How YouTube stats are making me more profitable as an online writer

I’ve long argued that every online writer should also have a YouTube channel.

There are a couple of reasons for this:

You can monetize your writing in two ways — any article can serve as a YouTube script with a little tweaking
Learning one format can help you get better at the other

I’ve noticed this recently with my own writing.

My YouTube analytics give me a window into exactly where people are enjoying my videos most and where they are dropping off.

This is called “audience retention” and it’s something I’ve been working on a lot lately.

Because I write articles with the intention of also using them as YouTube scripts, this also allows me to see how people might be consuming my written work.

Take this recent video for example:

Here’s what the audience retention stats look like for this one:

Audience retention stats for the video above.

As you can see, my efforts are starting to pay off a bit. The grey cloud is my typical retention, and the blue line is this video’s performance.

The way I structured this video has been keeping viewers around a lot longer than normal.

Here’s one that I had high hopes for:

Now the topic, title, and thumbnail are all compelling, and they contributed to this vid being among my most popular in the past 10 I’ve published.

But look at the retention data:

Woof!

To be perfectly honest, I knew this would happen when I was editing the video.

When people watch earnings/stats videos, they’re there for the earnings/stats. I was just a bit too rambly at the start and people tuned out right quick.

I won’t make that mistake again.

Application to writing

These revelations have me focused on a couple of goals for my writing:

More brevity
Better structure

By doing a quick bubble outline before writing (literally like 3–4 minutes), I have all my thoughts on one page and can structure them in an efficient way.

On YouTube for example, if you start blabbing on too long without adding some kind of visual element, people’s eyes glaze over pretty quickly.

I’m starting to learn how to manage the “flow” of a video to make sure people don’t get bored and click off.

It’s important to do that in your articles too.

You can bring visual elements here too — images, YouTube videos, bolding text, bullet points — but more important is structure and brevity.

If people click on to learn about, say, YouTube audience retention, they’re going to want to see it up high and they don’t want to hear about your asides on cryptocurrency trading halfway through.

So remember these important lessons I’ve learned from YouTube: Have a structure, get to the point quickly, don’t go off on tangents.

Use your video work to get better and your written work and there will be dollar signs in your future. (Credit: James Julian/Photoshop)

Publish Every Day project update: Day 16

I’m experimenting to see if I can make enough cash to retire from commuter life within 1 year by publishing every day on multiple platforms and investing my earnings.

How much I need to retire comfortably: $250 CAD per day

What I earned on Day 16: $53.09 (writing) + $2.31 (YouTube) = $55.40 total

Progress chart:

Publish Every Day chart update: Day 16.

What I published yesterday:

Looking for something else to read?

My 10 most popular stories:

Thanks for stopping by! Have a great day!

Summarize

How YouTube stats are making me more profitable as an online writer

Application to writing

Publish Every Day project update: Day 16