Clutterbug - Real-Life Hacks and Tips to Declutter, Organize and Clean your Home Fast - What it is like to be a YouTuber | Clutterbug Podcast # 4

Episode Date: April 7, 2016

What it is like to be a YouTuber, why we "sell out" to sponsored posts and why you should start a channel too! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

So hey guys, welcome back. I wanted to talk about something totally off topic today, and that is about my YouTube channel. I just wanted to talk a little bit more about just being a YouTuber. I think there's a lot of misconceptions about being a YouTuber. I think I know for sure there's misconceptions about what you make and how much you earn and getting free product and all of this type of stuff. I'm not a big YouTuber by any means. I mean, some people who are smaller might see me as a big YouTuber, but I'm not a big YouTuber in that I'm just a mom at home doing this in my spare time while, you know, taking care of a toddler all day. So this isn't something that's a full-time job. It's not like some YouTube channels I watch that have writers and they have people that do the

editing for them. It's just me at home with a camera. So I wanted to, you know, just, just throw that out there right there. That while there are some sponsored YouTube channels out there and there are some big YouTube channels out there who do product placement and who have, you know, they wear a t-shirt from a certain company and they get paid to do that, most of the YouTube channels that you're watched, like 99% that is not the case. And the truth is, I have almost 100,000 subscribers, but the money that you earn from the time that you put in is peanuts. It really is not that much money. So I've been doing this for quite a few years now.

And while I do make an income every month now from the Google AdSense, which means when you watch one of my videos, you'll kind of like, sometimes there'll be this little annoying video that pops up before. If you sit through the whole 30 seconds, which no one ever does, including myself, I always skip the ad. But if you sit through that whole thing, I think I make like 10 cents. So, or if you click on, like sometimes there's like a little ad at the bottom. If you click on that, I make a little bit more money. So people are clicking on those. And on top of that as well, you make, you know, cost per thousand views.

So I think my cost per thousand views is called an RPM is around $3. It changes from day to day, but around $3 per thousand views. Now you have to split that, of course, with Google. So Google takes half of that. So you're making $50, so $1.50 basically for every thousand views. And that's really how you make money off of YouTube. It doesn't really seem worth it, does it? Not really.

It's a lot of hours. It's a lot of time. even to do, I mean, to edit a video for me, I'm not very good at editing video. I'm like, I'm challenged. Let's just, I'm challenged when it comes to technology. And so even working at a camera, the computer, it's just, I've been doing it for so long, but I still, I'm not good at it by any means, let's just say that. So it takes me probably, you know, four hours to fully edit, upload, make a thumbnail per video.

And that's not even including the sharing time, which you should do after you upload a video is you should, you know, copy that link and share it on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and different community groups and LinkedIn. And you should, there's just all this background stuff you should do to grow, which I don't do as often as I should, to be completely honest, because it's time consuming. So you've, I mean, that doesn't even include the filming of the video, just the editing, uploading, and the thumbnail part. Putting in the description in the tags is probably four hours. for me per video. So right there, it's just, you know, it's a lot of time. And when you take into account the actual videoing time and the prepping for the video, it's definitely, you know, 20 to 30 hours a week just to put up two videos a week. And we're not talking even on top of that is responding to emails, responding to comments. I get hundreds of emails a day. Literally hundreds of emails a day,

people saying like, oh, I need help or what color should I paint my? walls or you know my fridge needs to be organized can you give me some ideas and I love getting that stuff I mean that's the whole reason I I do this in the first places for the subscribers and I love getting that back out of that I'm just I'm just saying it's a time-consuming thing so what we do is YouTubers sometimes is we'll do a sponsorship which means a company will contact us and say hey if you try this product and tell people about it, I'll give you, you know, $500. And it's usually like $500 to make one video. That's what I, some people get paid way more than that. Um, but for my size, about $100,000,

you're going to make about $500. Now, as a YouTuber, there's kind of some unwritten rules, which is you should actually like the product. You should actually want to share about it with people. You have to be honest. You have to be, you know, true to yourself. I think it's a little bit different as a blogger. I know I read a lot of blogs, and they're constantly doing plugs and sponsored posts and, you know, talking about pamper's diapers or Netflix or something. And it seems a lot better, more acceptable, I guess, than YouTube.

So if you're watching a YouTube video and somebody's like throws in a plug, like, oh, yeah, I love cleaning with, you know, I'm going to say OxyClean because I did a video for OxyClean once. people are like oh she's a sellout and people get really upset and and sort of like it's tab this taboo thing to do which is funny because that's really the only way we make money so i try to do one sponsored post a month sometimes once every other month because they usually really tick people off but i got to be honest like i'm putting so much time into this you got to make the bacon right like you you have to get something out of it and not that you know I love I get out of it as you guys and I get out

the get out of it the subscribers and the awesome comments and feeling you know connected to other people without having to leave the house I'm not a people person I'm really like an introvert and I don't like leaving the house very often at all so I don't know if I'm like I have a gorophobia or something probably not I mean I'm not going to label it but the truth is I I have severe anxiety about going places with people. If people are going to be there. So, but I like people. I like interacting with people, just not face to face.

So YouTube is awesome because I basically get to be by myself and talk to a camera, but still feel like I'm talking to a bunch of people without having to actually physically talk to people. So don't get me wrong. I love it. If I never made another dime, I would continue to do it. But that being said, because it is. you know what I'm choosing to do as a career sometimes you got to you got to make a buck or two

and it's hard I don't know if it's just hard for me or if it's hard because I'm a woman or as a YouTuber but it's just it's hard for me to even charge for my services and people are like oh do you want to come organize my house I feel like I can't charge you I just I don't know and when I make printables and things like that I always give them away for free because I don't feel right about charging money to you guys or anyone. I just, I don't feel, it feels wrong to me. I feel dirty. And sometimes I feel like that doing a sponsored post as well. It feels kind of like, you know, I'm selling it a little bit. But you got to do what you got to do. And honestly, if I want to grow as a, as a business, if I want to grow as a brand, I'm going to have to

just start doing that more. I'm just going to have to let go of all that feelings, that yucky feeling of of charging for things because, you know, that's just business. So, um, anyways, I'm off, totally off topic there. And now you, if you are thinking about starting a blog or a YouTube channel, you know what? I want to say go for it. Seriously go for it. And here's, here's the truth about, about finding your passion in life is what I like to say. When I was a kid, I remember looking back, like not that, like at the time I didn't realize it, but looking back, I was that kid that was always like rearranging the furniture in the house and rearranging my bedroom all the time.

And I loved like hanging fabric to make drapes. It was, it was pretty bad. But I enjoyed that type of stuff. And we didn't have cable. But when I remember moving out and getting cable for the first time and discovering like the home decorating channels. which I'd never in my life ever seen before and it was just like pure joy you know I watched all these home decorating shows when I when I first when I was a teenager and I left home and it's just like

it was my favorite thing to do I loved those type of shows when I had some extra dollars scratched together you know I'd buy a better Homes and Gardens magazine it just I loved looking at beautiful spaces and I remember there was a show Helen Buttigieg had a show called Neat. It was about organizing and it was my absolute all-time favorite show. I think it was only on a season or two and it was a really long time ago.

I was very young. I wasn't even organized at the time, but I just love that show so much. And then Peter Walsh, of course, had Clean Sweep, which again was one of my favorite shows. When I think back to my favorite, favorite shows, I like trading spaces a lot, but clean sweep

and neat were my all-time favorite and those were organizing shows. When I did first have my first apartment, I was very broke. I had zero money. I couldn't afford a car. I worked three different jobs all at the same time. You know, I started the morning at eight and didn't get done until nine every night going from one job to the other and then I worked weekends as well at this other part-time job. So I worked all the time because I had to. I just, I wasn't making enough. And even if I had, you know, $20 left to my bank account and didn't have food. I'd eat like ramen noodles and buy, you know, a throw pillow or a lamp that week. It's just, it was always important to me to try to make my space look pretty. And I am not a talented interior designer and I'm not even that great of an

organizer. But the truth is that stuff makes me happy. That was the type of thing that I was just drawn to all the time and I didn't even realize it at the time but that's what I should have been doing for a living and I think that's what you should be doing for a living as well are those things that like make you really happy if you if you didn't have television you shut the TV off and you're home alone what would you do you know for fun what would you do to entertain yourself would you go hiking would you spend the time outside? Would you spend your time with animals? Would you, you know, read crime detective books? What are the things that you really, really enjoy doing? And those are probably the things you should be doing for a living. That's probably your passion. And I think a big

mistake that people make is their passion to turn it into a career should be something that they're good at. And that I don't think is the case in my, in my case anyway, I love organizing and I like decorating. I love crafting. I like anything DIY, but I'm not good at it. And there's a thousand million people better at it than me. And I watch YouTube and I look up Pinterest and I don't even hold a candle to the people who have real raw talent, but I love it.

And so I don't think that the talent matters as much as the passion that I have for it. and I have real love and I'm learning. I'm getting better and I'm growing and becoming a better organizer. But I'm just, I have a real love for it. And I think that's the only way that this has grown into something, you know, this little job here. And now I'm able to earn a living off of my YouTube channel and my blog and doing professional organizing. And it's just because I like it so much. And so whatever it is that you love equally as much. I have a friend, my best friend, Jessica, she loves to cook. Like, just is a weirdo about it. She likes baking and cooking, and she really likes baking for other people. She's a stay-at-home mom as well. She has a chronic illness,

so it's difficult for her to work, and she gets tired easily, and she gets really run down. But she volunteers three days a week making a snack. She's the snack program at her child, school for like 300 students and she loves making snacks for 300 students and she does it you know rain or shine she's always there for those kids making 300 snacks and and then she'll come home and she'll make some other quick little snacky thing and she'll call me and she'll say oh look I made some monkey mixed you want the recipe and I'm just like this is what you should be doing this is your passion start a blog about this start, you know, taking pictures of these creations that you do. Share it with the world because this is what you're meant to do.

And I don't think she even sees it. And I think we all have something that we're great at or we love to do. And we don't even see it ourselves. So my little one's calling me. So I'm going to cut it short there. I just wanted to give you guys a little insight into the whole YouTube world. Anyways, thanks so much for listening and we'll see you tomorrow.