"How To Make Money On YouTube": @DeStorm Power's Story
Rapper Destorm Power has filmed YouTube music videos for global brands like Pepsi that have aired on MTV, BET, and VH1. He has made videos with recording artists like, Talib Kwali, Snoop Lion, Vassy, and other celebrities like Larry King, and Taye Diggs. Winner of an American Music Award in 2011 for New Media Honoree, he estimates he generated $15,000 to $20,0000 last month in advertising commissions. He also sells branded apparel and other products, and has landed sponsorship deals with brands like Home Depot, Hot Pockets, and THQ. Unlike marketers who must launch a widespread outreach campaign to drive millions of views to their videos, Destorm relies on his 1.4 million subscribers to push hundreds of thousands to millions of views.
Want to find out how he did it? Read on.
“In the very beginning, you have to share, share, share your content with everybody you know,” says Destorm. “A lot of people are shy with what they do, so a lot of times they don’t push their stuff to their immediate friends and stuff; so they’ll share with strangers.”
A key tactic Destorm used with other YouTubers was creating collaborative videos where users are featured on each other’s channels. Once he had a few thousand subscribers, he found YouTube users who covered the same kind of content and had a few more subscribers.
“So I waited till I got 5 to 10,000, then I’d find somebody else with 5 to 10,000,” Destorm recalls. “When I had 20,000, I’d find somebody else with 20,000. When I got 50,000, I’d find somebody else with, you know, maybe 75,000 to 100,000.”
Once he found a potential partner, he filmed a video in which both he and another user could collaborate, then sent it to that other YouTuber to fill in the missing gaps.
(This is similar to the guest posting process I rely on: I typically write the article, code it in HTML to position all of my images, text and other elements and send it to the publisher before I pitch it. Once the post is live, I have a link to my web page that invites visitors to subscribe to my newsletter – and spread the word, or become prospects. Almost all the people on my email list are current or former clients; some become vigorous brand advocates.)
In finding and securing these collaborations Destorm is helped by Big Frame, a media company with 25 employees that manages 300 entertainment channels on YouTube. Founder and Chief Creative Officer, Sarah Penna, says that aside from helping Destorm secure collaborations with other YouTube channels, Big Frame helps keep Destorm on a schedule, and secure product placement deals with brands like Home Depot, Pepsi, THQ, Ubisoft, and others.
Managing these channels, Big Frame helps YouTube users perform the technical, outreach and business operational work for which content creators have little or no time. Big Frame also consults users on how to craft titles, keyword rich meta data, like, tags, comment replies, engaging their audience on Facebook and Twitter, brand integrations, collaborations with other channels in and out of their network, and other work on which they could be of support. Ms. Penna says that performing this role she launched a channel called LIfeAccordingtoJimmy with no subscribers that now has over a million.
Destorm told me that working with Big Frame puts him at an advantage because all 300 users in the network will “Like” and “Favorite” each other’s videos. The same kind of network that Diggers and I formed to help each other drive millions of page views through the Digg network and other social news platforms. We voted for each other’s submissions on Gchat, Facebook, and Twitter to campaign each other’s stories. Our initial outreach efforts allowed our content to be viewed on more popular sections of the Digg website before the rest of the community, where only the best content that resonated with the rest of user base was voted to popularity. Your employees responsible for social media outreach can also network with an active group of users that all help each other out.
How can entrepreneurs capitalize on the system? By assigning employees to learn the YouTube terms of service and how each of its myriad of communication and other digital components operate. Then you can have employees manage the nuts and bolts of communicating with your audience on YouTube and other social networks. Free up your content creators’ time, by having somebody knowledgeable on your company’s offerings send out messages to secure collaborations with related YouTube users and respond to questions on video comments, tweets, and other threads. Then your content creators have more time to film footage, edit your videos, and descriptions with calls to actions and links directing people back to your website. Again, you want your website to have content and visual elements like forms, testimonials, third-party credibility indicators that persuade people to subscribe to your email list or purchase a product or service.
Big Frame also negotiates brand integrations for which Destorm states he’s made anywhere from $60,000 to $70,000. A six-figure brand deal, he says, is not rare among the more popular YouTube channels. He contends that his business is handled more effectively when a third-party negotiates his rates on his behalf. You don’t need to grow your YouTube channel to over a million subscribers to have it help your business generate revenue. However, if you expand your subscriber base to a size bigger or comparable to the more-subscribed channels producing content related to your vertical, you can do product placements and other brand integrations in exchange for reciprocal exposure. You’ll be seen by your partners’ audiences, and have more people to pump into your advocacy or sales pipeline.
Big Frame further allows Destorm to respond to the colossal influx of daily messages in his inbox – without that control he once missed an invitation to be on the Ellen Degeneres show. No one wants to overlook such an opportunity.
Content Development
Content remains king—especially on YouTube. In developing content ideas, Destorm uses a tactic I’ve often taught, which I call the Social Trinity: the study of popular sections.
“When Larry Platt was on American Idol singing “Pants on the Ground,” or when Antoine Dodson did the “Climbing in yo Window,” I’d do a remix,” Destorm remembers. “Or I would try to find something I knew that people were searching for on Youtube, so I could drive all the eyeballs in that direction.”
To get an idea of how many search queries a trend-driven title can potentially be exposed to, query the keywords and phrases in the title on the Google Trends search engine. You’ll get an idea of spikes in a keyword’s search volume, the location from which the queries are performed most, and a list of related keywords.
Breaking the Eggs in The Basket
Social media followers or subscribers are so distracted with all the aggregated content that it’s tough to replicate the engagement level you can enjoy through email. So collect emails! Facebook’s biggest asset is its registered users with whom they stay in touch through email; every time someone writes on your wall or interacts with your profile’s activity on Facebook, you get an email subtly inviting you to come back. Same thing happens on Twitter and LinkedIn. If a social network ever limits your engagement with your subscriber base, you can always contact people via email.
Destorm doesn’t fear being limited or even shut down by YouTube for the same reason. He argues that if Rihanna’s social media profiles were shut down, her fans wouldn’t throw out her CDs. They’ll find another way to engage with her. Destorm sold 40,000 downloads of a song he released and collected an email address for each one. He also has a store where he sells branded merchandise, a separate business from his YouTube affiliation and earnings.
Nothing stands still. Facebook wants to now charge Destorm $300 to share his content with all of his fans; a fan base that he built. He fully understands that things evolve, and he must adapt and engage his community on platforms where his base is active, such as Vine. Same thing happened to me on Digg. Just because Digg is gone doesn’t mean that the relationships I built there are gone. We still help each other in a lot of ways to ensure our success on working blogger outreach and other social engagement projects.
“Evolution has to happen,” Destorm muses. “Either you go with it or you become a dinosaur.”
Inbound Marketing’s Finest
Destorm is now doing a lot more collaborations with celebrities and has some acting deals on TV and film in the works. He knows he could never have gotten this far by just selling his demo recording on the street.
“I never saw it that way until I woke up, and I was like, ‘I’ve got to stop chasing this paper, and just start doing what I love and just reach more people,’ ” Destorm explains. “If you could reach the people, the money will come.”
Destorm knows the efficiency of sacrificing to execute an inbound marketing strategy.
“Once you find a way to pay your rent and have a little extra to eat, go hard!” Destorm said, looking right into the camera. “And, I did, I took a pay cut, I lost money, actually, and I went hard literally for a year straight, and I started to reap the benefits.”
ADVANCE YOUR BRAND!
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