Chances are, you’ve heard about people making a comfortable living on YouTube and thought, “I wonder if I can make money on YouTube, too!”
While the answer is probably yes, don’t expect thousands of dollars right away. Famous YouTubers like PewDiePie or JennaMarbles have invested countless hours and resources to get where they are today! However, you can start earning some money soon if you do things right.
These steps will help guide you on your way to earning some sweet YouTube money – and maybe even a little money from other sources, too!
How to Upload Videos and Make Money on YouTube
1. Setup a YouTube Channel
First you have to create your YouTube Channel. To do so, simply create a google account (if you don’t already have one), and sign in on YouTube. Pick a cool name, follow some steps, and voila! Your video’s new home is ready.
2. Create and Upload Quality Content
Rome wasn’t built in a day. Focus on uploading awesome videos as often and consistent as possible. After a while, you should start to see your views go up.
Once you invest some time you’ll hone your creative skills. Until then, just start creating videos and don’t worry about investing in fancy, expensive gear.
3. Promote Like Crazy
Tagging your videos with relevant keywords, sharing them on social media, and promoting them on various websites are all great ways to grow your audience a little at a time. Also, try your best to interact with your audience. This will create a sense of community and increase engagement – especially with your biggest fans.
4. Have Some Patience
Before you can start earning any money on YouTube, your channel will have to reach a total of 10,000 lifetime views. Once you’ve reached that mark, enable monetization on your videos and set up an AdSense account.
By enabling AdSense, your videos will display advertisements to viewers and YouTube will give you some of the revenue that you generate for them.
Seems simple enough, right? YouTube is a great way to build an audience and start getting a little cash in exchange for your content.
More Ways to Earn Money with Your Videos
What if I told you YouTube is not the only option? That’s right. There are lots of great alternatives that could bring you even greater earnings.
Facebook recently rolled out new video monetization features. Content producers get to keep a cut of the ad revenue they generate, similar to YouTube.
The catch? As of right now, you’ll need to apply to Facebook’s ‘Audience Network’ to monetize your videos. On top of that, videos displayed on the Facebook platform itself are not eligible. You’ll need to place the video on your own website or app.
It’s in a ‘beta’ period though, so things are likely to change. Especially with the launch of their new ‘watch’ platform that takes on YouTube head-to-head.
Other Social Platforms
On most other social platforms, you’ll have to rely on direct contact with the advertisers themselves.
Advertisers pay ‘influencers’ to showcase their brand. Many video bloggers currently do this with a lot of success, and if you have a large following, you can too!
Vimeo
Vimeo avoids ads altogether. Users pay out of their own pocket to consume the content they like.
You can sell your videos as a pay-per-view and Vimeo will give you a big percentage of the sale when it’s all said and done.
Worldplay
We give you a white-labeled platform with customizable subscription plans, pay-per-view pricing, image advertising space, and pre-roll – all in one.
The best part? We don’t take a cut! You keep 100% of the revenue you earn after transaction costs.
Ooyala, Brightcove, etc.
These platforms are for big companies with big budgets. They offer tons of powerful features at a very large scale.
Now, Go Out There and Create!
So, how will you start monetizing videos? Will you rely on ad revenue? Paid viewing? Maybe a little bit of both?
No matter which direction you decide to go, keep your heart set on creating quality content. Great videos will always attract attention, so go out there and create your own success!
