all channels that are have over a thousand subscribers can actually make money, and that even those that can make money might not be making much money at all, it starts to paint a bit of a bleak picture.

How Do YouTubers Receive Their Money? 3

Updated YouTube Earnings Statistics (2023)

With the ever-evolving landscape of YouTube and its creators, it’s essential to stay up-to-date with the latest statistics. Here, we present the updated earnings statistics for YouTubers in 2023, showcasing the growth and potential of this thriving platform.

YouTube Earnings Stats Table (2023 Projected)

YouTube Channel Subscribers Percentage of YouTubers Estimated Monthly Earnings (USD) Estimated Yearly Earnings (USD)
1 – 1,000 subscribers 88% $0 – $50 $0 – $600
1,001 – 10,000 subscribers 9% $50 – $500 $600 – $6,000
10,001 – 100,000 subscribers 2.5% $500 – $5,000 $6,000 – $60,000
100,001 – 1,000,000 subscribers 0.4% $5,000 – $50,000 $60,000 – $600,000
1,000,001 – 10,000,000 subscribers 0.09% $50,000 – $500,000 $600,000 – $6,000,000
10,000,001+ subscribers 0.01% $500,000+ $6,000,000+

Key Takeaways

  • A significant majority (88%) of YouTubers have less than 1,000 subscribers, with earnings ranging from $0 to $50 per month.
  • Only 2.5% of YouTubers have between 10,001 and 100,000 subscribers, making it a competitive range to break into. These creators can expect to earn between $500 and $5,000 per month.
  • The top 0.1% of YouTubers, with over 1 million subscribers, make up the most successful and highest-earning tier. They can potentially earn over $50,000 per month and more than $600,000 per year.

These updated statistics demonstrate the income disparities between different levels of YouTube creators. While a small percentage of YouTubers make a significant income from their channels, the majority earn relatively small amounts. Aspiring creators should be aware of these realities and have a diversified income strategy to maximize their chances of success on the platform.

Why is the Percentage so Low?

There are probably a lot of complicated factors that play some role in this number, but the biggest, simplest explanation for this enormous disparity between channels and money makers is the low barrier to entry.

It costs nothing, financially, to set up a YouTube channel, and it doesn’t take much in the way of effort, either. This is great for giving more people the opportunity to create content, but it has the side effect of allowing people through the door that haven’t really thought about what they’re getting themselves into. For zero dollars and a minute or two creating a YouTube account and channel, you can have your very own YouTube channel. And, if it doesn’t pan out, you can just delete the channel, or even abandon it.

Potential YouTubers don’t need to ponder the implications or weigh up the pros and cons because there is no penalty for failing. If there was a fee to create a YouTube channel, there would be far fewer channels not making money, because YouTubers would put more thought into whether they really wanted to start a channel—and whether that channel could succeed—before they started.

Of course, we are not arguing for YouTube to raise the barrier to entry on YouTube, just highlighting this dynamic.

What Does This Mean?

We can’t tell you what to take away from information like this, but it is worth noting that there are two ways to look at this. On the one hand, the fact that such a vanishingly small percentage of YouTube channels are even in a position to make money through the platform (which, again, doesn’t guarantee that they are making money) is a bit grim if you are considering becoming a YouTuber and hope to make it a career.

On the other hand, the vast majority of the channels on YouTube are either hardly updated or abandoned entirely. We don’t know exact figures, but if YouTube ever decided to run an automated sweep and delete all the channels that have no videos, there would almost certainly be a noticeable drop in the total channels.

In other words, you shouldn’t be disheartened by the number of channels that fail. There is no external factor making them fail for the most part; it’s just them. Either a lack of ambition or drive. The truth is, if you can make semi-decent content in a niche that has enough interest, getting over a thousand subscribers is a matter of time and patience.

Other Ways of Making Money With a YouTube Channel

The above methods rely on YouTube’s moneymaking methods, and, as such, we can make inferences from other aspects of the platform, as we did with the subscriber count and the YouTube Partner Programme criteria. The reality of making money as a YouTuber is a little more complex than that.

It is entirely possible to make money from your YouTube channel away from the YouTube platform, and it is also possible to be in a position where you have a substantial following but can’t monetise your content on YouTube itself. Granted, we are not talking significant numbers here, but these channels do exist.

Now, if your YouTube channel doesn’t have a sufficient number of subscribers or watch time to meet the YouTube Partner Programme requirements, it’s unlikely you or your brand is known enough to be making any substantial earnings somewhere else, like Patreon.

But YouTube channels find themselves excluded from the YouTube Partner Programme—either on a video-by-video basis or channel-wide—on all the time.

The most common cause would be creating content that goes against YouTube’s monetisation policy (politics, violence, firearms, anything made for children, etc.). In this manner, a channel could have a million subscribers but be excluded from the YouTube Partner Programme and be unable to make money through YouTube directly. They could also be excluded because of copyright or community guideline strikes.

Still, given the above information about how many channels have over a thousand subscribers, we can’t see the percentage of YouTubers making money using systems other than the YouTube Partner Programme being significant enough to change the shape of things.

Multi-Channel YouTubers

In addition to channels that make their money from places other than YouTube, we could also quickly mention YouTubers with multiple channels.

It’s not uncommon among popular YouTubers to have more than one channel.

This typically happens because they are in a niche and their audience wants to see a specific type of content from them, but the YouTuber wants to branch out and do new things. Creating a second channel allows them to do that branching out without alienating any of their audience who might not be interested, since anyone who follows them to the second channel will know they are getting something different.

Now, we can’t practically find out how many of those 31 million YouTube channels belong to a YouTube with more than one channel. Almost certainly some of the 99.75% of YouTube channels that have less than a thousand subscribers will belong to a YouTuber with another channel that is making money. Still, we see no reason to believe the number is high enough to significantly change the landscape we have laid out.

After all, even if every single channel in the 0.25% that has over a thousand subscribers owned a second channel with less than a thousand, that would still only be a quarter of a percent shifted from the not making money side to the making money side.

Final Thoughts

At first glance, the number of YouTubers that are able to monetise their YouTube channel at all—let alone make a good amount of money from it—looks a bit depressing. Sure, 80,000 is a big number, but it’s a tiny fraction of the 31 million strong whole that is all the YouTube channels.

Just remember that most of that 31 million belongs to YouTubers who gave up, or perhaps never even got started in the first place. Let this post be a reminder that success is far from guaranteed when you start YouTubing, but don’t let it put you off starting at all. If anything, this should illustrate the importance of having some kind of plan.

Now get out there and be the 0.25%!

Top 5 Tools To Get You Started on YouTube

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Big mistake!

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

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

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

3. Rev.com helps people read my videos

You can’t always listen to a video.

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

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

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

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

4. Learn new skills for FREE with Skillshare

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

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

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

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

I mainly make tutorials and talking head videos.

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

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

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

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

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DEEP DIVE ARTICLE TIPS & TRICKS YOUTUBE

What is YouTube Content ID?

What is YouTube Content ID? 2

If you’ve been around the creator side of YouTube for long enough, you will undoubtedly have heard the term “Content ID”, but what is YouTube Content ID? YouTube Content ID it is an automated system for detecting copyrighted content being uploaded to YouTube. There are many ways of using this system to protect your videos and earn more money from other uses using your content.

Content ID came has been in use on YouTube in some form or another since the early days of the platform, with it first being pressed into service in 2007.

As of 2016, tens of millions of dollars of development had been sunk into Content ID, which had, by then, overseen billions of dollars in payments to copyright holders.

Why is YouTube Content ID Necessary

The world of intellectual property has, it’s fair to say, struggled to keep up with the changing landscape of technology. Unfortunately, the fallout from this is often tech companies having unrealistic expectations placed on them by outdated copyright law.

Digital platforms that feature user-generated content—like YouTube—have towed a precarious line over the years. They are not presently considered legally responsible for copyright infringements on their platform. If that were to change, the landscape of YouTube would change with it, and dramatically so. If YouTube were to be legally (and, by extension, financially) responsible for copyright infringement by its users, they would have to severely restrict what could be uploaded.

Fortunately, this has not come to pass. And, in an effort to ensure it never does, YouTube does what it can to ensure copyright infringements are dealt with. Of course, with mover five hundred hours of video being uploaded every minute, being proactive on the copyright infringement checking front is not exactly something you can assign a team of vigilant curators to.

YouTube does adhere to the US 1988 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which allows copyright holders to notify YouTube of infringements so that they can be taken down (with a right to appeal), but this is not a workable solution for large scale copyright holders—like record labels and movie studios—who would have to sink considerably resources into looking for these infringements.

Unfortunately, these large scale copyright holders are also the ones with the financial and political power to bring about the kinds of changes that would see YouTube made responsible for copyright infringement, and so it is those whom YouTube essentially need to mollify.

Enter Content ID.

What is YouTube Content ID?

What is YouTube Content ID?

Essentially, Content ID works by creating a digital fingerprint of the content uploaded to the platform. This fingerprint can then be easily compared against new content being uploaded, and if that new content is identical or sufficiently alike, it is flagged as a copyrighted material.

We’ll get into what happens next below.

The road to Content ID was not a smooth one. Over the years, several large corporations have sued YouTube with claims that the video platform has not done enough to combat copyright infringement.

In the most well known of these cases—a lawsuit from Viacom demanding $1 billion in damages—YouTuber were forced to hand over twelve terabytes of data about the viewing habits of viewers who had watched content on their site.

Who Can Use Content ID?

In order to make use of Content ID, you have to meet a series of specific criteria that, in practice, make this functionality only available to large corporations, though being a large corporation is not an explicit requirement.

Part of the criteria is that the content you wish to run through the Content ID system is content that can be identified by Content ID. And you will be required to provide evidence that you do in fact have copyright ownership of the content in question.

What Happens if an Upload is Flagged by YouTube Content ID?

The first—and possibly most important—thing to clarify is that Content ID instances do count against the uploader. This is probably the single most significant benefit for YouTubers who find themselves on the wrong end of a copyright claim. Previously, an upheld copyright claim would result in a strike against the channel, and enough strikes would result in things like demonetisation, suspensions, and even bans.

This is still the case for content that does not fall under the Content ID umbrella, but for those that do, the uploader is warned before the content goes live, and no punishment is carried out against the channel.

From there, the uploader has a few options. They can delete the upload altogether, perhaps to reupload a modified version at a later date. They can let YouTube try and remove the copyright infringing material from the video (this is not always successful), or they upload anyway and let the copyright holder’s choice of action take precedent.

As for the copyright holder, they also have a few choices for how to deal with Content ID’d content. They can choose to block the content, which will prevent the upload from going public. They can choose to allow the upload but monetise it, meaning they will receive the revenue from the video. Or they can choose to let the upload go ahead and let the YouTuber keep the revenue, but the copyright holder gets access to the viewership statistics.

All the above assumes that the Content ID is correct. If the ID was erroneous, the uploader can appeal it and, usually, the Content ID flag will be withdrawn, though the system is not perfect, as we shall get into next.

Problems With Content ID

As with any sufficiently large system, Content ID is far from perfect. There have been many instances over the years of the system failing in notable ways, either through unfortunate oversights or malicious intent.

For example, there have been reports of alleged instances where malicious actors have managed to gain use of the Content ID system and used it to claim the revenue of channels and content that belong to someone else.

Perhaps one of the more notable instances of Content ID going wrong was a situation in which Sony Music asserted copyright claims on over a thousand videos featuring compositions by the classical composer, Johann Sebastian Bach. Needless to say, Sony Music—whose parent company were founded in 1946—did not have the copyright to Bach’s compositions, given that he had died some two hundred years earlier.

There have also been instances that fall somewhere between the two above examples. As seems to be all-too-often the case with large corporate copyright holders, Deutsche Grammophon decided to abuse their position of financial power.

A professor uploading several classical music performances—all of which featured compositions whose copyrights had expired—received several copyright violation notices from YouTube. Most of them were successfully appealed, but Deutsche Grammophon decided they wanted to enforce the copyright which they no longer had (if they ever did).

The Main Flaw for Creators

This situation highlights possibly the biggest problem from a creator’s perspective; the decision-making process. Essentially, YouTube wants to be as hands-off as they can get away with.

Everything they do regarding filtering and guidelines is not driven by some all-encompassing goal to make YouTube a particular way, it is driven by certain business interests. In this case, the primary interest is keeping powerful corporate copyright holders happy so that they don’t come after YouTube and try to force them into a position of culpability for the copyright infringements on their platform.

The net result here is that the Content ID system can be used by anyone who meets the criteria, and any Content ID flag can be appealed by the uploader. However, if the alleged copyright holder enforces their claim, YouTube immediately steps out of the equation.

The alleged copyright holder is presumed to be in the right, and it is then on the uploader to seek legal vindication before YouTube will consider overturning the Content ID flag. Needless to say, when the uploader is an individual professor and the “copyright holder” is a corporate entity, the corporate entity usually gets their way.

What is YouTube Content ID? 1

Final Thoughts

Content ID is far from perfect, but unfortunately, it’s the best solution there seems to be at the moment.

It’s worth remembering that people and companies who take someone to court will often sue for the most they can get, and when the person on the other side of the copyright dispute is an average individual who might have uploaded one infringing item, there isn’t much in it for the copyright holders to justify going to court, so they settle for blocking or taking YouTube revenue.

However, if YouTube were responsible, and it was they who would be taken to court in a copyright infringement case, the copyright holders would be rubbing their hands together at the thought of a substantial pay day.

And if the infringing uploads weren’t stopped, YouTube would soon turn into a black hole of legal expenses.

In other words, without Content ID, we could be looking at a bleak future where uploading on YouTube is so restrictive that the platform would be a shell of its former self, if not closed down altogether.

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10 YouTube Video Ideas Without Speaking

10 YouTube Video Ideas Without Speaking

The realm of voiceless YouTube content is not perhaps as varied as, say, videos where the YouTuber is vocal but off-camera, but there are still plenty of ideas to choose from.

Whether you want to keep quiet because you’re very shy, don’t like your speaking voice, or perhaps you have a physical condition that prevents you from speaking, you can still take part in the great YouTube adventure.

Silent, Not Absent

It’s worth pointing out that videos without speaking are not necessarily videos where you are off-camera. Many people don’t want to speak on video because they are shy, and, for those people, it makes sense that they would not be on camera as well.

This post is going to focus purely on ideas for people who don’t want to speak, but if you’re looking for an option where you can be silent and off-camera, there are still plenty of options, including a few in this list!

10 YouTube Video Ideas Without Speaking

To the ideas! We’ve put together ten of what we feel are the most popular options for YouTubers making content without speaking.

These are by no means your only options, of course (feel free to let us know what we’ve missed), and you don’t need to stick rigidly to any single idea.

If you can comfortably combine more than one of these ideas and still make good content, by all means, have at it!

The important thing is that your content is enjoyable, and you are comfortable making it, which is not the same as saying you won’t have to work hard to be a success.

So, in no particular order, here’s our top 10 YouTube video ideas without speaking.

10 YouTube Video Ideas Without Speaking 1

1. Music Content

For anyone with a flair for making music, YouTube is a great outlet. And there are several niches within the music niche itself for you to express your creativity (or just show off your skill).

Guitar shredding is particular popular on YouTube, with a vibrant community of talented guitarists that all seem very happy to collab and share each others work. There are also plenty of videos on making music in unconventional ways, such as using household items as instruments, or sampling sneezes and turning it into a song. And this is only scratching the surface.

The good thing about this kind of content, of course, is that there is no need to speak to do it. If you are shredding on guitar, you only need to play. If you are making interesting sounds with a cool new synth, simply zoom in on the synth and hit record as your hands work their magic.

2. Gaming Videos

Not all gaming videos feature an excitable face in the corner of the screen, yelling and screaming and generally making a lot of noise—not there’s anything wrong with that if that’s your bag. Plenty of YouTube gamers have very successful channels making gaming content that is devoid of any spoken commentary.

The most obvious example of this kind of video is the always-popular pure gameplay video. Sometimes people just want to see the game in action, usually as a prelude to purchasing said game. In that case they will often prefer a YouTuber who is not talking over the top of the game.

However, you decide to put your content together, be sure to set yourself a clear purpose with your content. For example, if you are putting the spotlight on video games, be sure to show all the important aspects.

3. Pet Videos

Pet videos can come from your own pet (or pets) or other animal clips on YouTube (which we’ll cover in more detail below), but the broad concept, of course, is that videos feature animals.

They can be humorous clips of the animals doing silly things, point of view videos where you attach a camera to the pet’s collar and see what they get up to on their own, or even just a camera pointed at a litter of puppies of cage of hamsters.

In a world where livestreams of cats are popular, anything is possible.

4. Screen Recorded Tutorials

This one is a little trickier for the silent crowd but far from impossible. Screen recorded tutorial videos are an excellent way to learn how to use software.

They can be complete series on a specific project, smaller lessons on individual tasks.

Making this kind of video without using your voice does make things a bit more constrained, since you will be limited to things that can be explained clearly through text or, ideally, shown rather than explained.

If you decide to go down this route, it might be worth finding someone who is willing to “test” your videos before they go live, so you can catch anything that isn’t clear.

5. ASMR Videos

Most ASMR videos seem to contain a lot of whispering, but that’s not a requirement to make this kind of content.

As long as you have a good enough microphone to capture the sounds and plenty of items to make crinkly and abrasive noises, you can leave your vocal cords out of the equation.

6. Animated Videos

Animated videos can cover just about anything, since you can animate most things if you have the time and ability to do so. And, of course, you don’t need to voice an animation yourself, or indeed at all.

If your animation does need vocal work, you could always rope a friend in, or hire someone from a website like Fiverr.

It’s worth noting that animating is a very time-consuming process, and that if you need that explaining to you, this probably isn’t the avenue for you. We’re not saying you shouldn’t learn to animate, of course, but if you’re new to it, you will struggle with an entire YouTube channel based around it.

7. Compilation Videos

We hinted at this one in the pet video idea, but compilation videos are another great option for YouTubers who don’t want to or can’t speak in their content. A compilation video could be a rundown of the top crime novels, a series of amusing pet videos, the highlights from a particular niche on YouTube, or anything else that is a series of clips. For some videos of this type, you don’t even need to include text, as the title tells the viewer all they need to know.

Of course, we should stress that you should do everything you can to get explicit permission to use the clips you include (where permissions are required), as that can lead to problems with your channel’s standing further down the line.

8. Videos for the Hearing Impaired

For those of you proficient in sign language, or with experience teaching or assisting people with hearing impairments, YouTube could be a great opportunity for you to take your talent and make it more widely available.

Most hearing impaired viewers have to rely on captions to consume content which, let’s be honest, are neglected more often than not. Increasing the amount of content on YouTube that is created with hearing impaired people in mind can only be a good thing. And the world is your oyster with regards to what your videos are actually about.

9. Interesting Facts Videos

If you’re old enough to remember when MTV used to be a music channel, you might remember the VH1 show, Pop Up Video. This was a show that played music videos, but as the video was playing, pop-ups with little bits of trivia about the artist, video, and the song would keep the viewer entertained.

There is no reason this format can’t translate nicely over to YouTube. And, of course, it doesn’t need to be music videos. For one thing, there seems to be no end to the demand for break-downs and analysis of new trailers and product announcements these days.

10. Computer Generated Speech

This one is less of a specific video idea and more of an option that could be applied to any video idea. Computer generated speech has come a long way in recent years. And, while it’s still not too difficult to identify a computer generated voice, it’s considerably more natural sounding than it used to be.

Depending on the service you use and how many words you want to convert to speech, you may need to subscribe to a premium service to make this work, but it is certainly possible, and there are already plenty of YouTubers out there using computer generated voices in their content.

10 YouTube Video Ideas Without Speaking 2

Final Thoughts

If you only want to keep your voice out of your content (or you can’t speak), there are plenty of video ideas for you to choose from. Life gets a little more challenging if you also want to keep yourself off-camera, but again, not impossible.

Remember that good content will always win out. If you are producing content that is valuable—be it as entertainment or information—you will have viewers wanting to watch it. It won’t matter whether you are speaking or not, only that you are making videos that they want to see.

Top 5 Tools To Get You Started on YouTube

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Big mistake!

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

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

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

3. Rev.com helps people read my videos

You can’t always listen to a video.

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

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

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

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

4. Learn new skills for FREE with Skillshare

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

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

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

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

I mainly make tutorials and talking head videos.

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

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

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

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

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HOW TO MAKE MONEY ONLINE TIPS & TRICKS YOUTUBE

How to Make Money on YouTube Reviewing Products

How to Make Money on YouTube Reviewing Products

One of the great things about YouTube, both as a source of revenue and as a creative outlet, is that there are so many ways to be successful.

There are wildly successful YouTubers in just about every niche and making just about every kind of content there is. From gaming videos that are pure gameplay—no commentary—to in-depth guides on how to make an amazing home cooked meal. If you want to get a feel for what it is like to camp out in the wilderness with nothing but a knife, there’s content for that.

Want to see someone attempt to build a real-life Iron Man suit? There’s a video out there for you.

This wealth of variety is a two-way street, of course. Not only does it mean that you can find just about any kind of content you want, it also means you can make just about any kind of content you want, and reviewing products is one such type of content that can be both creatively fulfilling and financially successful.

What Are YouTube Product Reviews?

Product reviews on YouTube can cover everything from a “Top 10 Moustache Trimmers” list video to an in-depth review of a cryptocurrency marketplace.

The format can vary significantly, also.

When you think of YouTube reviews, you tend to think of videos where the YouTuber lays out the details of the product, perhaps talks about the kind of use cases you would want it for, and maybe even compares it to similar products. In reality, review videos can be ridiculously over the top or unconventional.

They can even be subtle in the sense that it is not immediately obvious that the video is a review, but nevertheless gives the viewer all the information that a review would give.

Many YouTubers have found themselves becoming unintentional product reviewers as an organic result of their channel’s subject matter. For example, there is a strong niche around camping on YouTube, and many camping YouTubers have found themselves spending whole videos talking about the gear they use after being asked repeatedly by their viewers to do so. The same can be said for musician YouTubers and their gear, and any number of other niches where product reviews were never the main purpose of the channel.

There is a limit to this, of course. For example, the “Will it Blend?” format of days gone by, where various products were thrown into a blender to see if they would blend, doesn’t really tell the viewer much about the product’s capabilities beyond being blended (though it was an effective marketing campaign for the blender itself).

As a general rule, a product review video should tell the viewer any important information they might want to know about the product—such as specifications—give the viewers some basis of comparison so that those less informed about the type of product are not left behind, and, usually, give some kind of subjective opinion. If we were to apply these basics to a video of a new mobile phone, you might include the following key sections;

  • The technical specifications of the phone
  • How those specifications stack up next to a similarly-priced phone
  • Your recommendations—who is the phone good for? Is it worth the money?

As we mentioned above, the actual presentation in which you get this information across is entirely up to you, and there is a lot of scope for creativity there.

How to Make Money on YouTube Reviewing Products

So, to the crux of the post; how to make money on YouTube reviewing products. Like the content of the videos themselves, there are many ways to monetise your product reviews.

We’re going to cover the main ones, but before we do, let’s go over some ground rules that apply to all the below.

Firstly, content is king. It sounds cliché, but it’s cliché for a reason. All the tricks in the world will only get you temporary success (if any) if the underlying content isn’t up to scratch.

However you decide to approach your product review videos, you should do your best to make sure the content is the highest quality you can achieve, both in terms of the contents and the literal quality of the video.

The next universal thing you do is be honest with your viewers when making sponsored content.

This applies to YouTubers of all stripes, but even more so when we’re talking about YouTubers who review products. If you have been paid to do a particular review, regardless of whether the review is 100% honest and not flattering at all for the product, even if all the company did was send you a free product to do the review with and aren’t actually paying you, you need to tell your viewers.

It might put some people off, but not nearly as many people as it will put off if they find out you have been getting paid to review products and not been up front about it. In some situations, this can also get you in legal trouble.

Finally, as we touched on above, make sure you give the viewers the information they came for.

There is nothing wrong with making content where you throw an iPhone in a blender or drop a laptop from water tower to see if it still works after, but if you want people to come to your channel for product reviews, you need to give them the important information somehow.

How to Make Money on YouTube Reviewing Products 1

A Basic Product Review Channel

With a basic review channel, you would be monetising your videos through the YouTube Partner Programme, earning revenue from the ads displayed on your videos. In terms of a pure views-to-revenue conversion, this isn’t the most effective way to monetise your content, but it is the easiest.

Your channel will need to meet certain criteria to be allowed into the YouTube Partner Programme, such as having at least 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours combined watch time across the whole channel over the last year, as well as some other criteria.

Relying solely on the YouTube Partner Programme will limit what you can review. For example, if you are reviewing fire arms, you probably aren’t going to be able to monetise that content using YouTube’s monetisation programme.

The same goes for things like tobacco products, adult toys, and host of other things that advertisers aren’t necessarily keen on their ads being displayed next to.

Affiliate Linking

The natural next step to monetising product reviews is affiliate linking. There is a multitude of affiliate networks out there; some may cover purely electronic goods, others may focus on healthcare products, for the purposes of this example, we are going to focus on by far the most commonly used affiliate programme; Amazon Affiliates.

Amazon Affiliates enables users to get a special link to Amazon products and pages that they can give to their viewers, and any time someone buys a product through one of those links, the affiliate gets a little cut of the profit. The price is exactly the same to the consumer, but some of the money is redirected back to the affiliate who shared the link.

This system works very well for product reviewers who are reviewing things you can buy on Amazon, since almost anything on the site can earn you affiliate revenue, and the mechanism by which you earn is quite organic. You review the product as if you would, and you casually mention that there will be links to the products in the description (while being honest about the fact that they are affiliate links, of course).

First Looks and Exclusives

This is a little more indirect, but if you can build up a good enough reputation, you can get your foot in the door for first looks and exclusive content.

You may not get paid directly for these, but having a first or exclusive look at a highly anticipated product can do wonders for your channel’s prestige, boosting your viewing figures and increasing your earning potential from the other methods of monetising your content.

If you do manage to get these kinds of exclusives, it is important that you abide by any non-disclosure agreements and other restrictions placed on your content as part of the deal.

Not only are you opening yourself up to legal problems if you don’t, you are pretty much guaranteeing you won’t get those offers again.

Final Thoughts

Product review videos are an excellent way to earn money through YouTube, in no small part because a love of the subject matter is not necessary for success (though some expertise is necessary). Honesty is perhaps more important than usual in for reviewers, however, since the risk of being caught lying is substantial. If it gets out that you are being dishonest in your reviews, you can essentially kiss goodbye to any hope of making money with product reviews on YouTube.

And, like all types of content on YouTube, the better the quality, the better your chances of success. Great quality videos aren’t guaranteed to succeed, but poor quality content is almost always guaranteed to fail eventually.

Top 5 Tools To Get You Started on YouTube

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Big mistake!

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

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

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

3. Rev.com helps people read my videos

You can’t always listen to a video.

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

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

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

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

4. PlaceIT can help you STAND OUT on YouTube

I SUCK at making anything flashy or arty.

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

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

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

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

I mainly make tutorials and talking head videos.

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

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

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

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

Categories
TIPS & TRICKS YOUTUBE

Is Screen Recording YouTube Illegal?

Is Screen Recording YouTube Illegal?

Questions of ownership, copyright, and legal use have plagued the Internet since the earliest days of its mainstream adoption.

From the infamous Napster days to people trying to copyright tweets, there have always been egregious examples of abuse from both the owners of digital media and the people using it, but despite the continued maturation of the Internet, there is still a lot of grey area in many places, and YouTube can sometimes be one such place.

The question we’re dealing with here—is screen recording illegal—is relatively straight forward to answer in theoretical terms, but, practically speaking, there is more grey area than you might think. But before we get into those grey areas, let’s state a couple of important, unequivocal truths.

  • You don’t have the right to use any copyrighted content without permission from the copyright holder
  • Nothing in this article should be considered legal advice

No matter what we have to say about the practicality of using potentially copyrighted content, it is a legal no no. That’s the unvarnished truth of the matter. We are going to lay out some information in this post that may lead you to believe the risk is so minimal you can ignore it, but that’s entirely your decision.

We do not advocate you doing anything illegal, nor do we advocate breaking YouTube’s terms of service.

Is Screen Recording YouTube Illegal

To start with, we’re going to answer the question in the simplest possible terms.

If a video is not licensed under creative commons or public domain, it is illegal to do anything with the video without the owner’s permission. Furthermore, screen recording is against YouTube’s terms of service.

Now, breaking YouTube terms of service is not illegal, but YouTube would certainly have grounds to kick you from the platform – if they wanted to, and you’d been caught doing it. They could even take you to court if they wanted to (though that would be very unlikely).

So, is screen recording YouTube illegal? Sometimes, but it is against YouTube terms of service all the time. Let’s dig a little deeper.

What is Screen Recording?

YouTube does not permit downloads of videos on their platform, so the only way to get content off of the site is essentially to stream it and grab the data as it comes.

There are third party services and applications that can do this quickly, but beyond those, your only option is screen recording.

Screen recording is exactly what it sounds like; you are recording what is on the screen of your device (it could be your phone, laptop, computer, etc.), wart and all.

That means that if you move the mouse and the play/pause buttons pop up mid-video, that will be in your screen recorded version as well. It’s not perfect, but it’s a way of getting the video without YouTube noticing.

Getting Caught

It’s worth noting that any discussion over what is allowed and what is legal only become relevant to situations where one is caught doing the thing that may or may not be illegal.

Now, once again, we are not suggesting you break any laws or terms of service, and if you do so, you do so at your own risk. That being said, at the time of writing this post, there is no way for YouTube to know if you are screen recording.

This means that, while the act of screen recording may break YouTube’s terms of service, you would never be caught for doing that alone. It is what you do afterwards that gives you away. If you record someone’s video and then re-upload it, it’s a pretty dead giveaway that you’ve acquired that video against YouTube terms of service. For the most part, YouTube would not take any action without prompting since YouTube don’t know that you didn’t get permission, but if the original content creator reported you, you could lose your account.

Is it Legal to Screen Record YouTube if it’s For Personal Use?

This one is a common misconception on the Internet; if you are not distributing the video, reuploading it, or using it in public or commercial project, is it still illegal? Yes. Absolutely. Or, rather, the legality is unchanged by what you do afterwards.

There are two main factors that contribute to this misconception.

The first is the fact that, as we mentioned above, the chances of you getting caught if you don’t do anything publicly with the video are so slim as to be practically negligible.

The other thing that fuels this erroneous notion is the fact that you can watch YouTube for free, and if you can watch it for free, what difference does it make if you’re watching it on YouTube or on your own device?

On the first point, a slim chance of being caught is not the same as being legal or allowed. If you are stealing copyrighted material, you might get away with it, but it is still illegal.

If it helps, remember that there is no fundamental difference between a twelve-minute video made by a YouTuber and a blockbuster movie on Netflix when it comes to downloading that content against the platform’s terms of service.

On the second point, while it is true that you can watch YouTube content for without paying a fee to do so, it is not quite free. YouTube earns revenue from you being on their platform through ads and other means, and you watching the content away from YouTube deprives them of that revenue.

Of course, the fact that they have justification to enforce a no-download policy is a moot point—those are the terms they have established if you want to use their platform.

Is Screen Recording YouTube Illegal? 1

What are the consequences for screen recording YouTube Videos?

While we would like to reiterate once again that we do advocate breaking terms of service or laws, we thought we’d touch on some consequences you can look forward to if you do decide to screen record YouTube content.

Probably the two most significant factors here is the financial might of the copyright holder and the visibility of your subsequent actions with their copyrighted content.

If you screen record a public domain video, you are not breaking any laws, but you could still face a slap on the wrist from YouTube for breaking their terms of service. On the other hand, if you record the latest blockbuster movie and redistribute it with impunity, you could face serious legal repercussions, since movie studios have a lot of money and aren’t afraid to make an example of you as a deterrent to others.

What About Fair Use? Is it fair use to Screen Record YouTube videos?

Fair use is an idealistic concept that gets very messy in reality.

The first thing to note about fair use is that it is a case-by-case legal defence, not a right or protection. That means that no matter how clearly in the spirit of fair use you might be, if a person or company decided to take you to court, you would still have to go and defend yourself, with all the financial implications that brings.

However, in practice, online media platforms with user-generated content like YouTube are set up to make life easier for the copyright holder, meaning any dispute between you and a large corporation like a movie studio or music label would likely result in your content coming down regardless, leaving you to take them to court if you felt strongly enough about it (and had deep enough pockets).

Given the context of this post, however, it should be noted that fair use applies to how the content is put to use, not how you get the content. Screen recording is a method of acquiring said video, and is completely unrelated to whether you may or may not be using it fairly afterwards, as it against YouTube’s terms of service.

You could be using copyrighted materials in the fairest way possible, and it would still be against YouTube’s terms of service if you acquired the video by screen recording it.

Final Thoughts

It’s worth remembering that YouTube need to first have their attention be brought to you and second have reason to believe you are screen recording YouTube videos before they would go to the trouble of taking action against you on those grounds, and both things are unlikely if you are being sensible.

But, at the same time, should YouTube decide to take action against you, it could just be a strike, it could be a suspension or ban, it could even be a civil lawsuit. The fact that the latter is extremely unlikely doesn’t make it impossible, so know what you might be getting yourself into.

If you are using other YouTuber’s content as clips in a way that very reasonably comes under fair use, we would advise seeking permission from the creator first.

If you put a video up with content from other videos, YouTube can’t know that you didn’t get it directly from the original creator, but if that creator complains to YouTube that you are stealing their content, it’s a pretty clear sign that you’ve broken their terms of service about not downloading or recording YouTube videos.

Top 5 Tools To Get You Started on YouTube

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Big mistake!

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

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

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

3. Rev.com helps people read my videos

You can’t always listen to a video.

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

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

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

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

4. Learn new skills for FREE with Skillshare

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

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

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

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

I mainly make tutorials and talking head videos.

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

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

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

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

Categories
DEEP DIVE ARTICLE TIPS & TRICKS YOUTUBE

Are VTubers Fake?

Are VTubers Fake? 1

The answer to the question of are VTubers fake really depends on what you consider “real”.

We would hope that most people understand that a cutesy anime girl who plays video games is not real in the sense that, to our knowledge at least, anime girls don’t exist in the real world.

On the other hand, it is entirely possible that there is a real girl who really plays video games behind that virtual YouTube account. So, yes, it depends on what you mean when you say “real”.

Unfortunately, this also muddies the waters somewhat, since there are so many different ways to run a virtual YouTube channel and so many different types of virtual YouTuber. It would be near-impossible to make a definitive statement about all virtual YouTubers, so, in this post, we’re going to highlight a few different types of virtual YouTuber, discuss what being fake in that context might mean, as well as ways you might spot a fake virtual YouTuber where applicable.

We will also talk about whether a given virtual YouTuber being fake should be a problem.

Are VTubers Fake? – VTubers are virtual avatars or personas for online influencers who may not want to show their real identity. Some are powered by real people and some are controlled by businesses. So, are they fake as human beings – Yes. Are they fake as digital intellectual property – No.

Types of Virtual YouTuber

In this section, we are not going to be focusing on the types of virtual YouTuber in the sense of how they look or how they are created, as we have done in other posts.

Instead, we are going to look at the kind of virtual personality that is presented, and we will give you an example or two for you to compare notes with.

For each type, we will explore the ways in which they could be fake, as well as ways you might spot this fakeness.

The Camera-Shy Virtual YouTuber

This type of virtual YouTuber is typically someone who doesn’t want to be on camera for one reason or another but has opted to put a virtual avatar in their place to give you something to look at.

The thing that distinguishes this kind of virtual YouTuber from a character virtual YouTuber is that they are not presenting themselves as something other than what they are.

Whether they are giving commentary, tutorials, or anything else, they will be presenting the channel as themselves; they are just doing it with some visual aids to make things more interesting.

From a conceptual standpoint, there is no difference between this kind of YouTuber and a YouTuber who does not have an on-screen presence at all, such as someone who gives commentary over video clips.

The digital avatar is just a means to assist the YouTuber in not being on camera. They may want to avoid being on camera because they are camera-shy, they may have privacy concerns about showing their face, they could even be concerned about a backlash from the content they make and want to keep their identity separate from their YouTube account.

How Might This Kind of Virtual YouTuber be Fake?

To answer this question, we’re going to give you two examples of this kind of YouTuber.

The first is Code Bullet, who makes entertaining videos around the things he gets up with AI. He presents the videos as himself but has an animated on-screen avatar to be his visual presence.

We do not believe there is any way for a channel like this to be fake in any sense that matters.

Code Bullet could lie about his real name, for example, but that would be utterly irrelevant to the content he is making. He could also lie in his videos, perhaps by cooking the results of his AI experiments, and that would be a reason to not watch his content, but it would not be the kind of lie that had anything to do with his digital avatar since he could do that as a regular YouTuber as well. He would be fake, but not a fake virtual YouTuber specifically.

Our second example is It’sAGundam, a commentary channel that covers a variety of topics from Internet drama to strange human-interest stories and more. This YouTuber will often put a digital avatar on-screen to act as the presenter of the content, though, like CodeBullet, they are not acting as a character, but as themselves.

However, like CodeBullet, It’sAGundam cannot really be fake in any meaningful way. They are not claiming to be anything in particular so they can’t lie about it. And, while they could lie about their stories, it would once again not be unique to the fact that they are a virtual YouTuber.

Spotting the Fakery

Since there is no meaningful way to be fake on the virtual side of things for this kind of YouTuber, there is no trick to spotting the fakery.

Things like being dishonest in the content tends to have a way of coming out in time, but the only way you could spot that would be to independently verify what you are saying, such as doing your own research and fact-checking.

What Are Virtual Influencers?

The Character Virtual YouTuber

These YouTubers present themselves as real characters, meaning that the channel is run as though the digital avatar on-screen is a real person in much the same way that Kermit the Frog does not break character and reference the fact that he is a puppet.

There is a concern among some that this kind of avatar could be fake in the sense of not being human; that the account is actually a very clever AI. Of course, AIs are not that good… yet. This kind of YouTube channel could not be convincingly run by an AI without giving away its true nature. There is also the reverse version of this where virtual YouTubers that present themselves as an AI have their legitimacy questioned.

For example, AI Angel, a virtual YouTuber who claims to be an AI bot, has had apparently serious conversations about her and whether she is really a bot. As we mentioned, AI bots are not on this level yet. But more importantly, the people who consider her not being a real AI fake, or worry that other virtual YouTubers really are AIs, represent a minority.

Where more of the concerns of fakery lie is in the gender of the person behind the digital mask, though it shouldn’t. Many people seem to be put off by the idea that a virtual YouTuber who is female is being run by a male behind the scenes. In this sense, it is certainly possible for them to be fake, though we would question the importance of that. As a natural consequence of the overwhelming majority of virtual YouTubers being women, the gender of the person running the account tends to be the biggest concern.

Spotting the Fakery

If a virtual YouTuber were really an AI, it would be obvious. Stilted conversation, awkward turning of phrases, and generally not-human-like behaviour. If the virtual YouTuber were playing a character of a different sex (or race or age) and has kept their identity private, there wouldn’t necessarily be a way of finding out. You could listen closely to their voice, but that is an unreliable method as many people can speak convincingly in other voices, and vocal effects are becoming more effective at convincingly changing a voice naturally.

Agency Avatars

One way in which you could consider a virtual YouTuber fake is that there are many of them—especially among the top virtual YouTubers—that are not run by individuals as such but owned by agencies. One of the bigger examples of these agencies Hololive, though there are a lot of them and the number is growing.

There tends to be a desire for community on YouTube, and many viewers prefer their YouTubers to be individuals who they can support, rather than faceless corporations who run a virtual YouTuber production line. In truth, the setup is a little closer to a talent agency than a manufactured pop band. In any case, you can usually find out relatively easily if a virtual YouTuber is part of such an arrangement since the agency will often list the virtual YouTuber on their website.

Are VTubers Fake?

Always Assume Catfish

Catfishing, for those unfamiliar, is an Internet term used to describe the act of luring someone into an interaction under the pretence of romantic or sexual activity while presenting yourself as something other than you are. There are many ways in which this can happen, but one of the most common examples that springs to mind (if not the most common examples to happen) is that of a middle-aged man pretending to be an attractive young woman and chatting up other men online.

Now, the dynamic with a virtual YouTuber is different, of course; it is not a private, one-on-one interaction. But it helps to keep hold of the thought that any virtual being can—and often will—not be what they seem.

For the most part, this should not be a problem for your enjoyment of the content. If the cutesy anime girl example we gave at the top was run by a middle-aged woman who was not as attractive (in your opinion) as you imagined, it should not take anything away from your love of the channel; the character was always fictional, regardless of who was behind the mask.

So why, you may be asking, are we saying this? Remembering that literally anyone could be behind the digital mask can help to keep you in the right frame of mind to avoid disappointment from the reality of a channel, and prevent you from building something up in your mind that potentially isn’t there. Unless you have good reason to believe otherwise, it is better to assume everything about the virtual YouTuber is fictional.

Should Being “Fake” Matter?

Once again, it is what you mean by fake that determines the answer to this question. After all, we all know that lycra-clad heroes with superpowers don’t exist in the real world, and yet Marvel continues to rake in the money with their movies and comic books. The fact that you know a thing is fake does not necessarily mean it has to ruin your enjoyment of that thing. Rather than fake, think of it as fictional.

You know that the cutesy anime girl is not really an anime girl, but you can enjoy the fictional character in the same way you can enjoy a James Bond movie, or your favourite zombie-based TV show.

Of course, there are other ways to be fake that do affect whether or not you can enjoy the content being produced. For example, a talking head channel that comments on political matters and tends to be quite controversial. If it turned out that the person behind that account did not hold the views they put out and was perhaps just saying controversial things for the views, it would be a huge turn off for many. People don’t mind—in fact, they even enjoy—being lied to when it comes to fictional characters, but they tend to have a deep revulsion to fakeness and hypocrisy in the real world.

Of course, neither of these examples are unique to virtual YouTubers. A regular flesh-and-bone YouTuber is just as capable of being a hypocrite on-camera as a virtual one, just as they are capable of acting a character. Some of the biggest names in entertainment, such as Sacha Baron Cohen and Stephen Colbert, rose to prominence through playing characters on-screen as though they were real people. Ultimately, it is the newness and, frankly, the strangeness of virtual YouTubers that makes people think twice. Once you get over that mental hurdle, many of these questions answer themselves.

Final Thoughts

Hopefully, we’ve shown that the question of whether or not a virtual YouTuber is “fake” is not really a useful one. Even if you have established some ways in which you could consider a virtual YouTuber to be fake, none of them has a significant impact on whether you would watch the channel or not, and the types of fakery that are significant enough to put you off of a channel are rarely specific to virtual YouTubers, but apply to YouTubers in general.

Ultimately, if you enjoy the content a channel puts out, and it is genuine, there is no reason to worry about whether a virtual YouTuber is really a person, really AI, the same age/race/gender as their handler, or anything else superficial that could be called fake.

Top 5 Tools To Get You Started on YouTube

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Big mistake!

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

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

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

3. Rev.com helps people read my videos

You can’t always listen to a video.

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

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

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

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

4. PlaceIT can help you STAND OUT on YouTube

I SUCK at making anything flashy or arty.

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

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

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

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

I mainly make tutorials and talking head videos.

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

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

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

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

Categories
HOW TO GET MORE VIEWS ON YOUTUBE TIPS & TRICKS YOUTUBE YOUTUBE TUTORIALS

Why Do YouTubers Zoom in and Out?

Why Do YouTubers Zoom in and Out?

If you’ve ever watched a YouTuber in the conventional mould of YouTubers—the kind of frenetic, upbeat YouTuber who talks fast and stares directly into the camera in front of a carefully arranged background—you’ve probably noticed the way they frequently zoom in on their face. Perhaps you’ve even wondered why.

If you are an aspiring YouTuber, you hopefully have wondered why, since it is something that is used all over YouTube, implying there is a good reason for it.

But it is not enough to simply ape things you see if you want to be successful; you need to understand those things. Otherwise, you may find yourself using them wrong, and looking pretty silly in the process.

In this post, we are going to take a closer look (pun very much intended) at YouTubers’ tendency to zoom in and out during their videos, why they do it, what benefits it might have, and whether you should use it in your videos. So, without further preamble, let’s expose the truth!

Why do YouTubers zoom in and out? – Zooming in and out can help with the pace of the video and hide mistakes. You can also use it to add emphasis to something said like jokes or something dramatic. Zoom cuts can also make for a more distinct look and feel in some niches verses simple stand and shoot videos.

YouTube Best Time to Upload 4

Why Do YouTubers Zoom in and Out?

There are several reasons why YouTubers work zooming in and out into their videos, and we’re going take a look at some specific examples in a second, but we can confidently say that almost all of the time you see a zoom-in used in a YouTube video, it is for aesthetic reasons. This is a very broad reason, of course, but it covers just about every instance of using a zoom-in in a video. The aesthetics of your video play a huge part in how successful they are, so it makes sense that a popular technique for editing would be used by a lot of YouTubers. So let’s take a look at why it’s popular.

Hiding Cuts

Starting off with one of the least likely reasons a YouTuber might use this technique, zooming in and out can help to disguise cuts in the video. Any time you make a small cut in a video, it is incredibly obvious to the viewer if the scene remains the same. This is because you get an instant change from one frame to the next, and it is a little jarring for the viewer. If you change the next frame more substantially—for example, if you cut to a zoomed-in shot—the fact that the next frame is significantly different to the previous one makes the fact that there was a cut less obvious.

Now, we said that this is one of the least common reasons that a YouTuber might use zooming in their videos, and that is because jump cuts have become a regular part of YouTube, so there isn’t typically much of a need to hide them. Still, for the YouTubers who want to maintain a little more mystery about their editing process, this is one method to do that.

Emphasis

From time to time, a YouTuber will make a pointed facial expression. It may be during a video talking about current events, and the YouTuber has just mentioned someone doing something particularly silly, for example. In these instances, a quick zoom in on the YouTuber’s face adds emphasis to the moment, reinforcing the non-verbal opinion that the YouTuber is presenting.

Comedic Effect

This one is very similar to the above example of emphasis, with the main difference being that the expression the YouTuber is pulling does not have to be intentional. Sometimes the YouTuber will notice they have pulled an amusing face unintentionally and will use a zoom-in to draw attention to it. Usually, in these cases, it will be apparent that the YouTuber did not mean to make the face, and that they themselves are the butt of the joke.

Add Variety

If you’ve ever watched a mainstream news program, you might have noticed that they frequently cut from one angle to another. This is because having one continuous show for long periods quickly becomes monotonous, and the simple act of changing the camera angle breaks things up and makes it visually more interesting.

YouTubers faced the same problems when they started making vlog videos in the early days of the platform, but most people could not afford to purchase a multi-camera set up that would allow them to switch angles while recording. Indeed, many YouTubers can’t even afford a decent camera when they first start out, let alone multiple cameras.

Recording multiple takes of the same video with the camera in different positions is not a feasible alternative, especially since many videos are not scripted, and it would be almost impossible to ensure everything fit together coherently. And that is where zooming comes in.

In precisely the same way that cutting to different angles works, zooming in and out breaks up the content visually, adding a little interest and making things look less monotonous. And, since zooming can be done entirely digitally, it can be done with a single camera and one take, which is ideal for smaller YouTubers who don’t have thousands to spend on their camera setup.

Good Places to Record Videos in Your Home

Should I Use Zooming in my Videos?

The answer to this question is simple enough to say, not so simple to execute. Whether or not you should use zooming in your videos will be entirely determined by whether it adds anything to your content. If it doesn’t noticeably improve your content, there is no reason to add it.

Of course, improvement is a subjective term, and it may be that the “improvement” it makes is just that you prefer the look of the video. That is why we would always recommend getting second opinions whenever you can. Be sure to take those second opinions onboard, and get reasons for why your testers feel the way they do. It may be that, ultimately, you get second opinions on your new format and decide to go against the general consensus, but you should do so fully informed and aware of why the people who looked over your video said what they said.

Zooming Tips

If you are going to employ zooming in your videos, you might like a few tips on making the best use of it, so that’s exactly what we’ve got here.

Camera Quality

Okay, we know we said near the top that one of the reasons zooming became prevalent on YouTube was because YouTubers didn’t have the money for expensive multi-camera setups, so saying “get a good camera” might seem like a bad tip. Remember, these are just ways to improve and get the best video you can; if you can’t use one of these tips, don’t worry. It doesn’t mean you can’t use zooming in your videos.

But yes, camera quality. We’re assuming that you’re not planning to zoom in and out in real-time as you record, which means you’ll be doing it in the edit. If you have ever zoomed in on a picture (and, in these days of powerful handheld phones, who hasn’t?) you might have noticed that the more you zoom in, the worse the quality of the picture gets.

The same thing applies to video, which is essentially just a lot of images shown quickly one after the other. The closer you digitally zoom in to your face, the grainier and more pixellated your video will come. If you are starting off with an already grainy video, it’s going to get very bad.

It’s worth noting that some YouTubers do this intentionally as a stylistic choice. You may want to do this as well, but we can’t really guide you on artistic choices.

Don’t Overdo It

This should be fairly obvious to most of you, but over-using the zoom-in will quickly become tiresome to your viewers. Having a lot of zoom-ins in a short space of time for comedic effect may be fine, but if you bounce in and out continually throughout the whole video, you are going to annoy your viewers.

Don’t Get Too Close (or Not Close Enough)

If you zoom in so far that the viewers are getting nothing but a blurry close-up of your nose-pores, or you barely zoom in at all, and the view doesn’t appear to have perceptibly changed, you risk losing any benefit you might have gotten from the zoom-in, as well as making your video seem awkward and badly put together.

The right amount of zoom will depend on the effect you are going for, but if you are barely zooming in at all, you may want to ask yourself if a zoom-in is right for what you are doing at that point in the video.

Other Editing Tricks To Use

Zooming in is but one trick up the sleeve of your average YouTuber, and making use of a wide variety of techniques can help to give your video that special sauce that separates it from other videos in your niche.

We’ve talked at length about zooming in, but what of the other methods you commonly see on YouTube channels? We’ll save the details for a post on editing, but we thought we’d at least touch on some of the other methods here.

 

Jump Cut

Another technique that has become synonymous with YouTube is the jump cut. This involves cutting from one part of a video to another.

It is distinctive from a smash cut because it is not cutting to a new scene but rather skipping over something that has happened in this scene.

A common example is a vlogger talking directly to the camera who might cut out a bit they thought felt stilted or unnecessary, or even parts where they sneezed or messed up their lines. Jump cuts tend to add a sense of speed to a video since they cut out long pauses and things that might otherwise have broken up the flow of the content.

Funky Transitions

When you are transition from one scene to another, you might want to make use of interesting transitions, rather than just smash cutting from to the other. If you are using an application like Adobe Premiere, there will be a lot of built-in transitions that you can simply drag and drop into your video. Beware, however, these transitions can often appear tacky and cheap because of how often they have been used.

If you can tie your transitions into things that are happening in the video—a slide swipe timed to follow the swipe of a hand, for example—that can also add a nice touch to your content.

Sound Effects

This is another technique that belongs firmly in the category of “don’t overdo it,” but the occasional sound effect can add a little flavour to your videos. It might be something like adding the sound of a smashing plate when something is knocked off a table. In this case, the more unlikely it is that the knocked off thing would make that much noise, the better.

Using Silence

If you, like many, use background music in your videos, don’t be afraid to make creative use of silence in your videos. If you are talking over the music, and you suddenly mute the music at a certain bit of speech, the abrupt silence draws the attention of the viewer. This can be used for emphasis, but like sound effects, should not be over-used.

Final Thoughts

Zooming in and out, like jump cuts, smash cuts, and a host of other visual tools is just another way to add a little visual interest to your videos.

It just happens to be a method that can be achieved without the need for expensive equipment or professional-grade software, which is a massive part of why it has become so prevalent on YouTube—a platform that has been responsible for countless people who could not afford an expensive camera in the beginning making their fortune.

Like all visual tools, zooming in should not be over-used, as it will quickly become tiresome for your viewers, and maybe the reason they switch off. And, once you have lost a viewer because your video irritated them, they are as good as gone for good on a platform with as many options as YouTube.

Categories
SOCIAL MEDIA TIPS & TRICKS YOUTUBE

How to be a Virtual YouTuber

How to be a Virtual YouTuber

Becoming a virtual YouTuber is not the difficult task you might have imagined it to be.

As with many things in life, there are levels to what you can achieve that are largely determined by your own ability (or willingness to learn).

As a rough example, you can make perfectly good video thumbnails using a thumbnail creator, and those thumbnails can be everything you need for a successful channel… but you will never have the degree of control or the range of options with said thumbnail creator that you would have if you knew enough about graphic design software to make your thumbnails from scratch.

Of course, for those of us that are not well-versed in a particular application or skill, the question tends to become whether or not it is worth it to learn. As we said with the above example, you can make good thumbnails with a thumbnail creator, so do you need to learn to do it yourself? That, among other more fundamental aspects, is what we are going to cover in this how to be a virtual YouTuber guide. Let’s dive in!

Know What You Want to Say

The first step to creating any YouTube channel is determining what it is you want to say. Understand that we’re not talking about the literal words you say on-camera (though you will need to know that as well, of course) but the general message, or premise of your channel.

This can be quite a broad range of options. For example, you could have a very specific message such as something political, or it could just be that you want to play video games and making a channel about it is a good excuse to do so. Whatever the reason, try to establish a clear direction for your channel and stick to it. Having a specific niche that you consistently make content in will help you establish an audience. If you make videos that cover a wide range of things, you will struggle to build an audience because viewers who liked one type of video may come back for your next video, see that it’s not something they’re interested in, and not come back again.

You may want to build a personality-based channel—where the viewers are there for your on-screen persona more than the specific type of content you are making. It is true that having a specific niche is less important for this kind of channel, but it can still help to stick a particular type of content in the beginning, branching out into other areas once you have an audience. Even PewDiePie started off making exclusively gaming videos.

For many YouTubers, the interest comes before the idea to create a YouTube channel, but if you came to the decision to make a channel first, be sure to choose a subject and niche that you are interested in. For most YouTubers, the early weeks, months, and even years can be slow going in terms of channel growth, and very few channels that achieve financial independence do so in the first year. What this means is that you are essentially going to be running your channel at your expense, both in time and money, so things will go a lot easier if you are genuinely into whatever it is you are talking about.

What Are Virtual Influencers?

Choose Your Style of Virtual YouTuber

There a few different styles of virtual YouTuber, and the best one you choose will come down to a few different factors. Before we get to the choosing part, let’s take a brief look at those different styles.

What is an Avatar?

In this context, your avatar is your on-screen persona. It can help to think of it as similar to a puppet. You will be bringing your avatar to life through one of the methods we will describe later, and possibly acting a character out through that avatar as well. Your avatar could be a person, an animal, an anthropomorphisation of something inanimate like a paper clip, or really anything you can imagine. This freedom is a big part of the draw of virtual YouTubing.

Hand-Drawn Avatars

As the name suggests, this style involves painstakingly animating your digital avatar in the same way that you would animate a cartoon; by drawing each frame of the animations. You would obviously need to have a collection of animations ready for this style, essentially choosing from them as needed.

The only real reason to choose this style of digital avatar is for stylistic reasons. There may be a certain look you are going for that you cannot yet replicate with the other styles we are going to highlight, but that would be the only reason besides possibly not being able to afford the equipment you would need for the other styles. But arguably, the equipment needed to illustrate something by hand digitally would be more expensive. You could also pay someone to animate your avatar, reducing the time it takes but increasing the money needed.

2DLive Avatars

This style of digital avatar uses clever animation techniques to move a 2D avatar in ways that make it look natural and, in some cases, three dimensional. It requires a special kind of “rigged” avatar to work, but it essentially means you can create an avatar from a 2D image.

The limitations of this style are mainly ones of motion. There is only so much movement a part of the avatar’s body can make before it looks unnatural. If you imagine the face of a 2D character; moving the eyes slightly to the side gives the impression that the head has turned slightly, but moving the eyes a lot to the side will make them look unnatural. Still, the range of motion that can be achieved with this style is impressive, considering that it is working from a plain 2D image.

And, the fact that it is working from a 2D image means you can draw (or have drawn) whatever you like in terms of the look of your avatar.

14 Virtual YouTubers That Will Blow Your Mind 3

3D Avatars

As the name suggests, 3D avatars are rendered in three dimensions, as you would see in typical modern video game or 3D animated movie. These avatars require quite a bit more technical skill on top of the necessary artistic talent to create, as they need to be modelled in 3D, rigged for animation (which basically means having a digital skeleton created) and then textured in a way that suits the art style, with the more realistic looking avatars being harder to texture.

The more difficult creation process is the main downside of 3D avatars. The upside is that there are no restrictions to what you can do with your avatar like there are with 2DLive avatars. You can move them in any position and pose, film them from any angle, and generally treat them as though they were a real thing being filmed with a camera.

Choosing Your Animation Style

Once you have your avatar style picked, you need to think about how you are going to bring them to life. There are two main methods we are going to look at here, which do not apply to the hand-drawn avatars. For that, you will have to animate your avatar the old-fashioned way; by drawing each frame of the animation. We did say there isn’t much upside to that choice of avatar.

Predefined Animations Performed Live

With predefined animations, you will generally have a selection of motions and gestures to choose from that you will use as you record, most likely with you speaking as you do so. The combined effect gives your avatar the appearance of being active if a little wooden.

The advantages of this style are… well if we’re honest, not much. Really the only advantage is that you do not need to worry about some of the jerkiness and stuttering motion that can happen with the next method we are going to mention, but other than that, your choices of gesture will always be limited, and repeated use of the same gestures can be obvious to your viewers and break the immersion. You want them to connect with your avatar, and that will be hard if your avatar moves like a non-player character from a poorly-made video game.

What Programs do Virtual YouTubers Use? 2

Live Motion Tracking

This is the method that the overwhelming majority of virtual YouTubers use, and for a good reason.

Using the hardware of your choice (more on that in a moment) your computer or phone will track your body movements and facial expressions and have your digital avatar copy them.

This allows you to record a video in much the same way you would record any regular YouTube video where the YouTuber is on-screen, only you would be recording the result of the live animation rather than yourself. This method is by far the quickest and easiest way of animating a digital avatar, and it works with both 2DLive and 3D avatars.

There are two common ways to achieve this style of animation, and like most things, they each have their advantages and disadvantages.

VR Controllers

The first method we’ll cover is using a VR headset and controllers to animate your avatar. The upside to animating things this way is that the movements are very accurate, which means your avatars motions should look more natural. You also have a full range of movement, such as being able to turn a full three hundred and sixty degrees.

The downsides, however, are that you have to wear a bulky VR headset and controllers when you film your videos, and you also have to own a VR system in the first place. There are relatively cheap VR systems available these days, but the difference in quality between those more affordable systems and the drastically more expensive systems is noticeable. This isn’t a tech blog, so we can’t give an expert comparison, but it is entirely likely that the cheaper VR headsets would not be any better on the accuracy front than our next method, which nullifies their most significant advantage.

Video-Based Motion Tracking

Certainly the most convenient method, if not the most popular, video-based tracking essentially performs the same function as the above VR-based method, but it does so using only a webcam or the camera on your phone.

The advantages of this method are relatively obvious; convenience and cost. You do not need to have an expensive and bulky VR headset to use this method, with improvements in the technology meaning that even a cheap webcam can be enough to work with. It also makes life a little easier when setting up, since you can just plop yourself down in front of your camera and get to work.

Of course, there are the downsides we promised. In the case of video-based motion tracking, there are two primary downsides, and they are accuracy and range of motion. As good as the technology has gotten, this kind of tracking is still not on a level with the VR systems mentioned above. Beyond that, inferior video quality reduces the accuracy further. This can lead to unnatural-looking movements by your avatar.

On the motion front, the tracking software is generally good at following facial expressions and body movements from a stationary angle, but if you turn the side—or turn around—it will usually confuse the software, leading to more weird looking actions from your avatar.

Am I Too Old to Start a YouTube Channel? 3

Making Your Videos

Once you have your avatar made and your filming method is chosen, you are ready to start making videos. We would recommend doing plenty of test runs before you start throwing all your energy into a video. You don’t want to spend hours filming your first video only to find out that the avatar isn’t being recorded correctly.

If you are creating a full persona—where the account is run as if the digital avatar is a real person—be sure to stay in character when you are acting as that avatar, be it in a video, on a live stream, or even in social media posts. People understand that the avatar isn’t really a person, but people understand magicians don’t really pull rabbits out of hats—it doesn’t mean they don’t like the spectacle.

Categories
HOW TO GET MORE VIEWS ON YOUTUBE LISTS TIPS & TRICKS YOUTUBE

Top 5 Tools To Get You Started on YouTube

Top 5 Tools To Get You Started on YouTube 5

Growing on YouTube can be hard.

It’s even harder if you do all the heavy lifting yourself and not use tools to make your life easier.

It time to build yourself a YouTube toolkit that can help you make amazing eye catching content with minimal effort.

Here are the 5 tools I used EVERY day in the last 12 months to grow my YouTube channel from 0 to 30K subscribers.

Top 5 Tools To Get You Started on YouTube

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!

VidIQ goes beyond just hammering in keywords and tweaking titles in the vain hope of getting more views.

Did you know you can compare your thumbnails to rivals?

A great way to see what the top competitors in your space is doing and gives you a jumping off point for when you make you next video on that topic.

Machine Learning based Automatic Content Creation ideas! 

Imagine waking up every day with a list of hot topics suggestions for you channel.

VidIQ has a new tool that will do the research for you, take a look at your niche, your rivals, your channel data and suggest topics that could be a good jumping off point for you in the future.

Never get stuck on what videos to make every again!

I could go on about the powers of VidIQ all day but that might derail this top 5 list, but I have made a blog post about the best VidIQ feature you might be sleeping on here.

I highly suggest you check out this real super weapon of a tool, it’s FREE, easy to use and packed full of tools you wish you had found sooner.

Top 5 Tools To Get You Started on YouTube 1

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.

Top 5 Tools To Get You Started on YouTube 2

3. Rev.com helps people read my videos

You can’t always listen to a video.

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

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

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

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

Top 5 Tools To Get You Started on YouTube 3

4. PlaceIT can help you STAND OUT on YouTube

I SUCK at making anything flashy or arty.

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

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

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

Top 5 Tools To Get You Started on YouTube 4

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

I mainly make tutorials and talking head videos.

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

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

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

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

BONUS TOOLS

Lowerthird, Call-to-Action Graphics – Need help with quick simple overlays, call to action, subscribe buttons, and social media links graphics – check out this mini bundle from my friends at the Underdog Collective.

The Underdog Collective was set up to help these people with easy to use, slick YouTube artwork that’s easily used with most desktop editing software.

High Quality, Low Cost Hosting – A great way to promote yourself, your videos and your brand is to have your own website.

I have been in the web development space for over 12 years and in that time the biggest lesson I have learnt from hundreds of clients is – a great website can be killed off by CRAPPY hosting, while an “okay” website with GREAT HOSTING can be a huge lead magnet for any project or product.

I recommend bluehost should you wish to start a website (or blog like this one) for a reasonable fee, with great expandability and top level reliability.

 

 

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HOW TO MAKE MONEY ONLINE TIPS & TRICKS YOUTUBE

What Are Virtual Influencers?

What Are Virtual Influencers?

“Influencer” should be a word familiar to anyone who is venturing into the world of social media and, by extension, YouTube (don’t worry if it’s not, we’re going to explain it in a little more detail below).

But something that could less familiar to many is the term “virtual influencer”.

What are virtual influencers? – Virtual influencers are people that use digital avatars to represent themselves online. This means they don’t have to physically show their face or in some cases even exist. They can then make money with brand deals, merchandise or even traditional marketing using this persona.

A recent influx of “virtual” characters on platforms like YouTube and Instagram have created a whole new arena for creators, and that arena is producing plenty of influencers of its own. Virtual YouTubers are a new breed of YouTuber that are essentially digital beings controlled by regular flesh-and-bone people, often in much the same way that Jim Henson’s muppets are made to act as though they are real by their puppeteers.

Virtual influencers, of course, are virtual characters that have reached influencer status.

14 Virtual YouTubers That Will Blow Your Mind 14

What is an Influencer?

Let’s start with the basics. We’re assuming that most people reading this post know what an influencer is, but in the interests of providing a comprehensive answer to the question posed here, we’re going to give a brief explanation for those that don’t.

An influencer is exactly what you might think from the name; a person who influences other people. In the context of the Internet and social media, it is an almost crass term, as it relates primarily to a person’s ability to influence the purchasing decisions of a significant number of people. This, in turn, corresponds to the financial opportunities that that person can leverage. In other words, people who are influencers will have more opportunity to get paid to use their influencing power to promote things.

Influencers typically have spheres of influence. For example, immensely popular YouTuber, Zoella, has a lot of influence in the realm of beauty products. The fact that she has so much influence in that sphere means she is likely to be able to command a very high asking price for her services, but the focus of her sphere means she is unlikely to be approached to promote, say, a video game, or mechanic’s tools. The people she influences simply aren’t interested in those things.

The nature of successful advertising is one of accurate targeting. Advertisers like to be able to direct their advertisements at the most receptive audiences possible. This is why there are often diminishing returns on audience size when it comes to how much your influence is worth.

Take PewDiePie, for example. If we take a simplistic approach to audience size and just count YouTube subscribers, PewDiePie has somewhere in the region of ten times the audience size of Zoella. Of course, he makes a handsome amount of money from this audience, but you don’t tend to get an audience that size without it becoming unfocused and more diverse. While advertisers can be relatively confident that the people watching Zoella are interested in fashion and beauty products, they can’t have the same confidence with PewDiePie because his content is more varied. This is why an influencer can be someone with as little as a few tens of thousands of subscribers or followers; it is more about the market impact they can command than the raw number of subscribers or followers.

There are also side roads into influencer status, such as people who themselves may not have a big following, but appear on podcasts or YouTube channels that have a big audience.

What are VTubers? 2

What Are Virtual YouTubers?

So, we know what the “influencer” part means, but what about the “virtual” part? We touched on this above, but for those who are still unclear, we thought we’d best dig a little deeper. Incidentally, if you would like a more in-depth look at what virtual YouTubers are, check out this post.

Virtual YouTubers are YouTubers that run their channel from behind the guise of a digital avatar. For the vast majority of virtual YouTube channels, this digital avatar will be in the form of a Japanese anime character, though more and more alternative styles are creeping in as the channel type becomes increasingly popular.

A variety of techniques are used to bring the virtual avatar to life, but the basic premise is usually one of live motion capture where, using one of a few techniques, the YouTuber’s motions are captured and translated to the digital avatar. This allows the YouTuber to record a video as though they were recording a regular video, but the result would be of their digital avatar rather than themselves.

What are Virtual Influencers?

Being a primarily YouTube-orientated blog and channel, we have mainly focused on virtual YouTubers around here, but the premise is essentially the same whether it be on YouTube, Twitch, Instagram, or any other video platform. And there is often a lot of crossovers, with virtual YouTubers quite often streaming on Twitch, and almost anyone with a remotely high profile having an Instagram account.

Virtual influencers are influencers in the sense we discussed above who also happen to be virtual characters like the virtual YouTubers we described, though not limited to the YouTube platform. These influencers will usually present themselves as real beings in much the same way that any other fictional character would. To continue with the example of the Muppets mentioned above, you don’t see Kermit acknowledging that he is a felt puppet with a human controlling him; he acts as though he is a real frog. Virtual influencers do the same. They may present themselves as a self-aware computer program, a real girl who just happens to be animated, or they may not even reference the fact that they are digital at all, and present their content as though it were just like any other video. In any case, it is rare for virtual influencers to break the fourth wall, as it were.

How to Make Videos Without Showing Face

Why Virtual?

There are many advantages to being a virtual influencer. For one thing, it can be very freeing to play a character, rather than yourself.

Many actors are notoriously shy and reserved in their everyday life but have no problem getting on a stage in front of hundreds of people; it is one of the quirks of human nature.

Another reason to go virtual is that it removes a lot of restrictions on what is possible. Your avatar is not limited to things like the laws of physics, or your location in the world. If you want them to fly around, you can do that. If you want them to present a video from the surface of the Moon, you can do that. The only limitations on what you can do with a virtual avatar are those of your own ability or resources. Which is to say, if you don’t know how to do something yourself; there will always be someone you can pay to do it for you.

What’s in it for Brands?

A natural follow-up question in this topic—especially if you are thinking about the financial future of your potential virtual influencer career—is what might be in it for brands. Specifically, does being virtual give you any kind of edge over the conventional way of doing things? Could it harm your chances of getting a lucrative brand deal?

Unfortunately, there are no real advantages from a marketing perspective. That is, none that are universal. For example, a virtual YouTuber might be an especially good fit for a particular niche, such as gaming, but that is more down to the specifics of that niche than the fact the YouTuber is virtual. Being virtual would not help them with other niches.

The good news is that there are no real disadvantages to being a virtual influencer when it comes to getting brand deals. Brands care about your audience and whether they consider your content appropriate for them. Whether or not you are virtual is unlikely to factor into this.

What Programs do Virtual YouTubers Use? 2

Brand Mascots

Though not necessarily much use to an aspiring YouTuber or general Internet influencer, some brands are starting to see the advantages of using virtual avatars rather than real people in their promotional material.

This isn’t new, of course; mascots have been around for centuries. Probably longer. But the advent of virtual avatars gives brands a much easier way to create a public face that can be easily managed and stay in rotation for as long as they need.

As a brand, you don’t need to worry about a virtual avatar having an off-day, getting older, dramatically changing their look, being convicted of a crime, or any number of other things that would be a nuisance at best or a PR nightmare at worst for a brand. They can also be managed by different people, meaning the brand is not beholden to a single actor or voice actor. If your current digital avatar’s voice actor quits, you can simply hire a new one with a similar sounding voice, and things carry on as normal.

As we said, this isn’t much use to your average Internet influencer—unless they are planning land a career as the person behind a brand’s virtual mascot—but it helps to understand the full landscape of virtual influencers when first venturing into this new facet of online influencing.

How to Become a Virtual Influencer

We’d love to say there are some unique tips for succeeding on your path to becoming a virtual influencer, but the truth is that things work almost identically to how they are for regular influencers, and if there was some secret sauce to that, everybody would be an influencer. There are certain tips you can follow that will at least keep you on the right path.

Pick Your Niche

As we mentioned above, it is much easier to become an influencer in a focused niche than it is with a broad audience, so you will increase your chances of reaching influencer status if you grow to prominence in a particular area. That way, brands whose primary audience is in that same niche will see you as a more compelling option when looking for influencers to work with.

Be Mindful of Your Own “Brand”

An influencer who is not working with brands to promote things and get paid is just someone who is popular, so we’re going to assume that if you are reading a post on influencers, you are interested in the money-making side of things. With that in mind, you will need to be careful with your own brand because it will affect what other brands will be prepared to work for you.

Of course, you can choose what kind of brand you want to be; there are plenty of different types of company out there, so you can certainly pick your lane, so to speak. The important part is to be consistent with that lane. As many celebrities, YouTubers, and influencers have found, even one “off-brand” slip up can be costly in terms of deals with other brands.

To give a fictional example, say you build yourself up as an influencer in the vegan niche. Even a single tweet about enjoying a beef burger from years ago could be enough to stop you getting brand deals with vegan companies.

Don’t Rush It

It can be tempting to take shortcuts—things like buying subscribers—but resist this temptation.

The nature of your audience will have a big impact on the future of your audience, and things like bought subscribers will dramatically reduce the quality of your audience. People (and certainly brands) will spot this kind of dishonesty, which will reduce the rate at which your influence can grow, if not stop it altogether.

YouTube Tips for Teachers 1

Final Thoughts

Being a virtual influencer may not be much different from being a regular influencer from the influencing side of things, though the process of being virtual is a little different.

Overall, the advantages of being virtual tend to benefit the brands that adopt them more than they benefit the influencers who are them. This is not to say you shouldn’t do it if the virtual influencer life appeals to you, but make this decision on its own merits—decide if being a virtual character is right for you without the external branding side of things—since you are not likely to be much better off as a virtual influencer than you are as a regular one.

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HOW TO MAKE MONEY ONLINE SOCIAL MEDIA TIPS & TRICKS YOUTUBE

Do YouTubers Get Paid for Views?

Do YouTubers Get Paid for Views?

How YouTubers get paid is often a point of interest for people who are considering getting into the platform.

And, for that matter, many people who have no interest in becoming a YouTuber but nevertheless are curious.

There are, of course, several ways in which a YouTuber can get paid from their channel, and there is plenty of information about the different aspects of YouTuber earnings, many of which you can find on this very blog.

Do YouTubers Get Paid for Views?

So, straight to the meat of the topic. Do YouTubers get paid for views? The answer is a little mixed – YouTube channels need to be part of the YouTube Partner Program to earn money directly from the adverts displayed on their videos. Once a channel has 1000 subscribers, 4000 watch time hours and are accepted into the program they ca earn anywhere between $1-10 per thousand advert views.

There are other YouTubers that do get paid but that choose to operate in ways that don’t earn them money on a per-view basis.

Let’s back up a little.

It’s worth noting that, effectively, all YouTube earnings are based on views one way or another. Even YouTubers who earn their revenue primarily through things like brand deals and crowdfunding need to have enough interest in their content to make money, and that interest is expressed through views. Granted some methods of generating revenue require considerably fewer views to make a given amount of money than others, but it all comes to back to views one way or another.

Still, a channel getting a lucrative brand deal because they have millions of views a month is not what we typically mean when talk about getting paid for views on YouTube. So what do we mean?

The YouTube Partner Programme

We are, of course, talking about monetisation through YouTube’s Partner Programme, which is the most common way that YouTubers monetise their channels—at least in the beginning.

This programme works by displaying ads on your content and, for channels that qualify, splitting the revenue. There are certain criteria that need to be met, such as how long an ad is watched for, or whether the ad was interacted with, but for the most part, the basic rule of more view equals more revenue applies.

Watch Time

Of course, like most things in life, the reality is a little more complex. We’ve already hinted that the amount of time an ad is watched affects whether it earns any money, but when we are talking about revenue per view, the length of the video is also important.

YouTube doesn’t just show one ad on a video, it will cram as many in there as you let it, and the longer the video, the more ads that can be shown. Again, whether the ads get watched is a different matter, but a video that is long enough to show four advertisements has the potential to earn four times as much revenue as one that only shows one ad.

Engagement

Those of you who can read between the lines may already have made this connection, but the natural result of more ads increasing the revenue doesn’t just mean that longer videos have the potential to earn more money, it also means that engagement is important, too.

The crucial point about having that video we mentioned that is long enough to show four times as many advertisements is that those advertisements only earn revenue if they are watched. That means that if a viewer checks out before the second ad, the rest of those ads may as well have not been there for all the good they do.

How is Revenue Calculated?

For view-based revenue on YouTube, there are two central metrics for calculating how money a channel is making; CPM and RPM.

CPM—cost per mille—refers to the amount of money that a channel is making per thousand views. CPM factors all the videos that are eligible for monetisation (and only those videos), which means that you get an average spread in terms of revenue, which is to say that videos that make very little will bring your CPM down, whereas videos that make a lot will bring it up.

CPM does not account for YouTube’s share of the revenue, nor does it factor any of the many other ways which you can make money through the platform, or external to the platform for that matter.

RPM—revenue per mille—is a metric designed to give YouTubers a better sense of how much revenue their channel is making. Like CPM, it refers to the amount of money you are making per thousand views, but unlike CPM, it factors in all views. It also factors in several other sources of revenue (from within the YouTube platform) such as memberships, and super chat.

Revenue Sources YouTube Doesn’t Account For

YouTube can only factor in revenue that you make through their platform, but there are other ways to earn money from the success of your channel.

Let’s take a brief look at some of the more popular ones.

Third Party Subscription and Donations

The most direct way for your viewers to support you is by sending you money, of course.

This can be done through direct donations, such as through PayPal, but it can also be done using platforms like Patreon, which allow your viewers to set up a recurring payment to support your content.

This is essentially the same model that the YouTube Membership system is based on.

Brand Deals and Endorsements

For YouTubers who have a significant influence in a particular area—or just a heck of a lot of subscribers—brand deals and endorsements can become an option.

This is where a company comes to you directly, paying you to endorse a product or service, sponsoring a video.

These deals are typically far more lucrative than anything you would get through the YouTube Partner Programme, but are much harder to get since your channel has to be very successful to get noticed by brands. It is possible to get brand deals as a smaller channel, but you generally have to be a big player in a specific niche for that to happen.

Affiliate Marketing

For YouTubers whose content lends itself well to affiliate marketing, tying in your content to a relevant affiliate program can be a great way to increase the revenue your channel earns.

The most common example of this is YouTube channels that review or highlight products sharing Amazon Affiliate links to those products in their descriptions.

How to Increase Revenue Per Views

Though there is no one-size-fits-all solution, we can boil down the keys to success to a few significant points. Firstly, focus on watch time and engagement. The longer your videos are, and the more watch time they accumulate, the more revenue they will have the chance to generate.

There are also ways to direct your content so that it is more likely to earn more money. Generally speaking, targeting niches that have a high click through rate, or that get bid on highly by advertisers, will mean that your videos generate more money per view.

Beyond that, though it no doubt feels like a bit of a cop out, the best advice for increasing the revenue of your channel is to focus on the content and make the best videos you can. High quality content is the foundation upon which successful channels are built, and starting with a good foundation will always give you a better chance of success in the long run.

How Much is a View Worth on Average?

As we have hopefully made clear, there is no fixed amount we can give, but for a rough idea of how much a view is worth, the average ad view on YouTube will make somewhere between $0.01 and $0.03.

This is, of course, subject to any criteria regarding how long the ad is watched for. Ads that are watched for less than a given amount of time will not earn the channel any money.

If this number seems a little low, it generally is considered to be, which is why YouTube Partner Programme earnings are rarely deemed a good method to base your entire income on.

Final Thoughts

Trying to put a solid number on something like YouTube earnings is a losing battle; there are simply too many variables that can change that number.

And, while YouTubers can often calculate their earnings as a per view metric, the reality of those earnings is often considerably more complicated, with revenue coming from several different places, and at a far from consistent rate.

If you are becoming a YouTuber with revenue generation being the primary goal, it will help to shape your channel from the very beginning with that in mind; focusing on appropriate niches, making content that lends itself well to earning money.

If you are joining YouTube for the love of making content, however, just focus on that to begin with, and figure the rest out as you go along.

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TIPS & TRICKS YOUTUBE

Powerful VidIQ Features You Might Have Overlooked

VidIQ Powerful Features You Might Have Overlooked 1

In March 2020 I switched exclusively to VidIQ for keyword research, productivity and optimization help.

Over the the following 12 months I grew my channel from 11K subscribers to 30K subscribers… I think that shows how powerful VidIQ as a tool can be.

Best of all you can install VidIQ for FREE and use most of the tools I used to get that growth.

Here are 4 MUST USE tools from VidIQ that many people sleep on…

VidIQ Powerful Features You Might Have Overlooked 2

Channel Audit (left hand navigation) – This makes use of your channels behavior metrics and engagement to automate a report for you. This is great for the smaller youtubers and helps educate new youtubers about their own channel audience. This will look into your stats and help you identify your best performing content, plan strategy around your content creation as well as comparing you to your manually added competitors and competition based your channel niche

This helps teach a newer YouTuber what they need to look for to double down on when trying to grow their brand or channel, as well as warning you what you may need to avoid. It also offers overall channel metrics for best practices on title size, description links, end screen and info cards.

Yes this maybe taking youtube analytics data and making it look more human and could be done by a youtube veteran with analytics groups and painstakingly scraping through stats – but I feel for the new youtuber this does a lot of the heavy lifting for them and makes analytics less daunting.

VidIQ Powerful Features You Might Have Overlooked 3

Competitors (on channel pages and left hand navigation – This can be used to track what your desired niche is talking about. You can add up to 20 channels while on the Boost tier and this allows you to see emerging trends within recent content published by “competitors” in your niche.

This I find is more impactful than the trend alerts as you can see the recent published content yourself and catch any new topics before they are large enough to pop a trend alert.

For example – If I have 20 people in the YouTube Educator space in my competitors list and I set it to what they published this week and either views or VPH (views per hour), I can then scroll down and make a mental note of topics. If the niche community as a whole are talking about a new rule change (age restriction), new feature (youtube shorts), a new camera, or a new tool (adobe premiere pro auto resize videos) then you would then see the start of a topic bubble you might want to add your own opinion into.

You can also catch hot videos over the last X period based on this VPH – see if there is a new breakout video, or topic that has velocity or growing velocity that you might want to take advantage of.

VidIQ Powerful Features You Might Have Overlooked 4

Thumbnail Preview (upload page and video detail page right side – Click Through Rate is key but so is getting people to stop to see your thumbnail and stop scrolling first.

This tool allows you to search a keyword you want to rank for and see how that thumbnail matches up to its rival video thumbnails in the search results. This way you can compare, tweak and research your competition.

I have used this a lot from Feb 2020 to Feb 2021 this year and it has increased my overall channel CTR from 8% to 12%.

This way if you upload a thumbnail, search for a term and see all the thumbnails are blue… maybe you want to lean more red, or yellow, larger text or more visual storytelling etc so you do not blend in with the masses and help with the STOP SCROLLING & CLICK.

VidIQ Powerful Features You Might Have Overlooked 5

Channel Trending (channel home page) –  This is great for rival/niche successful video research. Go to a channel, click the trending link under there channel banner on the right hand side. In here you will see that specific channels best performing videos based on VPH. This is an insight into that channels power topics (or proven winners) and something you might want to touch upon if you are in their niche.

Now, I do not suggest you use this tool just to steal videos but more of part of a research tool to validate your wish to make a video on set topics. So for example when searching on google for a blog topic you would look at the top 5 articles to see what their article is like. You learn what is expected to be in that article, what you can add/improve on – same for using this as a video research tool.

With some well placed research you can use this to win traffic or even misplace videos that may get great traffic but are a little old or out of date. YouTube loves fresh(er) content over old.

Get started to with VidIQ today for FREE! – VidIQ is free to install and has a huge range of tools without spending a buck!