Save yourself a lot of time, and ditch my eBook about how to get popular on YouTube. There’s one common denominator to getting regular YouTube views and subscribers. It’s a secret possessed by the regular names we see on YouTube’s most-popular videos of the day. People who retain wildly enthusiastic fans who watch, rate, favorite and forward videos. I once did it (more for my own discipline) and didn’t realize how vital it is.
Frequency. Routine. Post daily. Like you brush your teeth, exercise or poop.
It’s a simple thing, really. When my tagline was “Nalts makes a video everytime you poop,” each of my new videos was seen at least 40-50,000 times. Now I’m intermittent and people simply forget to look.
Sure you could argue that there are other factors. Not everyone that posts daily has views, and not everyone that gets loads of views posts daily. But it’s the single biggest common denominator, and therefore I proclaim it a “best practice.”
Take a look at the people that dominate the “most highly rated,” and tell me something they else have in common besides mostly vlogging and not sketch. They are (in no particular order): Shaytards (aka Shaytard), CTFxC (CharlesTrippy), SxePhil (Phillip DeFranco), WhatTheBuckShow (Michael Buckley), KassemG, Livealivalive, ShaneDawsonTV (and various other channels), CommunityChannel, FailBlog, MichelleFan, and a few more. I’m not hyperlinking their name, because you can find them all here sooner or later (most popular videos of the week on YouTube). There are videos that get more views, but these are the individuals that command a vivid audience.
It makes sense. It’s still a social media, and you can’t be very social if you’re out of mind. I don’t mean to marginalize the talent here. These are gifted people, and it’s not fair to write off their success to frequency. But I hold, as exhibit A, the fact that some of these people had more “packaged” content channels, and their daily vlog channels eclipsed their initial presence.
One exception among them: JimmyKimmelLive. Only 60K subscribers, but lots of recent views. Maybe one day Kimmel will grow up to be a YouTube star.
All the YouTubers are cruising with these. Let’s not let them be the only ones, dangit.
Editorial Update…. here’s a newer post on how much YouTube partners make. Since this post gets so many daily views via search engines, let me answer your question simply. It’s a fraction of a fraction of a penny per view. It’s not enough to cover the mortgage for most, and it’s certainly not yet the reported $2.50 per 1,000 views. It’s often far less, and varies greatly on whether the views have InVideo ads (YouTube charges $25 per thousand and shares that with creators) or the flat square ads (cost far less for advertisers, and doesn’t pay creators). Although I can’t reveal my income, I can tell you it’s highly influenced by my top 5-10 videos, which get millions of views per month (as opposed to the new ones). That said, if you get millions and millions of views per month and live cheap, you could quit your job and buy my dang book, “Beyond Viral.”
Beyond Viral: Tips on Marketing You & Company on YouTube
YouTube’s Fred was rumored to be making seven-figures, but Google clarified that as six figures. But if you take his 350,000,000 views and multiply it by a conservative $1 per 1,000 views…. you’re talking $350,000.00. I’m making more on YouTube than I made in my first job out of school, but with four kids and a lot of debt, it’s not enough for me to pull a Sxephil, Shaycarl, or Michael Buckley and rely on it as a primary income source.
Oh how’s THAT for a blog title, when you’ve signed a confidentiality document that precludes you from talking about your revenue as a YouTube partner?! Don’t worry, YouTube. I’m not breaking rank. But I’m very interested in what people THINK partners are making.
Before YouTube, I’ve always been transparent about my revenue related to online video. I feel that’s part of my role on this blog… to give creators a realistic sense of what they can make in online video (beyond food). Alas, YouTube prohibits it for reasons that aren’t quite clear to me — are there tiers? If compensation varies, then I can be sure I’m at the bottom based on my complete lack of negotiation skills.
I do believe that some prominent YouTube partners are beginning to earn what amounts to a full-time job through the site. But I also understand that some of the early Partner contracts are up for renewal about now.
Could some be overstating their earnings? Yes. But some partners are doing $10K a month, especially those that already had an audience and moved them to YouTube. And some creators get millions of views consistently.
When some say they’ve quit their day jobs, is that because their costs are so low that even a couple grand a month can sustain them? Maybe.
Could the earnings be based on a point of time where, say, they had a video featured that was monetized? Sure.
While there’s no question that many could still earn more money per hour doing something else (like consulting or bartending), I am happier with my income from YouTube than what I was making from YouTube before I became a partner (zero). And while I’m not sure whether the per-view profit is as strong as Revver’s and Metacafe’s (I don’t even have access to any such metrics), I’m not getting any significant views on those sites anymore. So YouTube is far outperforming them.
My advice remains: if you’re looking to get rich, create a bunch of mortgage blogs and sell adsense. Or go into financial services or recruiting like the former co-worker that just called me to “network.”
But if you love video and the community around it, then it’s nice to get an income subsidy that helps you justify the time commitment to yourself, wife and family. I remain optimistic that more of the top creators of YouTube will be able to quit their day jobs, but that’s partially because amateurs will slowly get trumped by the semi pros (whose day job is performing or video creation). It’s already happening. While the amateur vloggers are holding top positions, we’re seeing more semi-professional content done by comedy troups, bands or known offline celebrities.
Now here’s the purpose of my post. I’m curious what people THINK partners make. I can tell from a lot of comments that people WAY over estimate what creators make: “You get paid for this shit?” “You’re asking us for ideas? You’re the one who gets paid.” I can’t participate in this thread, but it will be fun to watch.
And if you’re not a Partner yet, don’t let it upset you unless you have hundreds of thousands of monthly views. Grow the audience and reapply later. Even if YT did make you a partner, it’s not worth it unless you have some views. Take it from a guy that tried Google ads on his blog for a while, and quickly realized that it wasn’t worth the cosmetic interference.
Based on this Google News Archive, one might say it “jumped the shark” September last year, so it’s probably best that we bury the body before it begins to smell.
I’m always the last guy to realize someone got laid off. Or someone took a new job. Or the company I worked for shut down 6 months ago, which explains the lack of paycheck and the movers trying to box my computer.
This reminds me a little of a video spoof I did about online video called Chapter11TV (someone has since squatted the domain name, which used to host a fake site).
The major lesson? Know what you want to be when you grow up. TDR, to me, started as an Entertainment Weekly of online video. Then it started hosting video podcasts, which I thought was complementary. What confused me is when the site invited creators to post their own videos (as opposed to using Revver or another provider). Eventually it was trying to become a community for online video enthusiasts, which gave it an identity crisis and made it, to a degree, competition with some of the sites it was covering. Its final act was facilitating a conference in October.
There were some smart folks involved, so I’m guessing the demise was a result of investor impatience and desperation. Sorry for the folks that set up Reeled In accounts at my urging. Want to do a pool for how long before the site has a 404?
