How To Start A Successful YouTube Channel For Your Personal Brand

How To Start A Successful YouTube Channel For Your Personal Brand

Many of the creators feel that monetization is a tough and challenging part of the YouTube journey.

This issue was the case a few years back, but now with the latest YouTube creator-friendly guidelines, it has become relatively easy to start monetizing your channel.

The new YouTube monetization guide with fewer restrictions has made it easy to monetize your channel without worrying a lot.

For example, the manual allows monetizing educational content such as documentaries and news containing violent interactions of drug-related topics or any other sensitive topics.

The company has also relaxed its rules around adult humor and profanity. For example, you can monetize the video if your channel has adult humor or moderate profanity within the very first thirty seconds of the video.

These relaxed policies help the creators to get the benefit of monetization without compromising on the content. 

To get started with monetization, one needs to become a YouTube Partner and to become a partner; your channel needs to meet certain criteria:

  • Follow all the YouTube monetization policies strictly.
  • The channel needs to have 4,000 public watch hours.
  • The channel should have a minimum of 1,000 subscribers.
  • The owner of the channel must live in eligible regions and countries.
  • They should have an AdSense account linked to their YouTube account. 

How To Earn Money Via YouTube

Google AdSense

Google AdSense
Google AdSense

You will need Google AdSense to start receiving payments for the advertisements that YouTube puts on your video. Google AdSense is a valuable platform that helps the business to buy ad space.

The money you will receive will either be by cost per view or cost per click, whichever the advertiser chooses as their strategy model. 

Online Course

The current pandemic situation has boomed the e-learning market, and the market is expected to grow way beyond $375 billion by 2026 exponentially.

Since the market keeps growing, YouTubers have found a different way to earn extra money from their account.

Launching a paid online course and selling it on YouTube is an excellent income model which can give you immense profits if you have a dedicated follower base.

Look at Sara’s Finance channel; she noticed the demand and quickly launched her stock market and dropshipping course. She constantly advertises in her videos and consistently links them in the description box.

Selling Memberships

Selling Memberships

Selling memberships can be an excellent and effective way to monetize your channel even better. You can easily set up a membership service just like Patreon on your YouTube channel.

To start a membership, you need to have more than 30,000 subscribers and legal age of above 18 years. You can then create tiers for different price points and give the people extra exclusive content, stickers, emojis, live streams, etc.

All one has to do is click the Join button and choose the tier of their choice. For example, Dope or Nope does it by giving three tiers with different levels of exclusiveness.

Sponsorships

Creating sponsorship videos can be yet another way to earn handsomely via YouTube. Big brands might approach you if you have a loyal and colossal following; in return, you create an entire video using their product or create a theme close to it.

The company usually pays according to the subscriber count, and you can earn sufficient money if you snag a big deal after gaining several subscribers.

You can charge more for YouTube sponsored posts as it is comparably time-consuming and expensive to produce than clicking a picture for Instagram.

Sell Branded Merchandise

 Selling personal branded merchandise opens yet another door to monetize your YouTube channel. The beauty of selling merchandise is the factor of change; you can change your inventory at any given moment, be it the designs or items.

In addition, you can churn out new merchandise according to season and festivals or according to recent trends. For example, Haley Pham attracts her subscribers with TikTok-inspired sweatshirts and stickers.

Because of its sheer variety, merchandising can be an excellent lucrative stream of income from your YouTube channel.

Affiliate Commissions

Affiliate Commissions

Affiliate marketing can be your number one best friend when thinking about monetizing your channel. The potential is unlimited, and the ‘benefit for all’ pattern works for everyone.

A creator usually advertises the product in the mid-video just like Scott Cramer does in this one and informs the audience about the product.

Then, creators generally add a discount code with a trackable affiliate link that lets the subscribers have the product for a low price. This marketing technique is an excellent monetization model that benefits the buyers, the content creator, and the company equally.

Ways To Fight Your Way To The Top

Yes, it is possible to fight your way through the top to reap the benefits of the above monetization models, but you will need to work strategically while constantly posting good content.

You can use the following methods to crawl your way to the top within a short period:

#1 Cross-Platform Promotion

#1 Cross-Platform Promotion

If you wish to achieve tremendous success on this platform, you have to optimize all the media platforms to spread the word. You can put up your channel links wherever possible and engage in a conversation that directs them towards your channel.

Posting a short teaser video of your original video works best for other platforms. If you have more than 10,000 followers, you can constantly put up stories asking them to swipe up to the YouTube video.

#2 Build Honest Relationships With Your Viewers

You need to add value to your channel by proving that you have a better community and you, as a creator, are very engaged.

Doing this helps you gain word of mouth, and many companies would like to work with you because of the organic and engaging community. Four things that you should regularly do include:

  • Replying to your comments as much as you can.
  • Doing regular shout-outs during the starting of the video.
  • Asking your subscribers to participate in the polls.
  • Utilizing the YouTube shots and stories to give an inside view of your daily life. 

#3 Cards And End Screens

It would be best to quickly learn to direct the traffic by adding clickable cards and end screens. These cards can have links to other videos if your viewer has a short concentration period, or you can add a little poll to increase engagement.

This tactic keeps the visitor on your channel for the longest time by feeding them content constantly.

You can do the same for end screens; these are visual CTAs that will let people jump to another video or, better yet, a playlist of videos at the end of the initially clicked video.

Bon Appetit does the same thing by adding two different videos from their channel to increase the views and ultimately grow subscribers.

#4 Interesting Thumbnails 

#4 Interesting Thumbnails

Using individual thumbnail highly depends from niche to niche. If you are a content creator focusing on kids and teens as your target audience, you need to post bright and weird thumbnails to attract the audience—for example, the channel Guava Juice.

If you are drawing a mature audience, you can keep it simple like Apartment Therapy, but adding a single pop color, in their case a red, catches the attention.

#5 Ensure The Basics Are Covered

Look at all the YouTube fundamentals and make sure you have done and filled everything. Fill out the about section with informative links and a short introduction to your channel to help people understand your content better.

Keep the contact information up-to-date for future business and brand partners. Pay attention to icons, channel arts, consistent opening and closing music in each video.

#6 Create Playlists

As a content creator, you need to make an extensive list of playlists that differentiates your content and puts them in a separate list. This way, the visitors can easily find your previous content and binge-watch the videos per their liking.

Vice Asia does an excellent job of creating a list that has a varied range under a specific list. On the other hand, if you observe Karuna Satori’s channel, you will notice no lists, while her page has thousands of videos for many years.

Even if the content produced is good, people might not find it enticing enough to stay on the channel. The lack of playlists makes it tough to dig through the old content, affecting the creator’s income.

Apart from that, a user is more inclined to subscribe to well-put-out channels, which can help the channel get on the top. 

#7 Using Proper Metadata

#7 Using Proper Metadata

You can visit your competitor’s account and look at their keywords on the most popular video. If you have the same content type, you can draw inspiration and add a few exact keywords in your video description.

Avoid copying A to Z and adding words that resemble the overall category, channel type, and particular highlights of each video.

#8 Niche Down

Niching down is the easiest way to cut down all the competition by paving your way. Dig out your interest and try to find a relevant niche, and start creating content.

The more unique your content, the easier it is to reach the top. Caitlin Doughty’s YouTube channel is one such example of extreme niching down.

She is a mortician and an author who talks and educates her audience about death and other exciting topics. If you calculate her success with a lifestyle channel, we can say that her channel has many potentials to stand out and succeed.

Creating A YouTube Channel

Creating A YouTube Channel

You need to get the basics cleared if you wish to jump into the world of YouTube for your branding. You need to sign in on whichever email account you feel necessary and follow these basic steps:

  • Click on create a channel
  • Choose a custom name
  • Upload a profile picture
  • Add an informative description of your channel
  • Add links to all your main social media accounts
  • Concentrate on building a background art and icon

Building A Loyal Fan Base

Building A Loyal Fan Base

Building your following is not an easy task. You need to be patient and think of YouTube as a slow-growing platform. You will surely gain many followers, but success is always hidden in dedication and constant posting.

Follow all the tips given in the “Ways To Fight Your Way To The Top” segment of this article to build a strong follower list organically.

Staying Relevant

As YouTube is the most influential platform, you need to post relevant, trendy, and exciting content. As trends keep changing quickly, one needs to hop on them and promptly milk them before going out of fashion or trend.

You need to constantly track the latest trends by using all the social media apps and curate content accordingly. We highly recommend using humor as fillers to keep the video light and consumable.

The 360 degrees and VR videos are also very famous, and you should keep trying to mix different content patterns to stay on the top list. Staying relevant also increases your chances of getting on YouTube’s trending list, which can surely let you gain many new subscribers. 

Conclusion

We hope our comprehensive guide on starting a successful YouTube channel for a personal brand helps you create your channel so you can reap its benefits in the long run.

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