Why Should You Start YouTube in 2024?

Impact millions to make millions

Photo by Sebastian Pandelache on Unsplash

Hello everyone, I have been procrastinating to start my newsletter for some time now and finally decided that it’s time for me to really start writing it. Thank you for subscribing to this newsletter even though I didn’t have any content initially. In this newsletter, I will share various things that I’m passionate about, and I hope you will be able to learn a thing or two from my writing. It’s gonna be pretty casual with what I think about various experiences that I go through. Some of my opinions might be wrong, so take them with a pinch of salt.

So here comes the question:

Why Should You Start YouTube in 2024?

Story About Myself

If you had told me that I could sell my product to an audience from different parts of the world by just focusing on one social platform, which is YouTube, back in 2022, I would not have believed that. In 2024, I have a YouTube education channel that attracts paid students from different parts of the world through videos I posted almost two years ago.

Of course, before 2022, I had been trying to sell my knowledge on various platforms and got a mixture of results from these platforms.

For example, on one of the biggest teaching platforms, I started selling back in October 2021, and now in 2024, I have about 1300+ students who have learned from my online course. It’s been about 1000 days since I started publishing my program. So around 1 student per day, which I think is an encouraging feat.

Looking at the screenshot above, my program has actually helped students from different parts of the world. In general, I have an average rating of 4.5 for this program, which was created about 3 years ago.

Then you might be asking me, why not

Double down on the teaching platform and create more courses there?

I would say that it’s a viable strategy for certain creators but might not be applicable to everyone out there for reasons below. Of course, I’m not saying that you should not start from there at all, but I’m just giving my personal take on this.

1. First of all, you have no control over the pricing of the course. Well, you do have “control” over how much you want to charge for your course, but the platform will not promote your program if you decide not to opt into their marketing program. Basically, if you set your program pricing to be $100, the platform will adjust the pricing to what they deem suitable based on the audience from different parts of the world. And in most cases, it will be around $10, and you will only get a cut of this $10. If you decide not to opt into this program, it’s hard for your new program to stand out among thousands of courses out there. (Unless you have your own audience and supporters, you have no choice but to opt into their program.)

2. It’s hard to build a personal brand on these platforms. On the platform itself, your course is like a common commodity. A typical example would be like when you shop in your local shopping mart and want to purchase some tape. You will see a wide variety of tapes with similar pricing.

   

   Photo by Peter Bond on Unsplash

   You will tend to choose the one with lower pricing and good packaging. Of course, if you know it’s a reliable brand, you will tend to pick it as well as long as the price is not outrageously high. In general, big brands have the advantage of economies of scale, and their pricing tends to fall on the lower side as well. So here comes the issue: if you want people to purchase your course over other creators, you first have to have a big name (and in your case, it’s unlikely since you’re just starting out). Next, it’s a race to the bottom. You have to opt into the marketing program, and the platform will set your course to a competitive pricing they deem suitable.

With these 2 reasons above, it’s hard for you to replace your traditional job if you choose these learning platforms as your major income source. Of course, this is my own experience with one of the platforms out there, there might be other platforms who will offer you better growth. I would say that a viable strategy would be creating a teaser of your program on all these big teaching platforms and selling at a low price or even for free. Then you can get them to join your higher-priced program to improve your engagement.

Why YouTube Is Good Compared to Other Social Platforms?

Photo by Christian Wiediger on Unsplash

Some of you might be asking me, there are platforms like Instagram, TikTok, X, Facebook, etc. out there. Why do you choose YouTube in particular?

1. Search intent of the audience: This is the first reason why I choose YouTube over other platforms. When you’re scrolling through platforms like Instagram, TikTok, X, or Facebook, you’re not actively looking for a solution. But on YouTube (the second biggest search engine in the world after Google), you’re actively seeking a solution to your problem in video form. So when you offer digital products, professional services like coaching, freelancing, affiliate marketing, paid memberships, physical products, and others on a platform like YouTube, customers will come to you automatically instead of you actively looking for customers!

2. Views from evergreen content are perpetual: The second thing about YouTube is as long as you’re creating evergreen content, you will continue to garner views across the years compared to platforms like Instagram/TikTok, where your content views tend to fall short after the initial burst period.

YouTube is a long game, but if you have the patience to play it, you will reap its rewards eventually.

Why Starting a YouTube is Beneficial for Your Personal Growth

1. Improves presentation and copywriting skills: Regardless of your current status, whether you’re a student now, a full-time professional employee, a business owner or someone looking to explore the online world. This is the perfect place to train both your speaking skills in front of the camera as well as your ability to summarize what you learn in video form. Take note that when you’re creating any content on YouTube, you have to think that the audience doesn’t have the same background knowledge as you, so you will have to distill your knowledge in a clear, concise, and easy-to-understand format for them to absorb your content.

   

   Photo by Sebastian Pandelache on Unsplash

2. Opens up endless opportunities: Instead of serving your company, your local market, or your local neighborhood, you’re able to reach any population in the world. And when you’re able to impact millions, your path to earning millions is not far away.

3. Low Risk, High Return: Compared to starting a typical brick-and-mortar business whereby you have to spend thousands of dollars to rent/buy a place, purchase equipment, and hire staff before even earning your first penny, YouTube only requires you to have a camera to get started. In some cases, if you prefer to do a faceless YouTube channel, you will just need a decent mic to get started! If the channel gets to enter a flywheel mode, congratulations! If not, what you have risked is just your time and some opportunity cost. But along the way, you will have learned so many things that you wouldn’t be able to learn in a typical corporate/retail environment whereby your work tends to get repetitive after a while.

Ending Thoughts

I hope this encourages you to start a YouTube channel if you have been struggling to get started or are unsure whether this is the right thing to do.

Instead of spending time watching the latest Netflix series or mindlessly scrolling social platforms, why not be on the producer side this time around instead of being on the consumer side all your life?

You have to believe that your limit is endless, and abundant things will come to you as long as your videos are helping anyone in this world in any form. I have been interested in AI & business automation for a long time and have been using a lot of these tools in my current workflow. I decided to start a brand new YouTube channel from scratch here. You can subscribe to my channel if you wish and witness my growth together with me.

I only have 3 subscribers now, and my first video only has 20 views. But I believe that as long as I’m consistent and continue to provide value to my target audience, it should grow slowly. I also want to show you that overnight success is rare. It’s about being consistent and believing in yourself along the way.

If you have recently started a YouTube channel or own one now, feel free to drop your link in the comment section and write a short sentence about what your YouTube channel does. For example,

My YouTube channel is https://www.youtube.com/@chenmingyong and I help people use AI to improve their lives.

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