Yes, you can make money on YouTube... or at least your kids can

Got kids?  Got kids with Minions and Fart Blasters?  You probably will have after they watch this video.

In the last post, I shared a clip with tips for using You Tube to promote your music.  But are there really actual people who make big money on You Tube?  Yes, like these two kids above, Evan and Jillian.  I happen to know these two are for real, because their mom is one of my sister's best friends. 

As I understand it, the first YouTube channel started with Evan making things out of Play Doh or something when he was about 5 years old.  "Daddy Tube," as they call him in the videos, was a video producer, so he started making high quality videos of Evan trying out different toys.  EvanTube HD was born.  The channel took off in popularity, and before long toy companies were making deals to have Evan test out their toys in his videos. 

I first heard of these two kids a couple years back when visiting my sister.  She had just visited friends from way back, and I asked her how her friends were doing, since I they all were around our house while my sister was in high school.  She told me her BFF's son, Evan, was a YouTube millionaire.  I laughed.  Then my sister said she was serious. 

So I looked up Evan's channel, and this was the first video I watched.  Yeah, this kid, who was 8-years-old then, built the Lego Star Wars Sand Crawler.  I don't even know if I could build that thing without screwing it up.  Intrigued, I watched a few more videos, then Googled Evan and found the original version of this Huffington Post article.  Yes, at age 8, Evan (with his dad, mom and a few other helpers) was making over a $1 million a year from his YouTube channel. That blew my mind. 

So... how does a person, kid or adult, make big money using You Tube?  First you make good quality videos that connect with a large audience.  Second, you have to be real and entertaining on camera.  Third, you get tens of millions of views.  Yeah... no problem.  How hard can that be? 

EvanTube HD now has over 5.1 million subscribers, and one clip (giant gummy worm) has over 131 million views all by itself.  As Evan's little sister got older, she got into the act, and now has her own channel, as well as working as a team on Evan's original channel.  These channels are a full time business for the whole family, and a few other people, I believe. 

So where does the money come from?  Millions of views on YouTube earns people money from advertising, and when the numbers are huge, the paychecks can be huge, too.  Most smaller YouTube channels don't make all that much from the views their videos get.  Additional money comes from toy and game companies who work deals to have their products reviewed and tested by Evan and Jillian.  So in their case, before even reaching junior high, these kids have a serious college funds in the bank.  Heck, these two could probably buy their own college by the time they graduate high school at this rate. 

For all you parents out there, my sister, who has spent time visiting Evan and Jillian, says they're cool level headed kids.  Mommy Tube and Daddy Tube make sure all this success doesn't go to their heads.  I believe a lot of the toys get donated to worthy charities as well. 

So... making an absurd amount of money with YouTube is possible.  Can you or I do it?  Hey, I haven't been able to.  I don't even have an active YouTube channel yet.  But you'll see my Sharpie art on YouTube before too long.  But if you do something creative, YouTube and other video platforms are one great way to promote and show the world what you do.  Let's face it, it's unlikely that any of us will ever match the financial success of Evan and Jillian, but knowing that it is actually possible helps make building a good channel seem like a reasonable idea. 

How do you learn how to actually build up a channel?  How-to videos on YouTube, of course.