Corey's story: How to make a living on YouTube

"YouTube saved my life," says Corey Vidal in My YouTube Story, a 34-minute video that explains how this Oakville, Ont., resident turned making online content into a livelihood.

You may not recognize his name, but there's a good chance you've seen Vidal's work — at least eight of his videos have topped one million views.

Vidal specializes in pop culture spoofs and lighthearted instructional videos, including ‘4 Minutes’ Hip Hop Dance (four million views) and How to Dance Like Michael Jackson (two million). His most popular clip is Star Wars (John Williams Is the Man), in which he lip-synched lyrics about the Star Wars series to a medley of movie themes by composer John Williams (who, in addition to Star Wars, wrote music for Raiders of the Lost Ark, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Superman).

Posted in October 2008, the Star Wars video was featured on the Canadian YouTube homepage on Nov. 3, 2008, and the overall YouTube homepage three days later. It has garnered more than 14 million views.

When a video producer like Vidal gains a steady fan base, he or she can join the YouTube Partnership Program. The program has a few requirements: that the videos be original; that the producer have rights to all sound and visuals contained in the video; and that he or she be a regular contributor. Once these criteria are met, advertisers can begin to place ads on YouTube videos — and web entrepreneurs can begin turning a profit.

Vidal joined the YouTube Partnership Program in December 2007. In his first month, he earned just $3. But after the Star Wars tribute went viral, he started to make a steady income.

Most of the ad money that users make comes from brokers and an auction process, says Kate Rose, a communications associate with Google.

"For instance, if you and I were competing advertisers and we both wanted a placement on Corey's videos, then we would bid for that and whoever wins that auction gets that placement," she says. The profit is split between YouTube and the video producer.

Vidal makes money through advertisers in one of four ways: pop-up ads; selling a pre-roll ad that runs before his clip; doing product placement in one of his videos (as in the spoof Santa vs. Santa, a Christmas-themed clip that promoted a Blu-Ray player and a Dell laptop); or producing a full-length commercial himself, like Skittles Touch: Fake Corey, an ad for the candy maker that went up last week.

According to Rose, the amount each ad is worth varies depending on the video and advertiser. Some of the ad placements are brokered by YouTube’s parent company, Google, while others are negotiated directly between the advertiser and the video producer.

With greater popularity comes greater profit. Rose gives the example of Shay Carl, an Idaho-based YouTube personality who made the video blog We're Debt Free, about how his family regained fiscal health with the help of financial guru Dave Ramsey. According to Carl's vlog, being part of the YouTube Partnership Program garnered him a six-figure salary, which enabled him to pay off $195,000 US in debt. (He was also featured in a scene on the television show No Ordinary Family.)

The breakthrough

Vidal has been part of the online video community for almost as long as YouTube has been around; his dedicated YouTube channel, ApprenticeA, is one of Canada's most subscribed channels. Vidal became involved in video production as a teen, producing the parody Ring Wars Reloaded, a combination of The Matrix, Lord of the Rings and Star Wars, in 2004, when he was in Grade 12. (It was uploaded to YouTube in 2006.)

After high school, Vidal and his father, Steve, started Aexian Studios, a production company that produced wedding and corporate videos. On the side, Vidal posted his own clips to YouTube. One of the first was How To Dance: Sexy Love by Ne-Yo, an amateur instructional video inspired by a routine he saw on the reality series So You Think You Can Dance.

Before he became a successful YouTube entrepreneur, however, Vidal hit a rough patch. He offered very little detail in our interview, but in My YouTube Story, Vidal claims "there was an altercation, there was some problems with my family that are very personal." As a result, Vidal left home. At one point, he even posted a video explaining his situation, asking for money through PayPal. (He received $200 to $300.)

"I was kind of stuck in an impossible situation — I had no phone, no address and I had no printer to print my resumé," says Vidal.

Now, he's grown so big that he's begun to diversify. Vidal sells his own merchandise, which includes sweaters and T-shirts (featuring slogans like "AD/HD" and "As Seen on YT"). Another business, Coreygraph, advises companies on how to use new media more effectively. Vidal has a full-time staff of three (including himself), as well as three part-timers and two interns.

'Like watching an old friend'

Gaining a large YouTube following often means reaching out to users. 

"The biggest thing I've noticed is that popular YouTubers really interact with their audiences, making their fans feel as if they know them personally," says Megan O'Neill, a writer for the social media news site SocialTimes.com.

O'Neill cites L.A.'s Joe Penna, or MysteryGuitarMan, as an example of a user who actively talks to his fans. Penna uses YouTube to share his musical talent and animation work. In the clip Magic Paint, he uses graphics to bring his instruments to life on the screen.

"He talks to his fans at the end of each episode; he also creates the feeling that he is friends with his audience," said O’Neill.

Vidal interacts with his audience through his Twitter and Facebook accounts and also hosts occasional sessions on Blogtv, where viewers can talk to him through a live-chat service.

The YouTube community

In the beginning, Vidal assumed YouTube was a disparate network of people operating on their own. But now that he has been to gatherings of video makers and met like-minded social media activists, he has a different take.

"The YouTube community is like one big summer camp: you know everyone and everyone has something in common," he says.

Still, he feels Canadian video makers have a bigger hill to climb because so many uploaders are American and, statistically, the most-viewed content has the highest probability of being featured.

The most important thing, Vidal says, is "to make videos, and to make videos that suck" — it’s the only way to get better at it.