Summer jobs have always been the go-to way to make money as a teen during the long school vacation. Of course, a lot of teens still work part-time jobs in their spare time, but according to the Pew Research Center, the number of teens with summer jobs is at an all time low with most involved in food service industry work, if anything at all. But with the advent of social media, a world of opportunities has opened up to earn money from home so you don't need to wait for summer to roll around to get started making money online!
In this edition of our guide to earning money online, which focuses exclusively on how to earn an income as a teen, learn how to put your finely tuned makeup skills to use and make some extra spending money! Especially if busing tables doesn't sound like your thing, we can help you to turn your passion on YouTube into a freelance job to make extra money and love doing it!
Some of the most popular beauty channels on YouTube have subscriber counts in the millions, like well-known British YouTuber Zoella who has amazingly topped 11 million loyal subscribers. If your dream is to reach a wider audience on YouTube, or even if you're just getting started, read on to learn the best tips and tricks in 2019 for making your channel a success, and hopefully start earning money from YouTube while you're at it.
How to Get More Subscribers and Start Earning Money from YouTube
As you likely know, increasing your subscriber and view count is the key to monetizing your videos on YouTube, so that will be our goal here since we're hoping to get you out of having to work that restaurant job and make money easily online instead. It's important to remember that engagement with your channel is the best way to bring in, and more importantly, hold onto new subscribers. We offer up the following three tips to help improve your approach to making beauty videos and watch that subscriber count go up and up.
1. Be informative but personable
One of the reasons Zoella blew up on YouTube was that every viewer felt like she was their personal best friend. This is that special touch that is crucial in your video making to increase your engagement. Of course, it's okay not to push yourself to be a super bubbly, big personality YouTuber if that's not you. But here we do suggest some tried and true ways to make your videos more personable while also keeping them informative and focused on makeup techniques. Consider these suggestions to help you to start making money online easily simply by sharing your makeup hobby with viewers.
Make an upload schedule (and stick to it!)
Viewers will feel more connected to you, and be more likely to consume your content, if you set a solid upload schedule and make sure to follow through. One video per month on a Saturday is better than one video just once in awhile with large gaps in between uploads. Increasing your number of uploads will also help you to earn that extra spending money once you get that precious video monetization.
Add an intro and outro unique to you
Adding a recognizable intro and outro is a great way to leave an impression on your viewers as they'll come to expect it with each new upload — the intro/outro become connected to your name. For example, Zoella starts nearly all her vlogs with a big, cheerful, "Hi everybody!" Even if it's just something you enjoy saying, like Zoella's catch phrase, that's fine! Just make it your own — and short video intros/outros are an even more polished option. It doesn't need to be a big fancy production, though, since if you're new to YouTube but want to earn money online, your production budget is probably not huge. That's totally okay! Just keep that intro/outro as consistent as possible to create linearity in your content.
Make editing a priority
Sloppy editing or no editing is just a no, especially for beauty videos. If you want to turn your hobby into a way to earn money online, viewers need to see what you're doing clearly to really get value from watching a tutorial. If you have a lot of transition mistakes or your audio quality makes it difficult to hear your instructions, subscribers will feel like you don't really care about their viewing experience, which damages your viewer engagement.
Since this is a freelance job, you'll want to be careful about the initial money you spend. Luckily, there are now plenty of affordable editing software options to choose from. We recommend checking out Avasam.com's article for best video editing software for an in-depth view of all the top editing software out in the market today. So I hope those give you a good idea of where to start with video editing. Since they're free to try, check them out and see what works best for your editing style, then you can make extra money as your videos become monetized without breaking the bank on expensive software from the get go.
2. Interact with the people supporting you
It might seem simple enough to shut your laptop and be satisfied after your YouTube upload hits 100 percent, but not so fast. Remember to be as interactive online as possible, and there's more ways to do this than you may think. Increased interaction equals increased engagement and will boost your online earnings.
Comment section
Of course, the most obvious form of interaction is replying to comments from your lovely viewers, but the commenting experience can go beyond this. Learn how to pin comments under your videos and choose a favorite one to pin for each video. This will motivate people to comment in the hopes of getting pinned specially by you! Many popular YouTubers also immediately, or soon after uploading, leave their own comment down below just to add a personal note to the video and give viewers a place to chat in the reply section. Think of this as an important follow-up task as part of your freelance job.
Speaking of viewer interaction, another easier way to make extra money online is forming closer connections with your viewers by using Callmart, an app that charges a small fee for followers to communicate directly with you. You can give them personal attention or tips and maybe even a customized makeup tutorial!
Giveaways and contests
Now, I know what you're thinking, that you're trying to make money online, not spend more. But giveaways don't have to be super luxe. Some of the bigger beauty gurus like to hold contests for pricey makeup pallets, but those were usually sent to them for promotional reasons. According to Gleam, one of the first videos to go viral on YouTube was a contest video, so there's definitely some value in engaging your viewers with a chance to win something. As a new or growing channel, a simple giveaway such as a personal postcard would be an affordable way to reach out. Or since you're here trying to find ways to make money, skip the giveaways all together and go with a contest. An idea could be promising to do a tutorial for a new makeup look of the winner's choosing; the concepts for contests are endless so you can be creative with it!
3. To make money more easily in the future, start shaping your brand now
Okay, so variety is the spice of life. We all know that. And we're not saying every video should be cookie cutter, but it's important, especially if you're a new channel, to consider your brand image now and what kind of tone you want your videos to have in order to be successful in your freelance job. So how do you establish a unique brand and find a way to make money online when there are thousands and thousands of channels on the YouTube scene? Ask yourself these questions and use the answers as a guide when creating your branded content.
Who are my target viewers?
This is an easy one — who do you think will watch your videos the most and who do you want to attract to your channel? Are you mainly aiming to appeal to your peers? Is your audience likely a little younger? Older? As a freelance makeup artist, knowing the viewers you hope to draw in will be a guide for how you do, well, just about everything. From how you interact with viewers to how you brand yourself and your channel's theme, it will be important to identify a target audience.
For example, many of Zoella's viewers grew up with her and are the same age (late 20s), but she still caters her content heavily to a younger target audience — this could potentially isolate her older viewers since their interests differ from the younger audience. Of course you can never, ever please everyone, but just decided on the majority audience who you do want to appeal to and stick with content that targets their interests to gain the most interaction and earn the most money from increased views.
What is my channel's goal?
If your goal is to earn an income, then obviously gaining the most subscribers will be your primary objective so you can make money online. Outside of this, try to think about what part of the creation process brings you the most joy and use this to identify goals. For example, perhaps educating your target audience, who you hopefully have identified by this point, on makeup techniques (cut crease anyone?) is really satisfying for you. Then you'll want to make sure your videos are as informative as possible and that the looks are reproducible for the average viewer. If you love to be an entertainer, then fun makeup challenges, collaborations, and silly tutorials may be the way to go. It's all up to you, but spend some time thinking about your ultimate channel goal to boost your chances of earning money from this freelance job.
What words describe my channel's brand?
This is a fun little experiment. Try, right now, to think of or write down the first five words that come to mind that you think describe your channel best. Since you've hopefully already identified your channel's goal, this should be a little easier. Brand strategist Finien calls this finding your "brand personality." This is critical in freelance jobs since you need to have a strong sense of self and your product to be successful in earning money from home.
Making believe your brand were an actual person, who would it be? Finien explains that it's not about your own personality necessarily, but the way you want your brand to make other people feel. So keep this in mind when you think about your five words; although you may not consider yourself a fan of teaching, "educational" could still be a channel keyword if you want your viewers to learn something from watching your content. Since being a YouTuber is considered a freelance job, you have a lot of freedom to brand yourself — and that's a perk!
What are my primary video themes?
Ever heard of the YouTube channel Glam&Gore? Now there's a powerfully branded channel. Mykie, the channel's owner, strongly wanted to incorporate both glam makeup looks and special effects gore looks into her channel — those themes are pretty audience-dividing. But she has become amazingly successful, earning plenty of money online, with three million subscribers and counting. How did she do this? Well no doubt through a ton of hard work, but also she had a firm understanding of her video themes from the get go.
As a part of this freelance job, you should decide on at least two primary themes for the videos you'll produce, for example tutorials and haul videos, and make them a priority. You can of course stray from your themes, but when potential subscribers see your channel page they should have a concrete idea of the themes you are offering them at a glance. This will increase the likelihood of them subscribing because people like to see something cohesive when they visit your channel page, and with more eyes on your content, you'll be earning money from home in no time!
A few final thoughts...
Freelance jobs are hard work. You don't have anyone telling you when and where to work, and as a teen trying to make money from home, you'll face an especially big challenge to manage your time between school and building your YouTube channel. If you're still hungry for more ways to earn money from YouTube, check out our other article, How To Get Subscribers Organically on YouTube, and then get to work creating that amazing beauty content!
We hope you enjoyed this article! For similar articles, or just some more fun reads to pass the time, check out Callmart's other articles.