Making money on YouTube – turning a hobby into a job

The job de­scrip­tion of a YouTuber sounds too good to be true: film yourself doing something fun or dis­cuss­ing something in­ter­est­ing and when it’s done, upload the video onto your personal YouTube channel and wait for the money to start rolling in. Of course, in reality it’s not quite this simple - requiring hard work, con­sid­er­able hours, a good deal of luck, and talent in front of and behind the camera too. Very few YouTubers are able to finance their living expenses through their YouTube channel. However, for those in­ter­ested in earning ad­di­tion­al income, YouTube offers in­ter­est­ing pos­sib­il­it­ies. Provided you have sound ideas and a well thought-out concept, earning money on YouTube is entirely plausible.

YouTube is the world’s largest video-sharing website. As a result, the platform is es­pe­cially in­ter­est­ing for companies looking for ad­vert­ising space. Using popular YouTube channels, firms can the­or­et­ic­ally reach numerous potential customers. This is where YouTubers come in: by re­gis­ter­ing for the YouTube Partner Program, they can connect their account to Google AdSense. This monetises uploaded videos, allowing companies to pay to advertise in the video field.

Should clips contain protected material not produced by the YouTuber, written per­mis­sion should be sought from the rights holder(s) in order to use the material for com­mer­cial purposes. The following content is con­sidered protected material:

• Song titles or excerpts (no shared revenue)
• Music in general (including covers, song lyrics, and back­ground music)
• Photos and other images or graphics
• Film and tele­vi­sion images
• Images from video games or other software
• Live re­cord­ings (concerts, sporting events, shows, etc.)

The amount of money you can earn on YouTube depends on several factors. Among other things, it is relative to which ad­vert­ising format you are using. For example, embedding a com­mer­cial video is more lucrative than featuring a banner or a classic text advert. To feature com­mer­cial video ad­vert­ising, clips have to achieve high coverage and generate many clicks. The clip owner receives 55% of the AdSense income generated by the com­mer­cial, while the remaining 45% goes into the pockets of YouTube. Ad­vert­isers don’t have to pay for com­mer­cials which are cancelled inside the first thirty seconds, since they are unlikely to gain anything from this.

Co­oper­a­tion and mer­chand­ising

The YouTube Partner Program and Google AdSense aren’t the only options for making money on YouTube. It is also possible to charge a fee to subscribe to your YouTube channel, or add rental and/or purchase offers for par­tic­u­lar videos. Users will get a 14-day free trial, after which the charge is made. Users who un­sub­scribe during this 14-day window are not charged. The more suc­cess­ful a channel is, the more chance it has of at­tract­ing paid product place­ments. Simply put, this means that a third-party supplier will pay a YouTuber to present or speak pos­it­ively about their par­tic­u­lar brand or product in a YouTube video or video de­scrip­tion. Ad­di­tion­ally, an ad­vert­iser may reserve the right to embed a logo or brand trademark into a video, or pay a YouTuber to upload external, pro­mo­tion­al content to their channel. Should you enter into a co­oper­a­tion like this and promote external products on your channel, you mustn’t forget to inform YouTube by selecting the ap­pro­pri­ate check box in the par­tic­u­lar video’s advanced settings.

When you’ve reached a certain number of sub­scribers, selling mer­chand­ise can prove prof­it­able. A small shop with a selection of T-shirts, sweaters, or hats em­blazoned with your channel logo, brand, personal slogan, or catch­phrase can be a good source of secondary income. Over time, this mer­chand­ise can generate new viewers or followers. For many YouTube stars, spon­sor­ing and mer­chand­ising is half their income.

What you earn for each post depends, of course, on the number of followers and YouTube sub­scribers. However, if you con­tinu­ously expand your number of followers, you have a good chance of earning some extra income sooner or later. Five of the world’s most popular YouTube channels:

Boyband One Direction and singer Rihanna command two of the world’s most popular YouTube channels. They are closely followed by other musicians like Justin Bieber, Eminem, Taylor Swift, and Katy Perry. The comedy duo Smosh started out in 2005 with the syn­chron­iz­a­tion of well-known theme music, and now have a second channel as well as specific cartoon and gaming channels on YouTube. Chilean YouTuber HolaSoy­Ger­man makes light of everyday problems in over 100 video uploads, though the vast majority are not in English. Felix Kjellberg, better known as simply PewDiePie on YouTube, has the most sub­scribers in the world. He has published thousands of videos since setting up a channel in 2010. Most of these are videos known as Let’s Plays (LP), in which the YouTuber plays and comments on a video game.

The estimated income of these YouTube stars is more than tempting. With the exception of famous people like Rihanna or One Direction who made their name before setting up a channel, the majority of stars in the scene went through a very typical de­vel­op­ment process. Most would have never believed that they would one day make money from YouTube. Although it’s im­possible to plan such success, there are certain tips available to help you dive into the YouTube world and turn your channel into a suc­cess­ful secondary source of income with the YouTube Partner Program and Google AdSense.

A perfect idea

Before you start filming, you should consider the concept of your channel. Be aware that the YouTube world hasn’t been waiting for you; it’s up to you to convince users to watch your videos. The number of YouTubers is growing rapidly, while the per­cent­age who run a prof­it­able channel will continue to sink.

In order to out­man­euver the com­pet­i­tion, you will require topics and formats which strike a chord with users and are not already covered by larger channels. The more in­nov­at­ive and sought-after your idea is, the higher the chances of the audience paying attention. When brain­storm­ing ideas, consider things that you enjoy, things you can do well, or fields you are very know­ledge­able in. If you are en­thu­si­ast­ic about your videos, it will reflect onto your viewers.

Quality content wins

The quality and editing of your content is just as important as the format and themes. It’s unlikely you’ll be 100% satisfied with the results at first, but this should give you the incentive to make the next clip better. The cut, length, lighting, effects, and links on your channel and videos are important factors which can pos­it­ively influence the per­cep­tion of your clips. Using relevant, heavy traffic keywords and an in­form­at­ive de­scrip­tion will ensure that your clips will be found by users. In addition to op­tim­ising your content, it’s re­com­men­ded to develop an upload strategy. Having regular clips to publish will increase your reach and help keep users who have already sub­scribed to your channel. If possible, try to ensure enough material to be able to present a new video on one or two fixed days per week. A good long-term strategy is to start a video blog, which you can use to com­mu­nic­ate with followers more directly, by thanking them for sub­scrib­ing to your channel or re­spond­ing to their comments.

Turning a YouTube channel into a suc­cess­ful, prof­it­able tool for the Partner Program and the af­fil­i­ated ad­vert­ising op­por­tun­it­ies is no walk in the park. Growing a following can be a tedious affair that doesn’t happen overnight, while existing sub­scribers require new content regularly to maintain interest. Needless to say, it takes time to produce content that is con­tinu­ally in­nov­at­ive and exciting but also well filmed and edited.

However, if you start with small goals and possess the right per­sever­ance for the task, YouTube can provide a good source of income via ad­vert­ising in the long term. It’s important not to focus on the channels of su­per­stars like PewDiePie or Smosh, but rather con­cen­trate on working with a small network. Any YouTube channel that maintains con­sist­ent, quality content and un­der­stands its target audience will auto­mat­ic­ally become a relevant ad­vert­ising partner for companies.