How Much Do YouTubers Make? Money and Online Reputation

YouTube is irreplaceable when it comes to online marketing. It is one of the biggest social media platforms for brand awareness strategy, with millions of users subscribing to YouTube channels every day. Over 6 billion hours of YouTube videos are viewed every month, imagine the amount of marketing one may achieve by gaining followers on YouTube. 

People finally understand the value of social media platforms in terms of reaching out to their target audience. While some people may feel skeptical about YouTube money, it is actually the perfect platform to kickstart your brand.

Making money through YouTube and becoming an influencer in your industry can be tough in the initial days.

YouTube has a global audience of 1.58 billion, and cracking the YouTube algorithm is not easy.

It is an appealing platform where one can earn money by making videos about things they enjoy, but becoming a YouTuber isn't a get-rich-quick scheme.

How Much Do YouTubers Make?

You probably might be thinking that YouTubers upload content for free. Well, they might be doing that during their initial days, but some of the most-watched YouTube channels are making a TON of money. Any YouTube channel's eligibility for monetization depends on a couple of metrics.

According to sources, YouTubers can earn anywhere between $3 to $5 per 1000 views, with an additional $18 per 1000 ad views.

How to Get Paid From YouTube?

To become eligible for YouTube's monetization strategies and become a YouTube partner, you must have 1,000 subscribers on your YouTube channel, and more than 4000 watch hours on the videos, all within a year.

Once you link your YouTube account with Google Adsense, you can make money on Youtube with Cost Per Click (CPC) ads or Cost Per 1000 impressions (CPM) ads. For you to earn anything from CPC ads, you need the viewer to click on your video and stay for a minimum of 30 seconds.

It is comparatively easy to get subscribers on YouTube than to create a dedicated fan following. Getting someone to watch your video for more than 30 seconds is more complicated than it sounds; think about how many people skip the ad at the start of any video, making it tough for your video to translate into revenue.

For such reasons, the number of subscribers on a YouTube channel doesn't always reflect its Google Adsense income. Even the average CPM payout can be anything around $7, but Google Adsense only pays out 55% to the publisher, decreasing the actual payout by half.

Thus, having more views or more subscribers doesn't guarantee a stable pay from YouTube channel, and AdSense is one of the least likely income streams to rely on if you want to become a millionaire.

Revenue From YouTube Affiliate 

Google Ads are not the only way to make money on YouTube. If you have ever watched review videos on YouTube, with the YouTuber asking you to buy their "favorite brand" by clicking on the links in the description box below, you have come across affiliate links.

Affiliate links involve a YouTuber promoting or reviewing a brand on their channel, that again, should be relevant to their content. It is highly unlikely for someone from the beauty community to promote Playstation.

YouTubers are provided with unique affiliate links that inform the company where their sales are generating from so that the YouTuber can get their share for any purchases made through that link.

Most YouTubers need to qualify to become a part of a brand's affiliate link program. It depends on the number of subscribers a YouTuber can reach out to, and whether there is a sense of trust between the YouTuber and his/her subscribers.

Brand Sponsorship

YouTube is a powerful tool in building your personal brand.

In addition to Affiliate links and Adsense revenues, famous YouTube stars with a large following can also start earning money from sponsorship and brand partnership. Just like affiliate links, you need to promote products that suit your platform.

This income stream usually requires an influential YouTuber to feature and talk about products on their channel to increase the company's sales through paid promotion. A study from the Economic Times stated that influencers with anything around 100,000 subscribers could start earning around $12,500 from sponsored deals, which only escalates with popularity. Once you get subscribers on YouTube by posting engaging content, you can sponsor and promote brands that resonate with your followers.

Merchandise Deals

Popular YouTube stars who have created a brand around their name often come up with products that they can sell through their channels, such as T-shirts, bags, accessories, or fan-gear. It is a great way to leverage their online presence to create a lifetime customer base, outside the sphere of YouTube.

While some YouTubers create and sell their own make-up or apparel line, YouTubers with niche channels sell their services to educate and help up and coming entrepreneurs.

Famous real estate YouTuber, Graham Stephen, makes most of his money by promoting the real estate courses of his website, The Real Estate Agent Academy.

One of the most famous YouTubers of the beauty community, Jeffree Star, has launched his own cosmetics and make-up line on Youtube, called Jeffree Star Cosmetics. It has now become a multi-million dollar company. Most highest-paid YouTubers make a decent amount of money from their merchandise deals.

How to Make Money on YouTube?

You are unlikely to earn anything during your channel's early days. It takes dedication and consistency to run a successful YouTube channel. It is easy to sign up for an Adsense account and start a YouTube channel for sure, but you can only make real money once you start garnering genuine traffic by creating high-quality and engaging videos at regular intervals.

Some things to keep in mind if you are thinking about starting a YouTube channel.

● Finding your niche is the first step towards creating a YouTube channel. It will be easier for you to develop a fan following if you are knowledgeable and passionate about something in particular.

Of course, some niches are easier to make money on YouTube, because it interests a majority of people on the platform. Some successful niches include food reviews and kitchen hacks, youtube q&a, listicles, celebrity gossip, lifehacks, etc. Being successful on YouTube comes down to one thing: enjoy what you do. It will help you to stay motivated to produce daily videos on YouTube.

● Investing in the right recording gear is important to become a successful YouTuber. Most YouTubers start with the basic phone video camera, but you need to post high-quality content once your channel gains some traction. Buying some high-end equipment like camera, tripod, lighting, additional lens, etc. will definitely pay off in the long run.

● Editing your videos to make them more presentable and engaging is an art. Posting good quality content with captivating edits can help you stand out in your niche and eventually draw in more viewers.

● Understanding the YouTube algorithm can help you to scale the popularity meter faster. You should work on growing your audience by posting consistently and reaching out to your audience via comments or other social media platforms.

Making videos while keeping Search Engine Optimization (SEO) in mind will help you increase your click rate by ranking high on the YouTube search engine. Researching about the trending topics, posting relevant content with searchable titles, and attractive thumbnails are immensely beneficial for creating an online presence.

With enough dedication and talent, you should eventually transform into a professional YouTuber from a mere YouTube fledgling. You might be getting some form of income through Adsense and affiliate links, but this is still not enough for you to take up YouTube as a full-time job.

Starting a YouTube channel should basically be a side-hustle, but once you have something around 50,000 subscribers, you can be considered as a minor influencer in your niche. The middle years of a YouTuber are the most difficult; the channel is too young for sponsorship deals, but still has a decent amount of followers who look up to you and your content.

It becomes way easier for YouTubers once they cross the 1,000,000 subscribers mark. There are now over 2000 channels on YouTube with an average of a million subscribers, which are a mixture of official channels of celebrities, and YouTube stars who know how to cash in on their popularity through multiple channels.

How Does YouTube Affect Online Reputation?

If you want to share your passion with the world, you can make money on YouTube. But YouTube can be so much more than just increasing your subscriber count. It is the second-largest search engine in the world after Google, making it a powerful tool for online marketing and reputation management.

YouTube is the most important video site on the Internet because video-based content has a significant impact on brand awareness and effective digital marketing. Just like Google, YouTube is also trying to serve the best-quality content to its users, so videos with higher engagement will rank better - because they are better.

You can accelerate your reputation management efforts and get subscribers on YouTube by creating great videos, implementing Adwords, building regular links to your videos, and, ultimately, getting positive ratings and comments to create an impressionable online presence.

The narrative about a particular brand can change overnight if a series of negative videos start appearing on branded SERPs. Thus, it becomes more important for brands to produce optimized, positive content to push the negative videos down and mitigate any wrong impression about the brand.

The Most Watched Channels on YouTube

How to build a successful brand on YouTube? By being the first of your kind. Identify people's needs and create consistent content to build authentic relationships with your "fandom." Think outside the box, collaborate with other YouTube channels, and prove yourself to be the best in your genre.

YouTube has some amazing potential in terms of monetization, and these YouTube stars are here to prove it.

PewDiePie

Swedish YouTuber PewDiePie is one of the highest-paid YouTubers, and is the second most subscribed channel on YouTube, with a whopping 105 million. His content has developed from gaming to meme-content and comedy videos.

PewDiePie's net worth is $25 million, thanks to his gaming deals, book release, affiliate links, and youtube sponsorship deals. Known for his controversial statements and walk-through commentary, PewDiePie has an extensive fan following, who adore him for his nonchalant straightforwardness.

Ryan's World

Ryan Kaji, an 8-year-old YouTuber, is currently YouTube's highest earner. The channel which originally started out to unbox and review toys has developed into an educational platform for kids, with nearly 23 million subscribers.

According to Forbes, his net worth was $26 million in 2019, thanks to his clothing, toys line and his very own Nickelodeon show.

Jeffree Star

Hailed as the face of YouTube's beauty community, Jeffree Star has transformed himself from a beauty mogul to a successful entrepreneur. This brutally honest YouTuber has millions of followers over multiple social media platforms and is insanely successful in all of his business ventures.

Star has an estimated net worth of more than $50 million, from 10+ businesses and his popular cosmetics line, Jeffree Star Cosmetics, which he launched on YouTube.

Like fellow YouTube influencers Logan Paul and James Charles, Jeffree Star leverages the power of YouTube to create organic traffic for his product line and brand endorsement deals. By creating a brand name for himself on YouTube, Star is the prime example of a Youtube superstar.

Brands such as Google, Netflix, and Marvel Entertainment are gaining a huge amount of subscribers and views on their content due to their behind-the-scenes content and daily updates about new project releases. YouTube has proved to be an amazing platform for them to effectively drive traffic and implement brand awareness strategy.

The DDG Family

A popular youtuber named PontiacMadeDDG, with 3.8 million subscribers. He is a comedian who became prominent on YouTube through reaction videos, parodies, and challenges. 

What is DDG Net worth?  $1.5 Million

Average daily views: 400,000

MSNBC YouTube

The MSNBC YouTube channel is a popular destination for in depth analysis of trending news headlines. Since joining YouTube on December 1st, 2011, MSNBC YouTube channel has accumulated over 4 Billion views and over 3.4 Million subscribers. 

Final words

So, how much do YouTubers make? The amount of money a YouTuber makes is based on their strategies to leverage their YouTube popularity.

The most successful YouTubers garner brand recognition and learn how to monetize themselves on YouTube through sponsorship and other unique ways. All it takes is a single viral video to start a multi-million dollar empire. Go on and hit the upload button.