Everyone wants to know the secrets of the YouTube stars—how did they make successful careers out of YouTube, how do they make money and what advice do they have for hopefuls looking to follow in their footsteps? Tubefilter’s ‘Secrets if YouTube Superstars’ panel at CES shed some light on these questions. Tubefilter’s editor and co-founder, Marc Hustvedt, moderated the panel, which was made up of YouTube megastars iJustine, Joe Penna (aka MysteryGuitarMan), Phil DeFranco, Freddie Wong and Brandon Laatsch.
You can watch the full thirty-seven minute panel in the video below, but I’d like to take a little time to recap some of the most interesting points that were brought up. I think that Hustvedt asked great questions, leading the panelists to shed some very interesting light on the world of YouTube as a business.
Putting In The Work
I think that the most important thing that can be gleaned from the ‘Secrets Of The YouTube Stars’ CES panel is that you can’t go anywhere on YouTube without putting in lots and lots and lots of work. There was a general consensus that these guys work an average of about 80 hours a week. That’s an average of about 11.5 hours a day with no weekend! And these guys have already made their YouTube channels a success, so just imagine how much work goes in to making a name for yourself when you’re starting out at the bottom.
iJustine says, “This is our life. Every second of the day you’re working, essentially. If you’re not posting videos you’re still tweeting, your updating Facebook or you’re updating all these social networks to tie back to your videos and keep people updated on what you’re doing.” YouTube stars never sleep—it’s a 24/7 job. Brandon Laatsch says, “We’ve pulled more all nighters in the last year than we did all throughout college.” But what’s important to note is that these guys love their job. If you have the passion and the drive, and you’re willing to put in the hours it can be incredibly rewarding.
Bringing Home The Bacon
The question on everyone’s mind is, how do YouTube stars make money? The panelists are all paying the bills with money they make from YouTube videos, but how do they do it?
Joe Penna explains the two major ways that YouTube stars make money, in addition to the revenue that they earn through YouTube advertising. One of these ways is through working with brands. The other is through merchandising.
Penna, iJustine and DeFranco all have quite a lot of experience working with brands. They seem to agree that working with brands is fantastic, as brands trust them to take creative control and allow them the budget to make bigger, better videos than they could otherwise. Laatsch also pointed out that over the last year or so viewers have become a lot more accepting of brand deals. At first there was a lot of name calling (i.e. “You’re a sell out!”), but now that viewers understand that this is what these guys are doing for a living they get that branding is a good thing as it enables them to make better videos. All the YouTubers stressed that they incorporated branding into their videos in an unobtrusive way as to not freak their viewers out.
YouTube also helps with revenue through grant programs. They helped DeFranco branch his single channel out into the six-channel DeFranco Inc. and they also sponsored Freddie and Brandon in a project in which they drove around in an RV for a month, making videos with their fans.
Personality
The most important thing that I think can be gleaned from this panel for wannabe YouTube stars is the importance of personality. If you take a look at the top YouTube channels nearly all of them are supported by a personality. MysteryGuitarMan makes music videos, but he’s sure to speak directly to his viewers in each and every one of his videos as well. If you have a strong personality your viewers feel like they know you personally and this is one of the biggest keys to YouTube success.
DeFranco says that YouTube stars are different from television or movie stars because you may want to catch a glimpse of a television star but you’d like to sit and chat over a beer with a YouTube star. You feel like you are friends with them, they influence you and they can’t wait for you to put out another video.
I’d also like to point out that this is fantastic for branding. Brands can tap into an audience of millions when they turn to YouTube stars for promotional purposes and these millions trust these stars and are completely engaged and influenced by them. This is much more direct and effective advertising that television advertising, and cheaper. It’s a lot more bang for your buck!
Check out the full panel below to find out more from five of YouTube’s biggest stars. What did you find most interesting about the panel?
So Christmas has been and gone. Are you now facing the New Year and wondering how you can keep up the Christmas spirit and goodwill for the coming year? Well, it certainly helps when you know how to do so for free from your own home.
There are so many simple ways to volunteer or donate to charity by giving up a small amount of your time or re-purposing some money you would normally have spent. So here’s a list of five of the best quick and easy ways to volunteer or donate to charity. Bookmark the list of charities and use it to do the rounds weekly!
Skip1.org
This is a great concept — it’s a site which makes you think about how much money you waste on frivolous things. You nominate something which you will give up, say a lunch or newspapers for a month. Then you donate that same amount of money to feeding a hungry child.
Yes, you’re handing over money to charity, but it’s money you would have spent anyway. It’s also easy to share news of your donation with your friends via social networks, and hopefully convince a few of them to skip something for charity too.
Free Rice
Free Rice has been around a while, but it’s so good it’s worth making sure it’s on this list. Play a simple, addictive trivia quiz and Free Rice will donate rice for each of your correct answers. This is a free and simple way to give whenever you have a free moment. Read more on FreeRice here.
Causes
There are a number of things you can do using Causes, including raising awareness for your chosen charity and helping to raise funds for them. By far the easiest way to donate money with Causes is to set up a birthday or holiday fund. This way, instead of receiving presents from friends and family, you simply ask them to donate the money on your behalf. It takes about two minutes to set up, since you can log in with Facebook Connect – just choose the charity and you’re set!
Charity Gifts
Here’s another easy way to spend your money on charity instead of something you were already going to pay for. Instead of giving gifts to your friends, give them the knowledge that you have donated to charity on their behalf. The Donation4Charity website searches all the big charity gifting sites (such as UNICEF, WWF and Oxfam) and lets you search the gifts according to how much money you have available to spend. Buy a goat for charity for about the same price as a modest gift!
Sparked
Spend 5-10 minutes donating your expertise to charity: Give website feedback, brainstorm fundraising ideas or help design an awareness campaign. This is what they need help with – if you can spend a few minutes working on it then you’ve made a difference to a real charity with just a moment of your time. Read more on Sparked here & get going!
And many, many more!
There are so many great ways to donate your time to charity — the sites listed above are just a few. Here’s some more great articles which introduce many more you might like to try.
- Introducing Jumo – The Social Network for Social Good
- How To Easily Coordinate Volunteers Using Volunteer Spot
- 5 Crowd Funding Websites To Support Your Favourite Charities, Bands & Projects
- Find Volunteering Opportunities Near You with VolunteerMatch
- 10 Search Engines To Help The Environment
- 5 Cool Edutainment Games You Can Play and Also Donate To Charitable Causes
- 5 Websites To Lend A Hand & Make A Difference To The World
What are your favourite sites for donating your time to charity? Do you appreciate charity gifts given on your behalf? Let us know in the comments!
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