For those considering a career in YouTube, here are some important things to keep in mind. I write this because I’m often approached on how to get started on YouTube.
Note that these are my own personal opinions after living off of YouTube full-time for 3 years, having recently surpassed 1,000,000 subscribers on my own channel They Will Kill You, grown a second channel to over 100,000 subscribers (Bored Badger), and coached two other channels to over 100,000 subscribers (Pablito’s Way & Origins Explained); the latter of which has recently also surpassed 1,000,000 subscribers.
Some may feel differently with what I’m about to write here, but keep in mind that this is my own personal experience. The beauty of a place like Steemit is the openness to ideas/opinions without the risk of censorship or harassment. Let’s begin!
6. Personal vs. Business
Based on my observations, Steemit has more of a personal touch than YouTube. People are using it as their own travel blog, diary, cookbook, whatever!
YouTube on the other hand is more business-oriented. Not only is this apparent in the fact that it’s now commonplace for many companies to start their own dedicated channels as a marketing tool, but there are also teams behind many of your favorite channels.
I run my own team of video editors, writers, voice over artists, etc. for my own channel, while René @world5list has his own team in place cranking out videos for his channel World 5 List. With more & more competition these days, YouTube has a higher barrier to entry than before. It’s almost impossible (and practically unfeasible) to meet the minimum requirements without employees to outsource your tasks to. Note: there ARE huge YouTubers who manage to do everything themselves, but most of those who I’ve seen that fall under this category are the vloggers of YouTube. As I said, this is purely from MY experience as a YouTuber, and I create “list” channels.
Steemit requires none of that. While there may be professional setups out there, I’ve yet to come across them, as most people have stayed true to adding that “personal touch” to their blogs. While YouTube started out this way, we all know which direction it’s taken a turn for...
5. Network
In the YouTube world, there’s what you call an MCN, or multi-channel network. For a negotiated percentage of your channel (between 20-50%), the network will help you attempt to resolve any monetization issues you may be facing (although most times there’s nothing they can do), set up guerrilla marketing campaigns (i.e., get paid $x,xxx for doing a shoutout for McDonald’s), or establish collaboration opportunities (i.e., you appear on my channel if I get to appear on yours). Think of MCNs as an agent that works for your best interest (similar to what sports stars or actors/actresses have to represent or negotiate on their behalf).
In most cases though, MCNs don’t do much for you, but still manage to take a cut from your channel’s earnings at the end of the month. Although networks aren’t essential to succeed, it’s a resource you can use to help you in your journey...if you show enough initiative! By initiative, I mean bugging the hell out of them!!!
Amongst Steemians, there’s beginning to emerge small communities or “support groups” similar to MCNs in the YouTube sphere. There’s the Minnow Support Project that @aggroed runs on Discord while @sndbox created an incubator program. The more I talk to other Steemians, the more I learn about “syndicates” of individuals collectively helping one another out. It’s becoming increasingly obvious that there’s more than one way to the top. We all have the same goal of getting there...but exactly how we get there can differ extremely!
They key difference between networks built around YouTube & those revolving around Steemit is the mentality. YouTube is ruthless: “How much can I squeeze out of this ‘mutually beneficial’ opportunity so that I can maximize my returns?” Take, take, take! Steemit is different: “How much value can I provide to the community so that I can help others succeed while also helping myself in the process?” Give, give, give…
The differences are astronomical.
4. Community
This makes for a good segway into the community behind each platform.
While YouTube is littered with internet trolls & keyboard warriors who think they’re invincible hiding behind a computer screen with a cartoon as their avatar, Steemit shows strong community support. In stark contrast to the keyboard warriors, most Steemians who I’ve come across aren’t afraid to show their true face & colors.
Doing so is far from easy, as it takes an incredible amount vulnerability to expose yourself in as vast of a place as the internet. But it also establishes trust, a lack of neediness, & more credibility behind your actions...not to mention the very real & very powerful bonds created through human connection; a notion both absent & abstract in the digital world.
My first, initial experience on the Steemit platform was both humbling & flattering. Since then, this place has become a life-changer.
It’s not that us YouTubers are always looking to get a nice pat on the back or to be inundated with praise, but the words of encouragement & positive support were a breath of fresh air compared to what I was used to in the YouTube world.
Dealing with negativity targeted towards myself or my work has never been a problem for me. But the main difference I’ve experienced between negativity on YouTube vs. negativity on Steemit (if there even is any) is that any sort of “negativity” on Steemit is, at worst, constructive criticism. Negativity on YouTube doesn’t have much intrinsic value outside of “kill yourself” or “FIRST!”
3. Monetization
Inherent in Steemit’s blockchain infrastructure is its temporary monetization period. 7 days after your post is published, it’s minted into a block, added to the chain, and rendered incapable of monetization.
@aggroed made a good point during one of our discussions on his MSP Waves radio show that even though your post may no longer be monetizing, the value of the STEEM/SBD you earned still has the potential to go up! While this does hold true, the volatile nature of the cryptocurrency market means it can go down just as easily as it can go up. Unfortunately, the short-term direction in which it moves cannot be immediately impacted by the actions of a single individual in most cases (unless your name is either John McAfee or Jamie Dimon). In addition, the long-term market value of STEEM/SBD as an investment means nothing to those who rely on it for their livelihood; those who regularly cash out in order to make ends meet.
This is where I believe YouTube has the upper hand if you can make it work. Demonetization & ad policy issues aside (I can write an entirely separate post about this since there’s a lot to be said), YouTube is still a lucrative source of passive income. Its algorithm works in a way such that once you have momentum, you can easily take 6 months to 1 year off or more & still experience the same level of--if not more--growth in both your earnings & subscriber base.
Unless you’re running a full-scale business complete with managers, assistants, etc., this sort of earnings model is hard to beat!
2. Content Diversity
I came across a comment the other day on someone’s post (and I can’t remember who it was by, so if you’re reading this I sincerely apologize for my inability to retain these exact details) shedding light on the fact that while Facebook has worlds of issues on its own that it’s struggling to sort out, you can find almost any type of content you want on it; I believe that the same applies to YouTube. On the other hand, a lot of content on Steemit is purely about Steemit. While this isn’t necessarily a bad thing--and partly, in my opinion, due to the platform’s infancy--it’s only a matter of time until we see more diversification.
In addition, as one of the top 30 coins on coinmarketcap.com, STEEM (Steemit’s native token) has organically drawn a crowd well-versed in cryptocurrencies. This is a difficult & very noteworthy achievement, especially considering how relatively small the cryptocurrency industry is on a global scale as well as how much resistance cryptocurrencies face from traditional financial institutions.
Its crypto-heavy content distribution--populated by users knowledgeable in crypto-currencies--has easily made it one of the go-to platforms for crypto-related content. A quick Google search of an arbitrary coin oftentimes yields a Steemit blog post as the top search result more often than not.
One thing I must add though in order to keep this as unbiased as possible is that due to Steemit’s more personal flare, it makes the content seemingly lack a sense of authority or “guru” whose words hold any significant weight. But I believe that--just like with the diversification issue I touched on earlier--it’s only a matter of time until more “gurus” start making their way over here. You can already see this occurring with the likes of @stefan.molyneux and @hodgetwins joining the party; both of whom are prominent social media influencers as well as go-to sources of information on YouTube in regards to politics & health, respectively.
YouTube, being the massive video-sharing platform that it is, has anything & everything you’re looking for (barring graphic/bloody or sexual content). This is in part due to its longstanding history...but how long will it last? In wake of March 2017’s “Adpocalypse,” creators are growing more & more discontent with the demonization issues & strict ad policy guidelines they’re facing from their benefactor. This is why there’s an ever-increasing need for DTube (Steemit’s YouTube equivalent built on the Steem blockchain).
DTube’s decentralized, autonomous nature gets rid of any form of censorship or single, authoritative figure & puts the power back in the people’s hands. Although there are still many bugs to fixed & the platform isn’t as smooth as I’d like it to be (along with the same monetization protocol as Steemit blogs), it’s a HUGE step in the right direction!
1. Strategy
While there’s some overlap with optimal strategy on each platform, they differ pretty significantly, which makes complete sense given the fact that one is for video-sharing while the other is for blogging (with exception to DTube).
While there are certain strategies you can use on YouTube (i.e., thumbnail selection, title, etc.), they’re all catered around one important metric that holds more weight/importance over all other metrics on YouTube: watch time. The longer your channel’s overall watch time, the more favorable it is in YouTube’s infamous (yet highly secretive) algorithm. The higher the watch time, the longer people are spending on your channel & thus, the more ads YouTube is able to deliver to its viewers. Translation: MORE REVENUE!
Although YouTube adamantly denies that revenue increase is their main goal--disguised behind the motive of providing an exceptional user experience to the viewer--it’s blatantly obvious that money is their motive. It’s becoming more & more apparent that the constant changes made to YouTube’s algorithm functionality is to make more money. This has been confirmed countless times not just by the way they conduct their business, but also by former YouTube employees & ex-engineers who worked on the platform.
Steemit is worlds ahead of its time in the sense that it’s a completely autonomous ecosystem. We’ve come to realize that factors like follower engagement & meaningful content are what’s most important, rather than how long someone stays on the platform. This is clearly demonstrated by guys like @aggroed, @jerrybanfield, and @kevinwong, all of whom share the same common underlying characteristic: creating content in a meaningful manner that provides value to their readers/viewers.
The key concept to take away from this is “value” rather than “money,” the latter of which is YouTube’s main flaw (and may be the ultimate cause of their demise). Rather than chasing money, find a way to provide value & the money will follow.
I hope this helps, and if you have any questions/comments/critique whatsoever, please feel free to let me know in the comments section below or write me directly on steemit.chat! I wish you all a wonderful day & happy Steeming!
@theywillkillyou
It’s the revolution of decentralization and freedom of speech era ✅
The “censorship” of YouTube is also a big difference that will kill itself !
@josteem
Agreed, YouTube is truly digging its own grave...
YouTube , Facebook are free to set up their own rules. It’s their home ! who likes in to in ! who likes out to out ! However, If they stand still or start censoring the crypto videos ( like fb banning the crypto ads already) .. then this will be the start of the end to their monobolies .
One of my video had word "vs" in it. It got flagged by yellow dollar symbol. I had to request for manual review. It was accepted after 2 days. Looks like the youtube algorithm is emotionally sensitive towards even words like "vs".
Hahaha .. that’s really a jokey truth lol
I invested in ETH late 2016 when it was around 10$ a token. When I saw the price rise I was afraid of losing my figurative USD profits so I sold, but if I had waited longer I would have made so much more.
When I initially thought of investing in eth I wanted to be able to use the platform to write the contracts currently written by lawyers for houses, cars, as well as business structures. I saw all this future potential and bought in now so I would have ETH to spend on platform services.
Since then I ended up living off those profits until I ran out of money and had to get a job to support myself. The opportunity loss has stuck with me though. My intention here on steem is to never convert back to Fiat. I want to be able to pay directly with steem or SBD. Since the utility function of crypto's is the ultimate goal.
I also realized I've not heard steem having smart contract capabilities is that true or false?
Love the work you put in to this one, very interesting behind the scenes!
Thanks! Happy to provide more perspective on the beast that is YouTube...
This is one great post..thanks
Thanks Mark, I'm glad you enjoyed it :)
Man you are so right about the comments! Sometimes I feel like Steemit is a bit of an echo chamber, and that people are a little too nice, if ya know what I mean, but it sure as hell beats "Die Bitch" just for posting an a cappella video! Haha, I don't miss the crazy of YouTube!
On steemit people try to be as polite as they can because they know that they will get either same response or lose respect eventually leading to failure and loss of earnings for them. The earning here depends on others upvote thus trolling here would result in almost no earnings.
Yeah it's hard to find a happy middle, but positivity always trumps negativity in almost every way! I guess the reason for the excessive kindness may be because the system is almost designed to penalize those who are consistently negative. Makes for a warmer, more supportive community but an "echo chamber" too nonetheless as you've interestingly pointed out! Thanks for you thoughts Beth, I love hearing others' opinions like these ;)
Thanks for the in-depth comparison. Very helpful.
I'm glad to be of service ;) Thanks for stopping by!
Small time cats like myself can no longer monetize our YouTube accounts. Just received this the other day...
Yes i also received this message for my second channel. Now the monetization has been disabled on that channel. Clearly it is very bad on their part to do so. The condition for getting 4000 Hours watchtime can be easily fulfilled but the subscriber part is very difficult to full.
Yeah it's really REALLY difficult to get through this barrier-to-entry now, and more so without the help of other large accounts sending you traffic. Unfortunately the game has evolved with a change for the worse. Let's hope DTube is our saving grace!
I agree with everything you mentioned here, kapatid! While it's certainly a time of great uncertainty here, the one thing we could all agree on is the limitless potential this platform holds. I like the contrast you pointed with YouTube. It's funny how at the beginning, YouTube (by its name itself) was built to be this personal platform where people can express who they are. It has grown quite a lot since its early days. I wonder if that's the direction Steemit will head down.
I like how you put it that there is more than one way to the top. Arguably, everyone wants to get there. Some are more greedy than others, that's unavoidable. But, there are many who choose to to truly support others. You do a good job with that, pare! Especially considering that you have all these advantages to get you straight to the top if you will it, you still take the time to ferry others with you. That's one of the things I admire most about you.
Thanks for sharing this, man! Truly a gem of a post!
Yeah too early to tell, but I'm excited to be able to track its progress & even happier for all of us here as early adopters!
You're too kind pare! It's truly been my pleasure :) Not to make this a love-fest, but I'm with my mom & some relatives right now & we were really admiring your work! Sent them the link to your Korean brothers article (the one meant to be read forward & backward) and they were in awe & admiration at how impressive & skilled you are with the pen! Keep the flame of your passion ignited, for you truly do some amazing things...well amazing is kind of an understatement ;)
Oh man that really made my day! Truly means a lot whenever people appreciate my work. It's a real confidence booster! Send my regards to tita @offoodandart, pare! I hope all of you have a wonderful time in Paris :D
On the Youtube the video can keep earning life long as long as there are people searching for it. But on Dtube the shelf life of a video is just 7 days. What ever earning has to be done, it has to be done in just 7 days. If money was spent in making a video then it is disastrous.
I agree, and that's what makes DTube a little difficult. But the truth of the matter is that this is what must be sacrificed in order to not have to deal with censorship or ad policy violation issues that are so commonplace on YouTube.
Thanks for this enlightening post @theywillkillyou and for showing quite a lot of things i didnt understand before.
My pleasure :) If you have any other questions or if there's anything else I can clear up, let me know as I'm more than happy to provide as much information as possible!
There are some fantastic and meaningful insights here. Thanks for sharing.
I shoot and direct music videos for a living, and in the past have found YouTube to be a daunting place to talk about my work and my process on camera; but Steemit has given me the confidence to go ahead. Again, emphasising the personal element. It's all about positivity.
Thank YOU for taking the time to read it, and I'm very pleased you were able to take away some insights! Just checked out your blog & your content seems really interesting & right up my alley as a YouTuber/video producer :) Keep up the great work & I'm looking forward to seeing more from you...followed!
Yeah this aspect often goes overlooked in most areas of the internet, but fortunately for us we've got one of the best & strongest communities out there! It really helps you to hit the ground running, whereas things can be way more intimidating on all other platforms. Happy Steeming brother!
Thanks for the words of encouragement, and for the confidence in a follow :)
Oddly enough I started on both platforms in the same month, last January. Thanks for all of the insight. You definitely did a nice job breaking it down.
My pleasure! If there's any other way I can help out, please don't hesitate to reach out :) Would love to give a helping hand wherever/whenever possible.
Very well written article @theywillkillyou - Steemit is really an amazing platform - thanks for all your support - really appreciate it
Thanks Christine! I'm looking forward to seeing what you guys "cook up" on @cookwithus ;)
Very excited about our new project Angelo