Small business marketers, the Marketing CLARITY Podcast (formerly TriPod) is for you if you’re looking to create better content and be a more informed digital marketer. Hosted by Ross Herosian (a Marketing coach, content creator, and entrepreneur) episodes are a mix of helpful Marketing tips, digital marketing and social media updates, conversations with subject-matter experts, and his own unique perspective on how to promote and grow your business. So sit back, relax, and let’s get pedaling!
In This Episode...
Anyone with a camera can set up a YouTube channel. Growing an audience is a different story. It requires constant publishing, optimization, content review, and evaluation. And, perhaps most importantly, persistence and fortitude. It can be deflating to work on a video for 8-10 hours for it to only get 12 views. Smart people have come up with a YouTube hack you may have heard of; buying views, subscribers, and likes. Ross was curious about how this really affects your channel and bought some.
This is not against YouTube’s terms and conditions. Ross used a service called Stormviews, with a noticeably scanty website. With a whopping $3.99, you are able to buy 500 views. If you look at the video now, they definitely did just that. Digging a bit deeper you will see how this is hardly a “win”.
Why Do People Buy YouTube Views?
I can only see 2 main reasons to spend money on either views, subscribers, or likes. Other than for vanity, feeling this view counts rising in conjunction with your self-fulfillment, the only reason that is left is monetization. YouTube only has 2 requirements to start getting paid by them. Firstly, you need 1000 subscribers. Lastly, you need 4,000 watch-hours within a 12 month period.
How Many Watch-Hours Did I Buy?
Yes, Stormviews did their part and Tricycle Creative’s Sales Process video (check it out below) did get 500 more views. However, when you check out the watch-time, its a measly 4.7 hours. The audience’s retention is 17 seconds. They didn’t watch the entire video, nor did they view any other videos on the channel, which in an organic growth, would be very likely.
The Numbers...
How much would you have to spend to accomplish the watch-hours requirement?
1 view = 17 seconds
So let’s say you need 4,000 hours. This breaks down to 14,400,000 seconds. You would have to purchase 840,059 views. You can only buy up to 500,000 views with Stormviews for $3000. It would cost approximately $6,000 to get 4,000 hours of watch-hours.
A Better Use of $6,000
Assuming your time is worth $20/hour. That is 300 hours dedicated to creating YouTube content. I every video takes you about 6 hours to plan, create, edit, and optimize and upload (which is on the low end of the spectrum for a video), You will make 50 videos for your channel.
This may be hard to believe, but most YouTubers will mention that 100 video rule; you need to create 100 vids for your channel to significantly make money from YouTube. That is about 2 videos a week in the span of 1 year. These numbers also allow you to build your audience organically.
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