Category: YOUTUBE

Top 30 Side Hustles for Students

Post author By Alan Spicer - YouTube Certified Expert
Post date 30 December 2021

Being a student isn’t easy, and one of the biggest hardships you will face as a student is finding the finances to do things like… well… eat. Fortunately, the has never been more opportunity for students (or anyone, for that matter) to make a little extra income on the side.

In the interests of making life a little easier for our intrepid knowledge seekers and future leaders, we’ve put together a list of thirty side hustles that students can help make life a little easier while you are putting yourself through higher education.

Start a YouTube Channel

YouTube has made many people rich, and even though those people are a huge minority, there are many many more people who make a respectable side income from the platform.

And, given the popularity of YouTube, there is no shortage of advice out there to get you started. You can even start right here! You can create a channel around something you are passionate about, something you are knowledgeable about (both is a bonus) or even what you are studying.

Start a Blog

Essentially the same premise as starting a YouTube channel, just with written words instead of video! As with YouTube, you can start a blog about anything you have a passion for, special interest in, or knowledge of. It could be the subject you are studying, your favourite genre of movie or novel, or just weird facts from around the world.

If you have a talent for telling an interesting story, you can put that talent to work in blog form.

Offer Dog Walking Services

You don’t need to limit your side hustles to things online, of course. One example of a real-world side hustle is dog walking services. Pet dogs are more popular than ever, but that popularity, unfortunately, coincides with a time when more of us are out working than ever before.

Enter the intrepid dog walker.

If you like dogs, you could make a respectable side income by taking several of the furry little critters out for walkies, giving their owners some peace of mind in knowing that their best friend isn’t being neglected at home.

Become an App Tester

A lot of effort goes into making apps work, but all the effort in the world won’t make up for a lack of user feedback. App developers naturally would rather get that feedback under controlled circumstances, rather than putting an app out and waiting for the negative reviews.

That’s where app testing comes in. There are many services that provide the opportunity to be an app tester, here are a few of them;

Become a Secret Shopper

Secret shopping is the kind of side hustle that will sound like a dream come true to the right kind of person. Also called “mystery shoppers”, these are people who are paid to shop in stores or eat in restaurants with the hidden agenda of collecting information.

There isn’t a great deal of financial rewards for this side hustle, but you will typically be reimbursed for your purchases.

Take Paid Surveys

One of the older and more well-known side hustles of the Internet age is the paid survey. Exactly as the name suggests, paid survey companies will pay you a modest sum to complete a survey, with your answers being valuable to market researchers and other similar parties. Here are a few paid survey sites to get you started;

Become Part of the Machine

If you don’t have a particular skill or interest in mind for your side hustle, you could take a more generalised approach with something like Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. This is a service that operates on the principle that humans are still better than machines at some things. Essentially, people who need a large number of small tasks doing (things like tagging images) can sign up and do just that.

Offer Online Tutoring

If you’re a student, it’s safe to say you’ve at least done well through primary and secondary education. That’s great for you, but there are millions of children (and adults) who are struggling with this very thing.

You can offer online tutoring in subjects like maths. Or, if you have particular areas of expertise, you could tutor in those as well.

Start an Online Course

On the subject of areas of expertise, if you are particularly knowledgeable in something, you could create an online course around it. Again, this could be something you are just good at, or it could be something you are studying, perhaps offering an introductory level of education to a subject that you are studying at an advanced level.

Sell Old Items

Granted, you wouldn’t be able to keep selling old items forever, but there are several apps (and, of course, eBay) designed to make it easy for you to find a buyer for some of your old things, from clothes to gadgets.

Become a Reseller

Essentially, the difference between someone selling old items and this suggestion is that you will be first seeking out items to sell before you can sell them. This might mean scouring things like Facebook Marketplace and Craiglist for hidden gems, or it could even mean buying things in bulk to get the price down.

Become an Affiliate Marketer

Affiliate marketing is the process of advertising someone else’s product in exchange for a “piece of the action”, so to speak. The most well-known example of this is Amazon Affiliates, where you can link to any product on Amazon and make a little cut of any sales you generate.

This side hustle works best if you have something to pair it with, such as a YouTube channel, or a blog, but really anywhere you can promote something will work. You could even go door-to-door… but we wouldn’t recommend it.

Sell Print-on-Demand Merchandise

Got a flair for design? There are many services on the Internet that allows you to create products like t-shirts, mugs, mouse mats, and other things of that nature with little more than a click of the upload button.

Again, this works especially well if you have a popular YouTube channel to base your products on, but if you can create compelling designs, you can certainly make print-on-demand merchandise a successful side hustle in its own right.

Sell Artwork or Photography

If you do have that creative flair mentioned in the last tip, you could always put it to good use in other fields, such as selling artwork and photography. A number of sites will let you upload stock imagery so that you can profit from the licensing of those images. Just remember that once you do this, you have no control over how the image gets used, so be careful what images you choose to sell.

Write an eBook (or a physical one)

When “write a book” is suggested, the first thing people tend to think of is a novel. Now, if you have it in you to write a novel, certainly give it a go. But as side hustles go, it’s not the most effective way to make money. Given the typical time it takes to write a novel combined with how long an average publisher takes to respond (probably to say “no thanks”), you might not be a student by the time you see any money from a novel.

But you can create eBooks (or regular books) that are non-fiction and centred around something you are an expert in.

Offer Proofreading and Editing Services

Don’t fancy writing a book? What about proofreading someone else’s? Most of us can put together a blog post, but we’re not all up to a professional standard with the technical aspects of our writing.

If you are confident in your command of the English language (or any language, for that matter), you can offer your services as an editor or proofreader, checking other people’s work for mistakes.

Become an Influencer

Granted, not everyone can become an influencer, but if you have an entertaining personality and you like being in front of the camera, becoming an influencer may be a viable option for you.

Influencers typically operate through social media platforms, such as—Instagram, or Facebook—and can earn money through brand deals.

Become a Ride-Share Service Driver

If you have a car, you could consider working for a ride-share company like Uber, or Lyft. Services like this give you the ability to have complete control over the amount of time you spend working on your side hustle—a kind of flexibility that is a must for busy students.

Become a Virtual Assistant

No, we’re not suggesting you be available 24/7 to respond to questions anytime someone says “Siri” to their iPhone or “Alexa” to their Amazon Echo. Websites like PeoplePerHour.com make it possible for you to find people who need certain assistant-like tasks completed, such as email management.

Review Apps and Websites

Similar to testing apps, there are also sites that will pay you to review apps and websites. We’re not talking about being paid to review something by the company that made that thing—that would be cheating. This is typically for sites that offer consumer information, and want a large number of honest reviews.

Become a Translator

If you know more than one language, you could find work as a translator. This will typically be written word translation, but you can certainly find verbal work as well. This could even be paired with our “transcribe audio” suggestion a little further down.

Deliver Things

Similar to Uber (indeed, including Uber), there are companies that offer the delivery of things like food and other items, and they need people to make those deliveries. Unlike Uber, however, this work doesn’t necessarily need a car. It’s a common service offered in big cities and can be done on a bike.

Offer Cleaning Services

Many of us struggle to find time to keep our homes or workplaces as clean as we’d like, so why not take that load off someone’s mind by offering cleaning services! This sort of work can be done in the evening or on a weekend, so it shouldn’t affect your studies.

Sell Advertising Space on Your Car

Getting your brand in front of eyeballs is most of the battle for advertisers, but that’s good for you because it means you can get paid simply for letting advertisers use your car as an ad. Services like Carvertise will pay you as much as $500 a month to put ads on your vehicle.

Rent Out Your Car

Or you could rent out the whole thing! Car-sharing services like Getaround can connect you with people who need to rent a car, letting you earn a little extra cash. If you’re not using your car at the time, this one is a no-brainer.

Rent Out Your Parking Space

If you have a parking space you’re not using in a part of the world where it’s hard to find parking spaces (we’re looking at you, London), you could rent it out to someone, and put that land to good use.

Transcribe Audio

While speech-to-text recognition is getting better by the day, humans are still often needed to transcribe audio. You don’t need any particular skill for this, but being a good typist will make your life much easier if you decide to take on some transcription work.

Become a Freelancer

If you have a skill, you could just charge people to use it. Whether it’s copywriting, illustration, video production, and more And the good thing about freelancing is that if you like it, freelancing can always become a full career when you are done with your studies.

Become a Social Media Manager

If you have a knack for social media, there are plenty of people out there who do not that would be willing to pay you to help them grow their online presence.

Get a Part-Time Job

And, finally, the obvious one. From tending bar to stacking shelves, there is always the option to go out and get a part-time job, earning money the old fashioned way.

Tags entrepreneurship, freelance, hustles, income, make money, make money online, money, passive income, self employed, side hustles

DEEP DIVE ARTICLE HOW TO GET MORE VIEWS ON YOUTUBE SOCIAL MEDIA YOUTUBE

How to Start a YouTube Channel

Post author By Alan Spicer - YouTube Certified Expert
Post date 8 December 2021
1 Comment on How to Start a YouTube Channel

Whether you are considering starting a YouTube channel for business or pleasure, the allure of that big red play button can be hard to resist. YouTube is proven to be a great medium for expanding a brand, bringing attention to your business, or just connecting with an audience over something you are passionate about. And it is for these reasons that so many people want to start a new YouTube channel, even now when there are so many channels out there.

In this post, we’re going to look at some of the mechanical aspects of starting a channel, as well as some tips for how to go about getting those first views, but we wanted to start off by reaffirming your desire to start a channel (we’re assuming you do want to if you’re reading this!)

Is It Worth Starting a YouTube Channel?

One of the main roadblocks to a successful YouTube channel is a reluctance to pull the trigger on that “create channel” button. This can happen because of a variety of reasons—most of which we’ll cover in more detail in a moment—but the important thing to remember is that new channels are being created all the time, and plenty of YouTubers who are successful today started out recently or were shy to begin with or thought their chosen topic wouldn’t get much interest.

Ultimately, the majority of YouTube channels do not achieve the kind of success their creator hopes for, we can’t deny that. Whether they want to achieve financial independence through their content, become an internet megastar, or just find a small audience that is interested in what they are interested in, most don’t make it. But the one thing you can be certain of is that if you don’t start a channel at all, you definitely won’t succeed.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at some of the biggest reasons why people don’t start YouTube channels at all. And then tell you why you shouldn’t let those reasons stop you!

“I’m Too Shy”

Many would-be YouTubers love the idea of starting a channel, but when faced with the prospect of sitting in front of a camera and speaking to strangers on the Internet, they soon find themselves wilting away from the idea.

We’re not going to tell you that the shyness just goes away—though it does get less severe if you stick at it—but we can tell you that you don’t necessarily have to fight that shyness to run a YouTube channel.

There is more than one way to make a YouTube channel, and not all of them involve showing your face. In fact, it’s entirely possible to run a successful YouTube channel without showing your face or speaking! Granted, the style would have to work with your content, but many popular channels are clips shows, use virtual characters in place of on-camera appearances, and make use of text-to-speech technology.

“My Interests Are Too Niche”

Okay, we won’t lie and say there is no such thing as a “too niche” topic when it comes to an entire channel. You can certainly limit your potential audience to the point that you’re never going to hit those YouTube Partner Programme goals if you choose something extremely obscure.

That being said, assuming your interest is not so niche that you could start a support group for it and get everyone in a single room, being niche is actually a good thing!

Having a niche subject matter makes it easier to get noticed and build an audience when you are first starting out. It’s generally better to be laser-focused at the start of your YouTube career, build a small audience, and then gradually expand your niche to broaden the potential audience. So your niche interest could actually be the thing that makes your channel succeed.

“I’m Too Late to the Game!”

YouTube is easily the most popular platform for user-generated video content at the moment, and that popularity can make it a little intimidating to dive in yourself. With so many people already on the platform publishing videos, how can you hope to make a splash of your own?

It’s true that it can be hard to make an impact on YouTube when you’re just starting out, but it is far from impossible. In reality, the vast majority of successful YouTube channels got started under these circumstances. Whether there are two million or twenty million other channels, you’re still going to be trying to make your mark in a very crowded room.

Ultimately, if you release good content on a regular basis, you stand a good chance of succeeding on YouTube, regardless of how many channels are already taking up space on YouTube’s recommendations page.

How to Start a YouTube Channel

So, hopefully, we’ve convinced you that the excuses you’ve been making to yourself for why you shouldn’t start a YouTube channel aren’t valid, now let’s get to how you actually go about it.

Create a Channel

We said we’d cover the basic mechanics of starting a YouTube channel and we weren’t kidding. The first thing you need to do is create a YouTube account if you don’t already have one. There are no stringent requirements for creating an account; as long as you have an email address, you should be good to go. After that simply follow these steps;

Sign in to your YouTube account and click on the user icon at the top right-hand corner of the page.
Click the gear icon to open up your YouTube account’s settings page.
Click “create new channel”.
Choose “Use a business or other name”, enter the name of your channel and away you go!

Choosing Your Channel’s Name

The last part of that list—entering the name of your channel—obviously requires you to know what name you’re going to use. It’s worth putting a good deal of thought into this part of the process before getting started, as changing your channel’s name after it is established can be a bit of a headache.

Now, we want to stress that, while this decision is important, it should not be a decision that keeps you from starting a channel. There is a fine line between giving something due consideration and using that consideration as an excuse to not get started at all.

If you are starting a channel as part of a business or an existing brand, that should make naming a little easier. If you are starting a channel as an individual, it’s important to consider what you want for the channel’s future. For example, if you have plans to one day grow your channel to the point of having a team working on it, perhaps bringing other content creators on board, you will want to steer clear of using your own name, as that links the channel to you specifically, making it a little weird when other people are on there.

Alternatively, if your plans don’t involve anyone but you being in front of the camera, you should consider using your name in the channel name, as it will make it easier for you to parlay any YouTube success into success in other areas.

Set Up Your Channel

With your channel made, you need to spend some time setting up your channel. This means adding things like profile and header images and filling out your about section. You can also arrange how your channel page looks, but don’t worry too much about this until you have a few videos uploaded.

In your about section, make sure you explain what your channel is about, but try to keep it as clear and concise as possible. Many viewers won’t even click to expand the about section, so try to get the basic premise of your channel into the first sentence, but in a way that grabs the reader’s attention.

If you are tying your YouTube channel to something larger—such as a business, brand, or other personal projects—be sure to put links in your information. These should show up in the top right-hand corner of your channel pages, just below the header image.

Start Making Videos

The most important part of being a YouTube is, of course, being a YouTuber! Simply picking out a good name and creating a channel isn’t much use if you don’t then create content for it, regularly.

There is a veritable cornucopia of excuses to not make videos, and we’re not saying they’re all bad reasons. But, as with the channel name choosing, you should not let this become a crutch that you use to stop yourself from doing the deed. Remember, the quality of your video can always improve. The quality of you can always improve. But there’s no reason you can’t be improving while you make content, and there is no better practice than doing.

Just make the best content you can, and always strive to improve.

Keep Going

Once you’ve gotten over that initial hurdle that so many people fall at, you just need to worry about sticking with it. This is one area where bloody-minded persistence isn’t necessarily the best road to take. You should be persistent, yes, but in a smart way.

By ensuring that your channel grows, you will find it much easier to stay motivated and keep putting out new videos. Here are some tips for ensuring that happens.

Work Your Niche

We touched on this before, but a good way to get started as a YouTuber is to really drill down into a niche, finding an audience through the simple act of providing them something that not many others are. And if it’s something nobody else is providing, all the better!

The problem with such a tight niche is that it can severely limit your growth potential. To give an extreme example, if you start a channel based around talking local news for a small town with a population of 700 people, you’re going to struggle to find millions—or even thousands—of viewers who are interested in your content.

As you grow, try to expand your niche slowly and organically to widen your potential audience.

Take Advantage of Search Engine Optimisation

You don’t have to become an SEO expert (though it will certainly help if you do), but you should familiarise yourself with the basics of optimising your videos for being found in YouTube search and even other search engines like Google or Bing.

Every video should have a descriptive title, an accurate description, and make full use of tags. If you’re not sure about this kind of thing, you can always sign up for a service like TubeBuddy.

Be Consistent

We’re not going to tell you that you need to upload new videos every day or week to be successful—many popular YouTube channels have upload schedules that involve months between videos—but you do need to be consistent.

If you start off uploading weekly videos and then abruptly don’t put out another video for a few months without warning, it will be a turn off for your viewers, and it will cause YouTube’s algorithm to question whether you are a reliable content creator.

Build a Community

Playing an active role in the community that arises around your channel will ensure you have some degree of influence over how that community develops. It will also give your viewers a strong sense of connection with your content.

You can do this in a number of ways, such as regularly replying to comments, or setting up and actively participating in a Discord server or subreddit.

Monetise Your Channel

When you reach a stage where monetisation is an option (whatever form that comes in), you should strongly consider doing it. YouTube doesn’t need to be about the money, of course, but it is hard work, and it’s much easier to motivate yourself to make time for it if you’re getting something tangible back.

Final Thoughts

YouTube continues to be the premier video platform for user-generated content, and there is still plenty of opportunity there for those willing to put the effort in.

So get out there and start making videos!

Tags new channel, social media, start youtube, youtube, youtube channel

FACEBOOK HOW TO MAKE MONEY ONLINE MARKETING SOCIAL MEDIA YOUTUBE

Can You Make Money on Facebook?

Post author By Alan Spicer - YouTube Certified Expert
Post date 7 December 2021

The prevalence of social media in our lives has opened many doors to success that would scarcely have been dreamed of in the past. And, by “the past”, we could be talking as recently as fifteen years ago. But, while there is an abundance of success stories from platforms like YouTube and Instagram, Facebook rarely is rarely brought up in this regard.

Sure, Facebook is an important tool in getting success on other platforms—you have to promote those YouTube videos somewhere, after all—but what about a more direct approach? Can you make money on Facebook?

The short answer is yes. There are several ways to make money through Facebook, ranging from “a little extra cash” to “this is my job now!”. In this post, we’re going to outline a number of ways in which you can start earning cash through Facebook. So let’s dive in!

How to Make Money on Facebook

With well over two billion users and a well-established advertising platform, there is certainly plenty of money floating around Facebook to be shared. Here are nine ways for you to get your hands on some of it.

Become an Influencer

We’re starting here because this is probably one of the most common ways in which people want to start making money online these days—the influencer route. Making content for an army of fans and making money from that content is the present-day version of being a celebrity, though much more attainable than being the next Tom Cruise or Lady Gaga.

It’s not nearly as well advertised as things like Facebook’s advertising platform, but Facebook does have a system in place for content creators to make money directly, and it comes in three parts.

Brand Collaborations

Brand Collabs Manager is Facebook’s system for bringing together popular content creators and brands in a managed environment where everyone can feel safe from… well, safe from being ripped off.

Essentially, Facebook ensures the brand is getting a legitimate content creator with an active audience while making sure the content creator gets paid for their collaboration efforts.

In order to qualify for this, you need to have at least 1,000 fans on your page and at least one of the following; 15,000 post engagements or 180,000 minutes watch time over the last sixty days.

That being said, even if you don’t qualify for Facebook’s system, you can always make brand deals directly with brands if you have the audience and negotiation skills.

In-Stream Ads

Much like YouTube, if you are creating video content on Facebook and you are seeing high enough levels of engagement, you can benefit from in-stream ads, earning you a small amount of cash per impression or click.

The criteria for monetising your content in this way is to have a fan or business page with at least 10,000 followers, at least 600,000 watch-minutes across live, on-demand, and replayed videos, five on-demand or previously videos published, and you must meet their policy guidelines.

Fan Subscriptions

Fan subscriptions are essentially Facebook’s answer to services like Patreon, and other platform’s solutions like YouTube Memberships. The criteria for this is a little simpler than the other options; you need to have at least 10,000 followers and at least 250 returning weekly viewers.

Once you meet those criteria, your fans can choose to pay your a regular fee for exclusive content.

Promote Your Services or Business on Facebook

Moving on to more indirect ways of making money through Facebook, if you have a service to offer or a business you are running, Facebook is an excellent platform for advertising your wares.

Like any good advertising platform, Facebook puts a lot of effort into making it so you can get your ads in front of exactly the right kind of people because paying to show an ad to someone who is not interested in what you are offering is a waste of money. Their rates are competitive compared to alternatives like Google Adsense, and you can generate a lot of traffic using this method.

Crowdsource Your Blog

If you run a blog—or you are thinking of starting one—Facebook can be an invaluable resource for researching your posts. Now, we’re not suggesting you start ripping posts directly off of Facebook and claiming them as your own. That would be wrong.

Facebook is full of groups put together with specific purposes in mind, and those groups are populated by people who are ready and willing to give their opinions and advice. If you are a little stumped for ideas, you can always ask questions in a relevant Facebook group. As long as the group is active and has plenty of members, you’re practically guaranteed to get answers.

Sell Things on Facebook Market

If you’re more interested in selling goods—or even if you just want to have a clearout of some of your old stuff—Facebook Marketplace is an effective way to do so.

Facebook Marketplace is heavily location-based, making it easier to find things that are local to you. This lends itself well to sellers who are perhaps looking to move on something like furniture they no longer need, or electronics they have outgrown. If you are running a business, it can also be a good way to build a local customers-base.

Become a Facebook Marketplace Re-Seller

Facebook Marketplace works both ways, of course, and you can buy just as easily as you can sell. You will often find things cheaper on this platform because of the local nature. Sellers have more of a “garage sale” (or car boot sale if you’re in the UK) attitude towards their items.

This presents an opportunity for someone interested in selling items because you can often find things on Facebook cheaper than those same items would be on something like eBay, or Amazon. You can then buy those cheaper items from Facebook Marketplace and sell them on platforms like eBay and net yourself a little profit!

Find Bugs

The technology behind Facebook is obviously critical to the success of the platform. And, with so many people’s data being at stake, Facebook knows how bad something like a data breach or fatal error could be for business. For this reason, Facebook has a “bug bounty”, where they essentially offer a reward for users who can find problems with the platform.

You will need some technical expertise for this—we’re talking security flaws and other vulnerabilities in Facebook’s systems, not simply reporting a link not working. The above link contains all the details about what Facebook considers a legitimate vulnerability, but if you find one, the minimum reward is $500!

Become a Social Media Manager

If you have a flair for social media—and, of course, your talents extend to Facebook—you could market yourself as a social media manager. Companies, and even individuals, are increasingly willing to pay people to take care of their social media presence for them, growing audiences and keeping them out of trouble. If this is something you would be good at, Facebook presents a huge opportunity to make money. And you wouldn’t be limited to just one client in this line of work.

Create a Popular Facebook Group

If you have an area of expertise—whether it be a professional thing or an area of deep interest on an enthusiast level—you could start a Facebook group centred around that subject matter.

This will require plenty of active participation from you, sharing your expertise and encouraging others to do the same. Once the group has reached substantial numbers, it can be a powerful tool for promoting things. And you, as the founder and established expert of the group, will be in a prime position to take advantage of that.

Become an Expert

Of course, you don’t need to create a group to establish yourself as an expert in something on Facebook. Posting helpful content on your area of expertise will likely garner interest from those people who seek that knowledge, and that can be parlayed into something more profitable.

It could simply be a way to funnel traffic from Facebook to your website or business, but it could also be the start of something. For example, you could start out answering questions on Facebook, and then move onto a podcast or YouTube channel with your already-established user-base.

Final Thoughts

Like all platforms on the Internet, Facebook is an invaluable tool for making money. And, like most platforms, there are several ways to go about making that money. The trick is finding the method that suits you the most.

For example, if you do not like dealing with people directly—and especially if you are not a fan of negotiation—you should probably steer clear of selling things through Facebook Marketplace. Similarly, if you do not have expertise in developing online systems like Facebook, you probably shouldn’t put much hope in the Facebook Bounty program.

And, most importantly, remember that nothing happens overnight. With a few very lucky exceptions, Facebook success takes time and effort, so don’t be discouraged if you’re not rolling in money by the end of your first month!

Tags facebook, facebook monetization, facebook money, income, monetization, money, passive income

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

Top 10 Side Hustles for YouTubers

Post author By Alan Spicer - YouTube Certified Expert
Post date 6 December 2021
4 Comments on Top 10 Side Hustles for YouTubers

People today understand more than ever the importance of diversifying when it comes to your source of income. After decades of financial crisis’ and global pandemics, younger generations are acutely aware of how risky it is to put all your eggs in one employment basket.

This has always been the case for YouTubers, of course. Since the beginning of YouTubers making money from their content, it has always been the advice for smart YouTubers not to rely solely on YouTube to pay their bills. Adpocalypses, changes to personal situations, and much more can make YouTube earnings evaporate in no time.

Of course, telling you that it’s important to spread your wings a bit financially is all well and good, but we want to go that extra step and give you a few ideas on where you can spread your wings!

With that in mind, we’ve put together our top 10 side hustles for YouTubers to dip their toes into (click here for side hustles for students). Never heard of a “side hustle” before? Don’t worry…

What is a “Side Hustle”?

A side hustle is defined as any job or occupation that is not your main job or occupation. In a traditional sense, an example of this might be someone working in a factory through the week and then doing a few shifts tending bar on the weekend. In this case, the bar work would be a side hustle.

Of course, things are a little more fluid these days, with the lines between side hustles and a “main job” being a little blurrier, but there is an emotional component that is strong these days than it once was. It is not uncommon for people who make their money online to have something that they consider a side hustle actually be their primary source of income!

Still, whether you classify something as a side hustle based on the money it makes you or how important that activity is to you, the basic premise remains the same; it’s a way of earning money that you consider secondary to another way of earning money.

How Much Money Can You Make With a Side Hustle?

The amount of money you can make with a side hustle will, of course, vary tremendously depending on several factors, such as what the side hustle is, how good you are at it, how much time you put into it, and more.

As mentioned above, how much money it makes does not necessarily affect its status as a side hustle. If you consider YouTube your “primary” hustle, you may well find one of your side hustles overtaking as your largest source of income. Our advice would be to not think too much about things like the exact amounts. As long as you’re making enough (whatever “enough” means to you), it doesn’t matter which hustle is making the most money.

Don’t Think of it as a Side Hustle!

While you should get too hung up on the specific amount being made by any form of hustle, it’s important not to think of things as secondary, or unimportant. If your job involves making money on the Internet, you should consider all of it your job, whether it’s making the most or not.

If you start thinking of legitimate income sources as unimportant, you run the risk of letting them slip until they stop being legitimate income sources. You may think of yourself as a YouTuber, but if you have half a dozen side hustles, they will quickly amount to a significant portion of your income, so you probably literally can’t afford to neglect them.

Top 10 Side Hustles for YouTubers

That’s enough about what side hustles are, it’s time to get to our top ten side hustles for YouTubers. Of course, if you simply searched for side hustles and found this post, you aren’t a YouTuber, don’t stop reading. We’ve picked these ten side hustles because they work well with YouTubing, but they are perfectly viable side hustles for other walks of life, too.

In fact, if you see your main hustle on here (blog writer, or podcaster, for example), just swap that one out for “YouTuber” and keep on reading!

Oh, and a little side note about the YouTube Partner Programme, we haven’t included that in this list because we assume that if you’re looking to add side hustles to your resume, you’re already making money from YouTube.

#1 Affiliate Marketer

Affiliate marketing is perhaps one of the most well-established means of making money on the side for YouTubers. This is the process of promoting something in the course of your usual content and making a little money on the actions taken by your viewers.

The most well-known example of this is, of course, Amazon’s affiliate program. When enrolled as an Amazon affiliate, you will be able to get a personal affiliate link from any Amazon product. Viewers who happen to buy that product will not pay any extra—indeed, they wouldn’t even know it was an affiliate link if you didn’t tell them (more on that in a second)—but you will make a small commission on anything they buy through your links.

There are many forms of affiliate marketing available, as well as services designed specifically to facilitate linking companies with people like you. It should be noted, however, that you should always give some sort of indication to your viewers that a link you have put in the description or a product you are promoting in your video is something you are promoting as an affiliate. It’s not hard to find out, and viewers will be turned off by this kind of dishonesty. It could also get you in trouble with YouTube.

#2 Merchandise Seller

Whether you have some kind of merchandise that exists independent of your YouTube channel, or you start releasing merchandise that ties directly in with your YouTube channel, having that channel can be a great way to promote it.

Naturally, if your merchandise is tied to the channel (for example, t-shirts with the channel logo on them), you’re going to want to promote it from that channel. Alternatively, if you want to start (or already have) a small clothing line, you sell artwork, or you sell pretty much anything on a site like Etsy, you can leverage the popularity of your YouTube channel to give that side hustle a bit of a kickstart.

#3 Course Instructor

Many YouTubers have some area of expertise, even if their channel is not about imparting that expertise. These days, the administrative side of creating and hosting an online course to teach other people things is relatively painless. There’s still a lot of work in putting the course together, of course, but there’s a lot of work in running a YouTube channel, as well, and you’re not letting that stop you… are you?

Of course, if your channel is centred around educating, such as a DIY channel, or tutorials on coding, it will be much easier to translate that audience into an online course. But even channels that are not about teaching viewers something can take advantage of this side hustle, as long as the course is teaching a skill that is on display when you make your videos.

#4 Channel Manager

If you have a particular flair for handling YouTube channels, you might consider turning your attention to becoming a channel manager. Essentially, you would take on the management of other people’s channels, and handle almost everything except for the content itself.

Many people don’t have the time or desire to effectively manage their channel themselves, but proper channel management can make an enormous difference. As you will no doubt be aware of this is a side hustle you are considering.

The main thing to beware of here is letting this side hustle take over. A good channel manager will typically have several clients. And, while managing a channel doesn’t take nearly as much time as making content for it, it all adds up if you keep adding clients to your roster.

#5 Blogger

Bloggers may resent seeing their profession listed as a side hustle on a YouTube blog—especially since blogging was a viable source of income before YouTube—but don’t be mad; YouTube can just as rightly be called a side hustle for bloggers. And the good news is this makes sense whichever way round you look at it.

Essentially, you have something to share with an audience, and you are currently doing it in video form. By translating that content to written form, you can reach a whole new audience. Or you can make it supplemental, giving your YouTube audience something else to consume.

#6 Podcaster

In a very similar vein to being a blogger, you can get more of your message out in audio-only form through podcasts. And, again, if you are a podcast, you can easily look at this suggestion in reverse, with YouTube being the side hustle.

This suggestion works best for channels that already have a podcast-like feel, such as panel show channels, or interview channels. If you regularly put out hour-long videos that are mostly talking, you’re going to miss out on a lot of viewers purely because of the time requirements. Not everyone has that much free time to sit and watch YouTube.

Those same people might have an hour’s worth of commuting to do every day, or regularly go for a job and like to listen to something while they do. They might just want something to put on while they do a bit of cleaning around the home. If your content is already podcast-like, putting it out as a podcast will involve negligible work. And, if it succeeds, it could drive more traffic to your YouTube channel.

Of course, you can still make a podcast if your channel isn’t the kind of channel described above. As long as you have something interesting to talk about, you can find an audience.

#7 Produce Video Content

This one is a little trickier. As we mentioned above in the channel manager section, creating content for a channel is the most time-consuming part, so the idea of producing video content for others might not seem like the best plan.

While you could certainly produce video content for other YouTube channels, we’re suggesting something more specialist, such as making animations idents, or infographic clips. If you have a skill for this kind of thing, there will undoubtedly be plenty of people and companies that are happy to pay for your services.

#8 Stock Trader

This one doesn’t really tie in to you being a YouTuber unless your YouTube channel revolves around you being a stock trader, or talking about stock trading in some form. If this isn’t you, you can still get into stock trading (or currency trading), to earn a little (or a lot) extra on the side, just be sure you know what you’re doing. We categorically do not recommend anyone dabbling in the stock market without knowing what they’re doing beforehand.

#9 Become a Consultant

You don’t have to make content to take advantage of your expertise. Consultancy work is a great way for you to exploit your own knowledge while helping others. One example of this could be helping other YouTubers grow their channel (assuming you have proven yourself able to do this in the first place of course!), but it could just as easily be any other area of expertise you have.

#10 Champion a Cause

This one is kind of cheating. You won’t necessarily make any money from championing a good cause, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. Whether it’s planting trees or donating to charities, you have the power to make an impact.

Final Thoughts

YouTube is undoubtedly a great platform for launching other projects, whether they are passion projects, side hustles, or even new careers. The list above is a relatively small selection of the possibilities for adding new hustles to your game, so don’t worry if none of the above work for you.

Of course, if all else fails, your side hustle could always be other YouTube channels.

Top 5 Tools To Get You Started on YouTube

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

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

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

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.

Tags affiliate, affiliate marketing, income, money, passive income, side hustles, youtube money

SOCIAL MEDIA TIPS & TRICKS YOUTUBE

Can I Use YouTube Videos In My Online Course?

Post author By Alan Spicer - YouTube Certified Expert
Post date 3 December 2021
2 Comments on Can I Use YouTube Videos In My Online Course?

YouTube is a veritable cornucopia of informative and educational content, with much of it having the added bonus of being entertaining at the same time. It’s no wonder, then, that many people are looking to use YouTube videos in their online courses, but is that allowed?

As always, the answer to this question will be dramatically different depending on the circumstances in which you are using a YouTube video. There is no rule in YouTube’s terms of use that specifically prohibits the use of YouTube videos in online courses… but there are rules that indirectly make it impossible to do so.

We’re going to get into this, so make yourself a beverage and get comfortable.

Online Courses?

Online courses. They are a great way to impart knowledge and generate some extra revenue. If you are already sharing your wisdom on YouTube, putting together an online course is a natural extension of that, and one that can be very lucrative.

That being said, putting together an online course can be a lot of work, so it will make things a lot easier if you can use some of the content you have already created.

According to Mordor Intelligence, the online courses industry was worth $6,845 million last year.

Using My Own YouTube Videos In Online Courses

There is absolutely no conflict here. You own the copyright on any videos you upload to YouTube, and you are permitted to download your own videos from the site without breaking any of YouTube’s terms, so you can still use your YouTube videos even if you have lost the original files and the only copy exists on YouTube.

If you have the original files, however, YouTube needn’t be a factor at all. You own the rights to the content and you have the files already. In this case, it has nothing to do with YouTube.

Should I Use My YouTube Videos In Online Courses?

So, we’ve established that you can use your YouTube videos, but the next question is should you use them? We can certainly recommend leveraging your existing content to make life a little easier, but you need to consider what you’re putting in your online course.

If your course is just a collection of your existing YouTube content, it will severely reduce the potential revenue your course can generate since users can head over to your YouTube channel and watch it for free. You could take the relevant videos down from your channel, but then they would no longer be generating YouTube revenue for you. Every case is different, of course, but we’re willing to bet that if you’re considering turning your YouTube videos into an online course, they were doing pretty well on your channel.

Using Other People’s YouTube Videos In Online Courses

Here’s where things get a little trickier. Firstly, if you don’t have the permission of the YouTuber whose content it is, there is no way to use that content without breaking a YouTube policy or, more importantly, a law.

YouTube does not permit you to download YouTube videos unless it is through the YouTube app as part of YouTube Premium’s offline watching feature. While it is possible to download YouTube videos using third-party apps, this would be a violation of the terms of use and could see you suspended or banned from the platform if caught. This means that the only way to use the videos without breaking YouTube’s terms is to have the original video files from somewhere. The most obvious place, of course, being from the original creator… which will be hard to do if you do not have their permission to use the video files.

If you decide to go ahead and download the video files regardless—or if you were able to obtain those video files through some other means—and you use the content in your online course without the explicit permission of the creator, you could find yourself on the wrong end of a lawsuit.

The best-case scenario if you do this and the original creator notices is that they put in a copyright violation against you with the service that is hosting your online course and that course gets taken down. However, as we mentioned above, online courses are very lucrative, and if the original creator suspects you have made a good amount of money from their content, they may decide to pursue you for their share.

Realistically speaking, this shouldn’t be a concern. While there is a lot of money to be made in online courses, the vast majority of course creators will not be making the kind of money that warrants legal action. It simply wouldn’t be worth the legal expenses. But they probably would get your course taken down, putting an end to any earning potential, and they might even make the matter public, dragging your reputation down. This can be a serious problem if you are a successful YouTuber with a brand to look after.

Linking to YouTube Videos

What we have discussed so far is concerned with including the YouTube content itself in your course, but what about linking from your course to other videos? This is a perfectly acceptable way to incorporate YouTube content since you are only linking to it. It is then up to YouTube and the creator what they do with that incoming traffic. If the video is publicly available, the creator can’t complain about people watching it. And, if it is not publicly available, the incoming traffic will simply be told that the content is unavailable.

Final Thoughts

Online courses represent a great way to share your wisdom while getting paid for the privilege. They are a form of passive income since you make the course once and it will continue to generate revenue as long as it has relevant and valuable information for potential students to learn.

Using your existing YouTube content is a good way to lighten the workload, but be wary of putting too much of your YouTube content into your course, as it will just leave students wondering why they didn’t just go to your YouTube channel and save some money.

Top 5 Tools To Get You Started on YouTube

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

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

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

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.

3. Rev.com helps people read my videos

You can’t always listen to a video.

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.

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.

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.

Tags edu, educational, educational content, educational videos, online courses, youtube

SOCIAL MEDIA TIPS & TRICKS YOUTUBE

Can I Use Reddit Content For YouTube?

Post author By Alan Spicer - YouTube Certified Expert
Post date 2 December 2021
1 Comment on Can I Use Reddit Content For YouTube?

There have been several seemingly unlikely types of content that have found a home on YouTube, and perhaps one of the more unlikely of those is the Reddit comment video. These videos follow a simple formula whereby the YouTuber reads out a selection of interesting, funny, or weird Reddit comments. Essentially it’s a highlight reel of Reddit comments.

The obvious question that arises here is, of course, are you allowed to just use other people’s Reddit comments in this manner? And, in typical copyright-related and YouTube fashion, the answer is a little messy. In the simplest sense, you cannot legally use Reddit comments in your YouTube videos without permission from the author of those comments. That being said, the chances of repercussions are almost non-existent, hence why there are so many Reddit comment videos.

Who Owns Reddit Comments?

Ultimately, all questions of this nature come down to ownership. In the case of Reddit, the person who writes the comment is the owner of that content, with Reddit holding rights to use any content on their platform for things like promoting the service. This means that in the eyes of the law, you would be stealing if you started using Reddit comments in your videos without the express permission of the author.

The exception to this is, of course, when the Reddit comment in question was not created by the author, such as a quote, excerpt, or image. In those cases, the original owner still retains their ownership.

In either case, the owner could lawfully request your video be taken down for copyright infringement, and could even attempt to take you to court for damages!

Can You Be Sued For Using Reddit Comments Without Permission?

Okay, dramatics aside, the chances of you being sued over using a Reddit comment without permission are pretty slim. It is not a matter of rights—the owner of the Reddit comment absolutely has the right to pursue you in the courts if you use their comment without permission—but there is an issue of practicality.

In order to actually take someone to court for damages, there has to be damages. Reddit does not presently offer a way for commenters to make money from their contributions directly, and very few users would be able to plausibly claim that their Reddit posts form a substantial part of their income.

The upshot of all this is that the commenter in question would likely be suing you for pennies, maybe dollars. Certainly not enough to make the legal costs worth it.

Now, with all that being said, it’s worth remembering that this is a risky strategy to adopt. Essentially banking on intellectual property owners to decide that suing you is not worth the hassle may work in a lot of instances, but the one time it doesn’t work could be very bad. Needless to say, this is not a legal blog, and the only legal advice we would propose here is don’t break the law!

Asking Permission

The most practical way around this hypothetical problem is to seek the permission of the Reddit commenters whose comments you want to use. Of course, “practical” in this case is a very relative term. Sure, it is more practical than being sued, but Reddit comment videos will typically have dozens of comments in them, if not more. If there is a time-sensitive element to the Reddit comment videos in question, that makes it less practical to get permission from every commenter you want to use.

Using Reddit Content On YouTube

So, where does this leave you? Again, we are not going to advise you to do anything illegal—you should always seek the permission of a content creator before using their content—but if you decide not to seek that permission, we would certainly recommend attribution.

Ensuring that the authors of the comments you are using are clearly attributed—such as in the video itself and also in the description—will likely be enough for many Reddit posters. As we mentioned there is little-to-no money in Reddit for the vast majority of its users, but there is a lot of social prestige to be earned. Indeed, the entire premise of YouTube is built around posting content that other users like, and your video brings more attention to a particular Redditor, it’s unlikely that they’ll complain about it.

Reddit Content Video Ideas

Once you’ve worked out how you are going to handle the legal side of things regarding using Redditor’s posts, you can then start looking at how you will present your video. Fortunately, there are a few options to choose from.

It should be noted that a common theme with these kinds of videos is that the YouTuber themselves does not appear in the video. Often each comment will be accompanied by relevant imagery (such as the comment itself), but, for the most part, the YouTuber’s face does not appear. That being said, this is not a hard rule, and you may want to do something different.

Straight Laced

Some YouTubers opt to play this pretty straight, reading out the comments as evenly as possible, not offering any additional commentary. This style suits YouTubers who are not especially charismatic in front of a microphone.

Straight Laced and Computer Generated

Another option for YouTubers who just want to let the Reddit content speak for itself is to use computer-generated dialogue to read out the comments. This essentially means the YouTuber has no need for a camera or microphone, and the quality of text-to-speech has improved remarkably over recent years.

Colour Commentary

If the YouTuber in question is a charismatic presence—and especially if they are quick witted—they might want to narrate the commentary themselves and, in doing so, inject their personality into the video.

Final Thoughts

Using Reddit content on YouTube is an increasingly popular style of video, and, while there is plenty of rough edging when it comes to the legal side, if you can navigate your way through that potential minefield. it, there is an unending supply of content for you to make!

Top 5 Tools To Get You Started on YouTube

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

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

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

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.

3. Rev.com helps people read my videos

You can’t always listen to a video.

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.

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.

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.

Tags content, how to post on reddit, reddit, reddit video, social media, video

SOCIAL MEDIA TIPS & TRICKS YOUTUBE

Can YouTube Comments be Traced?

Post author By Alan Spicer - YouTube Certified Expert
Post date 1 December 2021
1 Comment on Can YouTube Comments be Traced?

Privacy is obviously a major concern these days, and something we have talked about on this very blog, but how private are your comments? After all, it’s one thing to be told your expectation of privacy is limited if you are going to upload videos to YouTube, but entirely another to be told your offhand comments could be traced.

Can YouTube Comments Be Traced? – Yes, the reality of this kind of situation is that everything can be traced to some degree, it is more a matter of how badly the unseen party wants to track your comments.

Random users who are perhaps upset with something you have said have no plausible way of tracing your comments. If you have said something that breaks YouTube’s guidelines, they can report your comment to YouTube, but that will result in YouTube taking direct action (if they take any action at all), and will not see the reporting party learn your whereabouts or identity.

Can YouTube Trace Comments?

In order to leave a comment on a YouTube video, you have to be logged in to YouTube. This ensures YouTube have a good amount of ways to track you, from your viewing history to the IP address you routinely log in from. Obviously, then, if you are leaving a YouTube comment, YouTube can trace that comment to you.

Now, there are things you can do to limit what that tracing means. YouTube can view your IP address and, with it, they can estimate your geographical location. They will also have a specific address if you have saved any payment details, such as for YouTube Premium (or at least the billing address of the person whose card was used). If you don’t save payment details and you access YouTube using a VPN, YouTube will have no practical way of tracing your comments to a real person or location.

Why Would Traced Comments Be Bad?

There are many reasons why someone might not want their comments to be traced and, if we’re being honest, the majority of them are not particularly savoury. If someone was making illegal comments (mainly hate speech) or making comments that incriminate them in some illegal behaviour, they would naturally not want their comments to be traceable, as that could lead to legal action being taken against them.

That been said, there are some more noble reasons to be concerned about YouTube comments being traced. For example, if you are living in a country that takes punitive action against people who criticise the government, you would naturally not want your comments criticising the government to be traceable. In this situation, most (at least most in our neck of the woods) would probably agree that it is a good reason to hide your real identity and make your comments harder to trace, as opposed to wanting to throw racial slurs around without facing any consequences.

Can Police Track YouTube Comments

When law enforcement gets involved, things get a little trickier. First off, most law enforcement agencies need to have a good reason to go demanding private information from companies like YouTube, so you’re not likely to have the police tracing your whereabouts in this manner over a comment admitting you stole a magazine once. The other side of this point, of course, is that if the police are attempting to trace you through a YouTube comment, they will really want to find you.

And they will have YouTube’s full cooperation.

YouTube is required by law in just about all countries to cooperate if local law enforcement is able to prove they have good cause to be tracing someone. Of course, YouTube’s full cooperation is still limited to what they themselves can find out. If YouTube doesn’t have any information that can be used to trace you, they can’t give that information to the police.

That being said, crime on the Internet is often an international affair, and it may well be a government agency that is interested in your whereabouts, rather than the local police department. In that case, it is hard to say how secure your anonymity is. The movies tend to inflate reality to make it more interesting, but it’s reasonable to assume that an organisation like MI5 or the CIA will have some advanced toys that the likes of YouTube are not in possession of.

Should You Worry About Your Comments Being Traced?

As you have probably already gathered from above, traced comments is only really a problem for people who are doing something wrong in the eyes of the law. YouTube may not be able to trace you back to your home, but they don’t need to know where you live to ban you from the platform if you are doing something against the terms of service. Law enforcement agencies are a different kettle of fish, however.

Of course, the fact that you are worried about being traced does not automatically make you a bad person, such as in the case of the countries with over-zealous laws about criticising the people in power. Ultimately, this blog is here to explore all aspects of YouTube, not judge people. Our default state, however, is to advise you not to break the law.

Social Engineering

This is probably not something that pops into your mind when thinking about being “traced” on the Internet, but social engineering is a very real way to find out more information about someone. Of course, it is also a way that is very to prevent.

Social engineering in this sense might be following the links on someone’s YouTube page to other social media accounts, or figuring out what your username on other platforms might be from things you have said in the comments. Whether an interested party could figure out who you really are or where you live in this manner would depend on what kind of information you have publicly available online, but this also means that it is entirely within your control to prevent.

Of course, being polite and friendly online and not breaking any laws is also a very good way to avoid attracting the attention of anyone who might want to trace your comments…

Top 5 Tools To Get You Started on YouTube

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

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

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

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.

3. Rev.com helps people read my videos

You can’t always listen to a video.

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.

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.

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.

Tags comments, social media, social media comments, tracing, tracking, youtube comments

SOCIAL MEDIA TIPS & TRICKS YOUTUBE

Can I Use YouTube Videos for Educational Purposes?

Post author By Alan Spicer - YouTube Certified Expert
Post date 30 November 2021

Any kind of potentially copyright-related YouTube usage can get murky, that includes educational use.

Unfortunately, while many services and laws make exceptions or allowances for educational use, copyright law is not inherently one of them. This does not mean that YouTube is off-limits for educational use, but it is important to understand what constitutes a breach of copyright.

Of course, it wouldn’t be murky if we could just tell you exactly what constitutes a copyright violation in all cases. The reality is far too messy, and often on a case-by-case basis. It is not unusual for certain examples of copyright infringement to remain questionable until there is a court case to settle it.

Fortunately, it is entirely possible to use YouTube for educational purposes in such a way that the question of copyright infringement never needs to rear its ugly head.

What Constitutes Educational?

It is important to understand the word “educational” in a copyright/license sense before grabbing YouTube content, as some YouTubers permit the use of their content for educational purposes.

The first thing to note is that if you are making a profit from the content itself—such as selling an online course and including the content in the course—you are unlikely to get the benefit of the doubt from any content creator. To be considered legitimately educational, you would need to be part of an educational institution, such as a school or university. In almost all cases, if you are working outside of those institutional frameworks, you will struggle to convince any copyright holders or service providers that you are educational.

YouTube Terms of Service

Another important thing to consider is the YouTube Terms of Service, which apply regardless of how you use the content. One particularly relevant point is YouTube’s stance on downloading their content, which is don’t. It is not allowed to download videos from YouTube for any purpose, which means it is not permissible to download videos for educational purposes.

This may not seem like a problem at first, but when combined with the fact that it is also not permitted to broadcast or display YouTube content, it starts to put a bit of a roadblock in the way of using the platform for educational reasons.

Essentially, it means you would be breaking YouTube terms of service by playing a YouTube video to a class of students, but you would also be breaking the terms of service by downloading the content you wish to show and playing that to your class.

How to Use YouTube for Educational Purposes

So, with that in mind, how do you use YouTube videos for educational purposes? The chances of you being caught playing videos in a primary school classroom are pretty slim, but we wouldn’t advise taking chances like that. No matter how slim the risk of being caught is, you are still breaking the terms and conditions.

In all likelihood, the worst YouTube would do is ban a user for violating their terms of service (though legal action is not impossible). However, if you are breaking the terms using an account that represents the educational institution you work for, you could end up getting the entire school in trouble with YouTube, which could see your employer take disciplinary action against you.

So let’s talk about how you can use it.

Sharing YouTube Videos

If the reason you are sharing the videos does not require them to be watching in real-time together, you can always just share the link to the video with your students in the same way you would share the video with friends. There is no rule against sharing the content (as long as you’re not charging people for the link), and anything your students do with the content after that would be their responsibility.

Getting Content From the Source

It may be against YouTube’s terms to broadcast YouTube or play it to large groups of people, and it may be against their terms to download content from YouTube, but the restrictions only refer to the platform, not the content itself.

If there is a piece of content that you think would serve your educational purposes, consider contacting the owner of that content directly and asking them about using it. If they are okay with this, you can also ask them if it would be possible to send you the content directly, so you can play the media without using YouTube.

It should be noted that there is no practical way for YouTube to catch you downloading their content in the vast majority of cases, especially if you have the permission of the creator to use that content. But, once again, it is against their terms of service, so you are taking a risk if you do that.

Most YouTubers are already putting their content out for “free” in a sense and should be open to the idea of their content being played in an educational setting, even if they would not be getting views for it.

Create Your Own Content

In much the same way that the above suggestion gets around the various problems with YouTube’s terms, so too does creating your own content. And, in creating your own content, you can ensure that it shows exactly what you want it to show.

You will still be subject to YouTube’s terms about broadcasting and playing YouTube to groups of people, but you will also be in possession of the original files, so you won’t need YouTube. And, as a nice aside, your content could be made publicly available and, eventually, monetised.

Final Thoughts

While YouTube doesn’t make any special concessions for educational use, the restrictions it places on the use of its platform should not pose any significant hurdle to someone looking to use YouTube to educate. Whether you are a teacher looking to use informative content that is already there, or someone looking to create the informative content for others, there are ways to make it all work!

Top 5 Tools To Get You Started on YouTube

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

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

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

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.

3. Rev.com helps people read my videos

You can’t always listen to a video.

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.

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.

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.

Tags edu, education, educational videos, how to youtube education, youtube, youtube education

TIPS & TRICKS YOUTUBE

Can YouTube Premium Be Shared?

Post author By Alan Spicer - YouTube Certified Expert
Post date 29 November 2021

YouTube Premium is a much-welcomed alternative to being bombarded with advertisements—often the same advertisements over and over—when trying to watch your favourite YouTube channels. The premise of YouTube Premium is simple; pay a monthly subscription fee and be freed from the endless shackles of ad interruptions (as well as other perks, but we’ll get to that). But can you share your YouTube Premium subscription?

The quick answer is yes, you can share your YouTube Premium subscription… if you have the right kind of subscription!

YouTube offers a few options for YouTube Premium plans, with “Individual” being the most common—and, for a while, the only—plan used. There is also a “Student” plan, which is essentially the individual plan offered at a discount. Neither of these plans permits “sharing” in any meaningful way, however. They are individual plans that are tied to a single account, and you’ll start getting popup messages if you attempt to view YouTube on more than one device simultaneously using your Premium account.

Sharing Your YouTube Premium Account Unofficially

That last part—using your Premium account—is relevant here. Think about it; sharing YouTube Premium means giving the people you are sharing it with access to your account since Premium is tied to it. Unlike Netflix or Amazon Prime, there are no user profiles, so not only will the people you are sharing with have access to your viewing history and account settings, but the videos they view will also affect your recommendations.

Not everyone is overly guarded about things like their viewing history, but if you are one of the people who like to keep their viewing habits to themselves, you might want to really think about what sharing your account means before diving in.

Another thing to consider is that using your YouTube Premium account in this manner is not what YouTube intended, and YouTube could well decide to take action, such as suspending your account.

Now, realistically speaking, this doesn’t happen often—if at all. Ultimately, YouTube Premium users are a revenue source, and YouTube is more likely to look for ways to lock down the service to prevent these kinds of things from happening than ban paying users. That being said, it will always be a possibility, and you take a risk by assuming YouTube won’t take that step.

Sharing Your YouTube Premium Subscription Properly

So, with all that in mind, how can you share your YouTube Premium subscription in a way that is both easy and approved by YouTube itself? Two words; family plan.

For a few extra pounds a month, you can make your YouTube Premium subscription a family subscription, allowing you to add up to five other users who can benefit from the perks of YouTube Premium, all above board.

This offer isn’t without restrictions, however. Each user must be over the age of 13, and they must be “in your household”, so you’re still going to be flouting YouTube’s rules if you add your friend who lives a few miles away to your family subscription.

The plan works by adding your family member’s YouTube accounts to the plan, so you don’t need to worry about your video recommendations getting muddled up by what the people you are sharing your account with are watching. You can also rest easy knowing they won’t be able to snoop through your viewing history!

The price for this plan works is, at the time of writing, £17.99 per month, a scant £6 more than an individual plan. Of course, when you compare that to the £59.95 it would cost to get five individual plans, it’s a very appealing deal!

Maybe you are worried that using the premium account wll hurt your favourite youtubers? I covered that in a recent blog.

What Other Perks Do You Get With YouTube Premium?

Being able to browse YouTube without fear of your videos being interrupted by repetitive ads is a strong selling point, but it’s not the only one on offer. For your money, you will also get the ability to download videos for watching offline—a useful feature for those times you know you are going to be without a decent (or any) Internet connection for a while.

You also get the ability to play videos in the background on your mobile devices. This is a weird one, as it will either sound completely pointless or an amazing feature to have depending on the person. Obviously, if you are only ever watching YouTube, being able to play videos while not watching them is going to seem like an odd thing to do. However, for those of us that regularly use YouTube for things like podcasts and other content that is primarily audio-based, this feature allows us to set it going and do other things on our device, or even lock the device while getting on with some housework. Trust us, once you’ve gone background play, you never go back!

I love background play so much I learnt how to hack it to play youtube videos in the background for FREE on Android and iOS devices.

And, finally, on the subject of playing YouTube in the background, your Premium subscription will also give you access to YouTube Music Premium. If you’re not familiar with YouTube Music Premium (as many people aren’t), it is essentially YouTube’s alternative to music streaming services like Spotify. Music can also be downloaded to listen to when out of range of a data connection, as well as played in the background for those times when you just want to listen to some tunes while doing other things.

Final Thoughts

The user profiles that services like Netflix offer are undoubtedly useful, but we shouldn’t expect to see anything like that appear on YouTube Premium. YouTube like to keep their users distinct and using their own accounts so that they can do all of the tracking that makes their recommendation algorithm so effective. Not to mention serve you the most relevant ads possible should you ever leave Premium.

Whether YouTube Premium is good value for money is going to be an entirely subjective matter. Some users are perfectly happy to put up with the ads served on YouTube, and for them, £11.99 or £17.99 a month may seem a little steep. For everyone else, Premium can be an invaluable service.

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.

3. Rev.com helps people read my videos

You can’t always listen to a video.

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.

Tags download youtube, Download YouTube Videos, youtube, youtube downloads, youtube family account, youtube premium, youtube premium account, youtube premium sharing, youtube red, youtube student account

SOCIAL MEDIA TIPS & TRICKS YOUTUBE

Can I Use YouTube Videos on TikTok?

Post author By Alan Spicer - YouTube Certified Expert
Post date 28 November 2021

Given the size and reach of TikTok in today’s Internet-centric society, you could be forgiven for thinking the video-sharing platform had been around for much longer than the four years it has. And, like most social media platforms that centre around video-sharing (YouTube, Instagram, Vine, etc) TikTok has made many stars and a lot of money for its more successful users. It makes sense, then, that YouTubers would be looking to expand their brand to this relatively new upstart.

Of course, making content for YouTube is already a lot of work, so adding a new platform to create content for may feel a bit like an overwhelming task. The next logical question is “can I use YouTube videos on TikTok?” Doing allows YouTubers to get a footing on TikTok by leveraging their already significant body of work, exposing them to a new audience in the process.

But, is it allowed? Can you use YouTube videos on TikTok?

Yes, you can use YouTube videos on TikTok. There is no rule on the platform about not uploading content that exists elsewhere online. That being said, it should be your content.

Using Other People’s YouTube Videos

TikTok may not have a specific rule against uploading duplicate content to their platform, but they are subject to the same rules regarding copyright as every other user-generated content platform on the web. This means that they have a mechanism for reporting copyright infringement.

If you upload someone else’s YouTube content without permission, that YouTuber could get your TikTok taken down for copyright violation. Furthermore, while it is highly unlikely in this type of situation, that YouTuber could decide to sue you for damages.

Now, being realistic, the chances of someone going through the hassle and expense of suing you over a TikTok video are very slim. But it could happen, and you have to accept that risk if you decide to use someone else’s content in your TikToks.

Of course, you could ask that YouTube for permission to use the content, removing all of the risks in the process. You could also rely on fair use, but as we’ve talked about both on this blog and on the YouTube channel, fair use is a tricky thing to wield effectively, and can easily backfire on you if you rely on it to avoid ending up in legal trouble.

Using Your Own YouTube Videos on TikTok

Using your own YouTube videos eliminates this risk, of course. As we’ve mentioned, TikTok does not have a rule against uploading content that exists elsewhere on the web, and you own the content you’re uploading. So, unless you plan to put in a copyright complaint against yourself, you should be good to go.

The question then turns from can you do it to how do you do it.

The important thing to remember when cross-posting content across different platforms is that no two platforms are the same, and you need to tailor your posts to suit the platform they are being published on.

This can come in the form of hard limits, such as the length of the video. TikTok videos have an upper limit on the length of 60 seconds. In contrast, unverified YouTube users can upload videos as long as 15 minutes, and verified have no upper limit (though there is a limit on size).

Clearly, then, just uploading your YouTube videos wholesale to TikTok will not be an option in most cases. But beyond the hard limitations, there are other things to consider, such as the fact that TikTok users consume content differently from YouTube users. Or, more accurately, people go to TikTok for a different experience than they expect at YouTube.

TikTok is primarily a light-hearted platform where the content is humorous and entertaining. It is not impossible to succeed with more serious content, but it is less common. If you can make your TikTok video fit that light-hearted mould, you will stand a better chance of success.

You will also need to determine what your goal is. If you are just looking to grow a following on TikTok, you can focus on succeeding on TikTok alone. If you are looking to use TikTok to drive traffic back to your YouTube channel, you will have to find a way to balance your content between being entertaining and engaging enough to draw TikTok users in, while still leaving something for them to want that they will be prepared to head over to YouTube for.

Can You Make Money on TikTok?

An ideal scenario in the world of content creation is one in which you can earn revenue multiple times for the same content. In this case, that would be uploading a YouTube video and earning revenue there, and then uploading that same content (modified as per above) to TikTok and earning more money there.

Well, good news! You can make money directly through TikTok in a very similar fashion to the YouTube Partner Programme. The TikTok creator fund shares a huge pot of money to its top performing content.

The bad news is that the barrier to entry is quite steep. In order to make earn revenue through TikTok, you have to be at least 18 years old, have at least 10,000 followers and have had at least 100,000 video views over the last 30 days. No small feat. Still, if you can reach those levels using your YouTube content, you will be growing your revenue disproportionately to the additional effort you’re putting in.

Final Thoughts

Like other popular video-sharing platforms, TikTok represents an excellent opportunity to expand your brand, drive additional traffic to your YouTube channel, and generally increase your skillsets when it comes to creating content.

The important thing is to remember that every platform is different, and what works on YouTube isn’t guaranteed to work on TikTok (or Instagram or Snapchat, etc). Always try and spend some time on the platform before uploading content to it. Get a feel for what works so that you can apply that to your own TikToks.

Top 5 Tools To Get You Started on YouTube

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Big mistake!

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

3. Rev.com helps people read my videos

You can’t always listen to a video.

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.

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.

Tags content, followers, tik tok, tik tok video, tiktok, tiktok followers, youtube

SOCIAL MEDIA YOUTUBE

Can YouTube Detect VPN?

Post author By Alan Spicer - YouTube Certified Expert
Post date 27 November 2021

VPNs—virtual private networks—are a great way to ensure privacy when using the Internet, as well as gain access to region-restricted content that you would not otherwise have been able to view. When it comes to using a VPN with YouTube, there are many questions arise. Things like “is watching YouTube through VPN allowed?”, and “can I inflate my view count using a VPN?” We’re going to touch on those questions in this post, but first, let’s tackle the title question.

YouTube can certainly detect VPNs, though it is not an immediate process. Detecting VPNs involves the tracking of multiple data points across many users, but it can be done, and it is in YouTube’s best interests to do it.

How VPNs Work

This being a site primarily for YouTubers, we won’t try to explain VPNs in technical detail (nor are we qualified to!) so feel free to search yourself a more detailed explanation, but a base understanding of how VPNs work is necessary in order to understand how YouTube can detect VPNs in the first place.

Essentially, a VPN is an encrypted network within the wider network that is the Internet. The data travelling back and forth in that VPN is only visible to users who are part of the VPN. Think of it as similar to entering the subway, tube, or another underground transport network of your choosing. A person watching you come out of the transport network knows you have exited at that point, but has no way of knowing where you entered.

This allows users to get around things like geographical restrictions on content since their connection is routed through the VPN and emerges at a node that is in a geographical region where the content is available. This can also help users to have a greater degree of anonymity. While you can use things like “incognito mode” in Chrome, there will always be ways in which your online identity can be guessed at—if not outright locked in—because you are still accessing the web from your computer in the same geographical location. VPNs can throw any interested parties a little further off your scent by masking your geographical region.

How YouTube Can Detect VPNs

One of the key points about using a VPN is the IP address you appear to be connecting from. That is, the IP address that YouTube thinks is yours. Many VPNs—especially free ones—use the same IP address for several users. Depending on the popularity of the VPN, there could be thousands of users connecting through the same IP address. For YouTube, this would be a big giveaway, especially if many of those users are logged in.

This can be avoided by using a VPN that will grant you a dedicated IP address, meaning you will always be connecting from the same remote IP address and you will be the only one using it. This isn’t the best option for anonymity, but it’s great for getting around regional content restrictions since YouTube can’t reliably distinguish between your dedicated VPN IP address and a regular IP address.

If you are using a free VPN service—or a paid one that uses shared IP addresses) and YouTube (most likely YouTube TV specifically) is blocking you, you can always try another service in the hope of finding one that YouTube hasn’t cottoned on to yet, but the only way to be relatively sure that YouTube won’t catch you VPNing them is if you get a dedicated IP address.

Why Use A VPN For YouTube?

The main two reasons to use VPNs to view YouTube content are regional restrictions and anonymity. Regional restrictions we’ve covered—some content is made unavailable in certain parts of the world, mostly because of licensing but also sometimes because of political matters. Whatever the reason, using a VPN can allow you to access that content. Whether you see this as an unethical practice will depend entirely on your own worldview. We’re not here to judge.

There is also a version of regional restrictions which is almost the precise reverse of what we have just described. In some parts of the world—such as China, North Korea, Iran, and more—YouTube is blocked by the government. Again, where you stand on the ethics of this is your business, but using a VPN can enabled citizens of countries that block YouTube to get around the censorship.

Anonymity is pretty self-explanatory. Some people value their privacy, or perhaps have a pressing reason why they need to ensure they remain anonymous. In any case, using a VPN will make it considerably harder to identify that person when they are using sites like YouTube… assuming they don’t log in to their account, of course.

Using VPNs To Inflate YouTube Views

If you peruse threads about YouTube and VPNs, you’ll invariably find someone asking about using a VPN to boost their view count. This is a non-starter for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, it is one hundred percent not worth the time it would take to make any meaningful boost to your view count. If you had thousands of people working at it, you may be able to make a meaningful difference, but if you can get thousands of people to do that, why not just get them to watch your video legitimately?

Secondly, even if you fool YouTube regarding your VPN access, the platform still has ways of ensuring that every view is legitimate. If you watch your own video a thousand times, even if you do it through a VPN, YouTube will likely scrub those views from your view count, meaning you’ll have wasted your time.

Final Thoughts

Ultimately, YouTube is only concerned about VPNs when they affect the platform’s ability to generate revenue. Thousands of users coming from the same IP address makes it harder to track individual users, and thus display relevant ads. A dedicated IP address gives YouTube something to track, meaning they can advertise to you even if you are technically anonymous, so they’re not likely to clamp down on that kind of VPN access.

Top 5 Tools To Get You Started on YouTube

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

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

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

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.

3. Rev.com helps people read my videos

You can’t always listen to a video.

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.

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.

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.

Tags nord, nordvpn, privacy, surf shark, video vpn, vpn, vpn video, youtube privacy

YOUTUBE

Can I Use YouTube Videos For Facebook Ads?

Post author By Alan Spicer - YouTube Certified Expert
Post date 26 November 2021

Facebook has proven itself to be a powerful marketing tool over the years, with many people using Facebook—rather than Google or other search engines—to get search for things online and generally consume content. And, of course, with over 2.5 billion monthly users in 2020, the sheer number of eyeballs on the site makes it an invaluable resource for advertisers.

The more instances there are of your content online, the less value each individual instance has. However, when it comes to Facebook ads specifically, just make sure your video doesn’t violate Facebook’s policies regarding ads, make your ad engaging, and you should be fine.

Being a primarily YouTube-centric blog, we’re obviously going to be taking a YouTube angle on this, specifically whether or not you can use YouTube videos for your Facebook ads. On the face of it, this should seem like a no brainer, but, if you’ve read this blog before, you’ll know that there are always little wrinkles to make matters more complicated.

Using YouTube Videos for Facebook Ads

Now, there are a few different ways in which using YouTube videos for Facebook ads can be taken, so let’s cover each separately to avoid any confusion.

Advertising a YouTube Video Link

It’s stretching the definition of “using” a YouTube video, granted, but advertising your YouTube content on Facebook is one way in which you are using YouTube videos for Facebook ads.

The answer to this one is short and sweet; yes you can.

As long as the content of the video does not violate any of Facebook’s advertising guidelines, you can pretty much advertise whatever you like, including YouTube videos. There are question marks over the effectiveness of this strategy, however, but we’ll talk about that in a little more detail below.

Using YouTube Videos In Facebook Ads

There is a bit of mystery surrounding this aspect of YouTube videos as Facebook ads. Technically speaking, using a YouTube video wholesale would count as duplicate content, which Facebook isn’t entirely keen on. Like most platforms, Facebook would rather have content that you can only access on Facebook because it gives users an added incentive to go there.

Now, advertisements would, you would think, be exempt from any kind of duplicate content policy on Facebook, but the truth is we simply don’t know. It could be that Facebook ads that are directly ripped from YouTube have poorer performance, or that they get taken down if they are found out.

In any case, it’s probably worth not putting a YouTube video in your Facebook ads without some kind of modifications to make it unique. Fortunately, there are plenty of ways to do this. For example, many Facebook ads incorporate subtitles baked into the actual video. This allows people who are scrolling through their feed somewhere where it would be inappropriate to play sound to follow along with what is happening in the video.

Another trick you can use is to change the aspect ratio of the video. Most users viewing Facebook are doing so on their phones, and that typically means portrait mode. Cropping your video to suit portrait viewing (assuming it wasn’t already a portrait video) is another way to alter the content so that it is not just an identical copy of your original YouTube video.

Using Other People’s YouTube Content in Facebook Ads

From Facebook’s side of things, the case for using other people’s YouTube videos in your Facebook ads is pretty much the same as using your own. Facebook may look poorly on direct duplicate content, but there’s no explicit rule against it.

Where you might run into problems, however, is with the person whose content you have used without permission.

We’ve talked at length about what you can do with other people’s videos on this very blog, but as a general refresher, you should always assume you need permission from the creator unless they have explicitly said permission is not needed, or they have published their video under a public domain license.

Content creators whose content you use in your ads without their permission will be able to get your ad taken down via a copyright claim, and then your ad won’t be achieving anything! In reality, if you have a relatively small online presence, you probably won’t get noticed by any copyright holders, but the fact that you might not get caught is rarely a good reason to do something you’re not supposed to.

Are Facebook Ads a Good Way to Promote YouTube Videos

Things get a little messy when discussing this topic. Facebook is undoubtedly an excellent way to promote things, however, it has been shown that native Facebook video outperforms links to YouTube videos almost all of the time. Of course, if your ad is a native video of the content you want to promote, why would a viewer click through to YouTube? They can watch the content right there on Facebook.

One of the more effective ways to go about this is to use Facebook as a kind of showreel, much like you would with Instagram or TikTok. Select highlights from your content that are entertaining and stand well on their own and use those for your Facebook ads, with the aim being to drive the viewers to your channel for the “full fat” experience.

Final Thoughts

While this post has been specifically about using YouTube videos for Facebook ads, it is generally a good idea to avoid duplicate content regardless of the context. The more instances there are of your content online, the less value each individual instance has.

This does not mean never re-using content—the highlight reel method we mentioned above is a great way to find new viewers from other platforms—but taking a video you have uploaded to YouTube and putting it out unchanged in other places around the web will always have a diminishing effect on the original video, since viewers will have several places they can view it, reducing the incentive to head to your channel.

When it comes to Facebook ads specifically, just make sure your video doesn’t violate Facebook’s policies regarding ads, make your ad engaging, and you should be fine. If you can do that without using a YouTube video completely unchanged from its original state, all the better!

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.

3. Rev.com helps people read my videos

You can’t always listen to a video.

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.

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.

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.

Tags advertising, content, facebook, facebook ads, facebook video, social media, youtube, youtube facebook videos

SOCIAL MEDIA YOUTUBE

Can YouTube Ban You From Commenting?

Post author By Alan Spicer - YouTube Certified Expert
Post date 25 November 2021

A very common question that gets asked about YouTube is whether or not the platform can ban you from commenting on videos, and it can be a very misleading question for one simple reason; it is YouTube’s platform, they can do what they want. The more appropriate question, then, is does YouTube ban you from commenting on videos? And the answer is a little complicated.

Firstly, YouTube does not seem to be openly banning people from commenting. They may ban people from the platform entirely, but that’s a different matter. Of course, if you are banned from YouTube, you are banned from commenting.

Now, onto the trickier side of the topic.

Censored Comments

YouTube has been caught actively removing comments with specific words in them. This process appears to be automated and does not seem to carry any other penalty with it. That is, nobody seems to be getting banned or even warned about their comments. The comments just… disappear.

Crucially, however, those commenters can go on commenting after YouTube has decided to take one of them down. Not a ban, then. Of course, the phrases that YouTube has targetted here seem to be mostly bot-fodder, so maybe they are banning those accounts but no one is complaining about it because the banned accounts aren’t real.

Blocked Commenters

YouTube may not be banning people from commenting overall, but individual YouTubers can certainly ban you from commenting on their videos. Of course, this only affects you if you try to comment on that specific YouTuber’s content, and saying it affects you is being a bit loose with the term.

In reality, a YouTube block is more what is known of as a “shadowban”. In other words, your comments will be hidden from the YouTube channel and no one else will be able to see them, but you will still be able to make them and will have no way of discerning that you have been blocked other than guessing from the lack of engagement. Well, unless the YouTuber explicitly tells you, that is.

Shadowbanning (also called “muting” on other platforms) is an effective way to stop troublesome commenters because they don’t know they’ve been blocked. In contrast, if YouTube told you that you were banned from commenting on a specific channel, you might go and make a new YouTube account so that you could comment from there instead.

Disabled Comments

The other way in which your commenting abilities may be curtailed is when comments for a particular video are disabled entirely. YouTubers have the option to disable comments when they upload a video, but don’t worry, this isn’t just you. If comments are disabled, it’s affecting everyone the same.

Of course, a video with disabled comments may not be down to the YouTuber not wanting discussion of their content. YouTube will automatically disable comments on videos that are either made for children or prominently feature children. In these cases, the YouTuber will not have a choice about the comments, as YouTube’s terms state that content for children has to be treated in this manner.

I’ve Been Blocked, What Now?

As with any situation like this, the first thing to consider is whether the blocking reflects poorly on you. Sure, some YouTubers are just very easy with the block button, and the fact that you were blocked by them may say more about them than you. That being said, it can’t hurt to take a moment to truly think about how things unfolded. If, on balance, you find that the YouTuber was probably justified in blocking you, it may be something you will want to work on in future.

There are other possibilities, however. For example, you may conclude that the YouTuber was justified in blocking you, but you are still comfortable with the way you handled the situation and do not feel the need to change your behaviour. In this situation, there is little to be done but move on. You do not wish to change and the YouTuber does not wish to engage with you.

You may also conclude that you were being perfectly civil/reasonable and that the YouTuber was entirely out of line in blocking you. Once again, there probably isn’t much to be done. If you are a YouTuber of a similar size and you consider the point of contention important enough, you could perhaps open a dialogue that way, but the chances are you will once again have to put the situation behind you and move one.

One final note in this regard; if you are not sure who the reasonable party was, there is no harm in telling the tale to someone who can be unbiased and getting their opinion. Just remember that you will have to represent events fairly if you want to get a useful answer.

When I Should I Block?

That was all well and good for someone who has being blocked, but what if you’re the one doing the blocking? If you’re a YouTuber who is dealing with a commenter you would rather not be dealing with, when should you hit that block button?

The first thing to consider is whether the commenter is being disruptive or creating a negative experience for other commenters, or if they are just rubbing you the wrong way. It might be that they get on with your other viewers but you don’t like them, in which case we’d suggest leaving them be and just ignoring their comments. If they are making the experience bad for everyone, however, drop the banhammer!

The other thing to consider is what kind of community you want to foster. For example, if you are trying to run a family-friendly channel and a particular commenter repeatedly swears or says unsavoury things, it may be worth asking them to tone it down. If that fails, block.

For channels with large followings, this would obviously be an impractical approach, but if you set these ground rules early on when your channel is small, you will usually find that your community becomes self-policing once you start hitting the kind of numbers that are impossible to manage alone.

Top 5 Tools To Get You Started on YouTube

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

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

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

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.

3. Rev.com helps people read my videos

You can’t always listen to a video.

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.

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.

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.

Tags ban, banned, banned from youtube, block negative comments, comment on youtube, shadow banning, shadowban, shadowbanning, youtube ban, youtube comments

HOW TO MAKE MONEY ONLINE SOCIAL MEDIA YOUTUBE

Can I Use YouTube Videos for Commercial Purposes?

Post author By Alan Spicer - YouTube Certified Expert
Post date 24 November 2021
2 Comments on Can I Use YouTube Videos for Commercial Purposes?

When it comes to using services for commercial reasons—especially free services—there is often a lot of murky language and grey areas to wrap your head around. We’d like to be able to say that YouTube is different, but unfortunately, the waters here are just as muddy as everywhere else.

Let’s start with the simplest answer we can give. Yes, you can use YouTube videos for commercial purposes… sometimes. If you own the content and it conforms to YouTube’s community guidelines, there is nothing to stop you from uploading videos for commercial purposes. However, there is more than one way to use YouTube for commercial purposes, and that’s where things get less clear.

As with many things like copyright and licensing, there is a lot of this topic that falls under the umbrella of “technically no, practically yes”. That is, technically no you’re not allowed to do it, but practically you should be fine.

Don’t worry, we’ll walk through this in more detail, but before we do, please remember that this is a YouTube blog, not a legal one. Nothing here should be taken as legal advice, and you are ultimately responsible for your own decisions.

Uploading Videos for Commercial Purposes

The most straightforward use of YouTube videos for commercial purposes is the uploading of your own content that you have full rights to, and that is in full compliance with YouTube’s terms and guidelines. Examples of this might be uploading a promotional video for an online course, a showreel for your acting portfolio, or a walk-around video of a car you are selling.

In each of these cases, the video is technically being used for commercial purposes, however, it should be noted that complying with YouTube’s terms doesn’t just mean things like not having nudity or hateful language, it also means accepting YouTube’s presentation. Your video will almost certainly be shown alongside ads, and those ads might not always be to your tastes. This can be a real problem when dealing with branding, but that is the agreement you enter when you upload content to YouTube.

Embedding Videos for Commercial Purposes

Embedding videos is where things get a little more complicated, since YouTube’s own terms of service state that you cannot;

“use the Service to distribute unsolicited promotional or commercial content or other unwanted or mass solicitations (spam)”

The problem with this is that YouTube makes no real attempt to draw a line between spam and legitimate distribution, and the use of the word “unsolicited” is very vague. For example, if you embed a YouTube video on your blog, nobody could reasonably call it unsolicited, since people are coming to your blog to read your content, so the solicitation is implied.

But what about a forum post, or a Facebook comment?

The reality is that the vast majority of situations in which you would embed a YouTube video for commercial use will not get you in trouble with YouTube, but it is important to remember that vague language in the terms and conditions, particularly if your YouTube channel is a critical component in your income.

Playing YouTube Videos for Commercial Purposes

YouTube’s terms also state that the service is only for personal, non-commercial use, which rules out things like publicly screening videos. Publicly screening videos could include anything from showing a YouTube video at a speaking engagement to playing one at a party with paid entry.

There is no obvious legitimate path through YouTube’s terms to allow this use of YouTube content, however, there is a way around it. If you own the content, or if you can get permission from the owner of the content, you can cut out the middle man. As long as YouTube are not the rights holders of the content in question, their only issue would be you using YouTube to play the content, but if you’re not using their service, it’s nothing to do with them. That being said, it is against YouTube’s terms to download videos through unofficial means, so you could still be in breach of YouTube’s terms with this method. It is unclear how YouTube could ever effectively enforce this particular term, however.

Of course, this doesn’t mean you would be completely off the hook. If you used someone else’s content without their permission, they could still take issue with it, but that is the case for any use of content that you don’t own the rights to.

Additional Factors

It should also be noted that YouTube does not allow the use of any content on their site that is not a user submission. Again, we straddle the uncomfortable line between technically true and practically false here. Technically it would be against YouTube’s terms of service to include a screenshot of the YouTube website in a video that you are using commercially. Practically speaking, unless you are playing your commercial video during halftime at the Super Bowl, it’s unlikely anything will come of it.

User submissions—that is, videos uploaded by YouTubers—are covered by the usual terms and licenses, but everything else—such as artwork—is completely off-limits. That means not even for non-commercial use.

Summing Up

That being said, you are taking a risk if you go against that “technically”, no matter how unlikely it is. If you decide to do something that breaks the YouTube terms of service, you should be prepared for the possibility that you may be found out, and that YouTube may take action against you.

The only way to be completely safe when using YouTube videos for commercial purposes is to ensure you are the rights holder of the content in question, and that any screenings of the content that are not for personal use should use your own copy of media, not the YouTube platform. Remember, YouTube does not own your content once it is uploaded.

It’s also worth remembering that content you upload can be similarly used by other people. For example, an informative video about how to use your latest product could be hijacked by a competing firm.

It always pays to think through all of the implications.

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.

3. Rev.com helps people read my videos

You can’t always listen to a video.

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.

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.

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.

Tags commercial, copyright, make money online, money, sales, youtube sales

SOCIAL MEDIA YOUTUBE

Does YouTube Count Views From VPN?

Post author By Alan Spicer - YouTube Certified Expert
Post date 24 November 2021

The quest for more views has become something of an art—or perhaps more accurately a science—in recent years, with YouTube experts trying to whittle out any and all means of increasing that number. Of course, the first step to being able to tease out these tips and tricks lies in understanding how everything works.

Does YouTube Count Views From VPN? – YouTube will count views from VPNs but these can sometimes be removed if they do not meet location and account checks. There are many factors that can harm video metrics via VPNs.

In this post, we’re going to be looking at the way YouTube treats views that come through a VPN—or virtual private network. As is often the case, there is no simple yes or no answer to whether Youtube counts views from VPNs; it all depends on the circumstances around the view, such as whether you are logged in to a YouTube account, and the “reputation” of the VPN network in question.

But first, let’s get a little grounding in the subject.

What is a VPN?

In essence, a VPN is a private network that operates across a public one. One way to think of a private network is your home network. If you have more than one device connected to your internet router at home, those devices form a private network that cannot be accessed from outside without credentials. Anything that happens in that network is hidden from the world, just as anything you do in the privacy of your home is hidden from the world.

Every device on a VPN will have some software that can encrypt and decrypt data. Any network traffic from those devices is then encrypted and sent over the public Internet to another device on the VPN which will then decrypt it and read it. Sticking with our house analogy, it would be a little like you and a neighbour building a tunnel between your houses so that you could visit each other without anyone seeing you.

Why Use a VPN?

The next question you might be asking is… what’s the point? Let’s stick with our (admittedly flawed) house analogy for a bit longer. Imagine we extended our network of privacy tunnels to encompass hundreds of houses across a large area. Now let’s say you were out doing a spot of retail therapy and you realised you were being followed by an assassin.

We don’t know why the assassin wants to get you… maybe they don’t like you building all the tunnels. Just go with it.

Now, you could run home, but then the assassin would know where you live. Instead, you run into a random house that is part of your network of tunnels. Now, the only thing the assassin knows for sure is that you went into that house, but they have no way of knowing where you went after that.

Of course, in this analogy, there are very visible tunnels all over the place, and it would be much easier for the assassin to figure out your whereabouts than it would for an online party to follow a user on a VPN.

As far as the assassin goes, granted you probably won’t be getting “chased” online, but you may want to avoid having your online activities tracked by the likes of Facebook and Google. Another reason to use VPNs is to access region-specific content. For example, Netflix presents you with the content library for the region you are in regardless of your nationality, place of residence, or where you signed up for your account from. That means that if you are a UK Netflix user on holiday in America, you’re going to get the US Netflix library.

So no Friends for you.

Using a VPN, you can access Netflix through a node that is in the United States, so as far as Netflix is concerned, that is your geographical location. The assassin watched you go into an American house.

Are VPNs Detectable?

There is nothing obvious about a VPN connection from the outside—there are no visible tunnels like in our analogy—but VPN networks can be outed over time, and their addresses flagged as part of a VPN. This doesn’t necessarily mean YouTube will block those addresses (though VPNs that are used in malicious attacks tend to get blocked), but it will change how they handle users coming from those addresses.

Does YouTube Count Views From VPN?

So, if you view YouTube through a VPN, does YouTube count those views? Firstly, if you are logged in to a valid YouTube account, YouTube won’t particularly care that you are using a VPN. Only a small amount of the data they want to track is related to your location, and with a logged-in account, they can be sure of the rest of that information.

As for anonymous views… we simply don’t know.

What we do know, however, is that if you were thinking of using this method to increase the view count on your video, you would definitely be going against YouTube’s terms of service by “artificially inflating” your view count. Of course, whether they could tie the behaviour to you specifically is a different matter. Another thing to consider is that it would take far more time to make a meaningful impact on your view count this way than it would to just grow your channel organically!

Why View YouTube Through a VPN?

Hopefully, you’re not trying to inflate your view count as mentioned above, but you may do it for other reasons. One example is to view region-specific content. It’s a relatively small number of the total YouTube catalogue, but some videos are locked out in certain regions, and this would be a way to view those. Another reason would be simple to view YouTube without your viewing history being tracked.

Final Thoughts

On balance, YouTube probably does count views coming from VPNs when those views are not suspicious. If the user is behaving like a bot or viewing the same video over and over, that may lead YouTube to decide to discount those views. The most relevant factor, however, is that this would be a terrible and ineffective way to gain views, so it’s probably not worth worrying about whether those views count.

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.

3. Rev.com helps people read my videos

You can’t always listen to a video.

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.

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.

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.

Tags privacy, tracking, views, vpn, youtube, youtube views, youtube vpn, youtube vpns