You’ve probably spent countless hours watching videos on YouTube, but
have you ever considered switching roles from being a viewer to a
content creator?
It isn’t hard and, as the millions of YouTube partners across the world might attest Google GOOG -0.59%’s video sharing site can even become a source of passive income for you.
Just as blogs have given everyone the power of a printing press, YouTube lets almost anyone become a broadcaster. You don’t need to invest in expensive equipment and you don’t need to rent a professional studio – all you need is a good story to tell. If you’ve got that, the audience will surely find you (YouTube is the world’s second-largest search engine after Google.)
Quite a few people in India have built a sizable audience on YouTube.
For instance, Archana’s Kitchen and Manjula’s Kitchen provide a regular supply of do-it-yourself tutorials around Indian cooking. Shruti Anand and Jaya offer make-up tips for women, while Raghav Pande has his own fitness channel. Teenager Shraddha Sharma even appeared in a couple of TV commercials thanks to her growing popularity on YouTube.
These people are experts in their domain and YouTube has provided them with an instant platform to share their creativity and expertise with the world.
Getting started is easy. If you have a Google account, you are all set to upload videos to YouTube. When you are signed-in, just hit the Upload button on the YouTube website to load your first clip. YouTube also provides a unique email address to help you upload videos directly from a mobile phone.
Next step: the YouTube website hosts millions of videos, so how do you make yours stand out? Here are some basic rules to follow:
The majority of Internet users have short attention spans and, unless you are producing something extremely entertaining or engaging, around 85% of the audience will leave 20 seconds into the video. So, keep your videos short (three to four minutes in length) and don’t try to cover too many ideas in a single clip. Split your ideas into a series and then use playlists or the annotations feature on YouTube to stitch these pieces together.
The audio component of your recording is sometimes more important than the video itself. YouTube users might ignore a shaking camera or dim lights, but if your video has bad audio, the “dislike” button will get all the attention. Make sure the air-conditioner or the fan in the room is switched off while you are recording any narration. Sometimes it may be a better idea to replace the noisy audio with background music. You can find tons of licensed music tracks inside YouTube’s Audio Swap library.
Uploading a video to YouTube is only half the battle. You still need people to discover your videos in search results. The way you do this is by adding relevant meta data to your videos at the time of publishing. Give your videos a proper title and description, add a captions file (the TED Talks channel on YouTube is a good example here) and organize them in relevant playlists to improve discoverability.
The next step is monetization. You can apply to be a YouTube Partner (make sure you first have uploaded a few original videos to your channel and none of them have any copyright issues.) Once you are accepted, YouTube will pay you a share of revenue for every ad impression delivered in your videos. The ad revenue is often proportional to the number of eyeballs on your videos, but it may also vary based on the theme of your videos.
All that said, keep your initial expectations low – YouTube’s partner program won’t make you rich overnight. But if you consistently deliver engaging videos, the recurring revenue may grow enough to pay your utility bills.
Amit Agarwal writes a tech blog and is also on Twitter, YouTube and Facebook
You can follow India Real Time on Twitter @indiarealtime.
It isn’t hard and, as the millions of YouTube partners across the world might attest Google GOOG -0.59%’s video sharing site can even become a source of passive income for you.
Just as blogs have given everyone the power of a printing press, YouTube lets almost anyone become a broadcaster. You don’t need to invest in expensive equipment and you don’t need to rent a professional studio – all you need is a good story to tell. If you’ve got that, the audience will surely find you (YouTube is the world’s second-largest search engine after Google.)
Quite a few people in India have built a sizable audience on YouTube.
For instance, Archana’s Kitchen and Manjula’s Kitchen provide a regular supply of do-it-yourself tutorials around Indian cooking. Shruti Anand and Jaya offer make-up tips for women, while Raghav Pande has his own fitness channel. Teenager Shraddha Sharma even appeared in a couple of TV commercials thanks to her growing popularity on YouTube.
These people are experts in their domain and YouTube has provided them with an instant platform to share their creativity and expertise with the world.
Getting started is easy. If you have a Google account, you are all set to upload videos to YouTube. When you are signed-in, just hit the Upload button on the YouTube website to load your first clip. YouTube also provides a unique email address to help you upload videos directly from a mobile phone.
Next step: the YouTube website hosts millions of videos, so how do you make yours stand out? Here are some basic rules to follow:
The majority of Internet users have short attention spans and, unless you are producing something extremely entertaining or engaging, around 85% of the audience will leave 20 seconds into the video. So, keep your videos short (three to four minutes in length) and don’t try to cover too many ideas in a single clip. Split your ideas into a series and then use playlists or the annotations feature on YouTube to stitch these pieces together.
The audio component of your recording is sometimes more important than the video itself. YouTube users might ignore a shaking camera or dim lights, but if your video has bad audio, the “dislike” button will get all the attention. Make sure the air-conditioner or the fan in the room is switched off while you are recording any narration. Sometimes it may be a better idea to replace the noisy audio with background music. You can find tons of licensed music tracks inside YouTube’s Audio Swap library.
Uploading a video to YouTube is only half the battle. You still need people to discover your videos in search results. The way you do this is by adding relevant meta data to your videos at the time of publishing. Give your videos a proper title and description, add a captions file (the TED Talks channel on YouTube is a good example here) and organize them in relevant playlists to improve discoverability.
The next step is monetization. You can apply to be a YouTube Partner (make sure you first have uploaded a few original videos to your channel and none of them have any copyright issues.) Once you are accepted, YouTube will pay you a share of revenue for every ad impression delivered in your videos. The ad revenue is often proportional to the number of eyeballs on your videos, but it may also vary based on the theme of your videos.
All that said, keep your initial expectations low – YouTube’s partner program won’t make you rich overnight. But if you consistently deliver engaging videos, the recurring revenue may grow enough to pay your utility bills.
You can follow India Real Time on Twitter @indiarealtime.
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