The digital creative industry has become one where young people from all over the world make money by monetising their social media accounts.
These individuals who earn dollars also boost the economies of their respective countries. The content creation space has boomed economically and population-wise over the past few years, especially since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Content creators like IsBea U, Broda Shaggy, Mr Funny Sabinus, Taaoma, Kiekie, Layi Wasabi, Nasboi, and others have become household names in the process, leveraging their acting skills to create short videos that end up as earnings for them.
The average earnings range for YouTube channels with 10,000 subscribers is $500-$1,500 monthly. With the inclusion of churning out video content on the YouTube Shorts feature, creators are reportedly making as much as $40,000 a month from YouTube.
According to Business Insider, advertisers pay a specific rate to YouTube for every 1,000 ad views. YouTube then takes 45 percent, and the creator gets the rest. While sponsorships and merchandise sales can be income streams for YouTubers, advertising revenue remains a major source of earnings for many.
Despite YouTube’s popularity in Africa, Tutu Laditan, marketing lead for YouTube Sub-Saharan Africa, revealed in a press interview that Africa generates less than five percent of the platform’s revenue. Laditan suggested that many aspiring African creators have yet to fully exploit the platform’s potential.
YouTube aims to address this by training a new crop of African creators in its ‘Made for You’ program, which has now trained over 8000 creators on how to use YouTube Shorts. The initiative equips these creators with the skills to monetise their content and potentially earn millions in income from their talents.
The program started in October 2023 and graduated over 1000 creators from Sub-Saharan African countries, including over 400 in Nigeria.
Laditan said, “Made for You was designed to support young African creators who are looking to maximise their full potential on YouTube.
“So we designed the program because we saw the need to help a lot of aspiring creators who are on the platform but struggling to monetise their content, build their brand, or grow their channel. The program not only got them closer to YouTube in many ways but also provided them the tools and resources to succeed.”
According to the marketing lead, YouTube’s rise has created a new ecosystem for creative expression, particularly among young people, by enabling creators to directly monetise their talent and build a global brand without needing approval from television or radio stations.
She disclosed that some of the creators experienced growth in subscriptions and views on their channels during the program, with a couple who started with 1000 subscribers growing their base to 10,000.
“By the time they ended the program, they started hitting huge numbers in terms of views and terms of subscribers because they then started applying some of the learnings learned.
“So I think the biggest takeaway was the fact that they were able to understand that “this thing is simple, I just didn’t know,” And so they had the knowledge to start doing what they needed to do,” Laditan added.
Corroborating Laditan, Isaac Matthew (MathMega), one of the program’s cohorts, said he has grown his subscriber base to 3,000 from 1,000.
He stated, “I am currently on 3000 subscribers. After the first session, I started getting more ideas about how YouTube works. Initially, I just made content, edited it, and posted it, but during the sessions, we were taught how to set settings on our page and to be consistent in churning out content.”
