JesusGreen
Posting Mad!
I think the issue isn't with people deciding to make YouTube their career, it's the sheer amount of people who do that but then don't actually do it. They just continue to post some videos, expecting themselves to magically blow up overnight and become the new Pewdiepie and get rich. While occasionally people get some lucky exposure that skyrockets the popularity of their channel, the real truth of the matter is that for 99% of YouTubers, the size of their channel, the amount of money they can make, etc, will all be determined by how much work they put in.
Everyone is capable of getting their channel to large amounts of subscribers, it isn't a matter of luck, it's just a lot of hard work to get there. So if your goal is to build a career around YouTube, then you need to do things differently from day 1. Treat it like a job, spend long hours on it (especially during that initial stage where you're getting it off the ground), don't wait for the subscribers/views to come to you but instead learn how to attract them (through advertising, SEO, etc), create a business model plan for how your channel is going to be profitable.
It's especially important to do a lot of this from day 1 because for example if you do hope to make money from YouTube you almost certainly want to be selling products (ad money just doesn't cut it unless you're in a country where the dollar goes further than in the US or UK - and even if you are, if you're capable of getting enough views to get enough ad money, you'd be making much much more with a few choice products as well). If you want to be able to constantly reference your products and offer them to your viewers, you should start doing it early. Otherwise what happens is you create this image of "Hey I'm Mr Free. Everything on my channel is free and always will be", and the moment you suddenly drop a product it'll turn off your viewer base, and not only will they not want to purchase it, but they likely will think less of you for switching from 100% free to selling products. On the other hand, if your viewership is conditioned to know that you offer products/services from day 1, that's what they'll expect, and so they'll be happy to hear about new products you have to offer.
As for me? Yes I'm building a career/business around my YouTube channel. It has taken 11 months to get off the ground but I'm now earning about the same as I was in the previous job I quit. That isn't a whole lot, but it's enough, and so the most stressful part of the journey where money was the most tight looks to be over.
Everyone is capable of getting their channel to large amounts of subscribers, it isn't a matter of luck, it's just a lot of hard work to get there. So if your goal is to build a career around YouTube, then you need to do things differently from day 1. Treat it like a job, spend long hours on it (especially during that initial stage where you're getting it off the ground), don't wait for the subscribers/views to come to you but instead learn how to attract them (through advertising, SEO, etc), create a business model plan for how your channel is going to be profitable.
It's especially important to do a lot of this from day 1 because for example if you do hope to make money from YouTube you almost certainly want to be selling products (ad money just doesn't cut it unless you're in a country where the dollar goes further than in the US or UK - and even if you are, if you're capable of getting enough views to get enough ad money, you'd be making much much more with a few choice products as well). If you want to be able to constantly reference your products and offer them to your viewers, you should start doing it early. Otherwise what happens is you create this image of "Hey I'm Mr Free. Everything on my channel is free and always will be", and the moment you suddenly drop a product it'll turn off your viewer base, and not only will they not want to purchase it, but they likely will think less of you for switching from 100% free to selling products. On the other hand, if your viewership is conditioned to know that you offer products/services from day 1, that's what they'll expect, and so they'll be happy to hear about new products you have to offer.
As for me? Yes I'm building a career/business around my YouTube channel. It has taken 11 months to get off the ground but I'm now earning about the same as I was in the previous job I quit. That isn't a whole lot, but it's enough, and so the most stressful part of the journey where money was the most tight looks to be over.
