Who Wants To Be A YouTube Millionaire? Part 1: Introduction

Welcome to the show
YouTube allows you to showcase yourself for free. Simply upload a video, share it with your friends online and after you’ve raked in millions of hits, Google sends you a cheque for sharing your videos with the world. You know the saying though, “nothing good comes easy”. Like the TV show “who wants to be a millionaire?”, being successful on youtube requires intelligence, maximizing your lifelines and a little bit of luck. Chances are you’ll come out of the show richer than you were if you play your cards right.


Noteworthy: According to a 2009 report, less than 1% of youtube videos get up to a million views ( http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-youtube-videos-by-views-2009-5 ), so again this
is not quick and easy money.

However there are ways to increase your earnings, e.g. uploading a lot of videos to increase the odds of you having a popular video. Some contestants rack go viral and rack in more than a million views daily, easily hitting tens of millions of views in a short amount of time. We advise you set your goals low initially, e.g. 1 million views for the year. If you fall well short of this mark, you will still be better off for having tried. Win or lose, this is a show that offers numerous opportunities besides monetary rewards. The gift of education is an example of this, e.g. here are some videos on how to make money on youtube ( http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=make+money+with+youtube ) and here’s another set of videos on
how to make your own electric generator http://www.youtube.comresults?search_query=build+your+own+electric+generator&sm=3

So how much can you win?
Quick answer is about $2k (320,000 Naira) -$10k (1.6 million Naira) for a million views.

Youtube earnings are difficult to estimate because most videos generate revenue when a user clicks on an advert displayed when the video is playing. In theory you could have a million views and if nobody clicks on the ads being displayed, your earnings will be 0 naira. Also even when you do have people clicking on the ads being displayed, the rates for ads vary depending on the product being advertised. I googled for earnings reported for the most popular video on YouTube, Gangam Style, and here's what we learned:

MSN money estimates Gangam Style raked in over $5 million in earnings for close to a billion views.
The same article lists the average youtube earnings as $2 for a 1000views, hence a million views would fetch about $2,000 (~320,000 naira), though gangam style is supposed to
have earned more than the average price of $2 per 1000 views as the video's popularity grew.

Trent Hamm reports similar average earnings on his site: " Based on my own experience, an independent new person can make about $2 per 1,000 views on their videos as a whole " From above conservative estimates of youtube earnings can be estimated at 300,000 to 500,000 Naira for a million views.

Read the Part 2 CLICK HERE
Read the Part 3 CLICK HERE

This article was first published as a collaborative effort by Akinwale Akinyoade and Segun Sobulo for the 9jeducation Blog.



Poshkid Gidigenius is a National Diploma holder in Mass Communication from Yaba College of Technology. He currently majors in English at the University of Lagos. You can follow him on Twitter and Instagram @gidigenius