Ways to make money out of YouTube

Video is the new content style, we are all running out of attention spans and focus levels. Videos keep two of our five senses occupied and need lesser time to get the point across. YouTube has catered to our changing kind just right. Right from learning how to make a simple dish to understanding international politics, watching the iconic scenes from classic movies to simple advice with regards to teenage relationships. YouTube is the answer.

Videos are not only about shooting and viewing, but the money in there is a huge. It is possible to have a YouTube channel and actually make a lot of money out of it. Here is how:

• Be organised from the start

If you have an existing Google ID, like a gmail one then you can just use that to sign in to Youtube. But we’d advise you to maybe create a new one, which will be for professional purposes as well, so it doesn’t get mixed up with your everyday Ola and Twitter promoting mails. Try and make it short and snappy, for you and your viewers to remember easily. (You could just be getting some fan mail…)

• Be careful with the name of the channel

No pressure, but this pretty much determines everything. Well, most of it anyway. Be sure to make a relevant, catchy name for your Youtube Channel, a three-four word liner that sums up and most importantly, represents everything you want to show. That makes it more credible, than calling it something like ‘Joe Andrew’s channel’. You don’t want people to forget the name of your channel, you want them to keep clicking on it instead. You are assisted by the fact that you can add relevant keywords in your settings in the Advance section. Also, you can add a catchy colourful image to go with your channel, which will be featured at the top of your page.

• CONTENT IS KING

It’s time to paint the canvas. The Internet world is truly yours for the taking, so be sure to make your content stand out. We’d strongly advise you to use high quality original content, which does not contain anything ‘adult’, ‘violent’ and ‘hateful’ and ‘copyrighted’. Challenging these set rules by Youtube, will subject you to losing your partnership with it. So, play it safe boys and girls

• Define your videos

Since most content is often subjective, we would advise you to give a strong title and description to whatever you upload, to get the clear-cut point of the video across to your viewers. So we implore you, do not play Guess-Master with them!

• Keep up with the Uploads, don’t slack

Not too many people become ground-breaking Youtube sensations on one good video. You need to keep up the quality of the content you are uploading, so that people are offered a variety of your work to choose best from. That’s what will get the views, that’s what will get the likes and the subscriptions.

• Like, subscribe and share

Sound familiar? That’s right, the mantra to increasing viewership is to posting it on all the Social Media pages- Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Snapchat– fill these up with your work. Make your friends and family share it and recommend it more people. That’s how anything goes viral in this digital age, so pick your audience wisely. You can also embed it in different websites and blogs. Just make sure it’s out there and it’s doing the rounds.

• M for Monetization

If you’re looking to make money out of your Youtube channel, the next step calls for ‘monetization’ of your channel. This feature allows Youtube to display ads in or on your video and you acknowledge that your video has no unmentioned copyright issues. This can be activated, by going to the ‘channel setting tab’ and clicking on the option of ‘Monetize with Ads’. And if you put out good content, then Youtube will send you a private message offering you the chance to “Apply for revenue sharing for You Video”. So remember, make haste while the sun shines!

• AdSense is what you need

The next step is to set up a Google AdSense account and link it to your Youtube account. This is the most important step, as it allows you to collect your revenue. How it works, is that Youtube will pay for per ad click and per view. This works well for you when your video gets more and more views, because this leads to more potential of ad clicks and this further leads to more revenue. Although AdSense can be downloaded for free, the revenue can only be received if you have a bank or PayPal account and a valid, physical mailing address.

• Promote, gain traffic and analyse

The final step to making money out of your Youtube Channel, involves promoting your channel on all the social media platforms, gaining more viewership and traffic through ads and shares to your channel and the final step, which includes checking out your video analytics to see the number of views, ad performance, minutes watched, age-group of people who’ve watched it etc. so that you know if your content is reaching your target audience and further, if you need to change anything.

But at the end of the day, content is king and you need to have some really good videos for the people to watch and love.