MUMBAI: Keen to make YouTube work for you and bring in a stellar income? Then, you need to begin by understanding the medium, according to a recent analysis by Bisbo, a fast-growing YouTube platform for animated news-based current affairs content. In India, masses come on YouTube to watch songs, movie clips focused on Bolly/Tolly and other woods; comedy and skits.

YouTube has become the default platform for viewing video content. For successful video content creators, it’s also a great source for online earnings. Becoming a YouTuber might sound fancy and exciting but the money does not come easy. To earn money on YouTube one needs to get at least a few million minutes worth of watch time every month. For most people, that's a tall task unless you have something unique to offer. Pedigree helps, like if you are already a well-known brand name in the real world, or if you’ve been lucky enough to be one of the early YouTubers and have, by default, developed a following that habitually looks forward to your content.

For Indian content creators, it’s a little tougher. On an average, an Indian creator can expect about $100 per million minutes of watch time if the content is watched exclusively in India.  where, you may get as low as 60-70 paise per minute viewed. But if you choose your audience wisely and target Western and/or Scandinavian markets, you could get 7-10 cents  or more per minute; 10-15 times as much as views from India.

Therefore, an Indian YouTuber or YouTube channel, needs to carefully strategise for good monetization, or earnings from the video platform. Barring those, who record tons of million minutes,  one needs to carefully choose the audience they’re targeting. Shakir Ebrahim, Founder of GoBisbo Broadcasting Network Pvt. Ltd. and Creator of Bisbo says, "One needs to select a niche audience, preferably with higher disposable income, though in India, that group is more likely to be on Instagram. Cosmetics, fashion, style, travel are some areas that are already in vogue. Companies dealing in those areas target the well-heeled and have money to spend if you become an influencer. The money is decent pocket money and often you are given products rather than cash but keep at it,soon the cash will come in."

"Being a YouTube influencer is not an easy task, it's almost as good as a full time job. Also, it's not something you can decide to do. You have to have it in you; if you produce videos on style, then you need to have an understanding of content, looks; if travel, then a penchant for hiking or going off beaten tracks or a niche sport like gaming, biking etc.", Shakir added. Between the two platforms, YouTube and Instagram, the latter is much easier to monetize, even though Instagram gives you no revenue directly, while YouTube does.

One of the main reasons for this anomaly is that in India, the mass audience comes to YouTube to watch film and song clips that are focused on Bolly/Tolly and other woods and jokes and skits. Meanwhile, on Instagram people come to check out other people, follow celebrities, what they wear, where they go, their gym workouts, etc and opinion leaders. The two audiences may even be the same, but their mind set is different while on each platform.Further, Instagram has short content and one can easily access feeds on the go without taking out time specially it. On Instagram you can even be an influencer with 50K followers, but 50K subscribers on YouTube means literally nothing.

Once we’ve found the right audience and direction, it’s all about using this analysis to come up with the right content for your channel. Bisbo has been able to strike this balance with a unique blend of animation and current affairs, which has helped it in monetizing its YouTube channels. However, there is a downside associated with being a news channel; one cannot have sponsored news and maintain neutrality and credibility, so monetizing from sponsors for Bisbo is limited to brand placements.