YouTubers are frequently compared to self-made celebrities—people who have built an audience by creating content aimed at teaching, entertaining, reviewing, and being generally awesome on the internet. Most YouTubers likely do what they do to satisfy a desire to create and share cool things, as well as to gain exposure to a small group of like-minded people. Making money is probably not at the top of your list of motivations for starting your own YouTube channel. However, if you’re willing to think strategically about your content, your YouTube channel could turn out to be quite profitable. In this blog, we will discuss how that can be done.
Don’t you need thousands or millions of subscribers and views to make money?
Fortunately, you don’t! The most important thing to understand is that even small and medium-sized YouTube channels are regularly monetized. To begin earning from YouTube directly, creators must have a minimum of 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 watch hours in the previous year. They can then apply for YouTube’s Partner Program, which enables creators to begin making money from their channels through ads, subscriptions, and channel memberships, once they reach that threshold. Alternatively, if you qualify for the new YouTube Shorts Fund, you could earn some money. Your earning capacity/potential is not solely based on how many viewers and subscribers you have.
It is also determined by the level of engagement you generate, the niche to which you cater, and the alternative revenue channels you explore. That’s not to say your subscriber count and the number of views are unimportant, you can always opt to Buy YouTube Views if you are willing to gain more views in a short period of time. If you want to make money on YouTube, the first step is the same as it is for everyone else: having a clear understanding of your audience.
How do you understand your target audience?
If you don’t already have a YouTube channel, you should probably look up the audience demographics of established channels in the niche you’re targeting first, so you can tailor your content to that type of audience. However, it turns out that comprehensive demographic information for other people’s YouTube channels is not easily accessible. You can certainly get a sense of the keywords and content that resonate with your domain’s audiences. As a result, if you want to find out who might be interested in the type of content you want to create, the best way might be to just start creating some content.
Because, once you’ve published some content, all of the demographic information you need for your own channel can be retrieved from your YouTube analytics. Furthermore, as indicated by the tools mentioned above, you can build this initial content around some popular keywords or topics. Building and being capable of understanding your own audience will put you in a great position to monetize content in a variety of ways. When it comes to monetizing your YouTube content, keep in mind that the more niche your channel is, the easier it will be to work with brands looking to target specific audiences. As a result, when reviewing your YouTube analytics, you should pay special attention to:
- The gender of your viewers, to see if it is skewed towards one group in particular.
- The age group of the majority of your audience.
- The geographical location of your videos’ viewers (countries or cities).
- The “watch-time” or overall engagement of your audience
With this demographic information in hand, you’ll have a better understanding of your own audience and will be able to work more effectively with brands. The number of Likes also plays an important role in gaining more audiences and building an impression. To gain more likes, you can even opt to buy YouTube Likes from SMGains.