Many ask is YouTube worth it. Well we are going to attempt to answer that in this article.
YouTube partner program sells the easy create content and get paid for doing it but how is it in reality? Well not as easy as they make out. First of all you have to reach a certain amount of Subscribers and watch time hours before you can even be considered into the YouTube partner program.
Once you have reached the target you can apply and you might be tricked into think great I am going to make good money for just uploading content to the platform, This is where you are mistaken. You are paid on the number of views per video. If you been lucky and gone to a viral video straight away you are off our the gates easy however in our experience of what we do on the platform this is very hard.
We do have a few videos that have ok views and these are over a number of years. We have been creating content now for Mancbuses since 2017 and we are only just getting to the point where we are able to get a pay-out. This is because YouTube/Google will only process a payment once you have reached £60 in there account. This will stack each month until you reach the amount required.
The program to be worth it you need a couple of thousand views per view.
Once you are in the program your whole life will turn into YouTube, It is in no way a part time thing you can do. You need to ensure you post regularly, we choose to post once a week, honestly however for what w do and the limited views that we get this is not enough. As we say you might be lucky and create a good viral video that will get millions of views. But as a new channel this is very unlikely.
You have to work your way into the YouTube suggests. This is harder than you think as the larger channels with millions of views will be pushed and be recommended. We can give you a example of the system at work.
We started back in 2017 with our route videos while Jordan was at Stagecoach in Manchester, These were popular and as Jordan could film in work it was easy to post once a day or every 2 days getting the channel out there. However a few years on and Jordan left stagecoach stopping this from be the thing and we moved over to our older vehicle but still do route videos. What has happened though is other have copied the format and idea we had back then and instead of filming from inside the cab like we did they film from upstairs. We can post a route video now unedited take for example our 142 Manchester Piccadilly to East Didsbury video ours is filmed in the cab and has been up for 1 month and has got 1.1k views and a fellow YouTuber posted the same route video 4 months ago and has 4k views, Granted our video has not been up as long and has got a good amount of views but our video now will barely get any views. and for them 1.1k of views we have got a whooping £2.56. This is just one other 142 videos we have done as there is many different versions only have 300views and have been up for about a month too.
YouTube can be rather frustrating as things like the above happen all the time and you are left thinking what are we doing wrong why are we not getting the views that we believe we should be getting. We are only a small channel at the time of writing this we are just short of 9k subscribers which then makes you wonder even more how can we have 9k subs and only 300 to 1.5k views on a video that we are publishing. The story gets even more frustrating when we look at the videos that we create on the project where the views struggle to get to 500 you just left looking at the video of how rubbish are we doing these low views really don’t help pay the bills or the time it takes to film and edit the content leaving you wondering why do we do it.
This is why we turned to membership which with YouTube feels like a scam so you ask viewers to become a member via the YouTube platform, but there membership goes into the same pot that requires the £60 pay out so you could be waiting a while to get hold of your money. Other part of this is that you have to convince views to part with there cash to be a member and support you.
So in short YouTube is not easy and not quick. You are left most days wondering why do you do it, What is the point but when it does come together it could be worth it. We now have the attitude that we love what we do in the videos and just want to share it with others and if it makes a few quid and helps the project it does and that is brilliant, If not we either need to work a bit harder and get one with the next video as we have documented a little bit of history as we repair and restore our vehicle.
Hope this helps someone out there.
Jordan