Digital Life
You may have heard that some people are making a living from posting videos on Youtube. You may even have heard of them becoming Youtube millionaires.
Can this really be possible? It can but, as so often in the digital world, all is not quite as it seems.
Youtube (owned by Google) allows anyone to upload videos they have created, making them visible to all. Even the BBC places videos there. Over one billion hours of Youtube videos are watched every day, and over 400 hours of new video is being uploaded every minute – yes, every minute.
Youtube charges you nothing to upload a video because, like most of Google’s businesses, it makes money by selling highly targeted advertising. Their computers can mix together what they know about you and your viewing habits to place just the right sort of adverts in front of you.
Advertisers, very reasonably, will pay well for this, because it works. It is likely that spending on digital advertising (not just Youtube) will exceed all other advertising spending in 2019.
This success has encouraged people to publish videos that are designed only to attract advertisers. They are often aimed at niche audiences: beekeepers, mechanics, beermat collectors, clock menders, musicians or grandparents … it could be anything. The aim is to build up a cohort of regular viewers; once there are enough, Youtube may start placing adverts with your videos and sharing the income with you.
Perhaps you would like to try? You can, but it’s a hard road.
First you will need at least 1,000 ‘subscribers’ – that is, people who have clicked a link to suggest they will probably watch you from time to time. Achieve that, and Youtube will start placing adverts if it thinks your videos are worthy enough. Fewer than half of the videos posted on Youtube pass that test. However good your videos are, if they attract only the sort of viewers who don’t respond to adverts, Youtube isn’t interested. You can understand why.
However, if they do pick you, you will be paid something for each view. You won’t know how much until you are paid; it is determined by what Youtube finds it can charge for adverts on your videos. The figures are a closely guarded secret; one recent independent study suggested that an income of about 75p for 1,000 qualifying views is a fair estimate – but it’s only a guess.
Clearly, you will need a great many views of the right kind to bring in any sort of decent income. If that 75p figure is right (a big ‘if’), then about 500,000 fresh views each week might bring in an income equal to 40 hours’ work on the minimum wage.
That sounds like an awful lot of views to me; the professionally produced Chelsea Flower Show Highlights video had only 36,000 views in the three weeks after it was published.
Some manage it very effectively. Toys and Little Gaby is a Youtube channel that gives the impression of being cobbled together at home by five-yearold Gaby and her mother, playing games and larking about, but it is a very professional operation. The little videos routinely generate four million views each and are probably earning Gaby thousands of pounds each day.
And don’t forget, the money paid to the video-makers is after Youtube has taken its own cut – usually 45%. It’s Youtube that is making the real money here.
My own efforts are not as successful. In 2008, I published what I thought was a charming video of my dog on the beach. It’s still there but, in 11 years, has garnered only 351 views. I think I’ll leave it to Gaby.