Following up on my last post about the ‘YouTube’ revolution, today I want to look at the jobs that have sprung up with the growth of YouTube.
When I say jobs related to YouTube, I am not talking about working at YouTube, the company, or running your channel. I’m talking about all the auxiliary support a successful YouTube channel needs apart from valuable content.
As a channel grows over time (which can vary), it will have the capability for the creator to develop a support team. The support team’s role could vary from video production to analytics to engagement. Let’s take a look at some of the existing jobs available as auxiliary jobs for developing a successful ‘YouTube’ career. Some of these can be found here.
YouTube analyst: For growth, every channel needs to understand what the subscribers like and what don’t. Retention rate per video, how long do people stay on a video, subscriber growth over time, etc. These metrics need to be monitored every day. Once we identify gaps, it offers the creator a good sense of what should they cover in their next video. For example, if in the past, a comic video had gotten the most likes, it might be sensible to create something similar to improve view time per video. This job is often described as ‘Social Media Analyst’ in job descriptions on job sites.
Video marketing analyst: Someone who understands search engine optimization and social media marketing. Ultimately, if your video ranks higher for a search criteria on YouTube, you have a higher chance of being viewed. As a result, the knowledge of which video titles would rank higher could lead to creation of new videos accordingly.
Production assistant: Of course, making videos consistently might not a one-man effort. You would need support from people to create good content consistently. An assistant could mean several things, from on-spot assistant to someone who helps research ideas and validate them.
Co-creators: As your channel grow, you might face a situation that growth has plateaued. Therefore, it might be worth investigating if you can join hands with another creator on your channel. Collaborations with fellow creators on YouTube are common to attract broader audiences. Going a step further, you might hire fellow creators to develop content more frequently.
Business Development Associate: In the context of YouTube, a Business Development associate could help you identify partnerships with other Youtubers, identify sponsored content opportunities and help you pursue them. Often, the ad-supported revenue from YouTube is not enough. In such cases, sponsored content is critical to grow your channel.
Apart from these, as you grow into forming a content company based on your YouTube channel, it seems relevant to form a team which handles all aspects of content creation and marketing. A channel should be run as a business.
Side note - This article about the income that can be made through social media is a great read!
Next week, I’ll be writing about the ‘Jobs to be Done’ theory that I read about in Clayton Christensen’s book - ‘Competing Against Luck’. Christensen argues that you could approach products with a hiring mindset. What job do you want a product or service want to do for you?
If you know of any people working on new things, do ask them to subscribe so that they can get the e-mail.
If you have any feedback regarding this newsletter, please provide it here.
Thanks for reading :)
Hemant