Can you earn $20 000 with a goofy video on YouTube?
She has a “chalk on the board” kind of voice, terrible lyrical sense and a style sense like Sophie Kachinski from Two broke girls. Meet Dhinchak Pooja, the girl people love to hate.
Despite her appalling musical sense, she garnered 20 million YouTube views and took home close to $20k in revenue via YouTube ads. Her video became famous due to people trolling her awful music.
Creativity is more profitable than talent on YouTube. Here is an opportunity to earn a bit of Internet Money.
As kids, we all dreamt of coming on the TV and becoming famous. The barriers to be a star on the Telly were high. You needed money, connections, a lot of luck and talent.
The world is not the same any more. Although getting into the movie or Telly business is still hard, getting on the internet is easy. YouTube is the Telly of the internet. To get on YouTube is simple. You need a camera phone and an ability to be goofy and viola, you can get on the Telly of the internet.
To make money and to become famous on YouTube, you have to get millions of views of your video. Here are three ways to get started. You decide which one is best for you based on your personality and skills.
1. Prank Videos
Are you the prankster of your group? Can you come up with innovative ways to annoy people? If you answered yes, then this is your calling. People love to see a good prank video. You can either use your camera phone discreetly or use a spy cam. The key is to add a good background score along with your prank. You can also pull a prank on strangers if you can muster the courage. But have a friend close by in case you need rescue. Build a brand name around your pranks. Check out Jalals on YouTube and Facebook for his branding and pranking. Come up with your unique style though, never copy.
Example:
Note: I prefer to cut out the blah blah blah in the beginning, speed up the setup and use a background score.
2. How to Videos
Can you teach how to play a bagpipe in 2 hours?
“How to” videos are very popular on YouTube. If you have a specific skill that others value, you can make an effective “How to” video.
Example: Let us use ‘how to play the bagpipe’ as the skill. Type “how to bagpipe” on YouTube and check the number of videos that come up. From the results, we realize the best keyword to use is “How to play bagpipe”. On average, the top 10 videos have 100 000 views. That means a potential market. Watch the top 10 videos and figure out how to produce a better instructional video. Create it and share in forums and other places where your tribe meets.
Show your quirky side. If you own a pet, put him in the frame. Pets always increase stickiness. If your pet responds/reacts during the video, it is a gold mine. Allow your passion to shine through the video. With time, you will amass viewers and become a guru in your field. Apart from the ad money, you can link to your website and get a few students for your bagpipe training.
Fun fact: Statistically, presence of cats increases viewership by 54%
Example:
Note: Howcast is one of the biggest channels on YouTube. Notice how easy it is to pay attention to this video.
3. YouTube personality
You can become the next Dhinchak Pooja. Becoming a YouTube personality is difficult. but, a well-planned personality can make money over time. Many of today’s YouTube stars started with a similar idea. Some of them ended up getting commercial endorsements and made millions in revenue.
Example:
Note: Listen at your own peril
Be it DhinChak Pooja or Jalals, their viewership and revenue goes up because people react to their videos, be it love, anger, hate or giggles. If you can get your viewers to react, you will get more views. So, no matter which approach you choose, making your viewers react is your foot in the door for revenue.
Keep experimenting and trying new things. You will need a few tries to figure out what works and keep improving on it. Soon viewers will pour in to watch your videos and then the money will start trickling in.