I’m working in the wrong field.

With all the research and ideas we've been discussing in class, one aspect of digital marketing that really connected with me was branding online. There are so many companies and organisations that use digital marketing to create an on-line presence for their brand. But it’s not just companies that do it is it? This thought came across my mind the other day when I was on YouTube visiting one of my favourite subscribed YouTube partners: Ryan Higa, aka. Nigahiga. For those of you who don’t know who he is, here’s a quick link to a relevant video on Facebook he made:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHYG5u4lwus&feature=player_embedded

His videos are mostly funny parodies, sketch comedies and music videos. Ryan Higa is YouTube's number 1 most subscribed to channel with over 2.6 million subscribers. With such a large audience, Ryan has turned his YouTube channel into a brand in itself. What does this mean? Well to put simply, we all know that if you become partners with YouTube  you can make money from uploading videos. But do you want to know just exactly how much? 

In an article by Megan O’Neil (2010), highlighting the top 10 highest grossing YouTube partners, she cited information from Business Insider who used statistics from an on-line analytic program called TubeMogul. This particular research was used to estimate revenue from banner ads alone. And if you really want to know how these statistics were generated, Megan O’Neil explains: 

“TubeMogul took into account the facts that banner ads have a two-second load delay and that, based on previous research, 2.59% of users click away before the ad has a chance to load, banner ad CPM is $1.50, and YouTube splits all ad revenue with partners, 50-50. Therefore, they got their figures by taking all the partners views from the last year, getting rid of 2.59% of those views, dividing that number by 1,000, multiplying by $1.50 and then dividing that number in half.”

Based on TubeMogul’s estimates Ryan Higa is the fourth highest grossing YouTuber  earning $151,000 a year!!! Keeping in mind that this is an estimate that was only considering earnings from ad banners that appeared at the start of the videos from the channel Nigahiga; Ryan now has multiple channels and features on other fellow YouTubers and is making money from those videos too! In addition many YouTube partners don’t just earn money from ad banners they also make additional money from sponsors, contests, promotional videos, personalised t-shirts and merchandise.