YouTube and how to profit off "good will"

Your popularity is fickle, highly determined by your actions and how people perceive them. In social media, specifically YouTube, this is especially applicable for creators whose channel's are highly personal. Channels that nurture relationships with their audience, using feedback and engagements to direct content.  Channels that are considered "audience first" and "sponsorship second" are especially volatile to public perception.
Why is this so? Generally speaking, the audience is self-aware, they know they are in a position of power, they know that they ultimately decide who lives and who dies on YouTube, so when they see something they deem to be morally or ethically incorrect they won't hesitate to pull the trigger.
What dictates whats morally and ethically correct within the realms of YouTube? I have no idea, to be honest, DramaAlert is a testament to the ambiguity of those concepts. The fact that this channel is still active and has a following is beyond me. I won't discuss why I feel this way as that would make me no better than the legend Keemstar himself (Probably has to do nature of his content). However, people are usually against anything corporate. Being labelled a sell out in the YouTube community is a huge deal, and can be what makes or breaks a channel, especially so, if the public considers the channel to be objective. Unfortunately, we don't live in a world where we can afford to disregard wealth to pursue objectivity. So how does one make money via sponsored content on YouTube during the ad-pocalypse? I believe the key is "goodwill".

Before the ad-pocalypse, there was the counter strike global (CS:GO) gambling controversy, courtesy of TmarTn and ProSyndicate. Skin gambling videos till this day can be highly lucrative for those who have a large following. Not only are the videos like crack cocaine and relatively easy to create, but skin gambling websites are willing to pay publishers a lot of money for sponsorships. Due to the attention from mainstream media and other reputable YouTube channels like H3H3, public opinion turned, consequently making skin gambling videos rather toxic.

During this period of volatility, the YouTuber Anomally successfully manoeuvred the skins gambling environment, with none of his gambling videos exhibiting any signs of disapproval from his audience. How you might ask? "Goodwill". Some might argue that his success was mostly due to his circumstances at the time, I definitely agree with those sentiments. However, I also believe "goodwill" was a significant factor, as shown here: Why I am being a sellout







TheLazyPeon is a channel to fits perfectly with previous statements defining a "personal" channel. With a subscriber count a little over 376,000, TheLazyPeon is a gaming review channel that prides itself in its "audience first" approach, rarely ever uploading sponsored content. Reviewing games (mostly MMOs) by providing pros and cons objectively and from the perspective of the average gamer. Over time this approach built a channel that is generally trusted and dependable.
One of the channel's most recent uploads was received with mixed feelings. The sponsored video currently sits at a "likes to dislike" ratio of around 66.7%, a ratio rather uncharacteristic of the channel. Generally speaking, the audience is aware of the ad-pocalypse and the underlying reasons why the channel posted the video, however, that did not stop some viewers from reacting negatively or at least sceptical.






























Source 
As alluded to earlier, the audience generally knows why this content was published. However, due to the fickle nature of the audience, and the personal nature of the channel it was received lukewarmly.
I believe that this upload wouldn't have had such a mixed reception if the channel had first, in an act of "goodwill", acknowledged the controversial nature of the content and its forecasted reception.



The Mcskillet channel is a prime example of how to successfully leverage "goodwill" against practices that could be considered ethically ambiguous.
Once the CSGO gambling controversy started to fade, McSkillet announced that he would be launching his very own skin gambling website. When Mcskillet revealed his future business venture, he accompanied this news with a commentary criticizing other gambling websites, commenting on what he deemed "shady" business practices, he even alluded to some sites being outright scams. I won't point out the obvious conflict of interest here, but his criticisms of the gambling sites
were perceived to be an act of "goodwill". His announcement was received quite well, with the general consensus sharing sentiments roughly around "Thanks for telling us, do whatever you want". His video can be found here.



In conclusion, exhibit "goodwill", build a relationship of trust, be transparent, and for the most part, people won't care what you do. In your pursuit of money don't be scared of being labelled a sellout, be scared of being labelled a "lying", "distrustful" sellout.

Regards,

My interview with YouTuber Sir Swag.

At 160 thousand subscribers, Sir Swag's YouTube channel is a huge success. I was lucky enough to sit down with him to discuss his channel and personal insights regarding successful youtube practices.  If I were to give a brief summary of Sir Swag's channel, I would summarise it as a self-aware gaming channel whose attitude takes nothing seriously, an attitude accompanied with no fluff, no bull shit content that looks to put its subscribers first, and profits second.
Click here to visit Sir Swags channel

How would you describe your YouTube channel?

“I would describe it as a haven for fucking degenerates, I would describe it as comedy, gaming lots of those titles I suppose”

How did “Nuclear Pancake” come about?

“How many videos did you fucking watch? Nuclear pancake, I think that was my first video, so basically, there was this move for this one character in dirty bomb. They have a mine, you throw it out wait for a few seconds and it explodes, but if you throw it out and shoot it, that blows up straight away and that just makes this ridiculous grenade that you can use anywhere. So, I said “nuclear pancake” once and then a few weeks later in a development video they said they were going to put a nerf on mines citing “damn you nuclear pancake”. Then all of a sudden it became a standard term in the game.

Your channel adds a satirical twist to game reviews, game guides, and community commentaries, with the use of text to speech. Ultimately, how do you see your channel growing in terms of content? Have you considered extending the scope of your text to speech commentaries beyond the gaming community?

“I have considered going into movies, cause I did the 30 games in one sentence series, the 30 overwatch mains into one sentence series. I thought, could I maybe expand it into movies or shows? However, I don’t know how well that would work because my channel is all about gaming like even when I alternate between different games, my view rate and sub rate just drops dramatically no matter what the content is. So I’m thinking moving to non-gaming things is certainly possible, however, it would be very very hard, whereas gaming in itself is such a big topic.”

Earlier, you mentioned to me that you believe your text to speech commentaries has created a third entity, separate from you, a persona of sorts. Are there any variations to the text to speech voices that you would consider?  Do you think that changing the text to speech voice would hurt or help your channel, or is the persona more intertwined with the commentary itself?

I have asked on several occasions, “if you guys would support me in using my real voice, then I would be more than happy to do that” however, a lot of them are just like" Nah it's funny, we like it" it’s one of the main selling points. The text to speech has its ups and downs, cause its either you love it or just freaking hate it. I think the market’s big enough that I’ll just keep the text to speech for regular videos, and if I wanted to do other stuff ill make another channel, like if I wanted to stream ill use my real voice.”

What about the actual text to speech voices? Could you change it?

I could change it, but it’s such an iconic voice, it’s the standard one. I started it because of the MLG videos back in the day like “MLG stranger danger” shit like that. I was like pissing myself, I thought that was the funniest shit, so I just used that, because I found it so funny.  I don’t think I’ll change the text to speech voice, it’s too iconic.

How often do you upload content on YouTube, per your personal experience and YouTube available metrics, what’s the most effective frequency if any? 

“Alright for me, I like to do an upload every week. I aim for one a week because I think it’s something where I can keep up with, and it keeps the view rate and sub rate going for the rest of the week, However, if it were up to me I would probably want 2 to 3 videos out a week to bolster that. People just like new shit. “

Obviously on any creator oriented platform, content quality is imperative to success, however, assuming a channel’s content exhibits this level of quality, in terms of initial channel growth what aspect do you feel is most important, continuous improvement of quality or an increase content quantity.

I’m always about quality over quantity, a lot of channels just put out a video every day, which for me is unsustainable, it takes too long to make a video and to put it out every day. I think what I have over a lot of other channels is I spend a lot of time researching and writing, making all the edits really snappy. Like I would spend months getting gameplay for a game before making a video on it because I want everything to be really really good, every 10-second clip. A lot of channels what they will do is just film five minutes and talk over the top of that, whereas me, I get a whole bunch of clips and show those clips as I’m talking about it. So yeah, quality over quantity every time. Again, it’s way better to make an amazing 2-minute video than a shitty 10-minute video.  

Do you use any other social media platforms? And to what extent to do you use these platforms?

I use only one other platform and that’s discord, to converse with fans and what not.  

So you don’t even use Reddit? Despite you noting that your channel's success is partly due to the Reddit community.

Yeah usually it's other people promoting my content for me, one of my biggest ones, that made it to the top of the overwatch sub Reddit, the funny part about that is at the end of that video I said, “this concludes the video where we talk about every overwatch main in one sentence, subscribe to see more videos that make it to the top of the overwatch sub Reddit so until next time goodbye, and within a day it made it to the top of the overwatch subreddit, yeah that was the most badass thing I’ve ever done.  So yeah, it’s mostly other people doing it for me, it’s making things that can go viral so easily so I don’t have to promote, I feel like that’s more effective. If you can get something on the top of Reddit that is worth thousands of dollars of self-promotion.

Integrating Social Media Platforms to Strategy

Social media now entails a giant network of platforms that are all interconnected in some way or another, it is inevitable that platforms that cater to a similar audience or function in a similar way, by design or not, will interact with one another.

Twitch and Youtube are a great example of two competing "social publishing platforms" that work cohesively for media creators.  Though it should be noted that YouTube originally focused on content that was edited and uploaded, whereas Twitch's content was focused on live streams, that changed in 2016 when YouTube released a live streaming service to the community.


M0e (Twitter & YouTube) a former Esports competitor turned YouTube star has found great success in utilising both platforms as publishing mediums. M0e regularly, shares content captured on twitch to his YouTube audience.  This practice of duplicating content is quite common in the social gaming community. However, it should be noted that though content  is reposted on Youtube, that content is almost always altered via editing.

Apart from increasing brand exposure, there are various other reasons as to why a creator would use both platforms to advertise their content. Twitch creates content that is tailored to a live audience, whereas YouTube's content is generally considered the final link in the media supply chain, where content is finalised, uploaded and shared, this content can be accessed at any time. Utilising both platforms not only provides greater content exposure but also entails two avenues of income (Twitch's donations & Youtubes Ad revenue). Furthermore, using YouTube to share Twitch's content maximises the efficiency of content.

The utilisation of various social media platforms to build brand exposure and income isn't exclusive to platforms that function similarly. Steam is a gaming social network for the PC gaming community. Steam's platform interacts in all 4 zones of social media: Social community realised via the individual profiles of gamers and the ability to message and view other profiles, social publishing realised with the capturing and sharing of in game content, be it be videos or images, and social commerce realised via Steams community market, a free-market that is used to buy and sell digital assets.

McSkillet (Twitter & YouTube), a popular YouTube star who is considered an expert on Steam digital assets, specifically the assets within the Counter Strike Global (CSGO) market. On YouTube McSkillet originally created content analysing the value of CSGO assets and built an audience around that specific niche. McSkillet now has recently released his own "Case Opening" site, which is essentially a gambling site that uses Steam as the intermediary server, and that uses CSGO digital assets as a medium of exchange, McSkillet uses his YouTube presence to market and his own site.

What this means for the "The Chalafason Project"?
Strategically from a marketers perspective, it is imperative that we accompany our website with an established publishing platform, to leverage content to drive traffic to our website.

Project Development 1

Ello, here's the latest on website development matters & social media marketing influences.

After numerous discussions with various website designers concerning the scope, framework, and aesthetic specifications of "F Avenue", I found that in order to cut costs I would need to outsource different development functions to different companies/contractors. With this in mind, I browsed through tradition social media platforms such as "Facebook" and "Twitter" for potential contractors. For those unaware, it is not uncommon for artists to advertise their works/talents on social media platforms, these platforms include; Facebook, Twitter, DeviantArt, Pinterest, Youtube, and much more.

Conveniently I had previous knowledge of artists on facebook and their works, some of which I would consider friends/acquaintances.

I found that advertising on social media can be extremely effective for independent contractors offering a specific service or a somewhat niche product. However, this too can act as a double edged sword, especially so for artists, as artists (generally speaking) will have many connections to other professionals in their field giving the consumer many options, thus, indirectly exposing their potential customers to competitors.

It should be noted that my opinion on this matter is heavily influenced by my personal habits of being, what social media marketing experts would classify as a "Digital native".