It shouldn’t be strange to you if I say that YouTube is a highly useful tool for doing business. However, do you know you can start a business and grow it on YouTube? Well, this is possible since all you require to start a business is to have a product/service to sell, and people to buy the product. Fortunately, YouTube has all of this, as some businesses can be done without necessarily coming face to face with your customers.
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Vishal Jain knew that he wasn’t cut out to work for anyone. At a young age, he already knew what he wanted to become, so he dropped out of college despite his parents’ disapproval. He had no business skills, no money, and no investors. What he had was only a vision to start his own business.
Vishal Jain is now the founder and CEO of Sunshy Digital Media Agency and two Instagram-focused marketing companies. What did this young man do to become an accomplished entrepreneur?
With zero skills and no money to start a business, Jain turned to the Internet for help. He searched for ways to make money online and found several freelancing sites, so he decided to offer virtual assistant services on some of these sites.
It was then that he saw the increasing demand for social media marketing services. Jain decided to start his own SMM business, but he didn’t have enough funds to pay for online courses or advertise his planned business. Jain says that his biggest resources were those found for free on YouTube and Quora. He watched over a hundred tutorial videos on YouTube, and looked for SMM-related answers on Quora.
Aside from SMM, he also taught himself website design and SEO, which made his business quickly turn from a social media marketing company to a broader digital marketing company.
The entrepreneur’s initial investment amounted to only $25 for the domain name and hosting service for his website. This goes to show that you don’t need that much money to start a business. Jain’s advice to entrepreneurs who are only starting is to stop thinking that they need someone to give them the money to start a business. You can earn the required money by learning important skills through YouTube and then work as a freelancer on Fiverr or other websites.
Instagram is at the core of Jain’s businesses, mainly because Jain himself found most of his clients through Instagram when his business was just starting. For him, Instagram is the most effective platform for brands to increase their reach and create awareness. Instagram’s features make these goals easy to achieve. Among the tactics that Jain uses for his clients are:
Jain looks at everything this way: He makes money by helping his clients make money through brand awareness and influence.
Instagram isn’t only for international businesses or those that offer worldwide shipment, although most people have this misconception about Instagram. Jain says that 90% of his clients are local businesses, and Instagram marketing has proven to be just as effective for them as it is for international brands.
According to Jain, The biggest mistake is for brands to spend most of their marketing budget on traditional media instead of social media. Businesses that are on social media are further ahead of those who aren’t.
Forbes has recently revealed its list of the highest-paid YouTube stars for 2018 which was an interesting mix of creatives who were most sought after and viewed and followed by millions for uploading unique content in the video sharing website. This could be anywhere from giving feisty or funny video game commentaries, fun makeup tutorials, unboxing and product reviews, or just being a happy little boy playing with toys like Ryan of Ryan’s Toy Review, which, by the way, is YouTube’s top earner for 2018.
To unbox shiny new toys, get famous, and rake in millions of dollars, isn’t that the ultimate dream? 7-year-old Ryan of Ryan’s Toy Review on YouTube is living that dream for all us.
The concept of most of his YouTube videos is simple. Ryan plays with the toys, whether it is a train, a Disney character, or building something with his favorite Legos in front of the camera and his parents upload it on YouTube. Sometimes his sisters or his parents star in the YouTube videos, too. The short videos spanning more or less than 10 minutes in length is always a hit.
As a matter of fact, since the launch of Ryan’s Toy Review on YouTube in March 2015, the channel has gained a massive following of 17.3 million followers and has been viewed a total of almost 26 billion times. Unsurprisingly, he was announced as 2018’s YouTube top earner for 2018, making 22 million U.S. dollars in the 12 months up to June 1, 2018, according to Forbes.
A huge chunk of Ryan’s million-dollar earnings comes from pre-roll advertising on his YouTube channels, Ryan ToysReview, and Ryan’s Family Review. The higher the views of the videos, the bigger the earnings become as well. Ryan has the biggest clout and viewership with other top contenders on YouTube’s highest-paid list for 2018.
When it comes to sponsored posts, Ryan gets 1 million U.S. dollars, which is significantly low compared to what other YouTube stars are receiving. This is primarily due to his specific demographic, which are mainly young children who don’t have their own shopping money, and because Ryan’s family can be picky when it comes to the kind of deals they accept.
“I’m entertaining and I’m funny,” Ryan, whose family still refuse to reveal his last name, revealed in a recent NBC interview when asked about what could have led to his instant fame on YouTube and his millions at such a young age.
While this is also definitely true, experts explain that this is also because of the widely popular unboxing video trend on YouTube, which many, if not all, of Ryan’s Toy Reviews most popular videos, are a part of. In these type unboxing videos, YouTube content creators are filmed while literally opening the box of merchandise, whether it is an electronic gadget, a consumer good like makeup, or new toys in the case of Ryan’s Toy Review.
According to experts, unboxing videos are extremely popular because they virtually share the experience of opening and exploring a product that the users want to have in real life. Others could be using it as some sort of a first-impression type of product review that they need to see before making an actual purchase.
Getting the most out of his YouTube fame, Ryan has a lot of new partnerships, including his own show that will be distributed on Hulu and Amazon. He has also launched Ryan’s World in August, which is his signature line of toys and apparel exclusive sold Walmart. These big-ticket partnerships have not yet been added to Ryan’s total 2018 earnings.
Forbes’ list of top money-making YouTube celebrities calculated the sum of their earnings from June 1, 2017, through June 1, 2018. Aside from Ryan of Ryan’s Toy Review, other YouTube celebrities who made into Forbes list include the following:
Jake Paul is an American actor whose first claim to fame was on the Disney Channel series Bizaardvark where he played the role of Dirk Mann, the lead star of Dare Me Bro who takes on dare requests. He has more than 17 million subscribers on YouTube and his rap songs and prank videos have been viewed 3.5 billion times.
This channel specializes in amazing trick shots created by five friends Coby and Cory Cotton, Garrett Hilbert, Cody Jones, and Tyler Toney. They have more than 37 million YouTube subscribers and one of their most viral videos gained a jaw-dropping 175 million views. This involved throwing Ping-Pong balls to trigger the collapse of a domino of Oreos.
Dethroned from last year’s top spot, electric-blue-haired DanTDM or Daniel Middleton ranks number three for 2018. The gaming enthusiast from Britain has been playing online games, such as Minecraft and Pokemon in front of the camera for six years now and has attracted over 20 million subscribers on YouTube.
Professional makeup artist and cosmetic creator, Jeffree Star, has been Internet famous since the days of Myspace. He currently has more than 11.5 million subscribers on his YouTube channel and sells more than 100 million dollars worth of his own makeup products every year.
Mark Edward Fischbach,a.k.a. Markiplier on YouTube, entertain his 22 million YouTube subscribers with funny gaming videos, original comedy sketches, animated parodies. The Hawaii native toured North America this year and has signed big-ticket, seven-figure deals with high-end brands.
Other notable YouTube celebrities on Forbes top 10 lists are Vanoss Gaming (17 million U.S. dollars), Jacksepticeye (16 million U.S. dollars), PewDiePie (15 million U.S. dollars), and Logan Paul (14.5 million U.S. dollars) who was infamously kicked out of YouTube’s Google Preferred program after filming a grotesque video in Japan showing a body of someone hanging from a tree who committed suicide.
Back in 2005 when YouTube first launched and people were questioning the value of putting free content online, establishing any YouTube presence at all was akin to becoming an authority.
People went on YouTube not to sell their products but to show people that they are (or could be) thought leaders in their fields. Nowadays, people go on YouTube to be popular, because as long as you are famous, your success in both endeavors is just about guaranteed.
Check out some of the most effective ways to become popular on YouTube and build a successful business. Learn from the examples of others, and establish yourself as a major influencer sooner rather than later.