Tuesday, 8 May 2012

GUEST ARTICLE - How to Buy Your First House... on YouTube Revenue


My generation (those born circa 1989 – 1991) is often referred to as the ‘technology generation’; we were growing up just as the internet, email and mobile phones were becoming mass-market commodities (although they were growing in use since the mid-80’s); and I still remember playing on my first family Windows ’98 PC.  Perhaps as a result of this, there appears to be a relatively large and ever-growing collection of Youtube video bloggers or ‘vloggers’ in the UK, with some of the most popular (receiving the most page hits) aged about the same as myself, in their late teens and early twenties.  

If you search for the most subscribed Youtubers in the UK, you should very quickly reach one Charlie McDonnell  from Bath (http://www.youtube.com/charlieissocoollike -2nd most subscribed in the UK and 35th in the world as of May 2012  according to http://vidstatsx.com/v/charlieissocoollike), but now living in/near London with a follower vlogger and friend Alex Day, – http:///www.youtube.com/nerimon. Charlie, as of today, currently has 1, 501, 563 subscribers. In other words, 1.5 million people like watching his videos enough to be notified every time he makes a new one. That’s kind of a big deal.
Because Charlie is a relatively big deal in Youtube land, he is essentially a ‘Youtube Partner’, which means that he can receive some profits from the adverts placed around the page when
someone watches his videos.


In his own words: ‘so there was this one time when I made a video about tea and now Youtube is my job or something’. It should be mentioned however, that this is not his entire income. He has also been part of two different bands: Chameleon Circuit (a Doctor Who inspired band that led the way for a new genre of ‘Trock’ – time lord rock) and Sons of Admirals. He has also released solo albums through the independent record label DFTBA (Don’t Forget To Be Awesome) records. His housemate, friend and fellow Youtuber Alex Day has also had chart hits – most recently he reached number 4 in the UK charts competing for the 2011 Christmas number one with ‘Forever Yours’, and his most recent single ‘Lady Godiva’ charted at number 15 within its first week of release. Aged 21 and 23 respectively, they have declared themselves as their own private companies and have to do taxes (21 and doing taxes?!). And this year, they pulled their profits together to take out a joint mortgage on a house near London. Both have made this money entirely off their own backs, and been incredibly successful in doing something they both enjoy – something I’m admittedly a little envious of.

Although not a Youtuber myself, this inspired me to think of a list of how get started on the site, based on advice distributed by the vloggers I subscribe to myself.
1.       It may be cliché, but be yourself. Viewers tend to respond more if they can tell the person in front of them is genuine.
2.       Find your style. Charlie imagines that he’s filming his videos for one person; others refer to their audience as a ‘collective’ and pitch their videos as if they were being viewed by many at once.
3.       Invest in a decent-ish camera. It doesn’t have to cost thousands - but you want a relatively good quality picture.
4.       Learn some basic editing skills – most producers use jump-cuts to narrate their videos to make sure all the ‘ermmm’s and ‘umms’ are cut out. This makes for better continuity.
5.       Get networking. Chat to other vloggers. Get yourself a twitter page and interact with your viewers. Build up a brand identity, without getting too big-headed about it. Don’t spam people’s Facebook walls, but put yourself out there.
6.       Get involved in the community, Youtube often have gatherings, they also have conventions     such as ‘Vidcon’ (http://www.vidcon.com) which showcase all the big names in video-blogging.

Finally, here’s a list of some of my favourite UK vloggers to check out at your leisure:
http://www.youtube.com/charlieissocoollike - Charlie McDonnell (vlogger/musician)
http://www.youtube.com/nerimon - Alex Day (vlogger/musician)
http://www.youtube.com/khyan1 - Khyan (comedian)
http://www.youtube.com/danisnotonfire - Dan Howell (vlogger/comedian)
http://www.youtube.com/beautycrush - Sammi (Beauty/Fashion Guru)
http://www.youtube.com/brettdomino - The Brett Domino Trio (novelty musician)
http://www.youtube.com/simonscat - Web comic series...about a cat.

Stay classy.

Holly Pickering

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