This article is intended to analyze the rising need for videos and why a youtube channel is a must one for your company – be it your brand or a brand in an organizational sense.
About 6 months ago I was participating in a training program where about an 8 years old kid came and joined with his father at the end of the session. Since he is the only kid in the session, the trainer asked him what you wanna become? He said “I would like to be a YouTube creator” Pin drop silence in the hall.
“In 2014, It was only 16 YouTube channels from India who had 1 million subscribers. It has now increased to a tremendous number of 1200
This says a lot about video consumption happening right in front of our eyes. The other side of subscriber count would be, not all brands need to build subscribers unless their success of the YouTube channel is based on Subscribers count.
“95% of the video consumption in India will be in local languages by 2025”
This means huge potential in creating videos in local languages is on demand. If you have a specific skill and you think the common man can benefit from your content than you should think of making videos in one of the local languages and build a business model around it. Making money out of Google ads is not a business model.
“Along with Comedy, Music, Sports – Learning is on the rise”
If you are not an entertainer or a sports person it’s alright, If you can teach something to someone then you are most welcomed by millions of people. You don’t have to teach a skill but if you can educate someone about something in their life then also your content will be welcomed with red-carpet. Civic Sense, Basic Human rights, Fundamentals of Constitution, Education about State assembly, How to speak in public, How to express your thoughts without hurting, Marketing for small business, Marketing in general, HR, Finance, Sustainable living, Water management at the individual level, How-tos, etc., etc., All you need is to devise a detailed plan with the list of content titles with your bigger title(channel name) in your mind.
“People skip watching a video within 10 seconds if the video is not well made”
People actively look for good visual content. It’s more of our design than of anything personal or industrial. Human eyes are very powerful in identifying whether the video is visually pleasing or otherwise.
Recently LG launched 8K resolution TV and imagine your videos are watched on such a big screen!
“Creating a YouTube channel is the easiest part”
Don’t make the mistake of creating a YouTube channel first and thinking about the content later. Do the other way around, go slow and steady – the regional world is waiting for you.
Think of creating a YouTube channel where a set of people come and watch your videos and 2-5% of your viewers pay for your workshops, training programs, speaking events. Build your raving fans, not easy but doable. The ecosystem is ready – Are you ready to invest? Are you ready to stick with it? Can you wait to reap the benefits? Do you have that patience?
Video content creation is not an easy one that is why you need to have a plan for at least 5-10 years and build a strategy around it so that even in 2025 or 2030. In a country like India, I feel even in 2040 there would be a significant percentage of people would watch it. Ideally, people should watch your videos from their hall and feels happy about it or if the videos are for a specific niche set of people than they should be comfortably able to watch it in the devices they have – Tablet, Laptop, Mobile phone, Surface, etc.,
In the 1980s TV channels broadcasted content – whatever they have broadcasted people watched, now things are different. People choose their content and the most important thing, anyone can run a channel. You too can. Define your niche audience and make content for them, not for everyone.
No wonder there are around 20 million channels that are not able to create videos regularly and nobody bothers about it – neither google nor the consumers.
There are many business models to make money through YouTube apart from ads. Merchandise, Patreon supporters, Memberships, Events, Sales, Brand building. If you can create meaningful content, people are going to pay you for sure. It is happening.
“Don’t think of making overnight raving fans, YouTube works and favors the consistent”
Things will be flat for a while, slowly things will fall in place. I got a call last month from a neighbouring country enquiring about Photography Workshop in their country for a channel that I have shelved.
What is Full HD and 8K?
Simply put, an 8K resolution video is 15 times bigger than a Full HD video. The full HD resolution is 1920*1080 pixels.
With the current technological advancement in the imaging industry, Full HD is the bare minimum. 4K is the status quo.
Parting thoughts
There would be 500 million online video viewers in India by 2020 – that’s video viewers alone. YouTube is just getting started in India.
