Youtube has become so much more than simply a place where you can watch music videos and bloopers. These days, many people are using YouTube as their source of full-time income.
Examples of this include:
- Posting music videos that ultimately launch a music career.
- Full-time podcasting.
- Using YouTube as the sole means for promoting a service/business/product.
- Posting short films.
- And more
There are a few different reasons so many people want to become professional YouTubers. These reasons include:
- The ability to work at home.
- The chance to be their own boss.
- It provides a creative outlet.
- They see it as a chance to gain some fame.
- There’s the impression that anyone can use YouTube to become a star.
- It looks like an easy way to earn a living.
If you’re considering becoming a professional YouTuber, there are a few things you should keep in mind before launching your YouTube career.
Have a financial backup plan. Even though it sometimes seems like individuals who are posting YouTube videos are making all kinds of money, when you dig deeper into YouTube, you will discover that the platform doesn’t pay much. Many of those professional YouTubers are lucky if they’re covering their expenses. The people who have turned YouTube into a well-paying profession usually aren’t counting on YouTube for the bulk of their income. Most of their money comes from sponsorships, merchandise sales, endorsements and other linked income streams. Many ultimately end up using YouTube to promote their other income streams. A perfect example of this is the number of professional podcasters who maintain an active YouTube channel but who always encourage their viewers to check out their other platforms where the podcasts are available.
If you do start making money via YouTube, be prepared to do a great deal of bookwork. You need to treat your YouTube venture just like a small business. That means tracking expenses and earnings, reporting everything you make to the government, paying taxes on your YouTube income and how you’re going to deal with issues such as health insurance.
Another thing to think about when you decide to make YouTube part of your full-time career is how frequently you’re going to post, what your niche is and how you will balance your work life with your personal life. The people who do manage to turn creating YouTube content into a full-time job are extremely dedicated individuals who create regular posts, work hard to interact with their fans and who excel at sticking to a specific niche. In many cases, as soon as they master how to successfully navigate YouTube for one niche, they create videos for a different niche, and continue doing so.
Be prepared to get some pushback from YouTube. Several people who have used YouTube to launch a career have commented on how difficult it can be to work with the YouTube screening process. This seems to be especially true for individuals who post reaction videos and true crime content. In addition to struggling to figure out what type of content is copyrighted, they also struggle to get some of the content past YouTube’s censors. Many have commented on how inconsistent some of the censorship is.
While there is nothing wrong with dreaming of becoming a professional YouTuber, it’s best to go into the process of posting YouTube content with a realistic vision, a plan for a secondary income stream and a solid idea of how you’re going to steadily grow your platform.
