So You Wanna be a Philippines Expat You Tube Millionaire?…. Pt 2 of 2

Did you miss out on Part 1 on becoming an Philippines Expat You Tube millionaire?  No worries – just click HERE to check it out.

 

OK, I might be just the slightest bit late in the delivery, as promised, here is the final installment of “So You Want to be a Philippines Expat You Tube Millionaire?….

Before we start, though, I’d just like to mention that I upgraded my old Dell XPS M1330 (circa 2008) from Windows 7 to Windows 10, and thus far am VERY pleased.  And although it takes a little while to get used to the new layout, it is cruising along faster than my old Win 7 installation.

Anyhoo – let’s get started.

 Accounts

The first thing you have to do is sign up to all the sites you need to become a soaring You Tube star.  Towards that end, prepare to become a minion of the great overlord more commonly known as Google.   Actually, we can’t really worry about that too much as A) their services are all free, and B) it’s Google AdSense that puts the pesos in our pockets.  First off, create a Google account.  From that one single activation, you will get your email, You Tube, Google Plus and blogger accounts – all FREE!  Once you have your You Tube channel configured, you can request for it to be monetized (run ads on your videos).  Rules on when they allow monetization are usually in flux – they might let you do it right away or they might want you to have some viewed content up first.  Also take the time to set up a Facebook page – I recommend not using a personal page, as it’s not wise to put too much personal information on the internet – you’ll find there’s more than a few wierdos out there.  Finally, sign up for Twitter, so you can send your newly published videos to your bran’ spankin’ new “Feed!”

 

Equipment

Camera – I recommend getting a little Point-and-Shoot camera like the Sony Cybershot DSC-WX300.  Actually, scratch that – get the similar model (DSC-HX9V) that lets you shoot at 720 P.  They are great little cameras that take very nice footage, have 16x optical zoom and boast on-board video stabilization. Best of all, you can pick one up for about $50 on EBay.  Alternatively, you can also go with the good old GoPro Hero.  Henry over at Life Beyond the Sea uses a Hero 3+ and Brit in the Philippines is using a Hero 4 – the quality on both is significantly better that that of my old Hero 2.   /sad face.   Bottom line –don’t get too carried away about the gear – what’s more important is lighting, slow camera panning and the story you are trying to tell!

Computer – You’ll be processing video, so make sure you have at least an i3 processor – an i5 is even better and an i7 would be the cat’s meow.  Don’t try to use an Atom or Core Duo processor, as it could take hours for your videos to process.  If you are going to be living in the Philippines, get yourself a desktop system and use the laptop for backup –desktops run a LOT cooler than their more diminutive kin and are much easier to clean.

Video Editing

Apple has iMovie and Windows has Windows Movie Maker.  Both are free and simple to use.  Whichever format you are using, take your time learning how to work it, concentrating simply on your intro, outro, scene transitions and captions.  Don’t make it more difficult than it is by jumping right into Sony Vegas or Abobe Premiere – both of those programs have very steep learning curves and are not necessary when you are first starting out.  Also get some cool intro and outro music – something that people will associate with your “brand.”  Just realize that you can’t use copyrighted music!  Not to worry, though – a number of sites (including You Tube itself) have free public domain music libraries that you can use.

If you are using a GoPro camera, you might want to download their free GoPro Studio.  You actually only really need this if you – like me – have an older GoPro that puts in a lot of “fish eye” effect and you want to remove it.  (People really hate fish eye…..).  If you have a newer Hero 3 or 4 and shoot at a narrow POV, you won’t really need it.

Finally, snatch up Handbrake.  This handy little free program takes the massive (1.5 Gig+) file you outputted from you video editor and shrinks it down to a more manageable size (100-150 MB).  This is very useful for archiving your videos (in case You Tube ever implodes) and for saving time (and bandwidth) when uploading it.  There are a number of video tutorials for Handbrake on the web – I simply use the following settings on my 720p vids: MAIN: High Profile, Anamorphic: None, Keep Aspect Ratio: checked, VIDEO:  Framerate: Variable, Average Bitrate:  2500 for “talking head videos; 3500 for more “scenic” footage, Two Pass and Turbo Mode: checked, AUDIO: Codec: AAC (ffmpg), Bitrate: 128, Mixdown: Stereo.

 

Tips and Techniques

You are (ideally) telling a story – try to create an introduction, work the content then put in a little summation at the end.

The two biggest factors on creating good quality video is lighting and camera movement.  The best times to take video (the “magic times”) are right after sunrise and late afternoon – there is a really cool subdued light during both these periods that creates video (and photos) that really ‘pop.’   Also make sure you are not panning the camera back and forth too rapidly – make sure you are consciously moving slowly as to not disorient your viewers.

The most important thing to remember when editing is to match the properties on the incoming and outgoing video. If you shoot an HD 720p video at 12,000 bits and 30 frames per second, make sure your output from the video editor is also set for 720p, 12,000 bits and 30 frames per second.  The only time you should be changing those stats is when you are using Handbrake to shrink the file size.

Have a tripod and a monopod/selfie stick.  Both of these are very useful when you are composing videos. Again, camera movement is the bane of a good video, so keep it as stable as you can!

Make sure there is no copyrighted music playing in the background if you want to monetize your videos!  Do that three times and You Tube will ban your channel! 

Don’t tolerate trolls.  Creating video content is time consuming enough – don’t add to that by getting in back-and-forth’s with total idjits. 

Make sure you are putting in a good number of relevant “tags!”  Google uses these tags when people are searching for particular content, so it’s good to keep it relevant.

Also write up a summary of the content in the video description.  Along with tags, this is very important for SEO optimization.  Place links to your website and Facebook (or other social media sites) at the end of the description.

Annotations are also important – those are the little speech bubbles that pop up during a video that allows people to subscribe to your channel, check out your website or link to other videos.  All of the content written in these bubbles are also part of your channel and video optimization. 

Viewer engagement is key on You Tube:  Comments, thumbs up (and down), shares, and total minutes watched are all part of the equation Google uses in determining how “strong” your video is.

Like just about everything, networking is key.  If you are just starting out and have already put up some content, let some of the other more established You Tuber’s know and ask if they will promote your channel.  Most of us are not too overly greedy and self-centered, so we’ll usually oblige.  And just don’t spam references to your channel on other peoples without asking them – that’s a bit rude.

Finally, make sure you are having fun!  Hosting a You Tube channel won’t make you rich, so you have to do it because you enjoy it.  I believe that all people need some type of creative outlet in their lives, and since I can’t even draw stick people, doing videos (and writing content) is something that I get a great deal of satisfaction from.

 

So, with that, I will conclude our little series on becoming a Philippines Expat You Tube (Peso) Millionaire (in 7-9 years).  I hope you enjoyed it, and I also hope to see your channel soon!