By Ruari Elkington

Posted October 28, 2018 05:00:27

More than 100 Australian YouTube channels earn more than $100,000 and another 2,000 channels earn between $1,000 and $100,000. Worldwide, more than three million YouTube creators make money from the content they upload. So is this a career to aspire to?

There is a broad fascination with the possibility of giving up your day job to make money from YouTube. Stories of people coming from obscurity to earn fame and fortune producing videos for online audiences are now commonplace — but how possible is it, really, to make a living from YouTube?

As a QUT Creative Industries lecturer, I have seen a sustained shift in student focus towards YouTube as a way to build profile and translate that profile into a career.

Does that mean online video now replaces TV as the screen where aspiring Australians imagine their media careers will blossom? Not exactly. TV still has the cultural cachet and the mass media “cut-through” to broad sections of society we still respect.

So is a career on YouTube now more viable for our students than aiming for the traditionally understood career on TV? Almost certainly.

External Link: Elly Awesome

Gatekeepers just aren’t there

One important distinction from the TV model is that on YouTube the gatekeepers just aren’t there.

One of the freedoms of online video is that nobody in a studio has the final say on whether you are good enough to make content and broadcast to the world. However, that freedom is balanced with the realisation that on YouTube, nobody decides who’s good enough to make content — and that means a lot of content fighting for audience attention.

My own research projects look at what universities, and the students who work with us, can learn from YouTubers as well as what YouTubers may be able to gain from exposure to the staff, facilities and talent in higher education.

In my work, I have identified two distinct groups who are united in producing creative video but in other ways are very distinct in their skills, approaches and audiences.

The first group are established YouTubers in the midst of developing their content creation skills and audience for their work. These creators often work independently, undertake multiple roles in producing their content and have a direct relationship with a known audience.

The second group are creative industries students in the midst of developing their content creation skills and audience for their work. These students often work collaboratively, undertake specialised roles and distinct from the YouTubers, often have a limited understanding of the actual, or potential, audiences for their work.

The important point to emerge from this delineation is that both groups can learn from and co-create content together.

Movement now from YouTube to TV

This year I travelled on a Churchill Fellowship to the UK and US to examine programs that engage the respective skills of these two groups to engage in both “reciprocal learning” and video co-creation.

I aim to generate a report that will have as much relevance for creative industries teaching as it does for established YouTubers and emerging “NewTubers”.

When considering the YouTube vs TV split, examples now exist of creators successfully moving between the two.

Queensland YouTuber Elly Awesome successfully built a 270,000+ YouTube following leveraging her idiosyncratic presenting style to collaborate with brands such as Sony, Netflix and Coca Cola before moving sideways into a kids TV presenting gig for Channel 10’s Toasted TV.

Since the TV hosting gig Elly has launched a new channel on YouTube that charts her personal journey coming out as a LGBT+ vlogger, TV presenter, MC and published author through Penguin Australia.

And yes, YouTubers release books, regular paper books. Goodreads lists more than 330 of them with their ongoing popularity existing as another strange irony of our digital world.

Part of global media trend

Arguably the success of traditional publishing deals is less about YouTuber fans clamouring for a good beach read and connects more with the appetite of certain fans to consume every and all outputs of their favourite creators.

In short, YouTube’s low barriers to entry means it is no longer an either/or choice for creatives straddling the line between presenter, social media influencer and video creator.

This shift in opportunity for online creators is part of a much larger global media trend of which YouTube is only part.

There is a growing group of “social media entertainers” who are reshaping how creators make, and make a living from, online video content.

“More than three million YouTube creators globally make money from the content they upload. Then there’s Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Twitch, among others,” writes QUT Distinguished Professor Stuart Cunningham.

“The larger the audiences, the more money to be made. In 2016, content creators earned more than US$5.9 billion across nine digital and social media platforms in the United States alone.”

Closer to home, Australian creators such as SketchShe have garnered more than 42 million views per upload in the case of their Mime Through Time video.

External Link: This unwrapping video has had nearly 300 million views.

How do you cut through?

More than 2,000 Australian channels earning up to $100,000 from YouTube advertising alone is significant.

And this advertising figure doesn’t take into account other revenue streams from branding partnerships, sponsors, fan meet-ups, merchandise sales (including the books).

For creators such as Elly Awesome, despite her cross-media success, the challenges remain.

With more than 500 hours of video content uploaded to YouTube every minute how can her content cut through and connect with audiences?

Elly’s recent How to Work Out at the Airport only has 678 views, to date. But it’s a start.

Ruari Elkington is a lecturer in film, television and digital media at QUT and will chair a discussion on the topic at CreateX 2018, QUT’s festival of performances, exhibitions, screenings, discussions and debates, running from November 13-17.

Topics: information-and-communication, internet-technology, social-media, youth, work, australia