When YouTube first began, people were just happy to be able to post their videos online for free.
"...Favourite sites online that lets you upload tag and share your video
with the rest of the world, or just family and friends if you prefer."
"Yes, the site's called YouTube.com"
But then YouTube started sharing ad revenue with creators.
And companies started paying creators to promote their products
And suddenly being a YouTuber was an actual job.
In fact, it didn’t just become a job, it became the job.
Countless studies have found that becoming a YouTuber is the most desired job in the world.
Not astronaut. Doctor. Teacher. Nope - 75% of kids want to become YouTubers.
And when the mainstream media talks about this, it’s normally in a dismissive way - you
can sense them thinking: these kids need to go get “real” jobs.
And that’s because Influencer has become a bit of a dirty word.
To many people, an influencer represents talentless narcissists
who film themselves for social media, fake their lives to look way better than reality,
and get paid ridiculously well to shill products for companies.
And in some cases, there may be some truth in that.
But an influencer can mean many things. Loads of influencers on social media are
incredibly talented creative people. Because the simplest definition of an influencer is just
“a person with the ability to influence potential buyers of a product or service”.
It’s not really a new concept - we’ve always had celebrities who do that, the difference now is
that anyone with a smartphone and a social media account has the potential to build an audience,
and influence people. It’s open to everyone. Which means more people than ever are making money from
their passions and interests - whether it’s gaming, music, art, cooking, sewing - anything!
But here’s where it gets really interesting.
The old way of monetizing a social media audience
was you make money advertising other businesses, - if you’re a creator,
then company X comes along and pays you to advertise their product in your content. Cool.
But now, content creators are starting to realize, well
what if I create my own business and advertise that instead?
One of the most famous examples is MrBeast launching a burger chain - that currently
has over 1,000 kitchens across multiple different countries.
MrBeast could have just partnered with Mcdonalds or burger king,
and got paid a one-off sponsorship fee for promoting someone else’s brand. But instead,
he now keeps 100% of all future profits for himself. For life. And simultaneously,
he’s growing a company he’s got equity in, that he could potentially sell later if he wanted.
Another example is that Emma Chamberlain and Graham Stephan
both launched their own coffee brands.
Now at first glance, this may just seem like next level merchandise.
But it’s not. These are separate standalone businesses,
that are simply being kickstarted by leveraging their attention on social media.
Think about it. One of the biggest problems of a normal new business
is that they just don’t have the recognition or brand power to compete.
If you started your own coffee brand right now, but you didn’t have an audience to promote it to,
you’d have to spend ridiculous amounts of money on marketing just to get anybody to even hear
about it in the first place. And why would they care about this random new brand anyway?
But if a YouTuber starts a business, they already have an established brand
people love - and they already have a loyal audience to promote their products and services to
so they can get an influx of customers right from day one.
Of course, this spans so much further than food and drink.
We’re gonna see gaming YouTubers building their own games companies.
We’re gonna see tech Youtubers building their own tech companies.
And for channels like me in the business niche with a lot of entrepreneurs watching,
I think a Business to business software company would be an incredible fit.
The possibilities are genuinely endless.
But... wait a minute. I know what you might be thinking.
“Dude, YouTubers might be good at making videos,
but that doesn’t mean they can just build a business”.
And you’re right. But they don’t need to.
They just need strategic partnerships with someone who can.
Do you think MrBeast knew how to setup a burger chain all
by himself? No - he hired a business manager to make these kind of deals,
and they partnered with a company who helped setup and run MrBeast Burger.
So I’m not suggesting YouTubers figure this all out themselves - I’m suggesting they partner
with someone or some company, to create a product or service together. Someone else
can handle a lot of the logistics side, and the YouTuber can focus on the branding and marketing.
For example, the YouTuber could show behind the scenes of running this new business,
and incorporate the products into their content,
to get their audience even more connected to this new brand.
And because YouTubers know their audience so well and have a relationship with them,
they can think about what products and services will be best for their fans.
Like with MrBeast burger, the products are named after the people on the channel.
So it’s much more fun for fans, and actually makes you even more
attached to the MrBeast brand in general. And, you don’t just buy from their once,
you probably keep coming back more and more as a repeat customer, which means you’re
regularly interacting with the brand in the physical world, not just the digital world.
So, here’s the simple truth here: If you’re making content yourself,
or you ever plan to, don’t just think of yourself as an influencer or video maker,
start thinking of yourself as an entrepreneur, and a whole new world of possibilities will open.
The crucial difference is that instead of doing a one-off sponsorship to promote
someone else’s brand, you can be building your own business that you have equity in. Thus,
it can be way more profitable for you, and way better for your fans as well.
Ok, time for some calculations to prove this. Let’s say you create a product that costs $5
each when you produce them in bulk. You sell it for $20 each.
So $15 profit per item sold. If you had a million subscribers, and just
2% of your audience buy it, that’s 20,000 people Which equals $300,000 profit.
Now let’s say that the product is a recurring subscription people pay for once every month.
Congratulations, you’ve now got a multi-million dollar business on your hands.
Of course, this can work with much smaller channels too - because the crazy part is,
it’s not just the YouTuber’s audience who can buy the product or service.
Profits can be re-invested into other marketing to reach a whole new audience,
and if it’s a good product or service, people will tell their friends about it too.
So this new business can eventually be its own thing totally separate from the creator.
For example, you don’t ever have to watched a MrBeast video to buy a MrBeast burger - if your
friend was ordering one, you probably would too - it’s a standalone business in its own right.
Now, even if you do partner with a company to help you launch your own products and services,
I’m obviously not saying this is easy... but I am saying that there
will definitely be a lot more private label companies looking to do joint ventures
with creators. Because attention is the currency that matters most.
If you have people watching you and your content, you can make a lot of money. It’s that simple.
But whereas before, that attention led to brand deals and sponsorships for other companies,
now that attention is leading to new companies owned by the creators.
For example, people love to hate on the kardashians, the paul brothers - but like
it or not, they’re very rich because they’re masters of attention. And then directing
that attention elsewhere; whether it’s selling expensive beauty products or pay per view boxing.
If you have the attention on you, it’s then just a case of where you direct it. And if
you can match the right product or service to the right audience, that is where the big money is.
‘I honestly think we’re not even at beginning stages of creators building businesses’
But there’s one final piece to this puzzle. You’ll notice I’ve specifically mentioned
YouTubers a lot - so what about TikTokkers or Instagram stars?
And yeah, it’s true that these concepts apply to anyone with an audience and attention,
but I do feel strongly YouTube has a lot of advantages:
Firstly, videos can be evergreen on YouTube - once you build your library of content, the algorithm
can continue promoting them indefinitely. So if you promote your own product or service within a
video, you can be getting new sales from videos you made months or even years ago. Seriously, I
have a digital product I sell which is my YouTube Business Blueprint for people who are looking to
make money with YouTube, and I’ve had sales of that product thanks to videos I made over a year
ago. It had no new promotion from me, it’s just the youtube algorithm doing its thing. That just
doesn’t happen with tiktok, facebook, snapchat, instagram - posts are normally pretty much dead
within 48 hours. And that’s why evergreen content on YouTube so crucial because it means you don’t
get stuck in the social media hamster wheel of constantly having to pump out new content.
Secondly, with YouTube, you can build a much deeper connection with your audience
since the videos are longer. And if people know like and trust you more,
they’re more likely to buy from you and your business.
And finally, with YouTube it’s so much easier to promote things, as you can direct people to
the description below the video, where you can have as many links as you want.
So, if you do have an audience on another platform, that’s great,
but consider bringing some of them over to YouTube.
Because trust me, the creator economy is going to be a fascinating place
over the next few years. People are finally starting to realise the potential of it,
but this is really just the beginning. It’s definitely not too late to start.
And then once you have built an audience, create your own products and services.
That way, you don’t just build a YouTube channel, you start building your empire.
Now I know what you might be thinking… before you focus on making money, how do you actually
make great videos and build an audience? And the answer to that is today’s video sponsor,
Skillshare - an online learning community with thousands of inspiring classes for creators.
There’s a variety of classes from famous YouTubers teaching their own methods,
but if you want to do documentary style videos with motion graphics, I recommend Evan Abrams’
Introduction to Adobe After Effects, which will show you all the basics to get started.
And because Skillshare is curated for learning, there’s no ads, and lots of
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So, click the link below now to get started for free, and start exploring your creativity today.
I hope this video was useful for you, and if you do become a YouTube billionaire,
just don’t forget who told you all this… I’ll see you in the next video. Cheers.