Held in LA two weeks ago, VidCon was the first ever YouTube conference, bringing together the YouTube community who make videos for the platform on a full time basis and make up a high percentage of the platform’s most engaging and highest viewed content. Amongst the YouTube stars were iJustine, ShayCarl, Molly from RocketBoom, And the UK’s top vlogger Charlie McDonnell.
Most of these vloggers make videos for the platform as a full time job and get paid through the YouTube partner program which pays them based on their CPM.
What’s clear is that these young people are extremely media savvy whilst retaining their amateur quirks which is what seems to be their appeal on YouTube. Whist most of them are still using a bedroom video camera to film their videos it’s obvious that lots of thought goes into the idea, execution and production of the videos. Anyone can record a video and upload it, but the YouTube stars and the ones who have thought cleverly about their content and and how it will appear to their audience.
What’s also clear is that all of the YouTube stars do not like to think of themselves as ‘stars’ or ‘famous,’ they also like to call their fans, friends and say that a big part of the job is to be active in the community, that means replying to all their Twitter followers and YouTube/blog post comments, and most said being active is almost as important as making the video in the first place.
There seem to be three main tips to becoming YouTube famous:
1. Great idea or content (don’t just talk to a camera about how tough life is, make something that is engaging and offers value).
2. Be regular and keep it up (don’t give up after a few months like I did with Techfluff.tv!).
3. Be active in the community (answer as many Tweets, comments and emails as possible).
It will be very interesting to see what becomes of these young media moguls, It looks like with the help of YouTube their bedroom vloggs will turn into media empires with Google announcing $5million fund available to video makers on YouTube. I’m certainly going to keep my eye on them and you should too as it’s no doubt that YouTube is the future of TV.
Here’s a quick video interview I did with iJustine on her tips to becoming YouTube famous, thanks to Jonathan Sarno, founder of the iPhone Boot Camp for filming.
