To be or not to be an influencer on YouTube? Earning on YouTube

Some respectful sources tell that you can have thousands of views on YouTube, but still be poor or that it is almost impossible to earn on YouTube nowadays, But take a look at these figures: according to Statista, the annual earning of one YouTube channel creator in 2017 amounted up to 16,5 million U.S. $. Impressive, isn’t it? But at the same time, some creators of channels with several thousands subscribers can fail to earn a cent. We can see that both sides are true, but it is you who decides whether you want to make money or just get views. So whose side are you on?

Who are those magical persons which people adore so much? Influencers are usually experts on some topic and they can actually make others do something — they have influence on the audience. The influences have the huge power of word and they know how to use it for the sake of good (mostly). They usually use widespread online platforms like Instagram, Facebook, YouTube or Twitter as it is much more convenient for the audience to consume information there and thus influencers get more subscribers/views/readers. Today we will talk only about the global online platform YouTube and how to be an influencer there.

Principles of being an influencer

First of all, you need a business channel on YouTube to share your videos and to be able to communicate with your audience. If you don’t have one yet, check our previous article “How to create a business channel on YouTube” to see the full instruction on how to create it and how to attract viewers to it. Then you need to know some basic principles that influencers should follow.

      We don’t want to scare you, but being a real influencer is not that easy. In the video it may look like awesome careless life with money, friends, lots of traveling but the real thing stays behind the scene — that is where the real work is done.

      Content rules. That is the first and most important thing. Create value for your viewers. The best success of your influencing will be if you actually inspire your subscribers to do something — to lose weight, to learn a new language, to travel to the other side of the world, to write a book or whatever you advise them to do. Encourage them to take actions and support them on their way to towards their goals. This encouragement should be in your content, you can give pieces of advice, lifehacks, tutorials and more useful information to your viewers in your videos. And they will be thankful for that.

      Believe in your content and be passionate about it. If you share information just to share, it will be probably very boring to listen to you. You must be the hugest fan of what you are talking about. Tell some secrets, insights or breaking news in this field, discuss the news with your followers, ask their opinion. That is also why we recommend creating a channel in accordance with your interests or hobby.

      You can’t be an influencer in any field if you are not an expert in it: if you talk about gadgets, you should know which characteristics a good gadget should have; if you talk about sport — it’d be cool to have a certificate of fitness coach or something like that. The same thing goes for any other topic as if you lie and provide false information, your subscribers will unfollow you and you’ll fail. So keep studying and developing your knowledge on that topic, read books, watch different videos, adopt practices of other experts and keep going.

      Be a friend to your viewers. Add some emotions to your videos and interact with the audience. Ask their opinion on some topic or even offer them to choose what they want you to talk about in the next video. Don’t worry, it won’t look like you have run out of ideas, but your viewers will feel that you respect their opinion and that you make the content according to what they need. It will look like you are a nice friend of them who will always be ready to help and give them a good piece of advice.

      Build a community around your brand and work on your relationship with your subscribers. Be attentive to your audience and to what they ask for. They will watch all your videos, try to interact with you, listen to your opinion and thus you will get a strong community surrounding your channel who will support you and even promote. When viewers like a channel, they spread the word about it.

      One of the most important things – don’t chase after the number of subscribers/viewers. Remember the rule — quality over quantity. Many different kinds of research show that huge numbers of subscribers don’t define a successful channel. Engagement is important, not the number of views. If you have many viewers/subscribers but just a few of them reacts to your video, it is a warning that something is going wrong. Don’t try to get the more and more subscribers, it may look good, but if they don’t act anyhow, it will just confuse your statistics and will kill your expectations when you try to earn through affiliate marketing.

      Collaborate with other influencers. You shouldn’t worry that this cooperation can attract your viewers to the other influencer and they will stop watching your videos. People like to consume as much as possible information if they like it. So if they subscribe to other creators it doesn’t mean that they will leave you. For instance, if a person wants to lose some weight and start eating healthy, one will subscribe to several channels to gain more knowledge.

      Consider what types of content work for your audience and make your videos accordingly. They like reviews of goods – add more reviews, they like interviews – invite more guests.

      The last but not the least tip is don’t be afraid to start. If you realize which value you can give to the viewers — just do it, no excuses, no delays, only actions! You have to overcome those first fears and doubts because as soon as it is done, you will feel relaxed and satisfied. And uploading every new video teaches you, you improve your skills by uploading more and more videos and that is when you start loving the process.

If you follow all above-mentioned principles, you’ll get one of the most important influencers achievements — the trust of your viewers. And all your viewers are the consumers of some goods. You can use it to earn by recommending them some goods which they will be potentially interested in.

How to earn

Having attracted many subscribers you can start monetizing your channel. We have mentioned two ways of doing so. Now let’s learn how to do it through the affiliate marketing.

You need to register in the affiliate network as a publisher and choose the offer you like. If you are a beauty blogger,  try the categories “Health and Beauty” or “Clothes and shoes” in the section “Programs”. Having chosen the offer, you need to join the program. And as soon as you join it, you can get the affiliate links which you can paste in the video description. When your viewers click on those links and buy the products you promoted, you receive the commission indicated in the program.

Below are mentioned the models how you can monetize your YouTube channel using the affiliate links:

Lately, there has appeared a way of monetization that has become viral — “product reviews”. But let’s be clear, if you get a product for the review it means you still don’t get paid, you will have to sell this product if you want money, because no one pays bills with products. So here comes the trick: the idea is to combine different ways to make your videos more profitable.

Analysis and product reviews can work well as a way to generate content, and with it you get followers, or people get interested in your content. As we mentioned before, every time you do a review or product analysis: you can place different links, the most common and smart way is to use different links to same product from different sources.

As you can see, this way you provide the price comparison, and also you get the chance to earn commission no matter through which link the user decides to buy the product.

      One of the most common mistakes among youtubers who make product reviews is using only one link: what if a user really wants to buy the product after the video but doesn’t like the brand the youtuber provides (link)? This is why price comparison and more than one link can be a very powerful strategy. Viewers will have a freedom to choose and it won’t look like you are forcing them to buy only one brand. You just give an advice which they can take into account while choosing new products.

      There is one more common mistake among those who make reviews. Working directly with a brand and no affiliate marketing. It cuts your opportunities. Most of the youtubers think that every time they receive a product for the review they can’t also paste affiliate links at the same time, well this could be possible, but rarely because normally the advertiser provides the affiliate link or allows youtubers to use them in the video description. The rules here depend on the terms of the cooperation with a brand. So if they send you the products and allow to paste the links, you are in a huge winning situation — you got the product plus you added the affiliate link so you also earn the commission for each attracted customer.

      The most convenient way is always to use affiliate links.  You can earn through affiliate links much more than the price of the product. And here comes another popular mistake many youtubers fall into: “I only work with product reviews”. As example: a fashion influencer wanted to promote brands, she made the deal only under product review, directly with the advertiser, the result is: she got few clothes, approximately $50 evaluated, for 2 months, obviously that wasn’t profitable for her, so she decided to try affiliate links and only by editing the videos and placing the exactly product links in the next two months she made $300.

      Trying is always the best way if t you want to monetize and increase earnings. The good thing about affiliate marketing is not losing anything, it takes you just a few minutes to use the platform and get the links.

Using Affiliate Marketing to increase views and subscriptions

Recently the vbloggers have realized that using the brand or few keywords can be very useful as a way to catch new followers and views. Of course, this depends on the rules of each advertiser’s offer, most of them are open to the brand name usage in video titles on YouTube, but you can check rules before using the brand name in your video title.

Let’s look at the example:

Benefits:

Using affiliate link as random content

One more strategy that also works with youtubers is to use affiliate links in random videos. For example, a vblogger made a video about make up routine, the video is not promoting any brand or product, but she added affiliate links in the description:

If you like the video don’t forget to press “like”

Subscribe to my channel

New Coupons for Shein!!

– 30% off Jerseys >link

– 15% off summer dress >link

– 50% off makeup and accessories >link

This example shows how you can monetize your videos even when the video itself is not related to the links you gonna add to the description. We have learned that “Followers gonna follow”, so all that you add in the description box will be checked by the followers. And they will be pleased to see some cool deals.

There are youtubers who add on every video the same links like this:

I buy accessories here > Link

I Travel using this flight website > Link

I book the best hotels here > Link

Every youtuber or blogger decides how far they go in earnings, because the earning depends 100% on how much you want to “sell” with your content, because all that you mention, followers will check, click, buy etc.

But don’t overload with promotion. Viewers will get bored and disappointed if you do only straight advertising. Don’t forget that value which you provide is more important. Try to keep the rational ratio of value to promotion.

Tips on how to choose and promote goods

      You should recommend the product you like. Don’t promote goods of poor quality which you would never use by yourself.

      The product must be relevant to your audience. If you promote burgers delivery in your video about sports and diets, your viewers might think that you are crazy:)

      Try to expand the category of products within reasonable limits. For example, if you have a channel about traveling, you can promote some financial offers like traveling insurance.

      You can ask your viewers the reviews of which products they want to see. So you will be sure what products they are ready to buy.

      Be creative while showing the goods. You can make a kinda light crash test. If you promote clothes, show original looks using these garments.

     Make funny video titles and thumbnails to attract the viewers attention.

      Feel free while shooting a video, your viewers are your friends, so don’t be afraid of them. But, of course, know the limits.