The concept of an ‘influencer’ has only become a thing in the last decade. Springing out of the opening up of the internet combining with the growth of internet personalities, being an influencer is now a goal of 1 in 4 Gen Z-ers.
The oldest manner to be become an influencer, old being relative, was through YouTube. The website provides anyone the ability to upload videos ranging from gaming, comedy, sports, and a host of other genres to the internet masses while also earning creators a pretty penny.
This is done throught the YouTube partner programme. This has a number of stipulations to join with the main one having at least 1,000 subscribers. Earnings are difficult to pin down to a formula but are usually based upon number of views as well as watch time; the length of the video determines how many adverts can be squeezed in as well as weather viewers watch that far in a video.
It has long been supposed that videos just over ten minutes are the optimum length as it offers the best balance of invested time by creator as well as the length of time most viewers are willing to watch. Around two or three adverts will be in these 10 minute videos.
According to Influencer Marketing Hub, the rates an advertiser pays YouTubers are between 10 and 30 cents per view, with an average of 18 cents per view, the same as $3-$5 per 1,000 video views. Receiving this a day would be between $90-$150 a month. If a video gets 100,000 views a day, that’s $9,000 to $15,000 a month. With the relentless churn of content needed to appease the YouTube algorithm it is easy to see how the channels which produce the most make the most money.
“It definitely had a lot more potential than I expected, because I didn’t imagine finance YouTube or finance influencers would explode to this level,” said Nate O’Brien, who’s finance-based youtube channel has over 1 million subscribers. “I thought maybe the cap would be 100,000 subscribers for finance YouTubers.”
Who are some of the biggest YouTubers on the platform?
This list includes channels like T-Series which are actually huge media conglomerates.
- T-Series (229 million)
- Cocomelon – Nursery Rhymes (147 million)
- SET India (146 million)
- MrBeast (113 million)
- PewDiePie (111 million)
- Kids Diana Show (103 million)
- Like Nastya (102 million)
- WWE (91.9 million)
- Zee Music Company (89.9 million)
- Vlad and Niki (89.6 million)
