Time for a change

one of my favorite channels here on YouTube is the channel of Mary spender if you've never heard her name before she's an independent singer songwriter a musician and I like her videos because she always posts you know interesting insightful videos about the life of a of a modern-day musician like you know someone who's trying to build an audience build a name for themselves get their music out there and by all accounts when you look at her Channel she appears to be doing quite well because she has nearly 3/4 of a million subscribers at the time of this video here but there's something really interesting about her statistics and her analytics of which she shared in a recent video on her Channel titled how much I made from 4,700 th000 views and why followed by a rather intriguing follow-up question in her thumbnail now that whole video is worth checking out if you'd like to do so I'll put a link Down Below in the video description so you can uh but the part that was you know most interesting to me in that video was when she talked about uh how many videos she's uploaded about her own original music because that is the whole point of Channel because she started the channel because again she is a singer songwriter she wants to get her music out there and up until now she has uploaded 66 videos about her original music and those 66 videos have received 4,700 th000 views that's where the number in the in the YouTube title comes from and because her channel is monetized from those 66 videos she has earned just over $5,000 which is not bad right I mean that doesn't sound it doesn't sound too bad to me but the really interesting thing here and the part that really took me by surprise was when she compared that to one particular video One video in particular which was a product review a product review video about a carbon fiber guitar she admits in that video that she really didn't put that much time into this video it was a pretty ad hoc quick thing that she recorded and uploaded but what's remarkable about that one video is that that one video about the carbon fiber guitar has received just over 5 million views and has earned nearly $10,000 in AdSense advertising Revenue which is remarkable I mean just think about that for a second 66 videos earning just over $5,000 that equates to roughly $90 per video per video about her own original music compared to one single video that she made about a carbon fiber guitar that has earned 100 times that amount $90 for a single music video versus $10,000 for a single product review video which brought her to the question that you see in the thumbnail should she stop should she stop recording music should she stop writing music should she stop performing and just basically you know just stop you know music alog together and just focus on what works just focus on what's getting the views just focus on what it is that she's earning the most money from which clearly uh is you know product review videos videos about other people products or videos about other businesses or other people you know those videos always according to her uh receive uh more views and thus uh more AdSense advertising Revenue compared to videos about our own original music and that video for me just perfectly illustrates the just the inherent weirdness of YouTube and the and the whole Creator economy is what you know some people call it if you build a successful Channel and if you have an audience and if you have subscribers The more views you get the more engagement you get as long as you keep doing that as long as you keep feeding the beast in other words everything that you are doing that is you know that is connected that is you know tangential to that YouTube channel will rise as well and I know firsthand what that pressure feels like the pressure to always be uploading new content to be uploading new videos every single week or you know uh run the risk of losing your audience of you know losing your view views losing subscribers whatever it may be and what that inevitably leads to I think with a lot of people and I've seen this time and time again uh with other people's channels is that people end up uploading videos that they just don't feel particularly good about you know just just videos they're not excited about they're not creatively engaged with they're just basically making them on autopilot because they feel like it's what they need to do it's what they're supposed to do and so they just keep feeding the algorithm even though the time spent on those things is taking away uh time from you know what it is that they started the channel for in the first place like I'm sure Mary spender probably experienced this as well she's probably not spending as much time on her own uh original uh you know songwriting as she might if she wasn't so involved in her YouTube channel if she wasn't uploading videos all the time someone else here on YouTube who's also been feeling that pressure who will be familiar I would imagine to most of you who follow me on my channel is landscape photographer Nigel dansen a few weeks ago he put out a very raw uh and candid um video he was just tired of uploading you know videos every single week tired of you know creating videos that he didn't feel good about that he didn't feel motivated to make and that it was ultimately taking time away from you know from his photography from doing the work um you know doing the thing that the whole the whole reason why he started his channel in the first place and that video from dancon really struck home for me as well as you know that video from Spender as well because you know these are things that I've been thinking about as well for the past few months when I look back at you know what it is that I've been spending my time doing for the past few years where I've been focusing most of my time and attention I've been making videos about carbon fiber guitars I've been making videos about other people's products I've been doing product reviews I've been doing loads of product reviews and don't get me wrong I do actually enjoy doing product reviews most of the time I mean the you know the times in which it's not fun is when you know is when I'm reviewing a product that I'm just not that excited about something that I just don't feel that good about something that I don't think is going to be you know that great um for someone um and it's not worth you know someone's time and money uh it is worth it when it's something that I'm excited about something that I think actually makes you know a qualitative difference in someone's life whether that's you know a camera or a lens or a backpack or you know some accessory or whatever it may be those types of product reviews are fun for me to do but um but the other kind not at all I mean it really becomes more of an obligation and I really do try my best to be very selective and very careful about what it is that I review here on my channel because you would not believe the number of emails that I receive from all different kinds of companies asking me to review products not just camera gear I remember one time there was an ebike company that reached out to me and they offer to send me like a like a $5,000 ebike if I made a review about their bike and you know I'm reading this email and I'm thinking do you know who I am have you like looked at my channel like do you know you know what it is that I do but anyway they wanted to send me a bike and trust me you know the weather was getting warm and I was really thinking about it I was like H you know you know who's you know who's going to be hurt if I um if I make a video about an ebike but no this is crazy like this is stupid I'm not going to make a video about an ebike or anything else in my audience is just genuinely you know not I don't know maybe some of you would have been interested in my thoughts than anybody like I have no idea but it just seemed like so left field and so just you know out of pocket that I said no and I say no all the time I say no probably I don't know probably like 90 or 95% of the time for every email that I receive about you know some new product that comes out so anyway I've been thinking a lot about this and I've been thinking mostly about the value of time and the importance of time and and how valuable time truly is and I don't know maybe this is something that most people don't think about and they get like a little bit you know down the road in their life I don't know I know for sure when I was in my 20s like I never thought about time it just seemed like like life was infinite like there was plenty of time for everything I'm like sincerely afraid that I'm going to get like four or five years down the road from now and I'm going to look back and reflect on how I've been spending my time and and you know what do I have you know to show for it in other words and products are a very disposable thing like you know product comes out it's of interest for a little while and then after I don't know 6 to 12 months some new version comes out or some other version comes out or you know it's it's a NeverEnding cycle and that's part of the reason why my inbox is always receiving emails from people asking me to review stuff because there's always new things coming out and the Temptation surely because they are so popular on YouTube the Temptation is absolutely there to just you know just keep making more reviews and just keep going down that road but I don't know this is part of the reason why I haven't uploaded a video in um in 3 weeks or I think it's been about 3 weeks now um because I reached that point because I hit that point where I just felt like yeah why am I doing this why am I doing why am I focusing so much time and attention there so anyway put simply um fewer product reviews more of other types of videos I hope to get out more I hope to be doing more uh Photography in the future to be making more videos about my photography and to be doing other things to be doing other things and not feeling so um so reliant on uh the Youtube algorithm uh you know which could result in fewer videos but hopefully fewer videos that I'll I will feel better about and I will feel more creatively motivated to be making and to be uploading and to be sharing with you so that's all I wanted to say uh thanks so much for being here I will see you next time

Channel: Todd Dominey

Views: 16,413

Keywords: landscape photography, photography, todd dominey

Id: sMpXMHa3QF0

Length: 10min 2sec (602 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 17 2024