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Conspiracy Theory: The Adpocalypse is Going Nuclear

By
Erik Fritts
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It’s time, friends. Grab your bug-out bag and head to your fallout bunker. You’ll need a stockpile of food, water and a hard-wire internet connection because the Wi-Fi in bomb shelters is terrible. That’s right, we’ve passed the point of no return; we’re at DEFCON Negative 2: complete nuclear Adpocalypse.

If we went into a global conflict like WW3, maybe humanity would die out, but at least cockroaches would survive. The Adpocalypse is worse. I doubt even those pesky insects could deal with the darkest evil ever to face content creators: fallout of demonetization. I mean, think about it: it’s got “DEMON” right at the start of the word; we should take a hint. Clearly The Man and Mr. YouTube have colluded together, performing ancient blood magick and summoning dark spirits into existence to prevent creators from being able to make a living through ads.

The ramifications of YouTube’s new ad policies are huge. It doesn’t take a super-genius to recognize that right around the time of demonetization, US relations with North Korea became even more strained. However, few people probably realize the reason: Kim Jong-un loves cat videos.

I have reason to believe the North Korean dictator had secret plans on boosting his country’s GDP by producing a channel all about cute little kitties. However, once he realized that the site’s trending features had been revamped and he likely wouldn’t find success because of the new YouTube algorithm, Kim Jong-un started testing missiles and threatening the area where YouTube is head-quartered: the west coast of the United States.

This threat, caused by the Adpocalypse, is even bigger than in 2015, when Vladimir Putin almost declared war because Jenna Marbles stopped making “What Girls and Guys Do” videos.

Back to current day; is there any hope? Any reason to go on?

No, probably not.

It’s doubtful YouTube will go back to the old model. The strings have been pulled; the puppets have danced. The Man is back to his old tricks, manipulating every channel of power to make sure he stays on top and we, the lowly creator class, with our hilarious prank videos and epic fail compilations, will never be recognized for our brilliance.

We, as a species, are doomed.

This international crisis is beyond reconciliation. We, as a species, are doomed — we have been demonetized. All we can do is hope that in the distant future, whatever life form is next to reign supreme on this planet can find some some vestiges of the past and learn from our mistakes.

Humankind has surpassed the limits of mathematics, science and art. Now, the only thing worth striving for, ad revenue, has been stripped from us. We have nothing left but to count the days until we are completely consumed by a new dark age; a feudal, tribal state, where warlords reign supreme in a constant battle against each other and the elements for sheer survival. Or even worse, we return to print media.

Get YouTuber.

A Beginner’s Guide to Consumer Advocacy for Beauty Vloggers

By
Rhiannon McGavin
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In the way of new media, the term became a running joke on Twitter almost as quickly as the assured headlines rolled in. From shared apartments to presidential marketing suits, people wondered: what on earth is an influencer?

It’s a vague, peppy term that feels strangely sufficient to describe the YouTube economy of content that has evolved in the last few years. Some creators do produce music, films, books — and those actions come with their own titles — but the truest medium for anyone above a certain subscriber count is, perhaps, influence. With eyes and advertisers slathered over the video-sharing website, the question for some creators becomes how to use that sway.

The realm of beauty vlogging might seem mired in consumerism, but each product could be reimagined as a catalyst for discussion. Everyone makes personal choices about what they buy and use on a daily basis, and those decisions construct real influence, no matter the size of the audience.

Under the current global economic system, money is nearly always connected to some form of violence: even if someone only buys from their local farmers market, the bank of their credit card could be funding human rights violations somewhere else. Consumer-based activism is complex, which is all the more reason that more people should be encouraged to try.

Social media stars do have a responsibility to be informed on social issues just like anyone else, if to not actively point their audiences in an informed direction. For the beauty vlogger, critical thought must extend past the efficacy of the product to consider the forces that created it. Here are some of the major movements in the beauty domain.

Animal Rights

Probably the most visible of the movements on YouTube, people have protested against cosmetic experiments on animals since the 1980s. A search for “vegan beauty” on the platform turns up nearly two million results, with people discussing their favorite products that don’t use animals to test. One way to view the argument is that, while it is unethical to test new medications on humans, making animal trials necessary, makeup is more of a privilege than a right. The European Union officially banned cosmetic animal testing in 2013, while fewer and fewer American companies use the practice, so the public interest and petitions are working.

Lex Croucher’s Vegan & Cruelty-Free Gift Guide is one of many instances of creators helping viewers find more humane makeup options.

Boycott, Divest, Sanction, or the BDS movement

Inspired by the boycotts against Apartheid in South Africa, this campaign to end Israeli human rights violations is part of the larger Palestinian resistance. As in the name, the strategy is to boycott, divest from, or place sanctions on cultural and financial institutions that support the occupation and oppression of the Palestinian people. BDS was just nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, and the movement gains traction every day. Many cosmetic companies are unfortunately tied up in this market, but alternatives are just as present.

Kaya Empire uses her influence to direct viewers to the her favorite BDS-safe makeup products.

Labor practices

It does not feel adequate to describe the sweatshop systems and child abuse coordinated and maintained by multinational governments and companies as simply “unethical.” These issues cross with beauty in a myriad of ways, from the supply chains of fast fashion to the smallest ingredients. For example, the mineral mica is a practically ubiquitous component of color cosmetics, but approximately 20,000 children work in dangerous conditions to mine the material in northern India. Mica mining has only recently been legalized by the country after investigations revealed how often these children die in the unsanctioned mines.

Rian Phin highlights the major problem of child labor in the mining of mica, a mineral commonly used in a variety of cosmetics.

In other regions dealing with debt bondage and poverty, jobs in garment factories can be the best way for people to provide for themselves and their families. For these issues, boycotts are not necessarily the ultimate protest because policy decisions structure the local economies to rely on these hazards. Most activists within these countries recommend contacting corporate officials to ask them to take responsibility and improve working conditions. It is essential to move with this knowledge, and understand that glitters and clothes are more than possessions to be briefly worn and discarded; they belong to a wider exploitative system. For more information on these issues, Rowan Ellis and Rian Phin are quite educational.

Use that Influence

These are just a few aspects of being an informed buyer and promoter. Beauty vloggers should absolutely research the supply chain of brands that they use in order to fully educate their viewers. Vloggers have intimate access to the opinions of their viewers, with more people taking online reviews into account when purchasing new products than ever before. The larger cosmetics market has sped up to recognize the leverage of vloggers over the market, and the vlogging scene is even more powerful when taking these concerns into account.

Vloggers have intimate access to the opinions of their viewers.

From what I have seen, the most effective method is to explain what you use and why; people are more receptive to being inspired by good examples rather than just being told what to do. The online beauty community is full of people speaking honestly and passionately, and that influence can be exercised even more.

Rian Phin highlights the major problem of child labor in the mining of mica, a mineral commonly used in a variety of cosmetics.

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How to Tell Stories Using the Daily Vlog Format

By
juliana_broste
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Vloggers who embrace the art of storytelling create much more meaningful content for YouTube.

As vloggers, we are the heroes of our stories, and we are the storytellers. We have full control over what we share. Vlogs can be as simple as creating a daily diary, or they can be more complex with thoughtful storylines and editing. Having so much creative control and freedom, it begs the question: What makes the best vlogs?

The best vlogs tell a story. Vlogs are much more complex than simple montages, a jumble of awesome shots cut to awesome music. Vlogs tell stories that are logical and narrative. The real question is, how? While many people focus on the gear, it’s also important to master the art of storytelling.

To vlog or not to vlog?

These days, everyone has a camera in their phone, but creating a quality story takes a lot more than hitting the red record button. A common mistake? Shooting EVERYTHING. Sure, it’s scary to think we might miss something if we don’t film everything! But, capturing everything is exhausting and unnecessary, and it creates a complicated editing process.

As creators, we have to make the conscious choice about when to record, and even more important, when NOT to record. Discipline is the secret and the challenge. Hit the record button only when everything is perfect. Choose carefully what you capture. Get plenty of coverage to focus on your key points, but in general, less is more.

You’ll have an easier time crafting a story in post-production if you start production of your vlog with a shot list.

The Plan of Action

Start with a shotlist or loose outline of what you want to film. Ask yourself: What’s going to happen today? Which of these events or scenes do I want to film and which ones can I ignore? Coming up with a rough outline will give you time to capture an interesting story while also allowing time for rest between scenes. Even if you don’t know everything that will happen, having a rough plan will be useful.

Of course, once you have a plan, it’s OK to change the plan! Keep your camera at the ready in case something interesting pops up!

The Format

While the format for vlogs tends to vary from person to person, there are many key elements you’ll want to include:

1. Introduction.

Tell us who you are and what we’re doing today. It’s OK to briefly re-introduce your channel to your viewers — you never know who is watching for the first time. Just keep it snappy.

2. Dive into your first mini-story.

Tell us about your first exciting event or story point. Remember, all stories have a beginning, middle and end. Share relevant footage that explains what we’re about to do, what we’re doing and what we did.

When filming your on-camera moments, it’s OK if you don’t say it all perfectly in one take. Feel free to ad-lib or do a couple takes to make sure you got it. For vlogs, jump cuts are very much in style. You won’t get away with that as a TV news reporter, but for casual video blogs — you’re all good! So, in the edit, trim your story down as needed to add style and to refine the key points. You should also add relevant B-roll to make the story more interesting.

3. Transitions.

These are essential to keeping your story moving, and will help viewers travel with you to the next story point. There are several ways you can transition. You can tell us on-camera when you’re moving on to the next thing (ie. I just did this, and now I’m going to do that). Another option — add cinematic transitions like time-lapses or cool speed ramps, or add interesting B-roll to reflect upon the events that just occured or establish a new scene and move the audience to the next beat in your narrative.

As far as adding editing transitions, use them with purpose. For many, straight cuts and a periodic fade to black or white can help you tell your story. Don’t just add a bunch of transitions to your video for the sake of adding style and flair. Sure, have fun experimenting with every star wipe and funky dissolve effect imaginable, and then, never touch them again. Only use them if they enhance your story. For example, the zoom out effect can be a super cool transition to move from a wide shot of a building exterior to an extra wide shot that reveals the surrounding buildings on the street. However, using this same zoom out effect to transition between two unrelated story beats would be jarring.

4. Repeat step two and three as needed.

The beauty of vlogging is that you can include as many or as few mini-scenes as you wish!

5. Conclusion and Sign-Off.

This is the payoff. We’ve been watching your video for minutes and minutes — give what we’ve been waiting for — some type of resolution.

Did we achieve what we said we were going to do? Reflect on this question as you wrap up the story.

Then, invite your audience to interact with you — give them a call to action! Ask them to give your video a thumbs up if they liked it, tell them to leave a comment or invite them to watch additional videos on your channel. It never hurts to ask!

The Daily Grind

Over time, you will fall into a flow and develop a format that you can repeat for all episodes. You’ll find that this type of daily vlog format can carry over to other forms of filmmaking.

While the secret to beating YouTube’s algorithm is ever-changing, creating regular and even daily content is a strategic and personal goal for many. In TV news, it takes a whole team of people to create quality shows around the clock. Vloggers, as one-person film crews, have the same challenge of “feeding the beast.” In order to run a successful YouTube channel, remember to be realistic and set goals that you can achieve. You’ll have a lot more fun and create work you are proud of.

You’ll have an easier time crafting a story in post-production if you start production of your vlog with a shot list.

Get YouTuber.

How to make money streaming on YouTube and Twitch

By
Weland Bourne
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Twitch and Youtube are the two biggest platforms for live streaming for gamers, but which one will help you make the most money? Let’s take a closer look at how to make money streaming on YouTube and Twitch.

How to make money streaming on Twitch

If you want to know how to make money streaming, you should strongly consider being on Twitch. From its inception in 2011, Twitch has been all about livestreaming. Purchased by Amazon in 2014, Twitch has become the number one site for streamed gaming content.

Specs

Twitch users can enjoy video in 1920 x 1080 at up to 60 frames per second with the ability to stream up to 48 continuous hours. Unfortunately, Twitch is unable to archive streams permanently at the time this article was written, which does potentially decrease some of its monetizing ability.

Making money with Twitch

Once you begin streaming from your account, Twitch has a wide variety of monetization tools ready for you to use. YouTube and Twitch personality RumHam provides some revealing data, including his analytics, about typical earnings a Twitch creator can make. Let’s take a look at these tools.

Ads

You can earn revenue from Twitch through ads. Creators on a small to mid level typically see an average of $2 per thousand views from ad placement. While ads are not considered a huge chunk of revenue for most Twitch streamers, they do encourage viewers to buy a subscription since ad-free viewing is one of the bigger perks.

Subscriptions

By far, Twitch’s strongest monetization tool is the subscription feature. Similar to a subscription like Netflix or Hulu Plus, the subscription feature allows content creators to charge a monthly fee, set by the creator, for viewer perks. These perks include but are not limited to: ad-free streaming, chat features, special emotes, badges and access to archived and private streams. This is great since it allows the content creator the freedom to choose what perks a subscription will offer. For instance, if you like the idea of subscription badges but you don’t like the idea of private streams, you can choose to offer only the badges.

Twitch has two classifications of streamers: partners and affiliates. The subscription services are available to both Twitch partners and affiliates, although some subscriptions features are only available to creators at the partner level. For more details, Affiliate Resources has a great breakdown of the subscription difference between Twitch affiliates and partners.

Game Sales

Another way creators are able to monetize with Twitch is through game sales. Similar to affiliate marketing programs, Twitch creators can link their viewers to the Twitch store to buy games that creators are playing or that they mention during their stream. Currently, this feature is only available to those with partner status, but for every purchase made through the link, creators receive a five percent commission fee.

Bits

The final way that Twitch creators can cash in is through fans Cheering with Bits. Bits are pieces of cybercurrency that viewers gain by watching ads and filling out surveys. A singular Bit is equal to $0.01. These Bits can be donated to channels as tips. A nice thing about this feature is that creators have the option to set minimum and maximum donation limits.

How to make money streaming on YouTube

Conceived in 2005 and purchased by Google the following year, YouTube added its livestreaming services in 2013. We’re going to tell you how to make money streaming on YouTube.

Specs

YouTube’s stream quality is impressive providing support for 3840 x 2160 video at up to 60fps as well as 360 degree video. Most important, YouTube allows creators to archive streams permanently, allowing viewers to return and re-watch their favorite videos.

Making money with YouTube

RumHam also shares his Youtube analytics about the rather complex way one makes money on YouTube. YouTube has been in a constant state of flux this past year regarding monetization, so keep this in mind when viewing RumHam’s video. Here’s a look at the monetization tools that YouTube makes available.

Ad revenue

By far the most common monetization tool YouTube has to offer is ad revenue to its partners. YouTube has recently gone through an overhaul of their Partner Program, requiring that to be eligible for monetization, channels must meet and maintain the following requirements: at least 1,000 subscribers and at least 4000 hours of video watched in the past 12 months. Both requirements must be continuously maintained, otherwise you lose your partner status and access to ad revenue.

Those who qualify with “top tier content” are invited to be part of Google’s more lucrative Preferred Program, which bundles together content for selective advertising.

While creators are able to generate a steady stream of income through ad revenue, there are some downsides. Even preferred partners are being subject to review for “family-friendly content” through Google’s AdSense algorithms, which are constantly changing requirements and making it difficult to predict who and what content will be allowed to have ads. Still, as long as you’re able to maintain either Partner or Preferred Partner status, ad revenue from YouTube is a great way way for an established channel to receive steady income.

Subscription sponsorships

Just recently, YouTube launched a Twitch-style subscription service called sponsorships. This program offers similar features including the ability to customize your offerings. However, at the time that this article was written, most of the program is still in beta with YouTube currently rolling out the subscription service only to “qualified” gaming channels. YouTube’s says that the service will eventually be part of their Partner Program.

Super Chat

The newest way for people to make money on YouTube Live is through a feature called Super Chat. This allows partners to receive money and tips during their live streaming. However, since this is a newer feature, there’s not much data on revenue potential. Still, it’s another tool to potentially increase your revenue.

The best of both worlds

After reviewing the features for both platforms, you may be wondering which one is better. The question you really should be asking yourself is how to use both YouTube and Twitch to monetize your live streaming creations to their maximum potential.

Twitch does appear to be interested in providing some monetization for affiliates while they try to grow their channel, while YouTube is focused on creators with well-established followings. If you are interested in launching a gaming channel, Twitch might also be preferable, since most gamers go to Twitch looking for this type of content. However, that does not mean you should choose only one platform. YouTube can be a great advertising opportunity for your Twitch channel. Additionally, YouTube can also be a great archival platform for your Twitch streams.

The advantage of a multi-platform strategy

By creating a multi-platform brand, you can also maximize your revenue while incorporating other tools both on and offline. Here are a few platform-independent monetization options to consider.

Patreon & Ko-fi

Donation sites such as Patreon and Ko-fi allow viewers to support creators directly. While Ko-fi does it through the use of one time donations, Patreon users are able to set up multi-tier monthly services similar to subscriptions. You can direct your viewers to Ko-fi and Patreon in your videos and streams, and both platforms have the ability to set up direct links in description and home pages.

Sponsors

Sponsorships can be an incredibly lucrative for some creators and can be multifaceted, including compensation for event attendance, product endorsement, product reviews and even product placement into your content — usually through wearable merchandise or consumable items. This is generally reserved for creators with a very large subscriber base, although some companies might also consider influencers with an avid niche fan base. Smaller creators may often receive free products, which can also be a great form of compensation for smaller creators depending on the product.

Merchandising

Merchandising can be a wonderful revenue generator that also helps build your personal brand. Many smaller to mid level creators have been able to make money by selling merchandise, be it t-shirts, buttons or custom creations, through either their own website or sites such as Etsy or Redbubble. On a larger scale, creators with company sponsors often partner with those sponsors on lines of merchandise geared toward influencing the creator’s viewers.

Affiliate marketing

Usually placed in a stream’s description box, an affiliate marketing link allows the viewer to go visit the site of a product or company. Creators then receive a small commission for every visit and/or item purchased through this link. This commission value varies from company to company.

Final Thoughts

It’s important to create a great product and a solid fan base if you want to make money on any platform. I would suggest starting out with Twitch since it has a clearer, more user-friendly interface and allows you more control and opportunities to grow while launching both you and your streams.

Once you have established a fan base, begin to upload your streams to YouTube to ensure they are properly archived for viewers. This also allows you to start growing your following on YouTube, as well. Be sure to cross-utilize the sites, linking one to the other. It’s also never too early to take advantage of additional tools for maximum earnings.

Ultimately, you’ll need to craft a monetization strategy that makes sense for your fan base and your projects. It all comes down to marketing both you and your content. There is potential to eventually make a living streaming your gameplay and even to earn some serious bank — if you’re willing to put in the work to make it happen.

Logan Paul is Doomed to Be a Maverick Forever

By
Nicole LaJeunesse
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Comments sections are full of speculation about YouTube’s apparent preferential treatment towards Logan Paul. Many have postulated that Logan is a cash cow, a golden boy, and that YouTube has invested too much in him already for him to really face consequences. That may be true, but what’s more interesting is how he has come to inhabit this zone of apparent immunity.

Logan Paul has been hard to avoid these last couple of months. His recent actions and their impact on the broader community have made him a target of heated criticism across the internet. Subscriber or not, Logan Paul news has likely infested your feeds.

For more context, let’s go back about a year to PewDiePie and the beginning of the Adpocalypse. The Wall Street Journal story that framed PewDiePie (real name Felix Kjellberg) as a Nazi sympathizer also led to a crisis over brand safety and what content can be considered advertiser-friendly. Suddenly, YouTube had to make a lot of rules very quickly, starting with consequences for Felix, including the cancellation of his YouTube Red series.

More broadly, new and stricter guidelines, designed to satisfy advertisers and enforced by bots, resulted in widespread demonetization and very little feedback for creators trying to keep their AdSense revenue. This problem is well-known and on-going. But despite the struggles the average creator must overcome to collect AdSense revenue, Logan Paul’s videos, apart from a brief suspension from YouTube’s Partner Program that lasted just a couple of weeks, have continued earning.

Beyond the clearly distasteful manner in which Logan addressed the body he and his crew found in Japan’s Suicide Forest, much of the outrage surrounding this issue stems YouTube’s response as a platform — a video with a dead body literally in the thumbnail made it into YouTube’s top trending, and it was Logan, not YouTube, who eventually removed the video from the platform. Compared to YouTube’s reaction to the PewDiePie fiasco, punishment for Logan Paul has been perceived as slow and underwhelming. The suspension of his YouTube Original is expected to be lifted, and his removal from the YouTube Preferred Partner program seemed like an afterthought.

The comparison between Logan and Felix is an easy one to make — they both have merch, they both have legions of devoted fans and they have both been at the center of a media sh**storm. However, Felix has never been particularly ad-friendly, while Logan Paul is basically making ads already — for his merch, for his brand, for his lifestyle of excess and unbridled spending — which is exactly the kind of content that attracts the kind of audience advertisers want. Logan Paul has made himself saleable in a way that PewDiePie hasn’t. And YouTube, whether consciously or not, bought into Logan’s brand — the Maverick “revolution” — as much as anyone.

Brands are palatable — they’re designed to spark desire in a lot of people, which means they must be morally and ideologically safe. Logan has become all but inseparable from the Maverick brand, which insists that you can be whoever you want, do whatever you want and never care about what other people think.

Each step Logan took to build the Maverick brand also brought him closer to this moment in Japan’s Suicide Forest.

The pervasive branding throughout his channel should make Logan safe, appealing, palatable. And Logan Paul is palatable, likable even — until he’s not. On the surface, Maverick represents a positive message for young people looking for their place in the world, but like all branding, that message is undercut by the desire to sell you something: You can be yourself, but only when you wear these socks with my parrot on them. You can experience all this opulence and freedom, but only through my videos.

In The Existential Horror of Logan Paul, YouTuber Big Joel explains the trap Logan has crafted for himself. Because nothing can exist outside of the Maverick brand — now inextricable from Logan’s identity — anything and everything captured in the vlog must support that brand. Joel describes Logan as interacting with the world as if it were a cardboard cut out. He says, “When you transform yourself into a commodity, it’s hard to make a sense of connection or meaning feel genuine.” Similarly, Philip DeFranco, in his first episode about the controversy, says of Logan’s vlogging practices, “Everything is content, and when everything is content, nothing is sacred.” PewDiePie puts it more bluntly: “Logan is a straight-up sociopath.”

Because Logan has become so consumed by branding, nothing external can be real or meaningful. Everything must be jammed into the Maverick narrative, which states that you can and should do anything you want. And because the Marverick/Logan Paul brand was — and still is — so powerful, it has hidden Logan’s less appealing qualities long enough for them to reach a critical mass and explode out of the brand’s well-crafted seams and into the eye of the public.

Though Logan is still under a probation period that prevents his videos from receiving Google Preferred ads and appearing in Trending or Recommended, it’s clear that, at least in the eyes of YouTube, those seams are already being mended.

Each step Logan took to build the Maverick brand also brought him closer to this moment in Japan’s Suicide Forest.

Get YouTuber.

Crafting “Throw to Commercial” Moments Makes for Better Video Content

By
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YouTube has introduced a number of new tools for creators to utilize. Not all have been met enthusiastically, but there are useful things to take advantage of. One is the ability to choose when ads play within your video. Despite having this option for a while now, too many creators don’t use the feature to build the adspace into their videos.

The concept of throwing to commercial may have been built within the traditional television platform, but utilizing it in your YouTube videos has plenty of benefits, and implementing isn’t difficult.

What’s the Point?

Planning out commercial breaks may not seem important; after all, YouTube’s ads have their own fade-in/out function, making it easy to ignore on your end. But the ads’ automatic function isn’t discerning in its placement. More often than not, advertisements start at inopportune times, frequently in the middle of sentences; completely disrupting the flow and immersion. This is the kind of continuing annoyance likely to cause viewers to click away and never return.

Planned commercial breaks add another level of professionalism to your channel.

Ads during videos are expected, but if they’re an impediment to the viewing experience, they’re going to feel intrusive. That means it’s time to use the tools at your disposal and change your content to make ads less of an interruption to your content. Aside from eliminating the annoyance factor, there are other benefits to integrating “throws to commercials” within your content.

• Better Flow — Building commercial breaks into your content ensures that you retain control over your video’s flow of information and overall pacing.

• Prevent Interruptions — Nothing destroys the flow of your videos, killing viewer engagement, more than an advertisement starting right in the middle of dialog. Whether your video is a scripted series, talk show, top list or news update, ads interrupting the action without forewarning is the quickest way to send viewers elsewhere.

• Dramatic Effect/Building Tension — Watch any reality show competition, or even soap operas, and you’ll see how cutting to commercial builds dramatic tension. Leaving audiences purposefully dangling keeps them sucked into the content despite the break.

• Professionalism — Planned commercial breaks add another level of professionalism to your channel. It shows the planning and attention to detail you’re willing to put in while also letting subscribers know you want to give them the best viewing experience possible.

Finding the Moment

Creators have the ability to place ads at specific points on the timeline, but mostly tend to spread them out evenly throughout the video. Logically it makes sense, but the timing almost never works in conjunction with the content and you end up with mid-sentence cutoffs or odd transitions.

Place your ads in a way that complements your content, and don’t let them interrupt you mid-sentence.

Changing this up for your gaming videos isn’t difficult but requires a shift in every phase of your production. As you’re scripting shows out — even Let’s Play style videos should have some form of plan or layout to follow — figure out where the best breaks in your content come up. These tend to pop up naturally whenever you’re transitioning the conversation to a different topic.

For instance, if you’re doing a retrospective video on the history of a specific game, you’ll be talking about multiple different topics: early development, gameplay, reception, etc. When your narration moves to the next segment, that’s an excellent time to segue into commercial.

On countdown videos, ads can be easily inserted before you start talking about the next game on your top list. In a talk show format, take a break before a big interview or as you transition between subjects — where you’d typically throw it to the next presenter. Even a Let’s Play video can be broken up, since you’ll typically know when loading screens happen, or when you’re waiting in the lobby of multiplayer games.

Implementation

Once you’ve found the ideal timing for your commercial breaks, it’s time to find good ways to put them in place. Simply having your host say “standby for a commercial break” won’t do you any favors. It gets the job done, but this standard phrase does little to engage your viewers. You want to give them a reason to stick around through the ad.

Placing the ads within your video is dependent on knowing the material inside and out.

Much boils down to the personality of the host and utilizing their voice to make these segues as smooth as possible. On a news show, use the transition to give viewers a taste of what’s to come; “After this commercial we’ll dive into this week’s latest news…” Build excitement towards your number one spot on a top list video, by throwing to a commercial just beforehand: “Which game landed our top spot? Find out after this break!” A similar technique would work equally well for gaming tournament or multiplayer battle videos.

Sometimes, a natural point within your content creates its own transition. This is how scripted television handles commercial breaks; dramatic pauses become elongated, eventually fading to black leading to commercial. This keeps audiences guessing as to what happens next.

Placing the ads within your video is dependent on knowing the material inside and out. Just as you mark it in your script from the outset and record them during production, it’s important to make sure your edited video still makes sense for those particular spots. Sometimes better options for ad placement pop up unexpectedly — another reason it’s crucial to watch and rewatch your videos before posting.

It may seem like extra work for no (immediate) gain, but using YouTube’s ad placement tool is a great way to show another level of professionalism and dedication. And it will eliminate a great deal of viewer frustration, preventing them from clicking away to another channel because of annoying video ads popping up in all the wrong places.

Place your ads in a way that complements your content, and don’t let them interrupt you mid-sentence.

Get YouTuber.

What YouTube Creators Can Learn from Workout Channels (and 5 of Our Favorites)

By
emilyfuller8
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Workout channels are a popular lifestyle subgenre that cover a wide range of fitness activities including bodybuilding, yoga, dance, ab workouts, cardio routines and almost everything in between.

Fitness-focused creators often have a base of dedicated fans who rely on their videos as a consistent way to find workouts they can do in their homes, often using little or no workout equipment. These five workout channels offer different approaches to the art of making interesting and engaging videos that foster channel growth and financial success.

Fitness Blender is a very successful channel run by a husband and wife duo. With 4.7 million subscribers and more than 500 full-body workout videos posted, the couple has learned how to use sleek, consistent visuals and simple, easy to follow workout instructions to attract and retain viewers. They release a new video every Monday, which establishes consistency for their audience. Their workouts are organized into warm ups, main workouts and cool downs, which naturally leads viewers from one of their videos to another. Fitness Blenders has monetized their channel through advertisements before and during their videos. They’ve also used the channel as a link to their personal website and Home Workout Plans which cost anywhere from $5 to $10.

With strong viewership and a high number of subscribers the channel seems solidly founded on monetization from both external advertising and sales of their own workout programs.

POPSUGAR Fitness is one branch of a much larger lifestyle brand that covers entertainment, beauty, fashion and fitness on YouTube and other platforms. On the POPSUGAR Fitness channel, the team creates a sense of consistency in their videos with Fitness Host Anna Renderer, who introduces the guest instructor for each video. With 1.8 million subscribers, POPSUGAR Fitness relies on popular health and workout trends and brings in celebrity trainers to lead workouts that come with a lot of name recognition for viewers (i.e. the Victoria’s Secret model workout). POPSUGAR Fitness also uses collaborations with other creators from mostly the lifestyle genre to grow and expand their audience.

As far as monetization, they sometimes acknowledge corporate sponsors within their videos, and they also use pre-roll advertising. In the “About” section, the creators also provide a link to their clean-eating app, which viewers can buy on iTunes for $2.99.

Yoga With Adriene is one of many yoga channels on YouTube, and with 3 million subscribers, Adrienne has found an equation that attracts viewers of all ages, genders and skill levels. Her videos are simple and consistent visually and stylistically. Adriene has created a consistent brand through her on-screen graphics, intros and thumbnails. When the video starts, she usually jumps right into the workout and uses a calm, quiet voiceover to provide instructions and keep the videos engaging. Adriene addresses trends in health and wellness in many of her videos and she offers yoga routines to help viewers deal with anxiety, depression, specific bodily pains or workout goals like weight loss or increased flexibility. Adriene uses ads to monetize her channel and she also provides a link on YouTube to her personal website and online store, where she sells merchandise and subscriptions to personalized yoga programs with exclusive, ad-free versions of her videos at a cost of $9.99 per month.

The Fitness Marshall is a workout dance channel run by Caleb Marshall, whose high-energy personality and killer dance moves get viewers moving along to popular songs for a fast-paced workout. At 1.1 million subscribers, Caleb creates short, effective workouts — they only last the length of one song — and encourages viewers to create their own workout “playlist” using a combination of his videos. Caleb brings in a different group of backup dancers for each video, and they usually represent many different skill levels and body types. By asking viewers to create their own “Cardio Concerts” he encourages his audience to stay within his channel to create a workout of whatever length they desire. On his channel, Caleb also provides a link to his Patreon, where supporters can gain access to additional “patron only” videos or pay for a special shout out from him on social media.

As far as monetization, the Fitness Marshall promotes sponsored products within some of his videos in a way that’s fairly brief and painless, and the channel also uses pre-roll advertising.

Scola Dondo describes herself as a “personal trainer and food lover,” and she runs a lifestyle channel focused on health and fitness. She releases several types of videos every week including “Motivation Mondays” (mostly advice on health and wellness) and “Workout Wednesday” (fitness routines). Scola shares her personal story about weight loss with viewers and her channel feels more casual and personal than the other workout channels featured here. Her contagious personality and openness with her audience make the channel feel safe and approachable, even for viewers who many not have much experience with fitness or workout programs. Scola’s workouts are easy to follow and designed for all skill levels and living spaces. Her videos address more than physical health and are meant to help viewers feel healthy physically, mentally and emotionally. Ads are present on some of her videos, but she isn’t selling any type of personal product or workout plan, which makes the channel feel a little more genuine and familiar than some of the more business-oriented workout channels.

These five channels all strive to make fitness accessible to a broad range of viewers, and they employ a variety of business strategies to make that possible. If you want start or grow your own fitness-oriented channel, use the success of these five channels to inspire and inform your own channel’s development. And if you’re just looking to break a sweat, these channels won’t disappoint.

Get YouTuber.

Making Money on YouTube Just Got Harder

By
Odin Lindblom
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If you want to get rich quick with YouTube, invest in Google stock! Many think I jest, but with the recent changes to the requirements for their Partner and Preferred Partner Programs severely affecting small to mid level creators, Google stock may actually be your best option if you’re looking to make money with YouTube. Here’s why.

In April 2017, after the Adpocalypse, many YouTubers were hit with the new requirement of having 10,000 lifetime views in order to participate in AdSense as well as other partner perks. In the fall, many creators were in the queue waiting to be re-monetized after finally hitting the 10,000 mark. They waited and waited, many for three or four months, until January when YouTube announced their new requirements for creators to participate in the Partner Program. Now, creators will need 1000 channel subscribers and 4000 hours (which equates to 240,000 minutes ) of viewing time within the past year in order to participate in the YouTube Partner Program (YPP). Additionally, YouTube says that, “Any channel previously part of YPP that no longer meets the YPP eligibility requirement will not be able to monetize, including sponsorships and Super Chat.” This change suggests that it would probably take at least a year for any new creators to see any type of compensation from YouTube.

Another requirement that many creators fear is the burden of maintaining their 1000 subscribers and 4000 hour per year watch time, since YouTube will be monitoring this every month to ensure that creators continue to meet their “high standards.” YouTube has tried to reassure creators by saying, “You won’t lose monetization just because you drop below the threshold for a short period of time. YouTube does however reserve the right, at its discretion, to remove monetization from channels who drop below the new threshold if the channel is inactive and not uploading or posting for 6 months or more.” Of course what has creators concerned is the language in that statement saying that YouTube “reserves the right, at its discretion.” The fact that YouTube has changed creator requirements twice within a one year period does not leave creators feeling very confident.

A Case of the Haves and Have Nots

YouTube claims that, “This update allows us to protect the creator community from spammers, impersonators and other bad actors who hurt our ecosystem or take advantage of creators, while continuing to reward those who make our platform great.” But what this really translates to is more money for top tier, Preferred Partner creators who already have many advantages over their program-only counterparts.

YouTube claims that these new changes won’t affect most since “99% of all [demonetized] YouTube creators earn less than $100 a year” which equates to approximately $2.50 a video. Dan Currier, who has multiple channels including the Average Dan, suggests these numbers are way off. Before the recent changes, Dan said he earned significantly more than this per video, but he has less than 1000 subscribers for some of his channels. Additionally, Dan pointed out that even $2.50 a video could provide an emotional uplift for some creators.

Some creators are in a similar boat. They suggest that YouTube should be looking at the profitability of channels as opposed to these new, random requirements. However, this is not case. 95% of all creators are at the whims of YouTube’s “family-friendly” AI bots who just aren’t that smart or for that matter friendly. Often, they will improperly categorize and demonetize a video based on YouTube’s algorithms, and since the initial implementation of the algorithms, many creators have questioned how the top 5% of creators could publish content that the AI bots prohibit for the remaining 95%. YouTube just announced that they will be subjecting all content in their Preferred Partner Program to human review. Is this because, recently, the algorithms couldn’t recognize a dead body in Logan Paul’s video?

So What is YouTube Really Trying to Accomplish?

Many have questioned if this isn’t all a ploy by YouTube to clean house. Others think it’s a way for YouTube to continue to increase their profits by taking advantage of smaller and now also mid-level creators. In a statement released in 2016 by the CEO of YouTube, Susan Wojcicki, she noted that although YouTube has been around for over a decade, they are still in investment mode, claiming that profitability is not the focus; additionally, they have no timetable suggesting when that might happen. I suppose when Google is your parent company, little things like profitability may not be important; however, for all the creators out there who are being demonetized, profitability is one of their biggest concerns.

Many critics also note that YouTube has limited what can be included on cards, with changes geared toward affecting small to mid-level channels that also rely on platforms such as Patreon. However, YouTube claims that, “Access to many features like cards, end screens, or custom thumbnails doesn’t depend on YPP and won’t be impacted… previously, you were required to be a YPP to link to external websites from cards and end screens, but we’ve changed that. If you’re using this feature already, you’ll be able to continue using it in the future, even if you’re no longer part of YPP.”

In light of these critiques and more, YouTube has tried to console creators by pushing their YouTube Creator Academy, claiming it will help creators meet the new requirements. However, many mid-level creators dismiss this, claiming the push is insulting.

For contrast, we can look to Patreon’s response to user concerns over changes to that platform. On December 7, 2017, Patreon introduced a new $0.35 fee for Patrons in addition to a charge of 2.9% of the amount pledged. This severely affected smaller creators. Less than a week later, Patreon’s CEO apologized and said the new fee would not be implemented. While many creators hope this might happen for them with YouTube, this is likely wishful thinking.

Many pundits suggest that YouTube might lose much of its current content if disruption from a competitor occurs, especially one offering access to a bigger audience and better compensation. This indeed could happen with AmazonTube. Will it soon be YouTube’s biggest rival? Only time will tell. Either way, small to mid-level creators will really need to explore alternative revenue streams if they’re looking for compensation or monetary support.

Discord allows you to upload custom emojis that members can use throughout your server.

Get YouTuber.

Discord for YouTube Creators: How to Use Discord to Build an Engaged Community

By
Nicole LaJeunesse
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Since the invention of online video games, there has been a parallel development of voice and text chat clients targeting gamers. Cooperative online play demands effective communication, making a Ventrilo, Mumble or TeamSpeak server a necessity for any guild. As the gaming community has progressed, we have entered the era of Discord.

Like TeamSpeak and Vent before it, Discord provides a way for guildies and teammates to communicate during game play. And like its predecessors, gamers tend to hang out to chat with friends regardless of game-playing status. The modern equivalent to a clubhouse where you know you might meet a friend or two, established servers offer a place for people to connect, chat and play games together no matter where they are in the world.

Here’s where Discord is different from its predecessors: While TeamSpeak 3, Ventrilo and Mumble — the three most popular voice chat clients before Discord hit the scene — all share a decidedly ugly interface, Discord is utterly intuitive and even , dare I say , pretty. Discord’s more user-friendly interface is paired with a more robust text chat service, featuring everything from link embeds and emoji reactions to integrated Giphy search.

These two factors don’t just make Discord more appealing to gamers; they also make it more accessible to those outside of the gaming community. Discord may have been built by gamers for gamers, but it has the potential to provide space for all sorts of communities to hang out and connect. In an era dominated by absentee friendship built on empty likes and shares, Discord makes room authentic discussion.

For the YouTube creator — gaming-focused or otherwise — Discord can be a great way to build a stronger community around your content. With Discord, you can reach your most engaged fans directly, and more exciting, those fans can connect and engage with each other, as well. More than a means to boosting watch time, these connections are the fabric of a lasting community that can provide real friendship and support to its members.

How to Get Started

Discord already provides extensive support guides, so this article will not provide detailed instruction into the technical aspects of joining Discord and setting up a server. Instead, we’ll be looking at the more philosophical questions of role management and channel organization (and how to make sure your server has all the coolest emojis).

It will take some time and thought before you have your Discord server set up in a way that works for your community. It all starts with your server name and icon.

But before any of that, you’ll have to decide why you want to create a community using Discord in the first place. Why do you want to connect with viewers in this way and what kinds of discussions do you want to take place on your server? Is your server a place for subscribers to casually hang out or do you want to create a more structured support network with specific community goals and expectations?

On a more practical note, you’ll also have to give your server a name and an icon. For YouTube creators, this should be easy; you already have a name and profile pic picked out, and there’s no reason you can’t reuse them for your Discord community. On the other hand, don’t be afraid to get creative. Your Discord community will be connected to your YouTube channel, but their purposes are not exactly the same and you may decide you want your Discord server name or icon to reflect that difference.

Creating Channels

Once you’re server has been established, it’s time to start making channels — those are your different voice and text chat rooms — and organizing them into categories. Here’s where your server will really start to take shape.

If we go back to the clubhouse analogy, the different channels are like different rooms within that clubhouse. Is your clubhouse a huge mansion with dozens of ornate rooms all built for a specific purpose, or is it more like a tree-house in someone’s backyard? Both have their charms, of course. How you structure your server depends on how you want people to use and inhabit that space.

Most servers will include some kind of general text chat channel and you may also want specific channels for server information, community news or event announcements. Keeping this kind of important info separate from busier text channels ensures it will always be easy for members to find.

Depending on the size of your community, you may also need separate voice and text channels for different types of discussions. Think again about your goals for your Discord community and decide how you can structure your server to best facilitate reaching them. If your YouTube channel features mostly drawing tutorials, for instance, your goal might be to have your subscribers share projects they make in response to your videos. In that case, you could make an art-share channel where people can post and comment on drawings from the community. The same server might also have an art-appreciation channel, where members can discuss their favorite artists and what makes them so great. You can define the purpose of each channel in the channel description so people know what’s appropriate to post in any given channel.

The kinds of discussion you want to encourage will vary based on your YouTube channel, but the idea here is to make space for all of the different conversations that might take place without going overboard dividing topics into smaller and smaller slices. If a channel sees very little use after your server has grown up a bit, consider restructuring your server to eliminate that channel or merge similar channels together so they remain active. You won’t want to shuffle things around too frequently, but there will be growing pains that need to be addressed as your community gets established.

You’ll also want at least one voice channel. The most common setup is to have one general voice chat channel with a few less-used channels for specific activities, or for when members just want to have a quieter conversation than the one happening in the main channel.

Once all of your text and voice chat channels are established, organize them using categories. This allows server members to collapse whole sections they don’t find relevant and generally keeps your server feeling clean and organized.

Establishing Roles

With your text and voice channels set up, it’s time to determine how different community members can interact with them. You can do this by creating roles, then assigning permissions to those roles on a server-wide or per channel basis.

Discord uses a linear role hierarchy system. When a user is assigned a role or roles, they will receive all of the permissions allowed by those roles as well as the permissions of the roles below it on the roles list, including the permissions of the default @everyone role. Therefore, it does actually matter how you order roles on the list. These roles establish server-wide permissions for each user, but you can use channel-specific permissions for even more control over which roles can chat in which channels. You can also edit permissions for all channels in a category at once, streamlining the management process a bit. This gets deep, so if you’re new to Discord, start simple and make adjustments as necessary.

There are three reasons to spend time creating a hierarchy of roles for your server. The first is general server maintenance and moderation. The second is to recognize member contributions to the community. The third is to have the ability notify specific groups of people through mentions.

You can manage permissions for each role on a server-wide or per channel basis.Categories can be used to manage permissions across multiple text and voice channels.

Just like on YouTube, it’s possible that nasty comments or unwanted content will at some point make it into your Discord server. It takes a bit more dedication to troll a Discord community than it does a YouTube comments section, but not much more. That’s where a member role comes in handy. The name for this role might vary based on server theme, but the function is the same: a member role separates the randoms who stumbled in via a public invite link from those who actually want to participate in community discussions. It’s not a bad idea to make your member role a prerequisite for sending messages, at least in certain channels. You can also limit image uploads and link embeds while allowing regaular text. If you’re especially protective, you can even block non-members from seeing certain channels altogether.

Depending on the size of your community, you may also want to establish at least one moderator role besides your default Owner role, which bypasses all role specific permissions. Assign roles to your moderators depending on how much control you want them to have — you might give a junior moderator only kick and mute privileges, but a senior mod may have the power to permanently ban people. At the top of the list, the administrator permission is an especially powerful one to grant. It allows members with that role to do nearly everything the server owner can. Only give this permission to your most trusted inner circle of moderators.

Aside from moderation, you can use roles to establish different membership tiers and vanity roles. The role hierarchy system also extends to role colors — the top most role color will displayed in chat and in the member list. Assigning special roles with identifying colors can be a fun way to recognize members of the community. Patreon donors, for instance, might get a special Patron role that makes usernames with that role show up, let’s say, bright pink. Now, anyone with that pink name will be immediately recognized as a Patron — and treated with the appropriate respect. You can also use the role to give Patrons access to private text and voice channels to make their contributions even more rewarding.

Finally, roles can be used to group together people with similar interests for easier communication. In the same way you can mention individual users using @username and all server members using @everyone, Discord allows you to use mentions to send notifications to all members of a particular role. If you’re a gaming personality active on multiple gamers, you might want to add a RustFam role, for instance, to easily notify your Rust-playing fans when a new video is up, or you could use a BattleBuddy role to get members who are interested in Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds pumped for your next PUBG stream.

Roles and channels form the core structure of your community. You can make them as simple or as elaborate as you want, but make sure they facilitate the community you’re trying to develop — in other words, use roles and channels to construct the kind of clubhouse you and your subscribers want to hang out in.

Discord allows you to upload custom emojis that members can use throughout your server.

Adding Extras

With your clubhouse built, it’s time to spruce up the decor. Discord allows you to upload PNG files to use as emojis throughout your server. Members can then use the emojis in text channels and as reactions — an excellent opportunity to perpetuate inside jokes within the community to bring members closer together. You can also add bots to your server to perform a variety of functions. Music bots like Rhythm are especially popular, but there are a number of server management bots and game-playing bots that can help with administrative tasks or just keep your members active and entertained. Both custom emojis and bots are optional, especially at the beginning of your server’s life, and it’s likely you will collect more of both over time.

Grand Opening

By now, you should feel satisfied with the basic structure of the server. Some settings will likely change as your community grows, so be prepared to make adjustments. However, you won’t know what needs tweaking until people start using the spaces you’ve created. It’s time to create an invite link and share it with your fans.

Invite links are created on a per channel basis, so choose which channel you want new users to see first and create your invite link there. You can set the link to never expire for a permanent, reusable invite link, or do let your invite links expire for more control over when new members join. The expiration period is adjustable from 30 minute up to a full day.

You know your audience best, so promote your Discord server in a way they will respond to. You might include the invite link in your video descriptions and remind viewers to join you there for deeper discussions. You can also share the link on other social media platforms where you viewers hang out. The new Community tab is another way to get the word out to fans.

However you get new members to join, keep the community active by regularly contributing to discussions, encouraging conversations between members and moderating as necessary. Running a Discord server can be a lot of work, but the benefits for certain creators can be huge. The clubhouse you build will do more than encourage viewer loyalty; it will be capable of fostering real friendships.

If you’re looking for a way to connect directly with fans and form a strong community around your content, Discord is it.

Discord allows you to upload custom emojis that members can use throughout your server.

Get YouTuber.

The Fragility of Trust: Ethics of Product Reviews

By
David Welton
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It’s not worth it to subject your loyal subscribers to a skewed review in exchange for some quick profits. Roman Mica, host of TFL Car and TFL Truck, gives his perspective on keeping your product reviews honest and accurate.

Reviewing products is always a tightrope walk. A best-case scenario is a review that pleases both the audience and the owner of the product. But, things don’t always work out that way.

Imagine a YouTube channel that only evaluates the products that advertise on that channel. In an attempt to keep advertisers happy, and income flowing, this cozy arrangement inevitably produces glowing reviews. But, the temptation to focus on the positive stems from the flawed logic that a happy advertiser always equals financial success for the creator.

Journalism 101

Unlike a doctor, real estate broker or high school teacher, anyone can call themselves a journalist — there is no licensing system or other qualifications. A trained journalist typically has a university degree in journalism, but not always.

Thanks to social media, we now have citizen journalists. These novices often bring fresh approaches to their work but might not understand the broader tenets of the craft of journalism.

Many YouTube reviewers fall into the category of citizen journalists. They are likely experts on the products they examine, but lack training in journalism.

In their “Code of Ethics,” the Society of Professional Journalists offers guidance to help traverse the tightrope a product reviewer treads: “Deny favored treatment to advertisers, donors or any other special interests, and resist internal and external pressure to influence coverage.”

A reviewer’s job is to objectively expose a product’s good and bad qualities, while not bowing to pressure by anyone. You’ve earned subscribers because those viewers desire accuracy to inform their purchasing decisions.

If your reviews always paint a glowing picture of products, your audience will find another, more objective, channel. Remember, trust is a fragile thing, even the smallest transgression can destroy your credibility, and your channel’s success.

TFL Car and Truck

Roman Mica is the publisher of the popular YouTube channels TFL Car and TFL Truck. Collectively, the channels have about 1.1 million subscribers with 473 million video views. Mica brings a strong journalism background to his reviews through a Master’s Degree in Broadcast Journalism from Northwestern University.

Early in Mica’s career, he worked for a small-town TV news outlet where he was essentially a one-man operation serving as talent, camera operator and video editor. This early experience gave him a valuable skill set needed in the production of a YouTube channel. Later in his career, he learned the ins and outs of web publishing with a review blog that garnered him free products but little cash flow. Mica turned to YouTube to find success as a reviewer.

The goal of every reviewer is to get their hands on a product before it is launched to the public. Mica points out that if you want access to products that have not hit the shelves, you have few choices except to develop and maintain a good relationship with the manufacturer or distributor. Mica puts it this way, “Manufacturers hold the keys to the kingdom, especially if the product isn’t available to the public.”

Mica says he wishes he had the budget to use the Consumer Reports model for reviews. The Consumer Reports organization purchases items they analyze at public retailers, just like the consumers they serve. They are unwilling to take the chance that a loaned sample product is in any way different than the ones on retailers’ shelves. Most YouTube reviewers don’t have the budget to go out and buy products, but you can’t deny that the Consumer Reports model eliminates the chance of funny business.

Roman aims for transparency in all of his car and truck reviews. It’s one of his central tenants, along with conducting real-world reviews and staying consistent.

Wine and Dine Dilemma

According to Mica, the automotive industry holds media events that allow reviewers carefully controlled access to their products. Manufacturers invite Mica to events and sometimes pay his flights, hotel and food. Ideally, Mica would love to reimburse the trip costs and eliminate any perception of conflict of interest. But, in reality, he could only afford one trip per year — not good enough.

Mica is guided by three principles that he feels have garnered him success as a YouTube reviewer: transparency, real-world reviews and consistency. First, transparency means that his audience know everything they need to understand the motivations of the reviewer. Mica gladly accepts invitations to a manufacturer’s media event. If he is wined and dined by the manufacturer, he wants his viewers to know — it’s the first thing he says in his review.

Second, real-world reviews mean that products are reviewed in a manner consistent with their typical use out in the field. An unscripted romp up a muddy hill in a 4×4 truck is one example. Finally, consistency means that the release of new videos is done with predictable frequency.

Mica acknowledges that, “Click bait works. There are channels out there that call their content ‘reviews’ and get lots of views, but they are not providing objective, real-world assessments. Their owners might gain short-term profit, but not long-term viewer trust and sustainability.” Clearly, Mica is in the YouTube game for the long haul.

Follow Mica’s advice and stay true to your audience; they are relying on you for accurate information to guide their important buying decisions.

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