> Examination: YouTube Top Content Providers

rayw

rayw

Please visit
Social Brain Wave
@ facebook to learn more about how a group of us are
helping promote the works of the individual members to
a level that is beyond what could be done alone.
http://www.facebook.com/SocialBrainWave/info​

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

This is the investigation, analysis, and dissection of the top youtube content providers defined by those with the most subscribers.
http://www.indietalk.com/showthread.php?t=44191

The intent is that by understanding what elements go into the concept, design, execution, and promotion of market valued content that we ourselves may adopt some of these practices in developing our own content.

Why would we want to do that?
Why would we even care?

For my own reason -
From the light research I've conducted in crowdsourcing at the beginning of the filmmaking process and the marketing and promotion of the completed film products the key is to come to the table having already cultivated a following.
> Cold calling for fi$cal attention is grossly ineffective.
> Bring an interested crowd to your crowdsourcing campaign.
> Bring an interested crowd to marketing and promoting your finished film.


I would like to see some of the reasons others here at IT are interested in top youtube content providers.
Zen Steve?
Lucky Hardwood?
Icba Pictures?
Paul Griffith?
Any one else?



__________________________________________________________

http://vidstatsx.com/youtube-top-100-most-subscribed-channels

http://www.statsheep.com/p/Top-Subscribers

Looks interesting: http://willvideoforfood.com/

http://willvideoforfood.com/2012/10/19/why-are-ray-william-johnson-and-maker-studio-separating/

http://willvideoforfood.com/2012/05...ios-machinima-maker-full-screen-and-bigframe/
OVS = Online Video Studio
OVC = Online Video Company

http://www.comscore.com/Insights/Pr...eleases_March_2012_U.S._Online_Video_Rankings

www.reelseo.com/online-video-studios/

http://newmediarockstars.com/2012/09/which-youtube-network-should-you-sign-with/
This looks waaaaaay more complicated than just hanging out your shingle and hassling your family, friends, and forum friends to watch and subscibe.

Getting a little off the path with this one: http://videoproductiontips.com/equipment-needed-to-set-up-a-simple-video-studio/
 
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Fine.
FWIW, SOCIAL BRAIN WAVE is my preference, as well.

PepperJack, if you wanna design a logo - gopherit.
But I'll also ask others to toss some submissions into the representational ring, too.


20121211UnnamedYTProjectCurrentPositionsvIII.png


Miken, will you please set up Gmail, YouTube, and Goog+ accounts using SOCIAL BRAIN WAVE.
Mckinise, will you please do that thing you do for WordPress using SOCIAL BRAIN WAVE.
MetalRenard, will you please set up a FaceBook page and reconnoiter with mckinise about a twitter crossover.

Miken, everything begins with an email account, kinda like an identity theif begins with a driver's license or social security number.
Once you get that set up PM the others with the access info so that they can begin their accounts with it.
KEEP IN MIND - at some point in the future all of you will teach someone else how to do what you do then relinquish control of all things SOCIAL BRAIN WAVE over to them. And then they'll do the same. And so will the next person.
So don't use personal information on anything.
Bogus birthdays.
Bogus "real names" (think of something clever.)
Bogus addresses.
 
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Are we going for "Social Brainwave" or "Social Brain Wave"? The first I think is more correct...
I have the FB page creation open as we speak so I'm just waiting for a confirmation.

I'm putting it under "Company, organisation, institution" section too, in the "Media/News/Publishing" section.

Edit: "Brainwave", after research, seems more popular in literature and media, whereas "Brain wave" is more a scientific notion. The choice is yours.
 
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mckinise - I grabbed socialbrainwave.com

I can tranfer it to you or manage the dns. Just let me know.


All -

It appears that google is not longer allows free apps (email) accounts. I honestly don't want to $50 per year for each of you chuckleheads. Unless we only need a few emails everyone shares?

Anyone have any other free or lower cost suggestions? I'll look for a few.


Google+ Page for social brain wave is setup. I will wait to do any customization until we decide on a logo.

I also setup a community. We could use that as an organizational piece for us or make it public.
 
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This is awesome! So glad this is coming together.
For an e-mail account don't worry, I'm happy to use my business e-mail address which is metalrenardmusic[at]gmail.com if people want to contact me. Since I'm not running the channel or blog I think it's ok.

For you guys running the website or blog you may need something like that though... But it's still early days.
 
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Miken said:
mckinise - I grabbed socialbrainwave.com

I can tranfer it to you or manage the dns. Just let me know.


All -

It appears that google is not longer allows free apps (email) accounts. I honestly don't want to $50 per year for each of you chuckleheads. Unless we only need a few emails everyone shares?

Anyone have any other free or lower cost suggestions? I'll look for a few.


Google+ Page for social brain wave is setup. I will wait to do any customization until we decide on a logo.

I also setup a community. We could use that as an organizational piece for us or make it public.
Click to expand...

I will send you the DNS info via PM in the morning. I am running on fumes right now.
 
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Do we want to setup some place to work / capture ideas outside of this thread? A group forum, google+ community, some other collaborative workspace?

Do we want to start putting together a content strategy for the main site?

x number of videos per month
Standard airings - i.e. Lucky's review show, etc. I think we need a couple of other items owned by different people. We need to make sure that the site still has content but does not limit posting on one's own channel.

Some content ideas -

I've been working on doing some cutout animation (quite horribly at the moment) for my soon to be channel. As a regular thing I could do a Monty Pythonesque animation sequence.

A group movie review piece - we could do a skype call or similar and have everyone comment on a movie we all watched. Like a filmed book club.

A tutorial related to production on some level.

etc.

The same type of planning needs to go into the main blog / site.

I think we need to define for the next 6-12 months at a bare minimum we need x number of videos and y posts. Then we divide that up by the core (the people who will be pushing the main site early on). Anything we get from the next ring of folks will be gravy.

So what are some realistic goals?
3 videos per month
10 Blog / site posts per month

I think the main thing we saw is that regular content over a long period of time works on youtube. This all breaks without it.



Longer term, doing things like a short film festival or similar would be additional ways to grow this.
 
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I'm looking to be able to put out four episodes of each of my shows per month (8). I won't be producing anything until sometime in January. I expect to have the first batch of shows in the can and ready to upload by the beginning of February.
 
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So what are some realistic goals?
3 videos per month
10 Blog / site posts per month
Click to expand...

The magic number for a followship is 1 piece of content per day. 3 times a week (Mon/Wed/Fri) is the next best option. At least that is for blogs/websites. Now that we're adding youtube into the mix I'm not so sure what the magic number is. I'd like to aim for a similar number.

For TV, the magic number is either every week day or once a week for a season. The off season can be where you can lose people's interest.

One last thing people really need to know. The money doesn't come in hard and fast. It can take a while to start earning. It can take a while for youtube to accept us as a partner. At least that's the norm. Who knows, we could go super viral and hyper accelerate things.

How is everyone going to feel if we're a year in and we're only earning $1 each per month?

I'm going to be reading for a little while to get myself further ready for writing stuff for youtube. I've got myself a few courses and books on comedy. We'll see if they're worth reading I suppose. I also have a few ideas in mind for short comedy shorts that may go viral. Optimistically, late Jan maybe when I think I'd be ready to go ahead.
 
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Sweetie said:
The magic number for a followship is 1 piece of content per day. 3 times a week (Mon/Wed/Fri) is the next best option. At least that is for blogs/websites. Now that we're adding youtube into the mix I'm not so sure what the magic number is. I'd like to aim for a similar number.

For TV, the magic number is either every week day or once a week for a season. The off season can be where you can lose people's interest.

One last thing people really need to know. The money doesn't come in hard and fast. It can take a while to start earning. It can take a while for youtube to accept us as a partner. At least that's the norm. Who knows, we could go super viral and hyper accelerate things.

How is everyone going to feel if we're a year in and we're only earning $1 each per month?

I'm going to be reading for a little while to get myself further ready for writing stuff for youtube. I've got myself a few courses and books on comedy. We'll see if they're worth reading I suppose. I also have a few ideas in mind for short comedy shorts that may go viral. Optimistically, late Jan maybe when I think I'd be ready to go ahead.
Click to expand...


I guess I'm not thinking about optimal yet, I'm thinking about a sustainable output that will move us forward. Let's prove we can hit the minimum before we set loftier goals. I don't mean to be insulting to anyone, but the "interest" level will drop significantly once things actually have to get done. I'm not immune to that either. If we have 5 people regularly driving the main channel 6 months from now, I will be surprised. There will be plenty of interest to be a channel in the group Building the group? Not so much.


That's the question - what are the goals? Are there metrics the main channel should be hitting? I'm not interested in how much money the main channel is earning. I'd be more interested in how many creators we're generating cross traffic to, or a main channel subscriber rating. Monetization of the individual channels is not the group's concern.

What do we want to call the go live date for the main channel?

I'm seeing late Jan / Feb from several folks. Do we want to set a late Feb or March 1 go date? That way we can get content on the solo channels?

As an aside, the youtube partner program has changed this year. Anyone can choose to monetize videos now without any major process I believe.
 
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Miken said:
Building the group? Not so much.


That's the question - what are the goals? Are there metrics the main channel should be hitting? I'm not interested in how much money the main channel is earning. I'd be more interested in how many creators we're generating cross traffic to, or a main channel subscriber rating. Monetization of the individual channels is not the group's concern.

What do we want to call the go live date for the main channel?

I'm seeing late Jan / Feb from several folks. Do we want to set a late Feb or March 1 go date? That way we can get content on the solo channels?

As an aside, the youtube partner program has changed this year. Anyone can choose to monetize videos now without any major process I believe.
Click to expand...

Hmmm, I thought the monetization of individual channels was the goal and not monetizing the central channel (getting rid of the "who gets how much from Social Brain Wave" problem)...? As a central channel it will have to achieve multi-million click status in order to get our individual channels even part of that. Coke gets recognized trillions of times while their ads only get my local Coke retailer a smaller amount of recognition... People will be hitting SBW to check for new content, updated channel info, ior as a pass through for getting to other channels (one clicked favorite page to go to, then off to individual pages from there).
I'm no good with the website/blog/organizing/server/tracking/numbers/managing stuff, but I'm happy to offer any of my skills to build SBW content, ideas, etc. $1 a month is no biggy to me, I was going to put up a Youtube channel anyway, SBW is a huge bonus booster, as well as getting to collab with other indietalkers interested in similar thoughts.
If I'm way off then I will be glad to switch focus on SBW content to draw viewers/subscribers in. Where can I help?
 
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Miken said:
Do we want to setup some place to work / capture ideas outside of this thread? A group forum, google+ community, some other collaborative workspace? I believe the facebook account should be good for some continued discussion space, and when mckinise gets that blog or web page up and running that'll provide a better blab-fest (as we, especially me, occasionally commit) forum.

Do we want to start putting together a content strategy for the main site? CENTRAL site! :yes: And "yes", as we start getting a good sense of who's got what coming from their own channels, now or later, some programming or promise of "commitment" (and I use that term for lack of a better) will be in order.
However, since many of the youtube channels now start out as little grass roots projects with sporadic content of dubious quality developing content strategy may be a bit early.

Don't think of this as a mom&pop restaurant opening or the debut video for MTV.
It's more of a "Let's clean up this abandoned empty lot" community volunteer program.

Basically: who wants to be brave enough to lump out THE first video to YT! Oooooo!:lol:

No one's gonna give a sh!t when we do it, or what it is, or how long each video is.
Look at jennamarbles' first few videos. Meh...

x number of videos per month
Standard airings - i.e. Lucky's review show, etc. I think we need a couple of other items owned by different people. We need to make sure that the site still has content but does not limit posting on one's own channel. I aim to have a Places of Nature" upload every two weeks, likely Wednesdays.
Can possibly do it weekly, but I'll have that figured out in a couple months.

Some content ideas -

I've been working on doing some cutout animation (quite horribly at the moment) for my soon to be channel. As a regular thing I could do a Monty Pythonesque animation sequence. That looks great. I look forward to seeing it.

A group movie review piece - we could do a skype call or similar and have everyone comment on a movie we all watched. Like a filmed book club.

A tutorial related to production on some level.

etc.

The same type of planning needs to go into the main blog / site. CENTRAL blog / main site. :)

I think we need to define for the next 6-12 months at a bare minimum we need x number of videos and y posts. Then we divide that up by the core (the people who will be pushing the main site early on). Anything we get from the next ring of folks will be gravy.
You've got cutout theater coming.
MetalRenard has video game-esque music fairly regularly.
JoshL also has a library of scores he can set to images.
I've got one legit Places of Nature video with the second on deck for next week and the material for at least two more after that @ bi-weekly intervals. With time I'll expand to the videoHaiga (haiku set to video), plus some other cats in the bag I'll be figuring out.

So what are some realistic goals?
3 videos per month
10 Blog / site posts per month Easy.

I think the main thing we saw is that regular content over a long period of time works on youtube. This all breaks without it. Agreed.



Longer term, doing things like a short film festival or similar would be additional ways to grow this. Longer term, yes.
Click to expand...




Sweetie said:
The magic number for a followship is 1 piece of content per day. 3 times a week (Mon/Wed/Fri) is the next best option. At least that is for blogs/websites. Now that we're adding youtube into the mix I'm not so sure what the magic number is. I'd like to aim for a similar number. For a MAIN channel, yes. But that's what each of us is supposed be developing at OUR OWN channels: quality content for a definable market.
We cross-promote each other's TY channels from both our own channels and from the Social Brain Wave central channel.
Anyone who stumbles onto any of our channels or upon the Social Brain Wave channel will be sent around in circles within the associated group.
People "want" only what they see or know about.
Think of it like a casino model: Make it easy for customers to get in but hard to get out.

One last thing people really need to know. The money doesn't come in hard and fast. It can take a while to start earning. It can take a while for youtube to accept us as a partner. At least that's the norm. Who knows, we could go super viral and hyper accelerate things. A lot of that depends upon how well we each market our own channels, especially with the learned information we share.
See, that's the cool thing. Few of us are really making video or musical products that directly compete with one another. Anything I help you with to make your own marketing to your product's market doesn't come at the expense of mine, and vice versa.
And heaven forbid, should we get two or three of us in the group with like products they can decide to either work together or directly compete. I advise for the former and against the latter.

How is everyone going to feel if we're a year in and we're only earning $1 each per month? I'd feel like I either need to make a better product to serve the demands of my audience or define my audience better.
Either I'm making a cr@p product too few people care about or I'm selling ice to Eskimos instead of Arabs.

I'm going to be reading for a little while to get myself further ready for writing stuff for youtube. I've got myself a few courses and books on comedy. We'll see if they're worth reading I suppose. I also have a few ideas in mind for short comedy shorts that may go viral. Optimistically, late Jan maybe when I think I'd be ready to go ahead.I think we'll all be very interested in the evolution of your craft as well as that of each other.
Click to expand...



Miken said:
I guess I'm not thinking about optimal yet, I'm thinking about a sustainable output that will move us forward. Let's prove we can hit the minimum before we set loftier goals. I don't mean to be insulting to anyone, but the "interest" level will drop significantly once things actually have to get done. I'm not immune to that either. If we have 5 people regularly driving the main channel 6 months from now, I will be surprised. There will be plenty of interest to be a channel in the group Building the group? Not so much. Yeah, I'm very much interested in seeing how many of us can put out content on any regular interval no matter the quality or audience for it.

The model I keep thinking of is that of a stock brokerage house.
New wannabe stock brokers come off the meat wagon every day.
Their supervisors push them to push the company products onto their own friends and family and social contacts
After a few months or years the fresh meat has exhausted their contact list and quits.
Meanwhile the clients the freshmeat stockbroker introduced to the brokerage house remain with the company.
Basically, the contact accounts last longer than the person that introduced them.
Layer that over a few decades and BAM! You got yourself one helluva brokerage house.
Social Brain Wave will survive as long as we produce products at our individual channels have an audience for and we bring in new members to bring us their contacts.
Contacts + Know How = Value.


That's the question - what are the goals? Are there metrics the main channel should be hitting? I'm not interested in how much money the main channel is earning. I'd be more interested in how many creators we're generating cross traffic to, or a main channel subscriber rating. Monetization of the individual channels is not the group's concern. Exactly!
Each member is primarily responsible for their own monetization - which belonging to the group, Social Brain Wave, brings a considerable benefit to.
Social Brain Wave brings added contacts, collective know how, peer review for betterment, and positive pressure to produce and define our markets.
Social Brain Wave's concern is developing additional contacts, increasing group know how, help each other make better products and define each other's markets.
It is NOT to make money like a film distributor or movie theater to redistribute collected funds back to content providers.

However, members are strongly encouraged to learn what they can at Social Brain Wave then splinter off together to make their own monetized channel.

What do we want to call the go live date for the main channel? CENTRAL channel.
And it has a name, finally: Social Brain Wave.
Pretty much whenever someone wants to lump out a first video.
No one's gonna care about these first few weeks.

I'm seeing late Jan / Feb from several folks. Do we want to set a late Feb or March 1 go date? That way we can get content on the solo channels? I think that's when many people are going to have their high-production value content warmed up.
Nuts and bolts are still being fitted at the moment.
Think of any first beta-test videos and music as a soft opening to help get some of the initial bugs worked outta the system.

As an aside, the youtube partner program has changed this year. Anyone can choose to monetize videos now without any major process I believe. Looks good.
Click to expand...


icba pictures said:
Hmmm, I thought the monetization of individual channels was the goal and not monetizing the main channel (getting rid of the "who gets how much from Social Brain Wave" problem)...? You are 100% dead-on-balls correct, sir.

As a main channel it will have to achieve multi-million click status in order to get our individual channels even part of that. Not to mention it'll be a GD administrative nightmare fraught with corruptive influences.
It's just not worth the hassle for volunteer work, which essentially this is.
Volunteer at Social Brain Wave, lean cool stuff. Go make money at your own individual channel(s)

I'm no good with the website/blog/organizing/server/tracking/numbers/managing stuff, but I'm happy to offer any of my skills to build SBW content, ideas, etc. $1 a month is no biggy to me, I was going to put up a Youtube channel anyway, SBW is a huge bonus booster, as well as getting to collab with other indietalkers interested in similar thoughts.
If I'm way off then I will be glad to switch focus on SBW content to draw viewers/subscribers in. Where can I help? Go build that channel!
Click to expand...


:)
 
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