- Merry Christmas, guys, and Happy Boxing Day.
I hope the shopping is going well,
and after spending way too much money
on Christmas and Boxing Day,
let's talk about how you can
make some money through YouTube.
(upbeat music)
So I've been a freelance filmmaker
for the last three or four years,
but I didn't start doing YouTube consistently
until the beginning of this year, 2017.
I decided I'm gonna post more often,
I'm gonna post at least two or three times a week
and see what comes of it,
and within about six months
I was actually able to make YouTube my full time income.
I could basically say no to all the other projects,
the commercials, DP jobs, weddings,
I was still shooting a few of those, all that stuff,
because I was making money through YouTube now.
I never thought that YouTube would be my source of income,
that YouTube would be paying my bills,
I did not think that YouTube was a viable thing.
I thought a few people have kind of hit the YouTube lottery
and they've been able to make some money from it,
but I thought most people don't make much
or any money from YouTube at all.
But the more I've been doing this,
the more I've started to realize
that there's actually way more opportunities
to make money through YouTube or through social media
than I ever thought.
Nowadays, I tell pretty much all my friends
who are really good, especially in the creative field,
to start a YouTube channel.
So if you've just started a YouTube channel
or you've already had one for a little bit,
how can you actually make money through YouTube?
First off, I just want to say
try and make as many revenue streams
as possible for yourself.
This is gonna make your income much more consistent
and then, if something happens, like the Ad-pocalypse
where people's videos get demonetized,
you're not just relying on that one source,
you have other sources that you can keep going
and you can pay your bills.
You're not completely screwed if something crazy happens.
So here are some of the ways
that I've tried to monetize my YouTube channel
in order to pay the bills
and make an actual income out of YouTube.
First up is AdSense which is probably the most obvious one
and basically you're just gonna link your YouTube channel
to an AdSense account, and you're gonna get paid per view.
And this is probably the most stereotypical way
that people outside this whole world
think that YouTubers make money.
They think they make money from the views through AdSense,
and actually, I think for most people,
this is a fairly small income.
You actually have to have a lot of views
in order to make good money from AdSense.
The amount that you're getting is fairly small
for the amount of work that you're putting in to it.
And basically, how it works,
is that the ads before the videos pop up,
they pay YouTube some amount of money,
we have no idea how much they get paid,
but then Google pays us a small portion of that.
I'm guessing it's really small,
and then you get paid per views.
Views are the only thing that matters,
it doesn't matter how many subscribers you have,
views are the only thing that count there.
And the amount of money you make per month
varies pretty widely just because of the
amount of views you're getting each month could change
and then also the amount the advertisers
are paying for those ads changes,
so then that changes the amount that you get from Google.
I definitely recommend trying out this revenue stream,
you should definitely have it on your channel,
but I don't think it's the best one,
or the most consistent,
especially in the beginning.
Later on if you're getting millions of views,
of course you're going to be making money
but in the beginning it's a lot tougher
to make money from AdSense.
Next we have affiliate links,
and affiliate links can be used
in a whole bunch of different ways.
The most obvious one is Amazon affiliate links.
You basically just link any products,
for example, I'll link my camera gear
and then when people click on those
and then they buy stuff from Amazon,
I get a small percent of whatever they buy.
So, in general, that's how affiliate links work.
You give a link to a product, a service, whatever it is,
and you get either a percent or some amount of money
every time somebody buys something
or subscribes to a service or whatever it is.
Affiliate links are great
because they don't take that much effort from you.
You basically just make whatever videos you want
and then you just link stuff in your description
and also, with things like Amazon affiliates,
you don't even have to deal with the companies,
you just look up whatever products you want
and you link them down below.
You don't have to deal with any of that headache
which sometimes comes with dealing with different companies.
Most people will send you free product
and then get you to use their affiliate links,
but in my experience,
I don't think this has worked that well
and with free product
it always creates this weird scenario where
it's kind of an open-ended contract.
There's no set this is what you're doing
and then they expect more and more from you
and it's just this headache
that you don't really want to deal with,
so I would say be very careful about
taking free stuff from companies.
That being said, definitely try out affiliate links,
especially Amazon, but also the other ones.
Test them out, see what works best for you.
Next, a really great way to make more money through YouTube
is to sell digital products.
Now digital products are really great
because you just basically make them
and then you put them out there,
and then you can just sell them.
You can sell unlimited quantities,
you don't have to have any inventory,
you don't have to deal with shipping.
It's really the best thing to be selling online.
For example, I sell luts and presets for videos and photos
but you can basically sell anything.
You could sell e-books,
you could sell After Effects plugins,
you could sell Photoshop actions,
you can sell so many different things online.
And if you're thinking about selling something online,
I highly recommend checking out Shopify.
They're actually the sponsor of this episode.
I've been using Shopify for a little bit now
and I decided to reach out to them,
and they wanted to sponsor this episode.
They are, by far, the best platform
to sell things online right now.
They have all sorts of apps that you can use
for selling digital products
or if you want to sell merch.
You don't even have to buy the merch and have inventory,
you just use one of their apps,
design some merch, take orders,
and then they send them out.
You never even touch the products.
I think over 500,000 businesses use Shopify,
companies like Tesla, Red Bull, Kylie Cosmetics.
A lot of really big companies are using Shopify
and that's because it just works so well.
So if you're interested, link down below.
Yes, this video is sponsored by them
but I highly recommend Shopify.
Check them out.
So, think of different digital products
that fit your channel, your niche,
that you can sell online that benefit your viewers,
and I think this is actually
one of the best ways to make money
because you really get to decide everything here.
You're in control,
you don't have to deal with any other companies,
you get to make whatever you want
and sell it to your audience,
and if your audience likes that stuff
then it's just a really great transaction that happens.
It's one of the great ways to be really independent
in your YouTube channel, or whatever else you're doing.
Oh, and Travel Feels merch is on its way, stay tuned,
it's been delayed a little bit,
just because I've been so crazy and things have happened
but it is coming.
And the next revenue stream that I have is stock footage.
So, when I travel, I go on some trip somewhere
like Norway or Iceland,
sometimes I'll take that footage
and actually sell that online.
Now, if you're working for a company,
you have to work that all out, where the rights are
and all that stuff,
but stock footage can be a really great way
to earn some passive income.
But it is really unreliable.
You'd have no idea how much money you're gonna make from it.
Some months you can make nothing
and some months you can make a lot, but you have no idea.
You have no control over it
other than just putting out a lot of content on there,
but that's really time consuming
and you have no guarantee for returns.
But, if you have all this footage sitting around like I did,
it's a great way to make some extra money from that.
Then I also sell teaching courses,
I have a few different courses
and I really want to make more of these courses.
I think it's a really great way to make some extra money.
You make some really in-depth courses on a certain topic.
And again, it's a great transaction
between you and your audience.
They're getting more information from you,
more exclusive content from you
that not everybody else is seeing,
and again, it's one of these things
that you're completely in control over,
you can make as many courses as you want,
you don't need anybody else paying you,
you just make them, put them out there,
and just promote them through your YouTube channel
and you can make some extra cash that way.
And then finally,
the last way that I've been making some money
is brand deals.
You can do things like dedicated videos,
which is something like I did in Iceland.
I worked with Rhino, I made a dedicated video for them
from that whole trip.
And then you can also do shout-outs
like I did in this video with Shopify
and they'll pay you some amount.
You're always gonna get paid more for the dedicated videos
but they're also a lot more work.
Shout-outs, you get paid less but they're less work.
I don't do that many of these right now,
but if I do I try to pick companies
that really fit my channel.
For example, Rhino, they make camera gear,
it's just a really good fit for me
and even more so, I try to pick companies
that I believe in, that I believe in their products,
I think they're good products.
I never want to be promoting just crap to you guys
and kind of be deceiving you guys.
I really wanna choose products that I'm using,
that I think are good,
and that's the biggest reason I'm not taking
every single brand deal that comes my way.
And here, I would say, know the value of your product,
of your channel, of your skills,
so that you don't sell yourself short.
Companies are always gonna wanna get a deal out of you,
especially if it's through an agency.
The less an agency pays you,
the more money that agency will make.
So definitely negotiate,
find out what you can actually make,
don't just take the first number that comes to you always.
And also, you don't want to be promoting things
all the time on a channel
because that kind of gets annoying
and that can take away from your brand
and from your channel, your content
and that is the worst thing that could happen.
So be strategic, find some companies
that really fit your channel, fit your niche and work well,
products that you believe in and promote those.
So those are the ways that I've used, so far,
to make money through YouTube
and turn this channel into a full time job
after just six months.
And again, the key here
is to use as many revenue streams as possible.
Don't just rely on one or two.
Use them all, use every way that you can
and be smart with it.
And above all,
make sure you're just putting out good content.
That is the most important thing,
especially when you're starting out.
Don't think about how I can make money so much.
Think about how can I make better content,
how can I reach more people,
and then through all that
you're gonna make money in the long run.
But don't tie yourself down right away in the beginning
with trying to make money.
It's just gonna make your channel worse,
and in the long run you'll make way less money.
That is the best way to make more money through YouTube
is to just build an amazing channel.
So if you've been thinking about starting a YouTube channel
I highly recommend it.
Even if nothing else comes of it,
it's a really great learning opportunity.
You learn all sorts of things.
It forces you to push yourself,
put out content consistently.
It's just a really good thing overall,
even if it doesn't become your full-time job.
So start that side hustle right now.
Guys, if you like this video,
hit that like button, subscribe the channel.
I'd love for you to be a part of this community.
Enjoy the holidays.
And guys, enjoy the film-making process
and go get some of those travel feels.
(upbeat music)