 Hi guys, welcome back to my YouTube channel. This is Daniel Rossell here. I wanted to record this video blog for a while by why I think YouTube is a terrific platform to be on even in this advanced year of 2022 when being on the internet and being on platforms is no longer something new or that's really gonna distinguish you from many people. But I still think that being on YouTube, even if you have no intention of making money, in other words, of monetizing your YouTube channel, I think it's really, really worth doing personally and I wanted to talk about those reasons in this video. So the first thing I want to say about YouTube monetization is I'm a really, really small creator at the time. I am recording this video. I have something like 540. They're about subscribers. So as everybody who watches this channel can see, I'm not monetized. I'm currently not making any money from YouTube. That may change in the future, but at this particular junction in time, I'm completely fine with that. I never started YouTube in order to try to make money from YouTube and I'm going to talk just a little bit about why I started YouTube, but primarily it had to do with fun. I wanted to have fun and I also wanted to learn about video. So I think those are two worthwhile objectives, but I wanted to give a three-part breakdown of why I think it's great to be on YouTube even if you don't plan on making money. So my first reason that I think that starting a YouTube channel, even if you don't plan on making money is actually a really great idea, because it's a lot of fun to make a YouTube channel. So something that I always feel uncomfortable with is that in the modern world we live in, site hustles are glorified and there's this kind of idea that kind of permeates that everything has to be monetized. We have to try to make money from everything and I think that that is a really problematic and if I may say so, kind of an obnoxious concept. Whatever happened to hobbies, why don't we insist the people who play tennis or people who jog monetize their jogging or their tennis playing? I think video is the same. If video is something, a making video, that brings you a lot of joy. I don't see any reason why external people, and that's something that I personally encountered when I'm going out shooting my YouTube videos, whether I'm shooting in public place or whatever, people will come up to me and say, oh, what are you shooting video for? And I say, oh, I have a small YouTube channel and they say, oh, they immediately jump to money. They're like, oh, you must be making so much money or you can make so much money from YouTube or that. And I always find that kind of uncomfortable. I'm like, that's not really my plan, I'm just doing this for fun. So I think it's kind of messed up that we live in a society where it seems odd that people can just create videos and share videos at just for fun because that's what YouTube is fantastic at. It's an amazing platform for hosting and sharing videos and people also forget that YouTube is not just a great video hosting platform, it's also a social network and it allows you to connect with other people making videos. The second reason I think it's worthwhile being on YouTube even if you don't aspire to make money or that's not something on your radar at all, as it currently for me it isn't, is that the indirect benefits that you can accrue through YouTube I think are pretty significant. So a couple of ones I've experienced, well, firstly, it's an amazing way to kickstart relationships. Before I decided that I really wanted to learn about video and started putting videos on YouTube, my background's originally in journalism and I did a lot of writing and blogging and stuff like that over the years in addition to paid work. Something that really strikes me about video is that if you compare your commentaries to stuff that if you post a blog and people comment and you compare that to the comments you get on a YouTube channel, people who encounter you through YouTube or the medium of video really, really feel like they know you, that really jumps out to me. It's called, I believe, a parasocial relationship and I think that's actually a good thing. It initially can feel a little bit weird when people tell you, oh, they've been following your videos and that they can see you and they can hear you. It's more you're putting more of yourself out there than if you're just writing a blog or just using text as your format but I think that that's actually an enormous positive because video is just showing more of yourself. So that's a big thing. Even though this is a very small YouTube channel, I have crossed 500 subscribers but that's still in YouTube broad language really, really small. I still get like kind of four or five emails a week. I have my email listed in the about tab of this channel and people reach out to me. They ask me questions about their home networking gear and if I have time to respond or respond to those emails, sometimes people just reach out to say, oh, we're enjoying your videos or this video really was useful to me. And of course, people leave comments as well. I don't get a large volume of comments but I get enough that kind of encourages me that, hey, people are actually watching these videos and I find that super cool. Final fringe benefits I've encountered, I'm at the level of scale that nobody's going to do sponsored videos with me but nevertheless, I have got a couple of small pieces of hardware from tech manufacturers who've asked me to write about their products. Typically the deal is you have to return it after testing it but now and again, you'll get something and they say, oh, you can keep this or you'll work some kind of a benefit with the manufacturer. So basically, if you have a niche or a niche as Americans call it, it'll get you on the radar of people on the industry. So besides a person to person relationships, you'd also build up relationships with brands from having a presence on YouTube. So depending on what you're doing or what you want to talk about on YouTube, I think that can be a really powerful benefit too. Final reason I think that it's great to be on YouTube, besides YouTube personally, I think it's a great fun. It's terrific learning experience and it's an amazing catalyst for building up your network and deepening relationships or building relationships, for that matter, is I think that video is a great skill to have and this is another one of my main motivators I would say for starting a YouTube channel has been to learn video. That's been something very intentional for me. That's why my YouTube channel right now, it kind of has no direction and I sort of intend in time to splinter from this channel with my name onto specific topic related channels but learning video has been a big thing for me and I think I work in marketing communications. That's my day job is doing communications for people and coming from a writing background, I did actually go to journalism school. I have a master's degree in journalism and one of the modules that we had was broadcast and when it came to broadcast, we could either do video or audio and I chose to do audio because I thought that video was a self confidence thing. I thought that video was too expensive. I thought that it was too complicated and I think that what YouTube has done and it's a great thing is it's made it accessible for people to get into video. It's made it really easy. If you just want to shoot videos in your phone, upload videos to YouTube and send them to your friends, it's really easy. Anyone can do it but I've kind of tried to use it as an opportunity to really learn the depths of video, sound and lighting. There is a ton of amazing content on YouTube from people who are experts in the field. I'm currently watching a lot of Curtis Judd's videos. He's the same guy, he's unbelievable but basically I try to integrate what I learn from the experts on YouTube and slowly bring that into my own production. So having come from a kind of writing background and journalism and writing being the kind of pigeonhole I've been put into in my professional career, adding video to my resume or having that as a skill is proving really, really useful because I know enough that I can do video interviews for clients now and I see all marketing moving in the direction of video. It's definitely going towards short video but it's a terrific skill to have and another thing I really, really like about learning video as a skill is that it's very multifaceted and it's a big learning curve. There's an awful lot to learn versus say just starting a blog. Some of the subjects I've touched on so far while I'm learning a ton about cameras, I'm learning about sound and microphones, I'm learning the basics of lighting, I'm learning video editing and now I'm trying to learn about graphics as well like graphic animations. There's just so much to learn. I mean you can really go on and on with skills that are useful in the video production process including pre-production, storyboarding, planning, post-production, distribution, technical stuff, storytelling stuff. There's a great amount to learn and I think that for anybody who is similarly working in marketing communications and has come from either a writing background or more of an audio background I think that starting your own YouTube channel partially for the reason of learning video is another great reason and it's one that I've already benefited from so far. Those are my three reasons why I think that even if you've no intention of making money on YouTube it's still a really good idea even in the year 2022 to start a YouTube channel get on YouTube, put out your first videos. My videos so far, there have been a few nicely produced ones other ones would be not so great but I'm really enjoying the process. Perhaps one day I'll pass the 1000 subscriber level monetize, perhaps it'll never happen and I'll never make a send from YouTube at this point in my journey. It really doesn't matter to me either way. I've already built up relationships with YouTube, I've already learned about video and I've already had a lot of fun. So from my perspective, I've already reached a positive return on investment from starting a YouTube channel without having made a send. Hope this video was enjoyable, interesting, informative and if you would like to get more videos from me please hit the subscribe button and thank you guys very much for watching.