Using YouTube, Twitter, & Blogging Together

Well here it is. I'll be getting my first check from Google for $189.44, the majority it was earned in January 2013 (only $7.92 was accumulated in the previous 3 years). I don't think that's too bad for a start, considering that I really started around the middle of January.  The majority of the earnings has come from my YouTube channel with only a little coming from my blogs or website. That's because I haven't done as much as I would have liked to with them these last couple of weeks. But that's about to change since I've learned that I could associate my website with my YouTube account and advertise my site directly on my YouTube videos. That's a big deal when you're trying to find ways to gain traffic.

Using Google Adwords and Adsense by Miller, Michael [Paperback] (Google Affiliate Ad)

Now I know that many of you already know this stuff, but I had no idea that I could do this, and it is a game changer. I've also starting tweeting links to my videos and some blog posts. I don't have many followers yet on Twitter, but by using hash tags in my tweets, I've been able to reach thousands of people, even if they don't subscribe to any of my blogs or YouTube channel. 

A quick look at my YouTube dashboard will show you the increase in the amount of subscribers to my channel, 113 over the past 30 days. I've had as many as 12 subscribers and as little as 1 on any given day. I should point out however, that I post a lot of videos, about thirty 2-3 minute clips per day. I work with news as a videographer in my day job so it's easy for me. It's funny to think that while so many people want to make money on the internet so they could quit their day job, I kinda need my day job to have access to the videos I post! Seriously though, I would love to quit my day job.  But what if I lost my job? How would that effect my progress online?

I don't think that my occupation necessarily has anything to do with having material to post on YouTube. If I were to, God forbid, lose my job prematurely, I would sit in front of my webcam and talk about how I lost my job, am looking for one, or talk about whatever I'd be doing at the time. I'd try to make it lively and worth watching. For example, even if I worked at McDonalds, I think it would be interesting to share anything funny that happened during a given workday. Why not? Perhaps I would discuss the foods that I would or would not eat myself, or my observations of how many employees actually washed their hands regularly, etc. I haven't done it and I could be wrong, but I'd definitely make the most of it. 

Experiment! Website Conversion Rate Optimization With A/b, Split, and (Google Affiliate Ad)

Lately, I have been listening to a few podcasts on the subject of blogging, Adsense, and making money online. I think that listening to others, the professionals, is important. It has sparked my own ideas more than anything, which is great. Also, when you hear some of these guys, I tend to think "WOW, THAT GUY CAN DO IT?!" That's when I realize that I can too, absolutely.

Before I end this post, I'll show you where I'm at so far in this month of February.  

I've been able to sustain an average of $10 per day, about $300 per month. Some days are lower and some are higher. Having a $17-day last week helped offset some of the lower revenue days. But I'll be doing more work to bring up my numbers and, from now on, I'm integrating Twitter, YouTube, and my site. Until next time, let me know if you have any questions and if you have any advice for me, I could use it so please share! Take care y'all.

Excited About Monetizing

I never thought I'd be blogging about monetizing and I'm definitely no expert on the subject, so please, I hope no one expects some new revelations or tricks of the trade here. So why am I writing this? Well, it's because my family and friends think I spend too much time on the computer uploading videos, writing my blogs, and researching monetization. They're right, I spend a lot of time, ALL THE TIME, uploading videos to YouTube especially. But there's a reason why I'm willing to spend the time for a few dollars a day.

In 2009, I decided to start blogging, thinking that many would want to read my thoughts. I posted a couple of times and set up a Google Adsense account. Because I'm an extremely impatient person, and since there were hardly any views on the blog, I ignored it. I ignored it until election night, November 2012. On that day, I thought it might be a great idea to start another blog about working in media in Washington DC. Covering election night results from a studio near the White House, I decided I'd take some photos and write about what it's like working behind the scenes in the news industry. Although hardly anyone read that blog as well, I made a discovery. While setting up my new blog with my same old Adsense account, which I hadn't looked at for 3 years, I noticed that I actually had made about $5 and some change, from those two posts I had in 2009. To me, that was a big deal.

See, once I learned that I made a little money, it proved to me that it was possible to make much more. I only had to ask myself "if you can make $5 over three years, then what do you have to do to make $5 a day?"  I also noticed that out of the $5, there was about $2 made from a family video I had placed on YouTube. That's when it dawned on me. I work in television, I'm a videographer in Washington DC, and I can upload a ton of original content.

I googled the subject of monetizing blogs and YouTube and read much about how I shouldn't expect to quit my day job since most people don't make much. I understood that. But something happened this month (January 2013). On the 16th of January, I once again looked at my Adsense account and saw that I was making between 25 cents and 80 cents a day from a video I had placed on YouTube in November 2012. It was a video of a musical performance that I was invited to film. It received about 6000 views in a couple of months. I decided I would start posting at least a few videos a day, and did. One video in particular, a video of a firefighter falling off a ladder, received almost 10,000 views within 24 hours of posting it. The next day I made almost $8. The day after that I made $33! Once I made the $33, I thought I could quadruple my efforts and make $100/day. Unfortunately for me, that didn't happen. In fact, I haven't made anywhere near those $33 since. I had no idea why, but I'm still excited and plugging way.

I had watched a video on YouTube of a really smart kid who was talking about how he just recently begun blogging and monetizing and he was making a couple of dollars a day. In the comments section he received much praise for his advice, which I learned from as well. Again, I thought to myself, "if that kid is excited over $2/day, I'm making on average $10/day, that's $300/month." And that's where I am right now, between $10-$13/day. I post about 30 news related video clips each day. None of them give me the views that that firefighter did. He's at about 150,000 views now. If there's anything you take away from this post, it should be these two things:
1- When someone falls, RECORD IT! People love to see people getting hurt. It's sad, but true.
2- Monetize your YouTube account and any blogs or website you may have. Do it now!

As I said in the beginning of this post, I'm no expert. But I can tell you what I've done and what I am doing, so, if you want to ask, I'll do my best with my answers. I guess what's good about what I have to say is that I'm not selling anything, and I'm not promising the world. I'm going to gather my thoughts for my next post, where I'll share exactly the steps that I took so far.

By the way, since I started writing this post till now, my Adsense account went up by 76 cents :-)