Introduction
▶ How I Built My YouTube Channel: bit.ly/maryspenderyoutube
The First Video: youtu.be/WE9zoXtLBaY
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Video
I am a big believer in transparency and thought it would be useful to share with you.
Some of the knowledge I've gained from my experience as an independent musician, primarily using YouTube as a means of marketing and monetizing.
My music, two years ago, I published a video, how much YouTube paid me for 1 million views that detailed.
My mistake in demonetizing, a popular video, despite getting over a million views I earned less than a dollar from AdSense due to an automatic copyright strike, I thoroughly recommend that you go and watch that video before I continue on with this one.
But it was a big lesson learned, I thought, I'd make a video.
So that others could learn from my mistakes in an amusing twist that video has now had over 1.2 million views.
So because they're still widespread misconception about how much YouTubers earn I thought, it would be useful to revisit that topic and talk you through how much revenue that new video has generated in comparison before we get into it if you're new to the Channel, please do subscribe.
It really helps me out first of all I want to make it clear I'm, not doing this to show off or flex, but to educate I know, a lot of my viewers are musicians or creators in their own right and I want to help more people to take advantage of the platform and do what I do I always want to be creative with each video with one video success.
It allows me to take a risk on the next one where I know that it might cost me more to make than it'll ever potentially earn me, but I'm proud of The Eclectic content on this channel, I've always thought having control over your own music and a direct connection to your audience is far better than just being another Cog in the music industry machine.
Youtube's allowed me to do that and that's.
Why I still work hard on this channel alongside writing and releasing my own original music let's dive in and have a look at some of the analytics that video has had 85 000 hours of watch time gained me, eight and a half thousand new subscribers and has an estimated revenue of six thousand dollars or just over five thousand pounds.
81 of the viewers were not subscribed to my channel.
And 50 of views came from the United States let's.
Look at the revenue section.
The RPM is how much you earn for every thousand views it's currently at five dollars, Thirteen Cents or four pounds.
Twenty seven RPM is based on several Revenue sources, including ads, Channel, memberships, YouTube, premium, Revenue, Super, Chat and super stickers.
The CPM is how much advertisers pay every thousand times ads are shown on your videos.
That's at 14.36, 11 pounds, 94.
it's worth bearing in mind that CPM doesn't take into account YouTube's, slice of the pie.
The average channel will keep around 55 of the ad revenue generated while YouTube takes the other 45 CPM isn't, actually that useful for creators only advertisers.
Hence, YouTube's introduction of RPM, which is a much more Creator focused metric RPM is calculated by dividing estimated Revenue by total views.
It factors in the total number of views from your videos, including ones that were not monetized.
Whereas the CPM only includes views from videos that were certain videos are ineligible for monetization.
For instance, if they use copyrighted material or feature adult content, if you're watching a video of a Creator reacting to something like a song that's, most likely been initially demonetized record labels are very hot on issuing copyright strikes because they can then claim the entire revenue from the video, which obviously works out very well for them, not so well for the Creator.
But with this video it's just me talking all original content with no copyrighted backing track so far so good let's.
Compare it with another video that's done almost the same numbers.
Youtube musicians.
Can't play Live has had 1.6 million views since publishing it's had over 60 000 hours of watch time gained me, 11 000, new subscribers and has an estimated revenue of 4 392 or 3652 pounds.
Same audience, geography similar number of views.
Audience, retention affects the RPM because it means more eyes on the screen when the advert rolls around.
So the more engaged, the viewer, the better your video performs.
So why the difference in RPM? Well, there's a 20 000 hour difference in watch time.
So that's, certainly going to be a factor the length of the video can also affect the figures as same principle longer videos have more more time for adverts.
Youtube musicians, can't play live as 8 minutes, 26 seconds.
Whereas how much YouTube paid me for 1 million views is 12 minutes, three seconds.
So even though they've had about the same number of views, the watch time is much greater on the second video and also they're different topics.
And that affects the monetization as well.
Music versus Finance is very different and finance will have a higher RPM YouTube now allows for mid-rolls to run in videos over eight minutes.
So bear that in mind when you're storyboarding, but don't just pad out the video length.
People will know so the type of content you're, putting out is also a key factor Brands bid for advertising slots on YouTube, trying to outdo each other to Showcase their products on high performing videos, subjects like Fitness, finance and Technology all command, a higher CPM than say, music as advertisers have to outbid each other for these Prime spots.
Product reviews are the number one, most watched video type on YouTube so it's worth bearing that in mind as you decide what sort of content you want to make another big part of a musician's output on YouTube are cover versions where you enter into a revenue share with the copyright holder most likely, the label I had great success with a video, where I released John Mayer's, new song before he did I finished the track based on a preview snippet.
He put on Tick Tock John saw the video promoted it on his socials.
And he sent me the finished tract to react to for a second video.
Both did really well in terms of views.
But both were demonetized by the label when the track came out.
So I began to earn money on the last video.
But as soon as the song was released, that was stopped I'm, not quite sure why YouTube Can't simply calculate the portion of the video.
The music is used in and then fairly divide the revenue.
We know how sophisticated the tools behind the scenes are and I would love to see this in future for creators, I know, you can fight fair use in some scenarios.
But in general using existing material is quite a headache, obviously it's an incredible dream come true to have got to interact with John in this way, but it's not going to pay the bills putting out original content like these video essays means I can sustain my business for longer.
My AdSense income helps support my other work as a musician I'm currently self-funding, my debut studio album, which has been a Year's work.
So far all unpaid that I just hope I'll make my money back on.
Luckily, there are other ways to support your favorite creators, hint, hint, patreon.
When I was starting out I used to play four hour cover sets in a local pub, often to a handful of people for which I would earn about 100 to 200 pounds in that.
Same four hours I can pretty much write record, edit and publish a video that could potentially earn 50 times that obviously not every video is going to get a million views I've only had just over 10 videos with over a million.
And yet have published more than 500 on this channel.
I recently, shot a music video for my original song, one to the West Coast, which has had just shy of 20, 000 views I've earned about 55 pounds from this video, which goes straight into the piggy bank for the record that video took I don't know, a few hours to shoot seem to edit.
You don't need to use fancy cameras or over complicated editing when you're starting out you're working towards building a catalog.
And sometimes you just have to make things for the sake of yourself and your music.
You can see the realities of content creation here for musicians, it's, not a quick bug and it's, not that easy to go viral, nor am I advocating that you give up playing live in favor of making videos playing live is an essential part of becoming a better musician.
But what I do want to pass on is that people are making money this way, and you could too so think about what you spend your time on learning.
These Creator skills is going to be an essential part of being a 21st century musician, for instance, my streaming income is very little in comparison.
And it also comes through much slower than AdSense.
Revenue.
Youtube's recommendation algorithm is excellent at suggesting what it thinks you'll like I think it's far easier to build a relationship with your audience via YouTube than it is via Spotify.
They can see you engage with you if they subscribe, then they get notified of your new videos.
So if you're a musician looking to find your audience, what should you spend more of your time on I know? What I'd do I also think there's potential for a detailed video on cover songs on YouTube.
As one of my most popular videos is songs of Swing that's just crossed 2 million views.
But let me know if you're interested about that in the comments below okay.
Thank you for watching and getting to the end of this video, please subscribe to the channel.
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There is a link in the description, I've, actually also just released a new lecture on my course, site titled how I built my YouTube channel.
If you want to learn more about my specific Journey, but as always I'll be seeing you here, very very soon.
